Leslie Glass's Blog, page 324

Gratitude Outside Of The Box: My Rock Bottom

April 24, 2015 – That was rock bottom for me. I’ll never forget the hour long phone call. I sobbed, literally sobbed, gasping for breath. She was callous to my pain. She was cruel and selfish. I vowed: NEVER again will I allow myself to be used like this. The very next week, I went to my first meeting. Here’s how that rock bottom still propels me to move forward into recovery.

How Did I End Up There?

The path that led me to accept abuse and manipulation was as long and tangled as everyone else’s. All I really need to know is:

Alcoholism is a family disease that affects generations even if your loved one is no longer drinking.

Alcoholism seeped into every aspect of my family of origin. Fears, manipulation, and power struggles oozed down every corner of our house. Unfortunately, these behaviors are invisible. I had no idea I was carrying them with me to every job and relationship.

Recovery Is Like A Slow-Motion Explosion

At that first meeting, there was a table filled with handouts. I grabbed these sheets and hid them in my purse, too embarrassed to admit I needed help with:

Codependency For Women
Common Characteristics Among Adult Children Of Family Dysfunction
Depression – Problem And Solution
Freedom From Anger For Women

Confirming that my childhood family dysfunction actually caused my adult relationship problems was an explosion of knowledge, but turning my life-long habits around was like turning a cruise ship on a dime. It just didn’t happen in one day. I’ve been in recovery for codependency for three years now. I’m still amazed by the quick bursts of knowledge followed by the lag time my brain needs to implement the change.

Grateful For The Change

When I recall my rock bottom and that cruel and abusive phone call, and I’m actually grateful. I’m not thankful for her but for how I responded by changing. Since that horrible day, I:

Moved to Florida, something I always wanted to do.
Started writing, which was my life-long dream job.
Paid off all of my credit cards and bought a house.

These dreams seemed impossible because I was believing the lies of addiction and family dysfunction. Recovery gives me the courage to live the life I want. I’m not a slave to anyone else’s ideas of what my life should look like. Nor am I alone. I have a Higher Power I can trust and friends in recovery who love me, character flaws and all.

Ongoing Lessons And Tools

I’m still learning. I still struggle with setting boundaries and saying “NO.” How I expect others to behave still sneaks up on me and casts a net of resentment around me. Some days, I completely lose my serenity and feel like I haven’t made any progress at all. On those days, that horrible phone call sneers in my face and I fight back harder. I will never again beg anyone for anything. I dig deep into my recovery tool box to find the right tool to fix the problem. My favorite tools include:

Nothing changes if nothing changes, and I can only change me.
Expectations are predetermined resentments.
The C’s of addiction: I didn’t cause it. I can’t cure it, and I can’t control it.
Other people’s opinions of me are none of my business.
Just because he’s mad or sad doesn’t mean I’m bad.
Just for today…
I’m not responsible for anyone else’s feelings.

Looking back at my rock bottom is surreal. I vividly remember the pain but I no longer feel it. Instead, I’m incredibly grateful that my life is forever changed.

The post Gratitude Outside Of The Box: My Rock Bottom appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

The Reality Of Alcohol Abuse On America

On top of the opioid crisis, meth destruction, and other drug horrors, we still have an alcohol problem in this country. In these complicated times, it’s easy to look at alcohol as the lesser of the evils, but let’s not forget that alcohol abuse is at the center of many of America’s biggest problems.

Economically Costly

“Excessive alcohol consumption cost the U.S. $223.5 billion in 2006 alone, and nearly half of that burden was borne by the government, according to a new study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).” Time

Car Accidents

“Every day in America, another 29 people die as a result of drunk driving crashes. That’s one person every 50 minutes.” MADD

Rape

“Quite honestly, alcohol is the No. 1 date rape drug,” said Mike Lyttle, regional supervisor for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Nashville crime lab. “… Roofies are very rarely — if ever — seen in real life.” USA Today

Assault

“Alcohol Use Increases the Risk of Sexual Assault. At least half of sexual assaults among college students occur after the perpetrator, the victim, or both consume alcohol. Alcohol use can increase the risk of sexual assault in several ways. Alcohol use by a potential assailant can lead to increased aggressive behavior and an inability to interpret another person’s sexual interest accurately.” National Institute of Justice

Child Abuse

“STRONG LINKS HAVE BEEN FOUND between child maltreatment and alcohol use, especially when drinking is harmful or hazardous. A number of studies have established that alcohol is a significant contributory factor to child maltreatment, and many show that being maltreated as a child is associated with marked increases in the risk of hazardous or harmful drinking in later life.” Govt. of Canada

Mental Illness

“Mental illness and alcoholism or drug abuse interact in a complex dance, “says James Garbutt, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and research scientist at UNC’s Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies. “Mental illnesses can increase the risk for alcoholism or drug abuse, sometimes because of self-medicating. On the other hand, alcoholism can lead to significant anxiety and depression that may appear indistinguishable from a mental illness. Finally, one disorder can be worse than the other.” Everyday Health

Disease

“Here are 12 conditions linked to chronic heavy drinking. Anemia, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Cirrhosis, Dementia, Depression, Seizures, Gout, High blood pressure, Infectious disease, Nerve damage, and Pancreatitis.” Web MD

Sadly, this is just a short list of the things alcohol abuse affects, but let it serve as a warning in case anyone has any questions about how harmful alcohol can be in comparison to other substances. If you need treatment help, you can find resources and treatment near you at Recovery Guidance.

 

 

Alcohol is still the king of addictions, killing more than 88,000 people each year. ROR’s Stages of Alcohol Use Disorder Poster is a clever yet neutral way to share facts about this cunning and baffling disease.

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What Makes Addiction Grow Worse?

From Adam Felman @ Medical News Today: Many people metabolize drugs in different ways. Some people, for example, do not require much alcohol to reach the point of intoxication. Others can seemingly drink vast quantities without feeling intoxicated. This often relates to a combination of age, gender, body weight, and other factors.

As part of regularly consuming large amounts of a substance, the body may become accustomed to its effects and metabolize it more efficiently. The person may require increased amounts of the substance to achieve the same effect that smaller amounts of the substance used to create.

Medicine generally refers to this phenomenon as tolerance. When tolerance increases alongside the need to take a substance to avoid withdrawal symptoms, it often indicates the onset of an addictive disorder. If a person does not receive treatment, it can lead to dangerous consequences.

The Journey From Choice To Disease

Drug use is often voluntary in the first instance. The development of a full addiction occurs through a variety of circumstances. However, the brain changes during a substance-related disorder in ways that can take a long time to bring back to a healthy state.

A person whose brain’s reward circuitry has not altered as a result of addiction experiences positive feelings in relation to generally rewarding behaviors, such as exercising, being with family, or consuming delicious food. These should all make a person feel good. This might motivate a person to repeat these behaviors and regain that positive feeling.

Substances produce a euphoric feeling by triggering large amounts of dopamine in certain regions of the brain responsible for the feeling of reward. Addiction occurs when the act of using a substance takes over these circuits and increases the urge to consume more and more of the substance in order to achieve the same rewarding effect.

A substance use disorder eventually no longer causes the same rewarding feelings that it once caused. However, if the person abstains from using the substance, they begin to feel symptoms of withdrawal, which can be extremely unpleasant.

The person often finds themselves using the substance just to feel “normal” — which generally means preventing the discomfort of withdrawal symptoms.

Using drugs and alcohol to moderate mood can also impair the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain that manages executive decision-making. This part of the brain should alert a person to the harmful consequences of such behavior, but addiction impairs its ability to carry out this function.

A combination of these three mechanisms and the risk factors for addiction can lead to the development of an addictive disorder. Another clear contributor to addiction is the type of substance a person takes. For example, opioids are highly addictive as they target receptors in the brain directly.

Many maintain that marijuana is less addictive in terms of its chemical content, but, instead, targets the pleasure and reward centers of the brain. Further research is necessary to support these claims.

Takeaway

Addiction develops when the urge to take a substance hijacks parts of the brain that reward behavior and provides benefits for the body.

Substance-related disorders also impact the area of the brain responsible for emotions and decision-making. Eventually, people end up taking a substance not to feel good, but to feel “normal” by prevention of withdrawal symptoms.

These can combine with existing risk factors, such as extreme stress, to produce the behaviors and physical effects of addiction.

The post What Makes Addiction Grow Worse? appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

7 Sneaky Ways You May Be Abused

Are you lavished with love one minute and raged at the next? Abusive behavior is a way to manipulate and control. And it’s so confusing. On one side you want to be loved and loving, and those are great qualities. But controlling people who become emotional abusers are not able to manage or understand their feelings. Instead, they use their feelings to manage others.

Abusive Behavior Confuses And Punishes You

Manipulators are often narcissists who believe they are sensitive and good, while the other people in their lives are thoughtless, unkind, and angry and cause things go wrong in their world. If you live with a manipulative person, you may be in constant fear of punishment for something you’ve done wrong, or might do wrong, and are always trying to prevent or fix it. You become controlled by fear that your loved one will hurt or accuse or confuse or punish you. Here are 7 qualities of people who emotionally abuse their loved ones

1. Chronic Anger

Is someone you love seething with rage almost all the time and finds any reason at all to let the feeling loose on you? The abuser controls you by fear that he/she will erupt with anger over absolutely nothing, even a smile on your face.

2. Projecting His Or Her Negative Feelings On You

Does someone say, “You’re always mad at me. You’re so critical, you’re so controlling,” or a dozen other things to make you believe you’re the negative one. The abuser is actually the one who feels these emotions and projects them on you. That way you’re the bad one and he is the good one or the victim in the relationship.

3. Hypersensitivity

Does she/he make you feel you have to walk on eggshells? He/she tells you you hurt his feelings. You did something on purpose to ignore or bother him. This sensitivity makes you wonder if you are unkind, cold, mean and you are on the defensive about every action you make and everything you say.

4. Confusing The Issue

Are you lawyered to death. Does someone twist everything you say into something you didn’t mean? This is actually turning your own words against you. You say one thing, and your abuser repeats these words as something else. It’s another kind of lying, but again puts you in the wrong and on the defensive. You may end up being the one who blows up or feels guilty.

5. Lying About Things In the Past Or That’s Happening Now

Does someone lie to you about what happened in the past, and even set up situations that repeat the same kind of incident over and over, but insist these things aren’t happening? This is sometimes called gaslighting. If you’re abused like this, you can feel you’re crazy. Whatever you think is reality is actually shifting sands. When you doubt yourself, the abuser is in control.

6. The Silent Treatment

Are you given the silent treatment as a form of punishment and have to beg for forgiveness. The silent treatment is withholding and punishing. The is also a common way of controlling someone.

 7. Playing The Victim

Does he/she make you feel you’re the reason things go wrong? Playing the victim means the abuser manages his/her anger by creating a world in which you have consistently let them down, failed them, done the wrong thing. Playing the victim makes you feel responsible for another person’s failures, mistakes and problems in life. This makes you feel guilty and motivates you to work harder at fixing your abuser’s problems.

Troubled relationships are not just love or marriage relationships, you can be abused by friends, family members, siblings, even your children at any age. If you believe that you are in an abusive relationship with a spouse or lover be sure to get legal help and stay safe. Additionally, if you are at risk in an abusive relationship, check out Recovery Guidance for a free resource to locate mental health professions near you. You can’t change alone.

 

 

Did you know the 12 Steps, which have helped millions find recovery, can also help you work through difficult problems? Check out our latest book, Find Your True Colors In 12-Steps.

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19 Symptoms Of Emotional Abuse For People In Denial

When substance abuse disorder enters our loved one’s life, denying their substance abuse and the emotional abuse that goes with it is never far behind.

Substance and alcohol use disorder (the new term for addiction) are now understood as a chronic relapsing brain disease that will not get better on its own.

For friends, lovers, and family members acceptance is tough. Our loved ones are denying their addiction and we are too. We think:

It’s not sooooooooooo bad.
It could be worse.
He/she is just having a bad week or a bad run of luck.

This kind of denial doesn’t occur with other chronic diseases. We find it easier to accept cancer, diabetes, heart disease.

Red Flags That You Are In Denial

At first your loved one may try to distract you from finding out about the addiction. They might employ manipulation tactics like:

Keeping you off base
Putting you on the defensive
Hurting your feelings for no reason
Making you over-react instead of think rationally

These constant barbs and arrows of a loved one’s bad or destructive behavior needs are actually forms of abuse.  This kind of abusive behavior can also occur in people who are not using substances. There are plenty of controlling and narcissistic people among us who hurt others just to keep them in line.

With Substance Use Disorder, however, both abuse and denial of the abuse are a symptoms of the disease. Here are 19 symptoms of abuse. For every one, you may have many rationalizations of why it’s occurring or isn’t so bad.

Humiliating and embarrassing you
Constantly putting you down and then acting innocent, or saying you’re too sensitive
The silent treatment – refusing to communicate
Ignoring or excluding you
Cheating on you or having extramarital affairs
Being provocative with the opposite sex
Using sarcasm and an angry voice when talking to you
Being jealous for no reason
Being extreme moody and changeable
Constantly making fun of you and being mean
Guilt tripping you about things you should have done
Threatening “If you don’t____, I will_____
Making everything your fault. You, you, you…
Isolating you from your friends and family
Using your money and stealing from you
Keeping constant tabs on you: texting and calling on the phone
Threatening to commit suicide
Threatening to walk out of the relationship
Having more than one addiction, not only to drugs or alcohol but to pornography and other substances

Substance abuse often leads to these forms of emotional abuse. They create unbalance, fear and anxiety, even PTSD in loved ones. They are more than just words that can be explained away. When you stop denying the reality, you can take the necessary steps to regain control of your own feelings and life. This is imperative to start the healing process.

Also, be sure to tell someone you trust what’s going on. Abuse can only thrive in silence. If those you trust don’t believe you, seek professional help immediately. It’s also the perfect time to join a support group. Al-anon, and Nar-anon are support groups for people who have been hurt by addiction. Many people have found life-long friends there. Likewise, if you need help to deal with addiction and recovery, check out Recovery Guidance for a free and safe resource to find professionals near you.

Did you know the 12 Steps, which have helped millions find recovery, can also help you find peace and serenity? Check out our latest book, Find Your True Colors In 12-Steps.

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Six Kinds Of Domestic Violence

You may think domestic violence is limited to either physical abuse or bullying, but abuse is all about gaining and keeping power. The cycle of violence can continue to repeat itself and the abuse often worsens over time. Here are six ways abusers gain and maintain control over their victims.

Abusers focus on power and control regarding their victims. The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minnesota has coordinated law enforcement, criminal justice and human service agencies on the issue of domestic abuse to develop a unified response. They developed the Power and Control Wheel which offers an excellent explanation of male violence upon women (and can be adapted for other relationships).

Verbal

Yelling and screaming
Name calling and making fun of the partner
Outbursts of anger
Threatening the partner
Threatening children and pets
Blaming
Using sarcasm

Emotional

Withholding love
Intimidating
Finding fault
Humiliating
Withholding support
Threatening loved people people or things
Conning and manipulating
Playing mind games (gaslighting)
Intrusive surveillance
Hypervigilance
Isolating partner and family from supports
Triangulating against partner with loved ones and friends
Forbidding partner and children from getting counseling or therapy
Being Jealous of everything
preventing partner from attending school

   Financial

Withholding money
Threatening to withhold money
Preventing partner to work
Controlling money and using an allowance
Sabotaging partner’s workplace such as visiting, calling, and checking
Refusing to pay for children especially if not the abuser’s children
Refusing to work and relying on partner to pay bills
Participating in illegal money-making activities

 Physical

Hurting through punching, kicking, biting, etc.
Breaking items/throwing items
Holding the partner down with no escape
Harming the children or pets and making them watch the abuse
Keeping the partner trapped in the home

   Sexual

Punishing partner if partner doesn’t want sex
Unwanted roping and touching
Rigid sex roles/sex object
Using derogatory sexual terms
Forced sex/rape
Making inappropriate sexual comments especially when around others
Demeaning partner for partner’s looks and body
Having sex with other people and bringing home STDs or HIV
Engaging in inappropriate sexual behaviors around children such as displays of adult behavior with partner,
Sexualizing the children, gazing at the children sexually and commenting on their bodies, groping, and leering
Stalking

Spiritual

Making fun of partner’s religious/spiritual beliefs
Not allowing partner to attend services such as church or synagogue
Utilizing God or another deity as the cause for punishment (“you disobeyed me which means you disobeyed God”)
Not allowing the children to attend services
Utilizing religious texts to validate abuse and punishment
Not allowing partner to participate in any type of spiritually (hikes in nature, meditation, prayer) bullying about these practices

How To Cope: If this sounds like your relationship, seek safety immediately. Seek help from family and friends, from professionals such as social workers and counselors, move out, go to a domestic violence shelter, use a call-in help line, read information in books and online websites and blogs, seek protection from the police, and utilize all other help you can find. And remember, you no longer have to be harmed for you can get yourself and your children the help that is available.

Did you know the 12 Steps, which have helped millions find recovery, can also be a powerful tool to help work through trauma? Check out our latest book, Find Your True Colors In 12-Steps.

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Which Carbohydrates Are Best

Carbohydrates are an essential part of a healthy diet, yet it’s important to know that not all of them are created equal. So how do you tell the difference between “good carbs” and “bad carbs?” The answer is both simple — and complex.






Whole grains, like brown rice, have more fiber and nutrients than processed grains.
iStock.com (2)


A Carbohydrate Can Be a Simple Carb or a Complex Carb

Carbohydrates, often referred to as just “carbs,” are your body’s primary energy source, and are a crucial part of any well-balanced diet.

The three main types of carbohydrates are sugars, starches, and fiber. They’re called “simple” or “complex” based on their chemical makeup and what your body does with them. But since many foods contain one or more types of carbohydrates, it can still be tricky to understand what’s healthy for you and what’s not.

Simple carbohydrates are composed of easy-to-digest, basic sugars, which can be an important source of energy. Some of these sugars are naturally occurring, such as those in fruits and in milk, while refined or processed sugars are often added to candies, baked goods, and soda.

On nutrition labels, added sugars can go by several different names, including brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, fructose, glucose, maltose, malt syrup, trehalose, sucrose, and honey, among others. The FDA has mandated that by July 2018 all nutrition labels must clearly identify the amount of added sugars per serving in the product, directly beneath the total sugar count.

Complex carbohydrates, found in whole grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables, contain longer chains of sugar molecules, which usually take more time for the body to break down and use. This in turn provides you with a more consistent amount of energy, says Sandra Meyerowitz, MPH, RD, nutritionist and owner of Nutrition Works in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Details on Simple Carbohydrates

Simple carbohydrates aren’t necessarily all bad carbs — it depends on the food you’re getting them from. For instance, fruits and vegetables are excellent sources of essential vitamins and minerals necessary for good health, and they naturally contain simple carbohydrates composed of basic sugars.

But fruits and vegetables are drastically different from other foods in the “simple” carbohydrate category, like cookies and cakes with added refined sugars. The fiber in fruits and vegetables changes the way the body processes their sugars and slows down their digestion, making them a bit more like complex carbohydrates.

Simple carbohydrates to limit in your diet include those found in:

Soda
Candy
Cookies
Pastries and desserts
Sweetened beverages, such as lemonade or iced tea
Energy drinks
Ice cream

Meyerowitz says that you can enjoy simple carbohydrates on occasion, you just don’t want them to be your primary sources of carbs.

The Details on Complex Carbohydrates

Complex carbohydrates are considered “good” because of the longer series of sugars that they are made of, which the body takes longer to break down. That means you will get lower amounts of sugars released at a more consistent rate — instead of peaks and valleys — to keep you going throughout the day.

Foods with complex carbohydrates also typically have more vitamins, fiber, and minerals than foods containing more simple carbohydrates, as long as you’re choosing whole grains over processed ones. For example, whole grains, such as whole-wheat flour, quinoa, brown rice, barley, corn, and oats, among others, provide more nutrients than processed grains, such as white rice and breads, pasta, and baked goods made with white flour.

Nutrient-dense complex carbs that are part of a healthy, balanced diet include:

Whole wheat breads, pastas, and flour
Brown and wild rices
Barley
Quinoa
Potatoes
Corn
Legumes, such as black beans, chickpeas, lentils, and others

It’s important to scan ingredient labels for foods like breads and pastas, looking for whole grains and fewer sources of added sugar. “Read the box so you know what exactly you’re getting. If the first ingredient is whole-wheat flour or whole-oat flour, it’s likely going to be a complex carbohydrate,” Meyerowitz says.

When trying to figure out if a source of carbohydrates is good or bad, remember this: The higher in sugar it is, and the lower in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, the worse the food is for you.

The Glycemic Load Factor

Describing carbs as either simple or complex is one way to classify them, but nutritionists and dietitians now use another concept to guide people in making decisions about the carbs they choose to eat.

The glycemic index (GI) of a food basically tells you how quickly and how high your blood sugar will rise after eating the carbohydrate contained in that food, as compared with eating pure sugar. Foods with a high GI are easily digested and cause a quick rise in blood sugar. Foods with a lower GI get digested more slowly.

Knowing the GI for a specific food can help you understand how the carbs in that food will affect your blood sugar, but it’s important to point out that it doesn’t necessarily make a food unhealthy or healthy. Fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe both have a high GI even though both are healthy foods. You can look up a food’s GI using the online international GI database.

To take this approach one step further, you want to look at the glycemic load of a food. The glycemic load factors into account both glycemic index and how much carbohydrate is in the food. To determine glycemic load, you multiply a food’s glycemic index number by the amount of carbohydrate the food contains per serving, and divide by 100.

A low GL is 10 or less; medium is 11 to 19; and 20 or greater is considered high. For example, a plain bagel has a GI of 72 and GL of 25, while whole-wheat bread has a GI of 69 and GL of 9. GL can also be used to compare the effect of carbohydrates on blood sugar in entire meals or snacks, whereas the GI for a food is only indicative of one food at a time.

Even if a food contains carbs that have a high glycemic index number, if the amount of carbohydrate is low then it won’t have as much of an impact. A good example is watermelon, which has a GI of 80 but a GL of only 5. It tastes sweet, but it’s mostly water.

The bottom line: Carbs are not bad for you. Carbohydrates — both simple and complex ones — are part of a healthy diet. Just be sensible about the carbs you choose. Skip low-nutrient desserts, consider the levels of sugar and fiber, and focus on healthy whole grains, fruits, and veggies to get the energy your body needs every day.

Content originally published by Everyday HealthBy Diana RodriguezMedically Reviewed by Lynn Grieger, RDN

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Better Treatment For Depression Coming Soon

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 300 million people worldwide suffer from depression and these rates are on the rise. Yet, doctors and scientists have a poor understanding of what causes this debilitating condition and for some who experience it, medicines don’t help.

Scientists from the Neural Computational Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), in collaboration with their colleagues at Nara Institute of Science and Technology and clinicians at Hiroshima University, have for the first time identified three sub-types of depression. They found that one out of these sub-types seems to be untreatable by Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), the most commonly prescribed medicines for the condition. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that influences our moods, interactions with other people, sleep patterns and memory. SSRIs are thought to take effect by boosting the levels of serotonin in the brain. However, these drugs do not have the same effect on everyone, and in some people, depression does not improve even after taking them. “It has always been speculated that different types of depression exist, and they influence the effectiveness of the drug. But there has been no consensus,” says Prof. Kenji Doya.

For the study, the scientists collected clinical, biological, and life history data from 134 individuals — half of whom were newly diagnosed with depression and the other half who had no depression diagnosis- using questionnaires and blood tests. Participants were asked about their sleep patterns, whether or not they had stressful issues, or other mental health conditions.

Researchers also scanned participants’ brains using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map brain activity patterns in different regions. The technique they used allowed them to examine 78 regions covering the entire brain, to identify how its activities in different regions are correlated.

“This is the first study to identify depression sub-types from life history and MRI data,” says Prof. Doya.

With over 3000 measurable features, including whether or not participants had experienced trauma, the scientists were faced with the dilemma of finding a way to analyze such a large data set accurately. “The major challenge in this study was to develop a statistical tool that could extract relevant information for clustering similar subjects together,” says Dr. Tomoki Tokuda, a statistician and the lead author of the study. He therefore designed a novel statistical method that would help detect multiple ways of data clustering and the features responsible for it. Using this method, the researchers identified a group of closely-placed data clusters, which consisted of measurable features essential for accessing mental health of an individual. Three out of the five data clusters were found to represent different sub-types of depression.

The three distinct sub-types of depression were characterized by two main factors: functional connectivity patterns synchronized between different regions of the brain and childhood trauma experience. They found that the brain’s functional connectivity in regions that involved the angular gyrus — a brain region associated with processing language and numbers, spatial cognition, attention, and other aspects of cognition — played a large role in determining whether SSRIs were effective in treating depression.

Patients with increased functional connectivity between the brain’s different regions who had also experienced childhood trauma had a sub-type of depression that is unresponsive to treatment by SSRIs drugs, the researchers found. On the other hand, the other two subtypes — where the participants’ brains did not show increased connectivity among its different regions or where participants had not experienced childhood trauma — tended to respond positively to treatments using SSRIs drugs.

This study not only identifies sub-types of depression for the first time, but also identifies some underlying factors and points to the need to explore new treatment techniques. “It provides scientists studying neurobiological aspects of depression a promising direction in which to pursue their research,” says Prof. Doya. In time, he and his research team hope that these results will help psychiatrists and therapists improve diagnoses and treat their patients more effectively.

Content originally published in Science Daily

Story Source:

Materials provided by Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Can’t Stop Eating Halloween Candy

 

From Time A bowl of Halloween candy is enough to frighten any healthy eater. After just one piece, it can feel impossible to stop—until you get a stomachache.

You might assume that sugar is the sole reason that Halloween candy is so hard to resist. After all, it can activate reward circuits in the brain that also light up in response to drugs like cocaine, and it is possible to build up a tolerance to and dependence on sugar.

But Halloween candy’s hold on you goes beyond sugar alone. “You can just keep unwrapping and popping those little suckers,” says Rachele Pojednic, an assistant professor of nutrition at Simmons University. “But that wouldn’t happen if you walked into an office and there was a bowl of white sugar on the table.”

It’s the convergence of sugar, fat and salt—the trifecta of many candies, Halloween and otherwise—that “really revs up the hedonic eating system,” Pojednic says, referring to the well-documented phenomenon of eating for pleasure rather than physical need. Studies have shown that sweet or fatty foods can activate pathways in the brain associated with pleasure and reward, kicking off processes that can compete with or override signals that regulate normal hunger and satiety, sometimes causing people to overeat out of pleasure, not hunger. And while salt, sugar and fat are all tasty on their own, food scientists—and food companies, as noted in a 2013 book aptly titled Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us—have long known they become irresistible when they come together.

The hedonic effect may even transcend a candy bar’s ingredients, Pojednic says. “We have these really complex neurologic systems where learning and memory and pleasure all come together,” she explains. “That’s why when you walk into the office and you see that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, your mouth literally starts watering. You will automatically start salivating, because you have this memory of pleasure, so that cycle sort of continues.”

Any palatable food can spur this effect, but something like Halloween candy, which is often linked to nostalgia and positive memories, is likely to trigger an even more intense reaction. “We’ve all had experiences with food where there’s this really wonderful memory around it, and we have this pleasure memory that goes along with it,” Pojednic says. “It’s not just pleasure from the taste or the smell of it, but also the situation that goes along with it.”

It can be difficult to outsmart these bodily mechanisms, though some research suggests that consistently choosing healthful foods can eventually rewire your brain to prefer them. Until that happens, Pojednic says mindful eating is the best way to avoid an accidental candy binge. Next time you’re faced with a mountain of bite-sized chocolate bars, slow down and take a minute to ask yourself, “‘Do I actually want and need this?’” Pojednic suggests. “Partly it’s recognizing that cue, which is so hard-wired.”

But don’t beat yourself up if you do give in to temptation, Pojednic says. “There are moments and times when giving yourself a treat is a really fun and awesome idea, and there are other times when you have to have a little more mindfulness around why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling,” Pojednic says. “You’re not going to be able to suppress those feelings. There’s absolutely room for it in day-to-day life.”

 

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LSD Changes Your Personality With One Trip

So, you decided to use LSD or magic mushrooms to “turn on, tune in and drop out” — and you didn’t like it. Can you ever fully turn off, tune out and drop back in again?

According to a new review of studies published online in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, the answer might be no, dude. Researchers found that individuals who took even a single dose of psychedelic drugs like LSD, “magic” mushrooms and ayahuasca could experience sustained personality changes that lasted several weeks, months or even years — but oftentimes, these changes were for the better. Trippy Facts About ‘Magic’ Mushrooms

In the new meta-analysis, researchers from Spain and Brazil looked at the results of 18 previous studies, published between 1985 and 2016, linking psychedelic drug use and personality changes. The researchers focused on papers that looked specifically at serotonergic drugs, or drugs that have structures similar to that of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which helps regulate mood, appetite and various other functions. Such substances bind with serotonin receptors (known as 5-HT receptors), increasing activity in the visual parts of the brain, causing dream-like hallucinations and, for some users, inducing a feeling of transcendence.

The drugs studied in the new meta-analysis primarily included LSD (or lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin (a psychedelic compound that occurs naturally in hundreds of species of “magic” mushrooms) and ayahuasca (a psychedelic tea made from plants grown in the Amazon, traditionally consumed for ritual or religious purposes).

Multiple studies of all three drug types found several long-term (perhaps permanent) personality changes in individuals who were administered psychedelic drugs compared to individuals who weren’t. In particular, individuals who took small doses of psychedelic drugs in a clinical setting scored higher for a personality trait called openness — the psychological term referring to an appreciation of new experiences — after their drug trip than nonusers did. In some studies, these personality changes resulted in therapeutic, antidepressant effects, and lasted a year or more. (Research for the included studies was conducted in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, and German.)

“This type of research may offer new evidence to the classic discussion on whether personality is or isn’t a constant and stable psychological trait,” the researchers wrote.

The question of whether taking psychedelic drugs can result in long-term personality changes has been studied since at least the 1950s, when the U.S. government famously (and sometimes illegally) tested LSD’s potential for human mind control. Research linking personality and drug use increased dramatically in the mid-1980s, the authors wrote in the new review, and personality-test-taking methodologies became more accurate. (This is why the authors focused their search on studies published after 1985.)

Significantly more research using larger sample sizes is needed before drawing any definitive conclusions about drugs and personality, the researchers wrote. Given that most of the tested substances are still illegal in the U.S., such an analysis is likely many years away.

Originally published on Live Science.

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