BUY NOW
Create order out of chaos.
Organize your home and workspace so that you always know exactly where things are.
Always return things to their rightful places. If you put things where they belong, you won’t have to go through the stress of losing and then finding them.
Nothing will cause you to worry more frequently or with greater intensity than spending too much time with chronic worrywarts, nay-sayers and fuss-budgets.
Nothing saps your energy more than associating with people who dwell in that faithless, negative state of mind. They’ll suck the joy right out of your life.
Surround yourself with hopeful, optimistic friends. Your life will be much less stressful.
As rates of depression and anxiety increase in older adults, health-care providers are searching for more effective methods of treatment. Since most elderly people already take prescription drugs, many PCPs want a non-pharmaceutical alternative.
New research may have discovered the solution in an old therapy model.
Melinda Stanley, a professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, found that people over age 60 who were treated with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) had less worry, fewer depressive symptoms and improved general mental health at the end of the study compared to people who received biweekly telephone calls from their health-care provider.
“This kind of treatment (CBT) can be useful for people who have anxiety, and it can help them learn how to manage it better,” said, Stanley.
“Many older adults are not…thrilled with the use of medications for anxiety. Many times, they’re already on medications for chronic health conditions, and they may be afraid of side effects. This is a non-medication treatment option,” she noted.
The study included 134 people with an average age of 67. All were being treated in primary care for anxiety. Half of those involved in the study participated in cognitive behavior therapy with experienced therapists. They had up to 10 sessions of CBT over three months that included relaxation training, problem-solving exercises, behavioral sleep management, cognitive therapy and education and awareness training.
The other half received standard primary care, and they were called biweekly to ensure their safety and provide support if needed. Both groups were told to call the therapists if their symptoms worsened.
Response rates in the CBT group were much higher– 40 percent compared to 22 percent — versus the usual care. Worry severity and depression reduced more in the CBT group, and overall mental health improved more in the CBT group, based on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire.
This is good news, and much less expensive than long-term medication management. As managed health care evolves, we must look to both innovative and tried-and-true treatment approaches.
Kathy Larson, author and illustrator of “Dancing Crazy,” generously agreed to an interview about this recently published children’s book aimed at helping kids understand bipolar disorder. Here is an excerpt from that exchange:
What motivated or inspired you to write “Dancing Crazy?”
I really had no choice. Our daughter experienced the most challenging event in the course of her disease. Doctors feared she was moving into a permanent catatonic state; we feared she was dying. After spending three months in a secured setting, Susan was released from the hospital. The world immediately became a different place-for her and her husband, their children, all of us, really. Each of us helped as best we could-praying, baby-sitting, cooking meals and doing the laundry, all the while seeking reassurance in words we could understand. There were many excellent books on the market for adults, but none for little ones. So I wrote one.
Please share your personal experiences with serious mental illness.
Although never diagnosed with depression, my mother spent long hours staring out a window or napping on the couch. As children, we figured she was just worn out from raising the five of us. Now, as adults, we wonder how Mom even survived with such responsibility and little support.
Over the years, many of my students have suffered physical or emotional abuse from mentally ill family members. Others continue to live with the results of parents or siblings who have either attempted suicide or been successful. I think of one little fifth grader who stopped coming to school after excerpts from her father’s trial were detailed in the local newspaper. She was positive everyone would figure out she was the person he’d raped and “stare at her”.
On a personal level, several members of my family take medication for anxiety or depression; and a few more probably should. Looking at the myriad of mental illnesses-from schizophrenia to borderline personality disorder to just plain naughty-we’ve got it all somewhere.
What do you hope to accomplish by publishing “Dancing Crazy?”
“Dancing Crazy” will reduce the fears of many children as they deal with Bipolar Disease. Kids’ worries are so much the same. Did I make my parent act this way? Can someone “catch” bipolar? What’s going to happen to me or my family tomorrow or the next day or the next?
What do you want people, especially children, to know about bipolar disorder?
Bipolar Disorder is a disease caused by a chemical imbalance in somebody’s brain. Your mom or dad did not get it because they work too hard. Nor did they get it because they have too much fun. The truth is everyone in your family will still have good days and not-so-good days, just like they did before someone got diagnosed with bipolar disease.
To learn more about Ms. Larson’s book, or to order it for yourself, click here. And if you know of other books about mental illness written specifically for children, please contact me.
Fondly,
Examine what you have and what you need; and then let go of unnecessary, unhealthy or unproductive material goods, thoughts, beliefs, relationships. Free yourself.
Let it all go.
Become the essential you, identify your essential needs and move toward them. This is, in essence, your destiny.
This is KISMET.
EMDR, a psychotherapy treatment originally designed to alleviate distress associated with traumatic memories, is now being used with success in the treatment of PTSD, panic disorder and generalized anxiety.
During EMDR the client thinks about emotionally upsetting material in brief sequential doses while focusing on an external stimulus at the same time. Therapist-directed lateral eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus. Hand-tapping and audio stimulation are often used as well.
EMDR helps clients access their own traumatic memory network, accelerating information processing and enabling them to create new associations between the traumatic memory and more helpful, adaptive information.
These new associations result in “complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insights.”
EMDR uses a three pronged approach:
(1) Past events leading to dysfunction are processed and new associative links with adaptive information are created.
(2) Current circumstances that provoke distress are targeted and internal and external triggers are desensitized.
(3) Future events are imagined and envisioned as positive scenarios to assist the client in acquiring the skills needed for adaptive functioning.
Dr. Francine Shapiro, developer of EMDR, asserts that the human brain has an inherent information-handling system that processes multiple elements of every experience to an adaptive state where learning takes place. She sees memory as being stored in linked networks organized around the earliest related event and its associated affect. These memory networks contain related thoughts, images, emotions, and sensations.
Shapiro believes that unprocessed experiences become the basis of dysfunctional reactions and are the cause of many mental disorders. She proposes that EMDR successfully alleviates mental disorders by fully processing the components of distressing memories. These effects are thought to occur when the targeted memory is linked with other more adaptive information. When this happens, learning takes place, and the experience is stored with appropriate emotions able to guide the person in the future.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) contains many of the same elements found in psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, experiential, and body-centered therapies. “It is an information processing therapy…used to address the experiential contributors of a wide range of pathologies. It attends to the past experiences that have set the groundwork for pathology, the current situations that trigger dysfunctional emotions, beliefs and sensations, and the positive experience needed to enhance future adaptive behaviors and mental health.”
Interestingly, EMDR seems to be the most effective treatment for PTSD in returning veterans. Twelve sessions of EMDR eliminated post-traumatic stress disorder in 77% of the multiply traumatized combat veterans studied. There was 100% retention in the EMDR condition. Effects were maintained at follow-up.
This is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time, and I hope those in need have access to this quick, effective treatment.
Do you struggle to get a good night’s sleep?
Do you toss and turn, frequently awaken, or rise in the morning still feeling fatigued?
If so, you have more on the line that just a long, tired day. Your overall happiness may be at stake.
According to a recent Finnish study, people who have difficulty getting a good night’s sleep are three times as likely to be dissatisfied with their lives later on.
While poor sleep and life dissatisfaction each show a strong tendency to be inherited, they do not share the same genetic roots, according to Dr. Tiina Paunio of the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki. This suggests that something about sleeping badly in itself affects “the brain, emotions, and mood.”
Past studies looked at the relationship between life dissatisfaction – as reflected in feelings of well-being and mental functioning — and sleep quality, but none looked at how the two are associated until Dr. Paunio and her colleagues surveyed a group of 18,631 same-sex twins in 1975 and again in 1981.
In 1975, 9 percent of the study participants reported dissatisfaction with life, and were likely to be dissatisfied in 1981. However, their sleep quality did not deteriorate over this period. However, the people who slept “rather poorly or poorly” in 1975 were more than twice as likely to be dissatisfied with life in 1981.
The researchers adjusted for all of the variables including health problems, smoking and drinking habits, and physical activity levels, finding that poor sleep independently tripled the likelihood of life dissatisfaction.
They seem to have proven that poor sleep quality may lead to an overall dissatisfaction with life.
So if you’re sleeping poorly, figure out why and make the necessary changes.
Your future happiness may depend on it.
Our basic physical needs are air, water, food, protection from the elements and sleep.
Everything else is a higher need or preference.
It’s important for all of us to work toward higher needs. We want good health, satisfying employment, rewarding relationships, a sense of belonging and so on up the pyramid.
But take note: Designer shoes are not on Maslow’s pyramid of human needs. Neither are BMWs, bigger houses, dinners out three times a week, or international vacations. These all are wants or preferences.
Don’t get attached to preferences. Don’t undervalue your life if you cannot afford these luxuries. Enjoy them if you can, release the desire for them if you can’t. Your life is not worse, less significant or less valuable if you don’t accumulate possessions or unusual experiences. In fact, a growing number of philosophers and spiritual leaders say that a focus on the material blinds us to the truly valuable.
Ultimately, the choice is yours.
Choose to be happy. Choose contentedness.
Find the value and joy in the experiences available to you every single day, and embrace them.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the adage, “If you want something done, ask the busiest person to do it.”
For the longest time, I thought this was complimentary, but then I realized that people love to take advantage of the skills, talent and seemingly unlimited time of those who can’t say “no.” And I also learned that many people, especially women, said “yes” to everything because they fear rejection or worry about disappointing others, or lack a sense of empowerment or self-worth. Sometimes saying “no” is the most self-loving and powerful thing you can say or do.
If you see a bit of yourself reflected in the paragraph above, do some self-assessment. Respect yourself and learn to value your own time, then choose when you want to say “yes’ or “no.” If a project is of interest or meaning to you, do it; but say “no” to anything that falls outside of that realm. And remember that everyone, everyday, needs time to relax, to be alone and to do those tasks that they find rewarding.
When you have a task to complete, learn everything you need to know in order to do it correctly. If you don’t fully understand, ASK someone. People are much more tolerant of a question than of a job done wrong.
When taking down directions, read them back to make certain you’ve made no mistakes. The same goes for copying phone numbers, credit card information, or messages over the phone. Repeat everything back to avoid potential problems stemming from transposed numbers or clerical mistakes.
When you give directions or information to another, have him repeat it back. Irritation and anxiety almost always stem from a lack of understanding, not intentional “misdoing.” Ask questions and clarify information to reduce or remove that potential.