What a great time my husband and I had visiting our dear friend David Hunt in North Carolina. He’s posted on Happiness Between Tails here and here. We hadn’t seen him in way too long — all the more reason that my recent discovery of the touching PBS series, “We’ll Meet Again,” gets me blubbering. […]
via Georgia O’Keeffe in North Carolina by da-AL — Happiness Between Tails by da-AL
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “ends with -ly.” Start your post with any adverb that ends in “-ly.” Bonus points if you end with an adverb too. Have fun!
Hardly the winter I expected, marching in so boldly.
My dementia is bad today, had to look up adverb. Hope I hit the mark. Have a great weekend. M
Join us for the fun and sharing good media stories
Repost
I’ve struggled with Chronic Lyme, Fibromyalgia, and Dementia for six years, every week it’s a follow-up or test for the latest ailment. I’ve made the decision to step off the Doctor Hamster Wheel in 2019.
I saw a Rheumatologist two months ago, the clueless PA told me there wasn’t Lyme in Texas. REALLY? The doctor named a few possible illnesses and took my blood. The doctor’s visit was a bust but the lab work revealed my Calcium is high. Which can cause serious complications? She suggested having my Parathyroid checked. WOW, something came out of the lab work, I have another ailment to deal with!
I saw the Endocrinologist, it was straight forward. A blood test, a scan at the hospital and possible surgery. We scheduled the scan immediately since it was affecting my heart. I fell down the stairs and banged myself up a good one. I landed a perfect 10! NO, I can’t lean my head back for two forty-five minute sessions. The test was rescheduled.
2019 is starting like the other six years, with a heart test scheduled, a Parathyroid scan with possible surgery, and a test for Traumatic Brain Injury from the fall. There are a few days left in 2018, I want to know who I am, how have I changed in that time. I developed Agoraphobia, haven’t driven in six years and have only seen the inside of doctor’s offices.
I took the first step for 2019, decided which test to cancel, bought two patterns for knitting and opening an Ebay store. Most importantly I get to decide who I am, not remain another patient.
I can’t begin to say how much I appreciate your support, the comments and emails helped push me forward. The WordPress family means so much to me. I pray your year starts healthy as possible. I look forward to developing new friendships and reading and learning from your post.
Melinda
1812
The last of four massive earthquakes that began the previous December strikes in what will be the state of Missouri with a force strong enough to spawn a fluvial tsunami, causing the mighty Mississippi River to run backwards for many hours.
1935
Parker Brothers begins selling a board game centered on buying and selling property, with locale names based on the names of streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It will become one of history’s best-selling board games.
1964
British rock n’ rollers The Beatles land at New York’s Kennedy Airport, where fans welcome the quartet with a high-pitched hysteria that will become a hallmark of the ‘British Invasion.’
Running late for doctor’s appointment, no birthdays this week. M
Welcome back to Wellness Wednesday everyone! This week I thought we could talk a little about the importance of continuing to learn throughout our lives. Sometimes we tend to think of learning only in the context of formal education, but the truth is that more learning takes place outside of the classroom than it does […]
via [Wellness Wednesday] The Importance Of Lifelong Learning — Reclaiming HOPE
By 23andMe on Fri, 01 Feb 2019 17:49:06
Africans and African Americans are among the most underrepresented populations in genetic health research, yet they face some of the most daunting health outcomes.
It’s a bitter irony of the current state of research that among those most in need are the least served by our ever-expanding genetic knowledge. Africans, African Americans, as well as Latinos, still make up less than four percent of individuals included in genome-wide association studies, according to a recent study.
This despite the fact that Africans and people of African ancestry are more genetically diverse than all other populations in the world combined. This is because humans originated in Africa and have lived there continuously for more than 200,000 years, adapting to the varied climates and regions. The rest of the world was populated by small groups of people who first migrated out of Africa some 60,000 to 130,000 years ago. In genetics this is called the Founder Effect. Including people of African ancestry in genetic study will likely uncover unique genetic variation that help scientists better understand conditions that affect people of African ancestry, who thus far have not benefited from many of the breakthroughs in genetic science.
23andMe’s efforts to improve diversity in its research has yielded results.
The most promising is that we now have one of the largest groups, if not the largest, group of African Americans who been genotyped and phenotyped — phenotypes are observable traits and health conditions — and consented to participate in research.
This offers great potential to conduct crucial new genetic research. It means that more of our own research will be relevant to people with African ancestry. So for example, working with researchers at the University of Minnesota, we are now expanding a genetic study on alcohol and tobacco use and its relation to different diseases, to include people of African ancestry.
But 23andMe wants to ensure that other qualified researchers can also leverage this important resource to make discoveries. So this month, 23andMe is announcing that as part of its annual call for Research Innovation Collaborations, we are encouraging qualified academic researchers to make proposals to leverage this important research cohort to learn more about health conditions that impact people with African ancestry.
Interested researchers can find out about the Research Innovation Collaborations here. . In genetics this is called the Founder Effect. Including people of African ancestry in genetic study will likely uncover unique genetic variation that help scientists better understand conditions that affect people of African ancestry, who thus far have not benefited from many of the breakthroughs in genetic science.
Improving diversity and inclusion of underrepresented populations in research doesn’t just benefit those groups. It benefits everyone. One of the best examples of this are medications to lower cholesterol for those at risk for heart disease. The insights that made these new drugs possible came because researchers found that some African Americans had variants in the PCSK9 gene that left them with very low cholesterol. That example is also an example of the beauty of genetics — something unique in you, or me, or a stranger across the globe, could benefit all of us.
At 23andMe — where our mission is to help all people access, understand and benefit from the human genome — we have spent the last decade working to improve diversity in research. Despite those efforts — as well as the work of others like the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us program — we still have a long way to go to ensure that all people are part of, and benefit from, the genetic revolution. News of promising developments in using gene therapy to treat sickle cell anemia and the chance that it could lead to a cure for the disease that plagues tens of thousands of Americans, gives us a glimpse of what is possible.
But as 23andMe commemorates Black History Month, it’s worth noting the steps we’ve taken in our efforts to improve diversity in our genetic research. We want to share with our customers who have contributed to research some of the recent accomplishments and new initiatives that are specific to Africans and African Americans, and how these efforts will contribute to important genetic research that will benefit not just people of African ancestry, but all of us.
Over the last decade with programs like Roots into the Future, the African Genetics Project, and the Global Genetics Project, 23andMe has diversified our reference populations to improve not just the customer experience, but improve the kind of research we do. And now with hundreds of thousands of customers with African ancestry who have consented to participate in research, 23andMe has one of the largest groups in the world of African Americans who have consented to have their genetic data and phenotypic data — information about traits and health conditions — used for research. (See sidebar)
Another program, called the Populations Collaboration, involves partnering with academic researchers working across the globe to genotype people in communities that are underrepresented in genetic research, particularly those in Africa. As part of that initiative researchers have already done work among populations in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And there is 23andMe’s African Sequencing Project. Launched in 2016 the aim of this ambitious project was to recruit several thousand eligible customers to participate in the creation of an African American sequencing panel for research. That work, which was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, has been done, and the de-identified genetic data will be made available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP) to other qualified and vetted genetic researchers at educational and research institutions around the world. This again will enable scientists outside of 23andMe to use this reference data improve the accuracy of their own health-related genetic research that is focused on African Americans.
These are just a few of the efforts 23andMe has undertaken to improve the diversity in its research, and allow other qualified researchers to leverage the research model we pioneered. But we also want to look beyond the genetic research, and understand a little more the impact DNA testing has on people’s perception of race and ethnicity. So last year 23andMe began a collaboration with researchers at Northwestern, to study just that, looking at the impact testing may has on attitudes about race. That work is ongoing.
Each of these efforts are small steps but taken together they mark a commitment 23andMe has to ensure that all populations are included in genetic research and benefit from it. Diversity in research makes it less likely that any group is left behind in this age of genomic discovery. Diversity in genetic research offers the promise that everyone will benefit from what we uncover about the genetic underpinnings of disease, as well as the genetic diversity of all humankind.
Why are the vast majority of people included in genetic research of European ancestry?
Institutional racism often played a role, but some of the reasons have to do with how study groups were found in the early days of genome-wide association studies. In those cases, researchers would often studied those who were convenient to their work, meaning those who lived in Europe or the United States and those who lived near the universities where they worked. Other researchers used study groups that had already been established — like the as the Framingham Heart Study — which included people of mostly European ancestry. But there are also social and historical reasons for the bias, including past abuses in medical research — like the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee (Tuskegee Syphilis Project) — that left African Americans less willing to participate. To protect the interests of all its research participants, all of 23andMe’s research is overseen by an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB), which must first approve of our research procedures before a study begins. Any changes to those procedures must be reviewed and approved by the IRB before being implemented.
Why does diversity in genetic research matter?
Most genetic studies have been conducted on people of European ancestry, so there is a gap in our understanding of the genetic factors that influence disease among those of other ancestries. 23andMe sees an urgent need to scale research within non-European populations so all people can benefit from breakthroughs in genetic science. 23andMe’s web-based, large-scale research model is ideally suited to tackling this problem. While researchers have made significant findings around the genetics of such conditions as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer, many of findings may not replicate in people who do not have European ancestry. In addition, as genetic studies are used to help identify new drug targets or the efficacy of certain medication, which may differ depending on an individual’s ancestry.
Do people of different ethnicities have different risks?
Some of those differences have to do with environmental factors, access to quality care and poverty, but genetics also plays a role. For example, recent studies among African American and Puerto Rican children with asthma have found that genetic differences may explain why a commonly used medication to treat asthma is less effective in those populations. There are other conditions that are also more prevalent among African Americans — asthma, diabetes, cancer and heart disease — and genetics may help explain some of those differences. In addition, by conducting studies in more ethnically diverse populations scientists and clinicians will be better able to offer more accurate estimates of diseases in populations other than those of European ancestry.
Can genetic studies of one ethnicity lead to insights into disease risk or treatments in other ethnicities?
Yes. One of the best examples of this is a study that found genetic variants in some African Americans that made them effectively lowered their level of LDL cholesterol making them less susceptible to heart disease. The findings around the variant in the the PCSK9 gene lead to the creation of drugs that target the gene as a way to control cholesterol.
What are some of the conditions 23andMe is studying that impact people of African descent at higher rates?
23andMe has published now more than 120 papers on a wide variety of conditions. As we add more diversity to those who are participating in research will be more able to ensure that those studies and findings will also be applicable to African Americans and other non-European populations. Most recently in 23andMe contributed data to research lead by scientists at the University of Minnesota focused on the genetics of alcohol and tobacco use. This offered new insight into addiction as well as diseases associated with alcohol and tobacco use. Now those same researchers are including African Americans as part of that study.
Why is the African population more genetically diverse than non-African populations?
Modern humans originated in Africa and have lived there continuously for more than 200,000 years, adapting to the varied climates and regions on the continent.
The rest of the world was populated by small groups of people who first migrated out of Africa some 60,000 to 130,000 years ago. In other words, when these small groups left, they only brought a subset of genetic variants with them, resulting in lower amounts of genetic diversity in non-African populations. In genetics this is called the Founder Effect.
How does 23andMe protect my data?
The privacy and security of our customers’ data are of the utmost importance to 23andMe. We understand that to be successful our customers must trust that 23andMe is protecting their data. Beyond employing robust authentication methods to access our systems, we also use software, hardware and physical security measures to protect customer data. Personally identifiable information is stripped from genetic information and stored in separate computing environments. All data used in research is de-identified and study in aggregate, and only data from customers who have consented to participate is used. Customers, even those who have consented to participate in research, must also explicitly agree in writing to have their individual information studied by our researchers. Finally, 23andMe has always been transparent about our privacy policies and research, offering customers a choice about whether they wish to participate or not, and ensuring that when we make new findings that we share that information back with our customers.
What are some of the health reports that 23andMe offers that are relevant to individuals of African descent?
We currently have a handful of Genetic Health Risk reports that are specifically relevant to people of African ancestry, but there are other reports that are relevant to people of any ancestry including African. 23andMe has a report on a genetic relatively common genetic condition known as G6PD Deficiency, which is most relevant to people of African ancestry. The condition is characterized by periods of anemia triggered by environmental factors. And 23andMe has two carrier status reports that are most relevant for people of African ancestry including a report on Sickle Cell anemia, and another on Familial Mediterranean Fever. Beyond the health and wellness reports, 23andMe has recently updated its ancestry reports to include 1000+ more regions including more regions within Africa. And 23andMe continues to add new reports and update the reports that it has for customers to improve the experience for everyone. For important information and limitations regarding other genetic health risk reports and carrier status reports, visit https://www.23andme.com/test-info/.
Todos golpeamos las carreteras en la vida, algunas semanas duraderas, otros años. Para sobrevivir a la paliza que tiene que permanecer centrado en los pasos hacia adelante, incluso los pasos nano están avanzando. Tuve la suerte, el abuso, el trauma y el odio propio comenzaron cuando era muy joven. Crecí oyendo lo estúpido que me convencí de que era verdad. Fui abusada, abusada sexualmente y vi a mi madre golpeada todos los días por mi padrastro.
¿Suerte? A los 12 años yo era drogadicto, salía con un traficante y planeaba cómo matar a mi padre. Mi vida no significaba nada, nunca lo hizo, mi madre nunca fue satisfecha, mi padrastro me golpeó en la cara con el puño mientras mi madre miraba. Estaba en libertad condicional por llevar un arma y ir a un campo de detención juvenil estaba en mi futuro.
Ocurrieron dos eventos significativos que cambiaron mi vida. El estado de Texas tomó la custodia de mí y me colocó en un convento para las niñas malas. Empecé a escuchar afirmaciones, elogios, lo inteligente que era y me dio más responsabilidad muy rápidamente. Este tipo de detención, juego de palabras de verso positivo.
January 24, 2019 Dinah Miller, M.D.
We talk about the toll suicide takes on families and the tragedy for the people who’ve died. What we don’t openly talk about is suicide’s toll on the doctors who have treated these patients. But when a patient dies by suicide, it leaves us profoundly changed.
The news came by text as we drove home from brunch. My patient had died that morning by suicide. I read the text and wailed. My husband was driving, and our adult children happened to be away, traveling together on an exotic journey. I struggled to gather words, and my husband held control of the car through those excruciating moments when he thought something horrible had happened to our kids. I calmed down enough to tell him that the tragedy involved a patient. He was relieved. I was not.
U.S. suicide rates increased by 25.4% between 1999 and 2016.1 It’s been estimated that at least half of psychiatrists will lose at least one patient to suicide during their career.2 There are no estimates on how many primary care physicians will have the same experience, though they often treat psychiatric disorders. Among people who complete suicide in the United States, 46% have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, and many more people have undiagnosed mental illness.
We talk about the toll suicide takes on families. They experience grief, guilt, regret, anguish, anger, and stigma, and they often face significant financial and logistic consequences. We talk about the tragedy for the people who’ve died — the years of life lost, the graduations and weddings they won’t attend, the grandchildren they’ll never hold. Since suicide is considered preventable, these deaths inflict an added injury on the survivors, who may face the lingering pain of believing that there was something more they might have done.
What we don’t openly talk about is suicide’s toll on the doctors who have treated these patients. Death is part of life, and for many physicians it becomes a routine element of the job. Oncology patients die, trauma patients die, geriatric patients die — indeed, everybody eventually dies. In psychiatry, however, death is not a usual or expected outcome, and suicide induces the sharpest feelings of failure. We may grieve the loss of patients when they die of cancer, but when they die by suicide, it leaves us changed, sometimes even devastated.
Psychiatrists are considered the experts on suicide. After all, many people with major depression have feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of ending their own lives. In an outpatient psychiatry practice, it’s not uncommon for several patients a week to talk about psychic demons, dark thoughts, or the wish to simply not wake up, but such thoughts rarely crescendo to a suicide attempt, and much less often to a completed suicide.
A suicide plan with stated or presumed intent generally triggers hospitalization, and suicide risk is part of the daily landscape for inpatient psychiatrists. Insurers often require that patients be a danger to themselves or others as the standard for admission, making psychiatry the only specialty in which an illness must be deemed life-threatening for the patient to obtain hospital care. Yet the ongoing shortage of psychiatric beds makes it difficult for all but the sickest of patients to be admitted, and in rural areas the nearest facility may be hours away. A few states rely on the unconscionable practice of holding ill patients in jail until psychiatric beds become available. When depressed patients deny having any intention of harming themselves, inpatient options are rarely used. Moreover, even when patients are admitted, the average length of stay is only days, although medications for depression take weeks to begin working.
Suicide is often an impulsive act — it is not always planned, and patients don’t always share their intentions. Most psychiatrists care for many patients they deem “at risk” for suicide, but even if we are the experts on suicidal thinking and behavior, we’re generally fortunate enough not to be experts on completed suicide.
When my patient died, I told a few colleagues who are also my friends. All were sympathetic, but some could tolerate listening to my ruminations for only so long. Suicide is a topic that makes us all uneasy. It’s the psychiatrist’s biggest professional fear and failure, and on top of our own loss, self-recrimination, and regret, we may fear a lawsuit or feel defensive and anxious. I had worried about this patient and had carefully considered the care I provided. There had been numerous hurdles to optimal treatment, and looking back, I could see no obvious breaches of the standard of care. Still, for months afterward, my thoughts kept looping back to what else I might have tried. Yet all my mental machinations won’t bring the patient back to life. A patient suicide can fill us with shame, and we worry that our colleagues will judge us to be inadequate. The stigma associated with suicide attaches to the patient, the family, and also the doctor. At times, I’ve felt this suicide was my professional burden to bear alone.
Colleagues who have experienced a suicide told me that attending the funeral and meeting with the family was helpful. But we have no systematized way of coming together to learn from these cases, and no set rituals of our own to mark a death and find a path toward healing.
Days after the death, I attended a professional event and felt disingenuous as I made small talk, never mentioning the recent cataclysmic event in my professional life. It took some time and distance before I could tell my colleagues that this tragedy had transpired. With some trepidation, I mentioned a “bad outcome” to a couple of distressed patients as part of my plea that they relinquish possession of firearms until their mood improved. It felt unconventional, but I found that “Please do it for me” held some power and shifted the dialogue away from the question of my willingness to trust them.
I am still figuring out how to quiet my haunting emotions. For quite some time, I would wake up with my dead patient front and center in my mind, and we traveled together through the days. My sadness for the family remains immense. My feelings as a doctor are complicated by the fact that this particular patient had not followed my treatment recommendations and so my sadness is mixed with anger — yet somehow it feels wrong to be angry with a dead person who had suffered so deeply.
I am working my way back to being the psychiatrist I was before. At first, I felt anxious about taking on new patients and about ongoing treatment with my high-risk patients. Psychiatry is a gratifying specialty, and it’s not unusual for patients to verbalize their appreciation for the care they have received. After the suicide, I found such exchanges difficult; after all, keeping people alive had always been key to my understanding of what it is to be a good doctor, and every time a patient expressed gratitude I thought of my patient who died. I am left with the nagging questions of whether I can trust my own intuition about when a patient is safe and whether I can trust my patients to be forthcoming. I had treated this patient for only a short time; I can’t imagine the intensity of the grief I would feel if a patient I’d cared for for years were to lose this battle.
After a celebrity suicide, the media tends to reduce the solution to a singular message: Get help. But sometimes getting help and being identified as a person at risk are simply not enough. Sometimes we do everything possible and patients still choose to end their lives.
Suicide affects not just psychiatrists but also physicians in all specialties. As we tackle a tragedy that touches so many, I hope we can also lift the barriers that keep us from addressing our own anguish.
From the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore.
We all hit road blocks in life, some lasting weeks, others years. To survive the beat down you have to remain focused on forward steps, even nano steps are moving forward. I was lucky, abuse, trauma and self-hatred started while very young. Growing up hearing how stupid I was convinced me it was true. I was abused, sexually abused and watched my mother beaten everyday by my step father.
Lucky? By 12 years old I was a drug addict, dating a dealer and planning how to kill my father. My life meant nothing, it never did, my mother was never satisfied, my stepfather hit me in face with his fist while my mother watched. I was on probation for carrying a gun and going to a juvenile detention camp was in my future.
Two significant events happened that changed my life. The State of Texas took custody of me and placed me in a Convent for bad girls. I started to hear affirmations, compliments, how smart I was and given more responsibility very quickly. This type of detention, positive verse punk on punk saved my life. At 13 years old I started a newspaper called the Tumble Weed Connection.
Internally my mind was learning a 180, professors were loaning me Psychology books, Man Search for Meaning, books beyond my years and certainly my education level. I was treated as an equal, a PhD talked to me the same as his peers.
I’ve hit too many road bumps to count in my 55 years but firmly believe the positive influence saved my life. My grandparents were always positive but it is different hearing from people who didn’t know me. My confidence was boosted quickly.
When a road bump finds me, I have to look back at what I’ve learned, how far I’ve come and most importantly the people who supported me, they helped shape the person I am today. Next is take a step.
I’m a chronically ill 55-year-old woman with a mental illness who is a survivor, strong as steel and determined to run my own life. I’m a Christian and the light of God guides me. When I fall, there is no doubt I’ll get up again. I’m facing a frightening illness and surgery now but it doesn’t occupy my mind non stop because the outcome is out of my hands.
Melinda
When it comes to Caregiving you may have questions regarding the options like where to live, type of facility or helping your loved one remain at home. Questions like Government benefits, health insurance, home care, and the never-ending questions that continue as your loved one ages.
Please welcome Author Harry Cline of The New Caregiver’s Comprehensive Resource: Advice, Tips, and Solutions from Around the Web from newcaregiver.org.
The 3 Best Ways to Prioritize Self-Care When You are a New Caregiver
New caregivers take on a host of new responsibilities that can become overwhelming and taxing. In order for caregivers to provide the best possible care, they must take first help themselves. After all, if you neglect to care for yourself, you cannot effectively help anyone else.
1. Reduce Your Stress in Healthy Ways
Caregivers expect to be tired. You may even expect to be frustrated at times. One thing you may not be prepared for is the amount of stress you will face as a new caregiver. Indeed, caregiver stress stems from several sources, including concerns about making ends meet if you cut your work hours to provide care for a loved one, feeling unqualified to provide the level of care your patient deserves, or facing the unique challenges of caring for someone with dementia or a physical limitation.
No matter the causes of your stress, it is imperative that you handle it in healthy ways. Managing stress becomes necessary if you are more irritable, have difficulty sleeping, or become forgetful. As soon as you notice warning signs of stress, take action.
Some of the most effective ways to reduce stress include taking a walk, working in a garden, reading, meditating, or talking with a friend. The American Psychological Association (APA) also recommends taking a break from the stressor, exercising, smiling and laughing, and getting social support to manage your stress effectively. You need to find the best way to manage stress given your situation and prioritize it before the stress impacts your physical and mental health and impedes your ability to provide quality care.
2. Avoid Addictive Substances
Conversely, it is crucial that you avoid self-medicating with addictive substances when you feel stressed in your new caregiving role. For instance, you should avoid drinking alcohol when you need to manage your caregiving stress because researchers found that “caregivers who experience social and emotional burden related to caregiving are at risk for problematic alcohol use.” The last thing you want to do is increase your risk of alcoholism when you become a caregiver.
3. Put Your Physical Needs First
If you don’t fuel your body properly, you will not have enough left in the tank to fulfill your caregiving duties. Putting your physical needs first is one way to ensure you will have what it takes to provide the best care to your patient. Prioritizing your physical needs includes eating balanced meals, exercising, and getting enough sleep.
By prioritizing self-care, new caregivers ensure they are up to the task of helping a loved one to the best of your ability. Begin by reducing your stress in healthy ways and avoiding addictive substances. Then, put your physical needs first.
info@newcaregiver.org
Image via Pixabay by Mishelved
By 23andMe on Tue, 22 Jan 2019 17:03:37
23andMe received FDA clearance to report on the two most common genetic variants influencing what is called MUTYH-associated polyposis (MAP), a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome.This new clearance is part of…
The post 23andMe Receives FDA Clearance for Genetic Health Risk report that looks at a Hereditary Colorectal Cancer Syndrome appeared first on 23andMe Blog.
IDEAS.TED.Com
Every weekday for the month of January, TED Ideas is publishing a new post in a series called “How to Be a Better Human,” containing a helpful piece of advice from a speaker in the TED community. To see all the posts, click here.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
We’ve heard this chestnut — or seen it in Instagram posts with handwritten fonts — over and over again. But is there truth in this stale nut? And if so, how can we translate it into real life?
Well, it may be time to give this aphorism a refresh and change it to: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single win.”
That’s because success can be found when we start to mark and celebrate our small wins, according to Vancouver-based educator Mehrnaz Bassiri. Drawing on the work of organizational theorist and psychologist Karl Weick, Bassiri says, “Small wins have a transformational power. Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion to favor another small win and another small win until the combination of these small wins lead to larger and greater accomplishments.”
Here, she tells us how to turn our small wins into major victories.
This approach can apply to your professional or personal lives. Let’s say your big goal is to save money for a two-week vacation. So you start your campaign full of enthusiasm and aggressively trim extra costs from your life. You bring your lunch to work; you stop buying coffee drinks, juices and pricey snacks; and you invite friends and family over for dinner instead of going out to eat.
Then, after a few weeks, you look at your bank account — and you’ve advanced a mere 3 percent towards your desired total. You think, “I’ll never get there” and go drown your sorrows in a double cappuccino.
The problem, says Bassiri, doesn’t lie in the puniness of our accomplishments but in the outsized nature of our expectations. Whether in the news media or in our friends’ and family members’ social media posts, we’ve gotten habituated to seeing major successes — the video from an unknown musician that goes viral and scores them a spot on Beyonce’s tour, the unhealthy person who loses half their body weight and completes the Ironman, the company started by college students in a garage that gets sold for an eye-watering amount.
These stories “have programmed our thoughts and desires to want and expect the same kind of results in our own lives,” says Bassiri. “We’ve started to measure our progress on an oversized scale.” So instead of recognizing our small triumphs for what they are, we view them as failures.
It’s time to adopt a human-sized scale to assess our efforts. For example, try measuring your saving in days rather than dollars. Applaud every day that you extend your no-coffee drink streak. This is a far kinder way of tracking your progress than fixating on the balance in your bank account.
Diaries are much more than the domain of angst-ridden teens — in fact, you can reclaim them to serve your growth by using them to chronicle your wins. Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile advocates keeping a daily diary of progress because it “helps us to reflect on our days and keep track of all those little achievements that normally go unnoticed,” says Bassiri. She adds, “It helps us to detect and celebrate our small wins even on those frustrating days that we don’t think we got a lot done. Not only that, it also helps us to work through difficulties and find weak areas that we need to work on.”
Many of us have to come to believe that we should tell as many people as possible about our efforts, so that their attention might hold us accountable and their encouragement can motivate us.
However, our announcements can actually backfire. “Research shows that when we share our big and important goals with other people, as soon as we receive social acknowledgement and social recognition, our brains get tricked into thinking that we’ve already accomplished that goal,” says Bassiri. “So we become less likely and less motivated to pursue those activities that get us closer to achieving it.”
Instead, she suggests, “select one or two people to act as your support.” Then, when you’ve finally achieved your goal, you can take to Twitter and Facebook and tell everyone you know.
Watch her TEDxChilliwack talk here:
The Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “affirm.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Praying each day affirms my belief in God is strong and unwavering.
Join us for the fun and sharing good media stories
Thank you David for sharing, I’m in love with this technique.
When you get sick, there is a sudden change in your abilities. One day you are actively participating in family, work, school, and hobbies. And the next day you struggle to do the things you love. You may find your abilities lessened or even stolen completely by a silent enemy.
You may feel like a shadow of your former self. You may feel like an invalid, a cripple, a burden. You may hate the person you have become.
In these moments, remember that inside you are still the same person. Inside you still have the same soul, the same spirit. You are tired and weary now, and that is okay.
It is okay to rest when you are fighting. It is okay to accept help. It is even okay to ask for help. You are not any less of a person for needing help, you are not any less you…
View original post 203 more words
Sunshine and Music can change your entire mood. Moods are Contagious.
Food can change your mood. It’s almost like Music.
– Tiffani Thiessen
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Helen Keller Friendship, Light, Friend, Alone, Better
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Helen Keller Motivational, Confidence, Hope, Faith The best.
Most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller Inspirational
Beautiful, Heart, Best Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light
Espía digital
POR ABBY ROBINSON
28/01/2019
La nueva serie de comedia dramática británica Sex Education es un golpe inmediato, que pega a los estudiantes de la escuela secundaria Moordale y sus preocupaciones basadas en el sexo justo en frente de su cara sin previo aviso o disculpa.
Porque esto es un espectáculo en una misión: “[se trata de] animar a la gente a arrancar la venda de la ayuda y tener esas conversaciones incómodas, torpe sobre el sexo, en lugar de embotellar todo en el interior, o pensar que tienen que ir en línea para obtener las respuestas, ” escritor Laurie Nunn le dijo a Digital Spy y a otra prensa. “Para tratar de hablar con sus compañeros o-si pueden manejarlo-a sus padres, o a sus amigos.
“Realmente pensamos que eso les va a ayudar a tener relaciones sexuales más saludables. ”
Es un propósito noble y por eso, nada es sanitizado. Las preocupaciones que los personajes están lidiando están pintadas en los colores más ruidosos, enfáticamente salpicado a través de la pantalla porque, como el reparto y la tripulación tienen contras
“La primera campana de alarma que experimenté cuando vi que era la forma en que sugirió que el sexo y la terapia de relaciones era algo completamente dividido de la salud general de la gente y el bienestar mental, ” profesor Sarah Niblock, Director Ejecutivo del Reino Unido Consejo de psicoterapeutas, le dice a Digital Spy exclusivamente.
“Eso es un poco ridículo y que tipo de socava toda la premisa de lo que sigue. ”
A lo largo de la serie, los estudiantes de diferentes orígenes y Estados sociales se acercan a Otis (Asa Butterfield) para obtener ayuda con una serie de problemas extraños y maravillosos en relación con el sexo y sus cuerpos.
Otis entonces prepara sus perlas de sabiduría, al igual que su terapeuta de sexo y relaciones calificado madre Jean (Gillian Anderson) hace a sus clientes, y lejos van, instantáneamente más ligero, ya no empantanado por sus problemas pesados.
Al igual que Sherlock Holmes, Otis, de 16 años de edad, utiliza la evidencia antes que él para localizar el quid de sus acertijos y, en última instancia, conseguir que sus pacientes.
Netflix’s brand new British comedy-drama series Sex Education packs an immediate punch, sticking the students of Moordale Secondary School and their sex-based concerns right in front of your face without warning or apology.
Because this is a show on a mission: “[It’s about] encouraging people to rip the band-aid off and have those uncomfortable, awkward conversations about sex, rather than bottle it all up inside, or think that they have to go online to get the answers,” writer Laurie Nunn told Digital Spy and other press. “To try and talk to their partners or – if they can handle it – to their parents, or to their friends.
“We really think that that’s going to help them have healthier sexual relationships.”
It’s a noble purpose and because of that, nothing is sanitised. The concerns that the characters are grappling with are painted in the loudest colours, emphatically splashed across the screen because, as the cast and crew have consistently emphasised, Sex Education is nothing if not real.
It does the heavy lifting, having those all-important yet toe-curling dialogues – about relationships, identity, and what healthy, consensual sex looks like – that most of us swerved like Fast & Furious drivers during our younger years, and often still do.
Sex Education is just that: an education. (And we love it, by the way.)
But it could be accused of falling short in one central narrative tenet: the depiction of therapy.
“The first alarm bell I experienced when I watched it was the way it sort of suggested that sex and relationship therapy was something completely split off from people’s overall health and mental well-being,” Professor Sarah Niblock, Chief Executive of the UK Council for Psychotherapists, tells Digital Spy exclusively.
“That’s kind of ridiculous and it sort of undermines the whole premise of what follows.”
Throughout the series, students from a number of different backgrounds and social statuses approach Otis (Asa Butterfield) for help with an array of weird and wonderful problems regarding sex and their bodies.
Otis then dishes out his pearls of wisdom, just as his qualified sex and relationship therapist mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) does to her clients, and away they go, instantly lighter, no longer bogged down by their weighty woes.
Like Sherlock Holmes, 16-year-old Otis uses the evidence before him to pinpoint the crux of their conundrums and ultimately, get his patients instantly back on track.
This, according to Niblock, is simply not how it works.
“I’m actually a little bit surprised it survived the script editing,” she said. “Problems in relationships occur because of deeper stuff. It’s not something that you can split off from the rest of your life.
“Often if people have a general sense of ‘mental un-health’ then it does get manifested through relationship difficulties. Problems in relationships, particularly around sex, often come about as a result of something that’s much more fundamental.
“So I think the way it compartmentalises sex and relationships as being something that’s just there and everything else in your life is great, but you’ve got this sexual problem, is very simplistic.”
The way in which Otis is able to address the hang-ups of his fellow students during a five-minute lunch slot is also a concern for Niblock.
“I think it’s also a little bit unrealistic in the way that it portrays quick fixes,” she continues. “That’s not to say for one moment that you have to go into psychotherapy for years and years. Things can resolve themselves pretty quickly.
“But you can’t just sort it out overnight. You’ve got to be prepared to be in it for a bit of time to really get to the root cause of what’s causing those problems in relationships.
“I’m concerned that viewers might take away a distorted view of therapy. My worry is that programmes such as Sex Education are going to make people think that when they see a psychotherapist, that they’re in an unsafe relationship with somebody who might not necessarily have the proper background.”
It’s not just Otis’s age and lack of life experience that is a problem for Niblock and her fellow professionals. It is also the way in which his friend Maeve (Emma Mackey) crowns him an expert for simply observing his mother in action from afar: “The programme makes out that anyone can just learn the skills and practise it.
“You have to have years and years of training and deep study and deep reflection to learn the ability to work with what are people’s most unconscious feelings and experiences, so that concerns me.”
Portraying therapy in an accurate, responsible light is no mean feat, but it’s something that Niblock says can be done with a comprehensive understanding of the process, and of the relationship between therapist and client.
Unfortunately that doesn’t quite fit with the demands of fast-moving narrative TV. “It doesn’t follow a nice kind of flow. It doesn’t follow a linear pattern where you go from A to B and then you’re better. It often goes backwards and forwards. There are highs and lows. But people don’t really know what goes on. It has a lot of mystique around it.”
Niblock cited Scandinavian thriller Black Lake and Dexter as two other shows which get it spectacularly wrong: “In Black Lake, there is the representation of a psychotherapist as somehow being able to have control over their clients, that somehow they can manipulate them.
“I think if they worked with us they’d realise actually that it’s the client or clients that are in the driving seat. It’s they who have full control over the process, and the therapist is there really to support them and hear them and… ask them questions, get deeper into things and reflect back to them.
“They can’t start twisting their mind and control them or turn them into murderers as you saw on Dexter with Charlotte Rampling’s character. If you’re a writer or producer, you should go and immerse yourself within the particular sector.
“You can’t really shadow a psychotherapist, but you would be able to get a much better sense of it if only they were to talk to us and organisations like ours who would be more than happy to advise and give a little bit of script advice.”
Yet despite therapy often being a very emotionally demanding experience, representations on screen can play with comedic elements.
“We do look at humour in the consulting room because actually therapists and their clients will find times when actually, something is extremely funny,” she said. “It covers the full spectrum of emotions.
“But it’s just important that the power relationship between the therapist and the client is represented accurately. There’s nothing more frightening than thinking someone will overpower you and control you.
“The most scary thing we face is lack of control. It’s one of the most stressful, anxiety-inducing things, the sense that you can’t change your circumstances. And what concerns me with some of these programmes is they almost portray psychotherapy as being able to make people go mad and lose sense of who they are.”
Niblock went on to say that if that stigma isn’t dealt with, the fallout could be catastrophic: “So many of us will experience a mental health issue in our lives. The most important thing we can do is talk to somebody. We’ve done research that shows that people don’t really know what a psychotherapist is and when they see those representations on TV it will certainly put them off.
“So we’ve got to do a lot of work to make sure that people better understand and can make informed choices about their care.”
1734 Robert Morris, merchant (signed Declaration of Independence)
1865 Congress passes the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America (passes 121-24)
1872 Zane Grey, American West novelist (Riders of the Purple Sage)
1925 Charles Aidman, American TV narrator (New Twilight Zone), born in Frankfort, Indiana
1949 ‘These Are My Children‘ is broadcast live on Chicago’s NBC station. It’s the first in what will become an institution of daytime drama serials, many of which will be sponsored by–yes–soap manufacturers. Television soap operas will begin dying out in the 21st century as tastes change.
BIRTHDAYS
Norman Mailer
(1923 – 2007)
Lisa Marie Presley
Turns 50
1927 Lorraine Warren, American paranormal investigator (Amityville haunting), born in Monroe, Connecticut
1933 Bernardo Provenzano, Mafia Boss (Cosa Nostra), born in Corleone, Sicily (d.2016)
1978 Brad Rutter, Jeopardy! champion, born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Melinda
Ideas.Ted.com
Every weekday for the month of January, TED Ideas is publishing a new post in a series called “How to Be a Better Human,” containing a helpful piece of advice from a speaker in the TED community. To see all the posts, click here.
There are many things in our lives that we have little control over — the news, the weather, the traffic, the soup of the day at our local café. But among the things that we can control, there’s a big one: our story.
This narrative is not the one that contains the objective facts of our lives;
instead, it’s “the story you’ve been telling yourself about who you are and how everything always plays out,” says psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School professor John Sharp.
And he adds, “If you want to change your life, it needs a re-edit.”
The problem with this story is that too often, it’s not accurate — writer Marilynne Robinson calls it “a mean little myth.”
Sharp, the author of The Insight Cure: Change Your Story, Transform Your Life, explains, “Some emotionally difficult scenes are way over-included — just think of all the things you can’t let go of — and other scenes are deleted, such as times when things did go well. The worst part about the false truth … is that it becomes our self-fulfilling prophecy, the basis of what we expect from ourselves in the future.”
To begin revising your narrative, Sharp recommends doing the following:
For Sharp, his parents divorced when he was young, and he says, “the false truth that I held to so dearly was that just … as I couldn’t be effective in keeping my parents together, I probably couldn’t be effective at much of anything else, and this left me feeling very insecure.”
Since you’ve long accepted your false story as the official account, it may not be super-obvious to you. If you’re not sure what it is, try filling in these blanks, says Sharp:
“If I break a promise to myself, I feel ___________.”
“When someone ignores me, I feel _____________.”
“When my partner or best friend and I have a big fight, I feel _____________.”
Why these prompts? Our inaccurate narrative tends to be one that we default to when we’re faced with difficulty or disappointment.
Another way to help you identify your old story is to listen to your self-talk and notice when it includes statements that begin with “I always ______,” “I’m always ______,” or “I never ______.”
After you find your ingrained story, think back to your childhood and try to look for the experiences that helped feed it. And if you end up identifying multiple false stories, choose the one that’s had the most impact on your life. Sharp says, “While I know there are many stories and many possible revisions for all of us, I truly believe that there’s one underlying story that you deserve to identify and rework first.”
Let’s say your deep belief is no matter what you do, it’s not enough; perhaps your parents were rarely satisfied with your achievements, even when they were stellar, and fixated on your next report card, exam or accomplishment. So, ask yourself: While that might have been the case when you were younger, is itreally true now that what you do is never enough?
“When you view it from an adult perspective, you can see that it’s not fair or just to ourselves,” says Sharp.
Your story doesn’t have to have been caused by your parents, but it’s typically the result of a relationship we had when we were young. Explains Sharp, “It happens at a time before we know the difference between a healthy and and unhealthy reaction to something that really scares us, so we hold on to the wrong conclusion.”
It’s normal to feel a bit discouraged when you realize how long you’ve been telling yourself a false narrative. But know you’re far from alone — many of us walk around with these stories, says Sharp. “We need to be compassionate with ourselves about how this came into being.” Most people come up with them for what he calls “understable reasons” — the need to maintain a sense of control and the tendency for kids to take specific circumstances and generalize broadly.
Think about all your strengths and talents, and appreciate them. While the situations that led to the false story have made you into who you are today, they’ve probably affected you in positive ways as well. Maybe they’ve made you more resourceful, more responsible, more empathic, or more ambitious. These positives, big and small, deserve a place in your story, too.
“Cut away what no longer serves you,” says Sharp. “Identify and gather up all the many exceptions … and accept that it’s safe now to move on. You no longer have to hold on to that false security.”
One of Sharp’s patients was a woman who avoided all challenges and adversity. Upon reflecting about her past, she realized “she suffered from the false truth that when she fell, she couldn’t pick herself up,” says Sharp. “Now she knows she can, and her future looks entirely different and better.”
Sharp is a fervent believer in the power of editing one’s story. “If I hadn’t cut away from my ‘mean little myth,’ then I’m confident now that I wouldn’t be here with you today,” he says in his TEDx talk. “In my 20 years of clinical practice, I’ve seen this kind of transformation over and over again.”
Watch his TEDxBeaconStreet talk here:
Traído a usted por la ciudad médica plano de las mujeres
Si su hija se aproxima a la pubertad, tiene una tarea importante por delante. Cuanto mejor la preparó para los próximos cambios biológicos, más fácil será su transición a la feminidad.
Las madres e hijas juntos pueden aprender sobre los aspectos biológicos, médicos y prácticos del estilo de vida de la menstruación de un obstetra/GINECÓLOGO en el personal del centro médico de plano.
Estamos blogueando desde todos los rincones del mundo, tal vez un hospital o centro médico cerca de usted tiene información similar. Siempre se puede iniciar un grupo para educar a las niñas en áreas más pequeñas. Si tienes suerte, tu madre te da un buen ejemplo de lo que puedes esperar y abrazar los cambios. M
To say that kids can be cruel is an understatement, and the impact is has on the recipient can be painfully damaging to say the least. Having a stoma can be hard for anyone. I can only imagine what it’s like for a child. 10 year old Steven Bridges in Kentucky hanged himself. He went […]
Brought to you by Medical City Women’s Plano
If your daughter is approaching puberty you have an important task ahead. The better prepared her for the upcoming biological changes, the easier her transition to womanhood will be.
Mothers and daughters together can learn about the biological, medical and practical lifestyle aspects of menstruation from an OB/GYN on Staff at Medical Center of Plano.
We are blogging from every corner of the world, maybe a hospital or medical center near you has similar information. You could always start a group to educate girls in smaller areas. If lucky you’re mother set a good example of what to expect and embrace the changes. M
Thanks for sharing the words of wisdom. Have a great day.
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I’m sitting at a busy lunch table full of sixth graders. There is energy you can’t put your finger on and a deafening hum that continues from the first lunch all the way to the last. All 150 students are engaged in the same activity at the same time: communicating. With each word expressed in this lunchroom, lessons are being learned that will be filed away and used the next time there is a similar social situation. Sound confusing and overwhelming to keep up with? Just ask one of these sixth graders, and they will tell you that it absolutely is!
Teachers in middle school will often comment that being with their students from one day to another is like playing tug-of-war. For every day a student makes progress, the next day he or she might fall behind, have a behavioral slip-up, and/or refuse to work. Parents might say they have never seen their children so sullen at times, and they miss the carefree nature of their son or daughter. However, these things only mean that adolescents are acting appropriately for their age.
Middle schoolers are constantly making big connections, which lead to big lessons. These students will leave the lunchroom and continue communicating their way through endless life lessons until they can stand on their own two feet and approach independence. It’s going to be rocky at times, but if students can pick up the right tools along the way, they will be able to face challenges and overcome obstacles with ease. Luckily, they have supportive adults to help them learn how to navigate through struggle and resolve conflicts throughout these tumultuous years!
Conflict and a Changing Mind
Because middle school students are fighting for their place in adulthood, they need to have a lot of practice with properly resolving conflict. This not only smooths out the edges of their communication, but it also gives them plenty of practice to work out issues within themselves. In elementary school, it was more socially acceptable to react emotionally to express dissatisfaction. In leaving the uninhibited freedom of childhood, adolescents are entering a whole new set of social standards to live by. The desire to fit in grows stronger, and they have to learn how to do so while retaining their true selves.
Positive conflict resolution helps the adolescent join the old self and the new self. Conflict resolution skills are essential to gaining empathy, learning to get along with others, and seeing that one can overcome obstacles peacefully. Every time a student is involved in conflict resolution, a piece of her or his expanding life puzzle is put into place, and the adolescent gets closer to achieving stability. Middle school students’ behavior is mainly driven by inner conflicts and simultaneous battles with peers and society. Conflict resolution doesn’t just occur between two people; it occurs between one preteen and the world. (Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but hey, when in Rome!)
Embrace the Rebellion
Ever met an adult who didn’t go through an animal-rights or antiestablishment phase? From protesting processed foods to boycotting certain brands of makeup, adolescents question what was previously accepted and make room for reformed opinions. This often comes to the counselor’s office with students who are taking a stand against a friend. To an adult, quarreling adolescents might look as if they are fighting over nothing, but these fights are often part of students’ changing belief systems. At home, rebellion might happen in the form of a student who refuses to do homework because she or he would rather play video games. In other words, conflict between what the student should do and what the student wants to do. In each of these conflicts, students can benefit from learning how to find common ground with others and how to think through consequences.
The Arguing Is Good
Think of the verbal and nonverbal communication you used with your parents when you were in middle school. The eye rolls, the groans, the disgusted facial cues, oh my! These hallmarks of adolescent communication might make us adults rip out our hair, but they are actually healthy signs that students are searching for an identity that is separate from that of their parents. By constantly questioning and exploring the world around them, they are making cognitive, personhood, moral, and social connections. As this happens with authority figures, ever-shifting friendships, environment, and peers, students can learn healthy ways to embrace change and accept others.
Working Through the Turmoil
Perspective is by far one of the greatest things anyone can learn from conflict. Students who are in a social conflict gain empathy by trying to see things from another person’s point of view. I always remind students that understanding someone else’s perception of something is not admitting defeat or excusing what they have done to you. Switching perspectives is simply taking a step back and closely evaluating where some lines of communication may have been crossed or misconstrued.
How can educators and parents best provide an environment that will help adolescents through this rough time? Give students space to work things out on their own. Provide a safe space and a compassionate mirror for them to view themselves through. Once a resolution has been reached, walk back through what worked to reinforce the lesson learned. Common conflict resolution steps are stating your experience, listening to the experience of others, finding middle ground, and making commitments to aid future behaviors. By breaking down the steps with students, you can teach them to take a step back and view the situation through a more inclusive lens.
Know When There Are Other Things in the Mix
While conflict is a natural part of adolescence, strong defiant behaviors might also be a window into more serious troubles that are brewing. Though it is natural for a young student to battle for autonomy, overly argumentative behavior might mean an adolescent is struggling with a deeper loss of control. It’s here that a counselor might ask pointed questions to elicit some information and see if there is another layer to the frustration. My go-tos are:
Frustration and rebellion are a natural part of adolescent changes, but it is important to also gauge when students are crying out for help in a situation that is beyond their ability to tackle. Resolving conflict breeds resilience and culminates in healthy individuals who can handle obstacles and work peacefully with their environment. While developing these skills, adolescents will experience failures but will also find surprising and rewarding successes.
Stephanie Filio is a middle school counselor in Virginia Beach. She received her undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Virginia and her M.Ed. in counseling from Old Dominion University. In a discussion with one of her UVA professors about her desire to stay in school forever, her mentor wisely responded, “If you want to be a lifelong learner, go into education,” and so she found her place. Prior to her six years as a school counselor, Stephanie worked in private education, specializing in standardized tests, test preparation, and future planning. She writes about her career and hobbies at her blog,Weekend Therapy, and can be found on Twitter @steffschoolcoun. Stephanie also enjoys spending time with her books, crafts, and family.
Looking for the Light 