MySpace


MySpace.com | rss | sign in
IMDHA

International Medical Dental Hypnotherapy


Last Updated: 1/8/2010

Send Message
Instant Message
Email to a Friend
Subscribe

Gender: Female
Status: Married
Age: 31
Sign: Capricorn

City: Laceyville
State: Pennsylvania
Country: US
Signup Date: 3/28/2009

Blog Archive
[Older      Newer]
 /  / 
February 9, 2010 - Tuesday 
12:49 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
February 9, 2010 - Tuesday 
Happiness in Old Age Depends on Attitude http://www.livescie nce.com/health/ 051212_aging_ happy.html
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 12 December 2005 01:16 pm ET
Happiness in old age may have more to do with attitude than actual health, a new study suggests.
Researchers examined 500 Americans age 60 to 98 who live independently and had dealt with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental health conditions or a range of other problems. The participants rated their own degree of successful aging on scale of 1-10, with 10 being best.
Despite their ills, the average rating was 8.4.
"What is most interesting about this study is that people who think they are aging well are not necessarily the (healthiest) individuals, " said lead researcher Dilip Jeste of the University of California at San Diego.
"In fact, optimism and effective coping styles were found to be more important to successfully aging than traditional measures of health and wellness," Jeste said. "These findings suggest that physical health is not the best indicator of successful aging—attitude is."
The finding may prove important for the medical community, which by traditional measures would have considered only 10 percent of the study members to be aging successfully.
"The commonly used criteria suggest that a person is aging well if they have a low level of disease and disability," Jeste said. "However, this study shows that self-perception about aging can be more important than the traditional success markers."
Health and happiness may indeed be largely in the mind. A study released last year found that people who described themselves as highly optimistic a decade ago had lower rates of death from cardiovascular disease and lower overall death rates than strong pessimists. Research earlier this year revealed that the sick and disabled are often as happy as anyone else.
The new study also showed that people who spent time each day socializing, reading or participating in other hobbies rated their aging satisfaction higher.
"For most people, worries about their future aging involve fear of physical infirmity, disease or disability," Jeste said. "However, this study is encouraging because it shows that the best predictors of successful aging are well within an individual's control."
The results, announced today, were reported at a meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmaco logy.
__._,_.___
12:46 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
February 2, 2010 - Tuesday 
Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: February 1, 2010
The theory of relativity showed us that time and space are intertwined. To which our smarty-pants body might well reply: Tell me something I didn't already know, Einstein.
Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants' bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time.
As they thought about years gone by, participants leaned slightly backward, while in fantasizing about the future, they listed to the fore. The deviations were not exactly Tower of Pisa leanings, amounting to some two or three millimeters' shift one way or the other. Nevertheless, the directionality was clear and consistent.
"When we talk about time, we often use spatial metaphors like `I'm looking forward to seeing you' or `I'm reflecting back on the past,' " said Lynden K. Miles, who conducted the study with his colleagues Louise K. Nind and C. Neil Macrae. "It was pleasing to us that we could take an abstract concept such as time and show that it was manifested in body movements."
The new study, published in January in the journal Psychological Science, is part of the immensely popular field called embodied cognition, the idea that the brain is not the only part of us with a mind of its own.
"How we process information is related not just to our brains but to our entire body," said Nils B. Jostmann of the University of Amsterdam. "We use every system available to us to come to a conclusion and make sense of what's going on."
Research in embodied cognition has revealed that the body takes language to heart and can be awfully literal-minded.
You say you're looking forward to the future? Here, Ma, watch me pitch forward!
You say a person is warm and likable, as opposed to cold and standoffish? In one recent study at Yale, researchers divided 41 college students into two groups and casually asked the members of Group A to hold a cup of hot coffee, those in Group B to hold iced coffee. The students were then ushered into a testing room and asked to evaluate the personality of an imaginary individual based on a packet of information.
Students who had recently been cradling the warm beverage were far likelier to judge the fictitious character as warm and friendly than were those who had held the iced coffee.
Or maybe you are feeling the chill wind of social opprobrium. When researchers at the University of Toronto instructed a group of 65 students to remember a time when they had felt either socially accepted or socially snubbed, those who conjured up memories of a rejection judged the temperature of the room to be an average of five degrees colder than those who had been wrapped in warm and fuzzy thoughts of peer approval.
The body embodies abstractions the best way it knows how: physically. What is moral turpitude, an ethical lapse, but a soiling of one's character? Time for the Lady Macbeth Handi Wipes. One study showed that participants who were asked to dwell on a personal moral transgression like adultery or cheating on a test were more likely to request an antiseptic cloth afterward than were those who had been instructed to recall a good deed they had done.
When confronted with a double entendre, a verbal fork in the road, the body heeds Yogi Berra's advice, and takes it. In a report published last August in Psychological Science, Dr. Jostmann and his colleagues Daniel Lakens and Thomas W. Schubert explored the degree to which the body conflates weight and importance. They learned, for example, that when students were told that a particular book was vital to the curriculum, they judged the book to be physically heavier than those told the book was ancillary to their studies.
The researchers wanted to know whether the sensation of weightiness might influence people's judgments more broadly.
In a series of experiments, study participants were asked to answer questionnaires that were attached to a metal clipboard with a compartment on the back capable of holding papers. In some cases the compartments were left empty, and so the clipboard weighed only 1.45 pounds. In other cases the compartments were filled, for a total clipboard package of 2.29 pounds.
Participants stood with either a light or heavy clipboard cradled in their arm, filling out surveys. In one, they were asked to estimate the value of six unfamiliar foreign currencies. In another, students indicated how important they thought it was that a university committee take their opinions into account when deciding on the size of foreign study grants. For a third experiment, participants were asked how satisfied they were with (a) the city of Amsterdam and (b) the mayor of Amsterdam.
In every study, the results suggested, the clipboard weight had its roundabout say. Students holding the heavier clipboard judged the currencies to be more valuable than did those with the lightweight boards. Participants with weightier clipboards insisted that students be allowed to weigh in on the university's financial affairs. Those holding the more formidable board even adopted a more rigorous mind-set, and proved more likely to consider the connection between the livability of Amsterdam and the effectiveness of its leader.
As Dr. Jostmann sees it, the readiness of the body to factor physical cues into its deliberations over seemingly unrelated and highly abstract concerns often makes sense. Our specific clipboard savvy notwithstanding, "the issue of how humans view gravity is evolutionarily useful," he said.
"Something heavy is something you should take care of," he continued. "Heavy things are not easily pushed around, but they can easily push us around." They are weighty affairs in every tine of the word.
The cogitating body prefers a hands-on approach, and gesturing has been shown to help children master math.
Among students who have difficulty with equations like 4 + 5 + 3 = __ + 3, for example, performance improves markedly if they are taught the right gestures: grouping together the unique left-side numbers with a two-fingered V, and then pointing the index finger at the blank space on the right.
To learn how to rotate an object mentally, first try a pantomime. "If you encourage kids to do the rotation movement with their hands, that helps them subsequently do it in their heads," said Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago, "whereas watching others do it isn't enough."
Yesterday is regrettable, tomorrow still hypothetical. But you can always listen to your body, and seize today with both hands.
12:45 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
January 21, 2010 - Thursday 

Daydream your way to better health

Galway Advertiser, January 21, 2010.
http://www.advertis er.ie/galway/ article/21181
Mary O'connor
"Pay attention". How often have you heard that command as you are firmly jolted back to reality from the world of fantasy?
It could be at school, work or while having a conversation with your nearest and dearest. Daydreaming is an offence of which most of us are guilty at some time or other. It is hard to resist the temptation of drifting off into a world of make believe when reality is less than exciting and the tasks which occupy our minds are dull or boring.
But do not think you are wasting valuable time doing this. Experts say daydreaming has an important function. Indulging in make believe prevents the mind overloading and offers it a safety valve when the rigours of life get too much for us.
Diarmuid Lavelle, a therapist and trainer who practices in Dominick Street, says the merits of this healthy habit are widely accepted.
"Science is discovering that nearly all artistic and imaginative endeavours enhance and enrich our thinking. Daydreaming improves our problem solving and increases our physical abilities. New evidence has emerged that daydreaming involves areas of the brain associated with high level complex problem solving. It is necessary for our intelligence. So Napoleon Bonaparte was right when he said `imagination rules the world' - obviously he did not have enough of it though!"
Frees the mind
Daydreaming frees the mind to combine the resources, ideas and solutions for success, he explains.
"Children who play with imaginary friends were considered a little odd but now having an imaginary friend is considered a sign of intelligence. The ability to daydream or exercise the imagination is the key. Children who practice music have a higher academic achievement rate than children who do not. The same is true for those who dance, play and do art or imaginative activities. Daydreaming is also a common activity among high performing adults and is often associated with positive thinking."
Finding solutions to problems often require that we think differently, "outside the box", he says.
"Our idea of reality is more like a tunnel than a box because it is ongoing. The walls of the tunnel are made out of our values and our perceptions of the world. If a solution is outside the reality tunnel we simply cannot access it. Daydreaming in full fantasy creates a lot of neural activity which allows us break out of the reality tunnel and find solutions."
Daydreaming can nurture the ability to create and hold two contradictory ideas in the mind at once and be comfortable (another sign of intelligence) , he outlines.
Too narrow
"For many problems rational thinking, like the pro and con list, does not work because it is too narrow. This list is made from what we already have in our reality tunnel and the solution is often `outside' our reality. Without daydreaming we cannot plan, adapt and execute our goals or solve complex problems. We cannot advance science, technology and evolve human consciousness. "
Most institutions view daydreaming as a scourge, something to be stamped out if we are going to learn or make it in the "real" world, according to Diarmuid.
"In today's society we tend to put too much emphasis on the cult of `doing.' If we are not doing something we feel we are wasting our time. We focus our energies on career oriented skills and tend to view pursuits of the imagination or daydreaming as less important."
What do people daydream about? Mostly happiness, status, wealth and love - things which make us feel good. We can also daydream negatively in reaction to fear, he reveals.
Daydreaming about revenge, control over others, illicit seduction and ultimate power may temporarily alleviate fear but increases insecurity.
"Part of the unconscious mind cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Part of our mind believes and reacts to our daydreams as if they are real. We actually `live' our daydreams."
If what we are doing does not require a lot of concentration or attention we tend to drift off into a daydream.
Mundane things
"The brain multi-tasks while doing mundane things that do not need total outward attention. We often skip off for a little daydream at work, in school or college and even while talking or listening to others. We tend to concentrate when we need to on the present only when there is something we need to pay attention to. The rest of the time we are `out of our minds'. Scientists and psychologists have discovered that up to 50 per cent or more of our time is taken up with daydreaming.
While fantasising can be enjoyable and even good for your health, it has a downside, he warns.
"Focusing our thinking in a narrow band of tasks is sometimes necessary to plan some future events. Letting our imaginations run wild all the time can end up with our thinking being too open and ineffective. Being present is necessary not only when outward attention is needed but also when our daydreams become negative. Stress, anxiety or tragedy can push our daydreams into nightmares. Bringing our attention into the now and focusing on the simple mundane tasks can be a welcome escape from negative day dreams.
Good escape
"Likewise daydreaming can be a good escape from the mundane if the here and now becomes overbearing. So, balance is the key between imagination and immediate reality. Daydreaming also has its merits as a way to relax during life's challenges.
"An athlete is only as powerful as their muscles can relax. The body and mind are similar, with no relaxation there is no stamina. The best things in life are free and our imagination is just one of them. We actually need to engage in positive solution oriented daydreaming and focus on the love, friendship, health and goodness there is around us."
He says daydreaming is simply a hypnotic state which programmes the mind. "Be careful what you daydream about because you may get it! Couples in troubled relationships daydream about the arguments and shortcomings of their partner. Couples who are successful in their relationship tend to daydream about good things they share and do with their partner. Relationships, happiness, wealth and success are made and broken in the imagination. Reality is a reflection of our daydreams rather than our daydreams being a reflection of reality."
11:40 AM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
January 7, 2010 - Thursday 
Mind's Eye' Influences Visual Perception
ScienceDaily (July 4, 2008) — Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.

"We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception," says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study. "This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on."
"These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself," Pearson and his co-authors write.

It is well known that a powerful perceptual experience can change the way a person sees things later. Just think of what can happen if you discover an unwanted pest in your kitchen, such as a mouse. Suddenly you see mice in every dust ball and dark corner—or think you do. Is it possible that imagining something, just once, might also change how you perceive things?

"You might think you need to imagine something 10 times or 100 times before it has an impact," says Frank Tong, associate professor of psychology and co-author of the study. "Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right."
To test how imagery affects perception, Pearson, Tong and co-author Colin Clifford of the University of Sydney had subjects imagine simple patterns of vertical or horizontal stripes, which are strongly represented in the primary visual areas of the brain. They then presented a green horizontal grated pattern to one eye and a red vertical grated pattern to the other to induce what is called binocular rivalry. During binocular rivalry, an individual will often alternately perceive each stimulus, with the images appearing to switch back and forth before their eyes. The subjects generally reported they had seen the image they had been imagining, proving the researcher's hypothesis that imagery would influence the binocular rivalry battle.

Additional experiments found that the effect of imagery on perception was approximately the same as showing the research subject a faint representation of one of the patterns between trials. Stronger shifts in perception were found if subjects either viewed or imagined a particular pattern for longer periods of time. They found that both imagery and perception can lead to a build-up of a "perceptual trace" that influences subsequent perception.

Pearson, Clifford and Tong also discovered that changing the orientation of the image from what had been imagined greatly reduced the impact of imagery on perception. Because orientation is processed in early visual areas, this suggests that imagery's interaction with perception may occur at early stages of visual processing.
The new findings offer an objective tool to assess the often-slippery concept of imagination.

"It has been very hard to pin down in the laboratory what exactly someone is experiencing when it comes to imagery, because it is so subjective," Tong says. "We found that the imagery effect, while found in all of our subjects, could differ a lot in strength across subjects. So this might give us a metric to measure the strength of mental imagery in individuals and how that imagery may influence perception."
The findings may also help settle a longstanding debate in the research community over whether mental imagery is visual—that one imagines something just as one sees it—or more abstract.

"More recently, with advances in human brain imaging, we now know that when you imagine something parts of the visual brain do light up and you see activity there," Pearson says. "So there's more and more evidence suggesting that there is a huge overlap between mental imagery and seeing the same thing. Our work shows that not only are imagery and vision related, but imagery directly influences what we see."
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and an Australia National Health and Mental Research Council Martin Fellowship. Pearson is a member of the Vanderbilt Vision Research Center. Tong is a member of the Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience.
12:57 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
January 2, 2010 - Saturday 

An attitude of gratitude for a better new year

By Sevak Khodabakhshian Posted December 26, 2009 at 2:04 p.m.
If your New Year's resolution is to be healthier, an attitude of gratitude may be the vital link to your success.
It has been my experience that people who have a positive outlook on life are grateful for what they have: an attitude of gratitude.
These same individuals, when confronted by injury or trauma, seem to respond to treatment better than those who do not. In fact, recent data from researchers (Emmons, McCullough, 2003) correlates gratitude and thankfulness with a wide range of healthy behaviors and improved treatment outcomes among patients with neuromuscular disease.
Conversely, it has been my experience that people who are generally pessimistic tend to focus on their symptoms and the absence of health. They become the victims of their circumstances, limiting their ability to fully express their innate potential for healing and well-being.
Inevitably, these patients tend to have higher rates of poor treatment outcomes and chronic health problems.
Which group would you say you belong to? If you think you may be in the latter group, you can rejoice! Rejoice, for no other reason than the fact that you have taken the first and most important step toward changing this attitude: acknowledging your shortcoming and a desire to change.
I have had the privilege of working with two people this year who have made tremendous gains in their health despite extraordinary injuries. By maintaining an attitude of gratitude, they have focused their effort on tangible results.
Ian experienced a life-changing accident two years ago when a vehicle drove into him while he was riding his bicycle on Pacific Coast Highway. The trauma shattered the bones of his right leg, requiring multiple surgeries over two years to stabilize his leg.
He crutched into our office not having walked without a crutch at any time for those two preceding years.
After four months of dedicated rehab, he recently ran unassisted on the treadmill at a pace of 5 mph for almost 15 minutes, a remarkable feat by any stretch of the imagination.
Laura survived a devastating helicopter crash two years ago that left her with permanent impairments that are unimaginable to most humans. Yet, through the intervention of caring providers and a tremendously thankful spirit, she has demonstrated an uncanny ability to not only overcome her impairments but also propel herself well beyond her treatment goals.
There has been nothing particularly innovative about what we have provided for Ian or Laura. A combination of manual therapies and progressive therapeutic exercises consistent with their needs gave them the opportunity to express their full potential; however, it was the grateful attitude that turned their opportunities into a reality.
Both Ian's and Laura's successes are a testament to their positive mind-sets.
Psychologists know that our actions are driven by our persistent thought patterns. It is therefore logical to deduce that whatever our thoughts are focused on will likely manifest in our lives.
If your new year's resolution is to be healthier, start by checking your thought patterns. If you become aware of persistent negative thoughts and feelings of anger, sadness or fear, it would be to your benefit to find and resolve the underlying cause of these thoughts and feelings.
By simply becoming aware of our continual thoughts, and mindfully engaging in the daily practicing of positive affirmations, we'll find an attitude of gratitude will likely emerge.
If you cannot resolve the underlying reasons for your discontent, I would strongly recommend consulting a psychologist.
Most importantly, count your blessings and be thankful for what you do have. Your new year's resolution is possible with the daily practice of gratitude and determined positive thinking.
— Sevak Khodabakhshian is a doctor of chiropractic with Thousand Oaks-based Omega Rehab & Sport, where a team of physical therapists, chiropractors and athletic trainers applies an active-care approach to healthcare. He can be reached for comments, questions or suggestions by e-mail, at Sevakk@omega- rehab.com.
12:51 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
December 31, 2009 - Thursday 
True Or False? How Our Brain Processes Negative Statements
ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2009) — Every day we are confronted with positive and negative statements. By combining the new, incoming information with what we already know, we are usually able to figure out if the statement is true or false. Previous research has suggested that including negative words, such as "not," in the middle of a sentence can throw off our brains and make it more difficult to understand.
Psychologists Mante S. Nieuwland and Gina R. Kuperberg from Tufts University investigated how different types of negative statements are processed in the brain. In this study, the researchers measured event related potential responses (ERPs) while participants read statements containing critical, mid-sentence words that made the statement true or false. An ERP is an electrical brain response, as measured at the scalp with electrodes, that is directly related to something that is seen or heard. ERP studies have been used to provide us with information about how language is initially processed in the brain before any noticeable behavior occurs. Previous studies have shown that when reading affirmative statements, large ERPs occur at the words which make the statement false.
In this study, participants read statements that were either pragmatically licensed or pragmatically unlicensed. Pragmatically licensed statements are informative and sound natural. For example, "In moderation, drinking red wine isn't bad for your health" is a pragmatically licensed statement. Pragmatically unlicensed statements, on the other hand, are unnatural and not helpful. An example of this type of statement would be, "Vitamins and proteins aren't very bad for your health." This statement is unlicensed because including the negative word "aren't" implies that vitamins and proteins may be bad for your health, which we know is not true. In this case, the negative word makes the statement trivial and not very useful.
The results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that the way negative statements are processed in the brain depends on the structure of the sentence itself. Just as in true statements, false words elicited larger ERPs than true words in pragmatically- licensed, negative sentences. That is, there was greater brain activity when the participants came across a word which rendered the statement false. However, in the pragmatically unlicensed sentences, true and false words elicited similar ERPs.
These results indicate that negation, when it is useful and informative (as in pragmatically licensed statements), does not make it more challenging for the brain to understand the negative meaning of the statement
12:57 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
December 23, 2009 - Wednesday 
Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind

10 - Sweet Dreams

If you were to ask 10 people what dreams are made of, you'd probably get 10 different answers. That's because scientists are still unraveling this mystery. One possibility: Dreaming exercises brain by stimulating the trafficking of synapses between brain cells. Another theory is that people dream about tasks and emotions that they didn't take care of during the day, and that the process can help solidify thoughts and memories. In general, scientists agree that dreaming happens during your deepest sleep, called Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

9 - Slumber Sleuth

Fruit flies do it. Tigers do it. And humans can't seem to get enough of it. No, not that. We're talking about shut-eye, so crucial we spend more than a quarter of our lives at it. Yet the underlying reasons for sleep remain as puzzling as a rambling dream. One thing scientists do know: Sleep is crucial for survival in mammals. Extended sleeplessness can lead to mood swings, hallucination, and in extreme cases, death. There are two states of sleep - non-rapid eye movement (NREM), during which the brain exhibits low metabolic activity, and rapid eye movement (REM), during which the brain is very active. Some scientists think NREM sleep gives your body a break, and in turn conserves energy, similar to hibernation. REM sleep could help to organize memories. However, this idea isn't proven, and dreams during REM sleep don't always correlate with memories.

8 - Phantom Feelings

It's estimated that about 80 percent of amputees experience sensations, including warmth, itching, pressure and pain, coming from the missing limb. People who experience this phenomenon, known as "phantom limb," feel sensations as if the missing limb were part of their bodies. One explanation says that the nerves area where the limb severed create new connections to the spinal cord and continue to send signals to the brain as if the missing limb was still there. Another possibility is that the brain is "hard-wired" to operate as if the body were fully intact - meaning the brain holds a blueprint of the body with all parts attached.

7 - Mission Control

Residing in the hypothalamus of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or biological clock, programs the body to follow a 24-hour rhythm. The most evident effect of circadian rhythm is the sleep-wake cycle, but the biological clock also impacts digestion, body temperature, blood pressure, and hormone production. Researchers have found that light intensity can adjust the clock forward or backward by regulating the hormone melatonin. The latest debate is whether or not melatonin supplements could help prevent jet lag - the drowsy, achy feeling you get when "jetting" across time zones.

6 - Memory Lane

Some experiences are hard to forget, like perhaps your first kiss. But how does a person hold onto these personal movies? Using brain-imaging techniques, scientists are unraveling the mechanism responsible for creating and storing memories. They are finding that the hippocampus, within the brain's gray matter, could act as a memory box. But this storage area isn't so discriminatory. It turns out that both true and false memories activate similar brain regions. To pull out the real memory, some researchers ask a subject to recall the memory in context, something that's much more difficult when the event didn't actually occur.

5 - Brain Teaser

Laughter is one of the least understood of human behaviors. Scientists have found that during a good laugh three parts of the brain light up: a thinking part that helps you get the joke, a movement area that tells your muscles to move, and an emotional region that elicits the "giddy" feeling. But it remains unknown why one person laughs at your brother's foolish jokes while another chuckles while watching a horror movie. John Morreall, who is a pioneer of humor research at the College of William and Mary, has found that laughter is a playful response to incongruities - stories that disobey conventional expectations. Others in the humor field point to laughter as a way of signaling to another person that this action is meant "in fun." One thing is clear: Laughter makes us feel better.

     4 - Nature vs. Nurture

In the long-running battle of whether our thoughts and personalities are controlled by genes or environment, scientists are building a convincing body of evidence that it could be either or both! The ability to study individual genes points to many human traits that we have little control over, yet in many realms, peer pressure or upbringing has been shown heavily influence who we are and what we do.

 

3 - Mortal Mystery

Living forever is just for Hollywood. But why do humans age? You are born with a robust toolbox full of mechanisms to fight disease and injury, which you might think should arm you against stiff joints and other ailments. But as we age, the body's repair mechanisms get out of shape. In effect, your resilience to physical injury and stress declines. Theories for why people age can be divided into two categories: 1) Like other human characteristics, aging could just be a part of human genetics and is somehow beneficial. 2) In the less optimistic view, aging has no purpose and results from cellular damage that occurs over a person's lifetime. A handful of researchers, however, think science will ultimately delay aging at least long enough to double life spans.

2 - Deep Freeze

Living forever may not be a reality. But a pioneering field called cryonics could give some people two lives. Cryonics centers like Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Arizona, store posthumous bodies in vats filled with liquid nitrogen at bone-chilling temperatures of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (78 Kelvin). The idea is that a person who dies from a presently incurable disease could be thawed and revived in the future when a cure has been found. The body of the late baseball legend Ted Williams is stored in one of Alcor's freezers. Like the other human popsicles, Williams is positioned head down. That way, if there were ever a leak in the tank, the brain would stay submerged in the cold liquid. Not one of the cryopreserved bodies has been revived, because that technology doesn't exist. For one, if the body isn't thawed at exactly the right temperature, the person's cells could turn to ice and blast into pieces.

1 - Consciousness

When you wake up in the morning, you might perceive that the Sun is just rising, hear a few birds chirping, and maybe even feel a flash of happiness as the fresh morning air hits your face. In other words, you are conscious. This complex topic has plagued the scientific community since antiquity. Only recently have neuroscientists considered consciousness a realistic research topic. The greatest brainteaser in this field has been to explain how processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences. So far, scientists have managed to develop a great list of questions.
12:56 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
December 15, 2009 - Tuesday 
Sleep disorders: When going to bed is a nightmare
Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Waking up to find that you can't move, or that you've attacked your partner, might sound like a bad dream – but sleep disorders are all too real. Jane Feinmann examines the causes and cures

If you think that the worst that can happen at night is insomnia, think again. A range of little known, but relatively common, sleep disorders can cause fatal injury, disrupt personal and working life, or lead to dangerous misdiagnoses. Sleep medicine is still a young science – but effective methods of diagnosis and treatment are finally making night-time safer. Here are seven of the most problematic.

REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder

What is it?

Brain activity during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, the crucial 25 per cent of slumber when we dream, is pretty much the same as when we're awake. The big difference, however, is that our muscles become so relaxed during this time that we are effectively paralysed – almost certainly a protective mechanism to prevent people acting out dangerous dreams. When this mechanism doesn't work during REM sleep, it results in REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder (RBD) – where sufferers are able to act out dreams that can often be "vivid, action-filled and antagonistic" , according to RBD expert, Dr Carlos Schenk of the Sleep Disorder Centre at the University of Minnesota.

Three in 100 people, mainly men over 50, suffer from RBD, sometimes with devastating consequences; some self-harm and many assault their partners. Typically, an RBD sufferer yells out, punches or kicks in response to a dream, and court cases involving RBD show that choking and headlocks are common.

Retired steelworker, Brian Thomas spent 10 months in prison after he got his wife in a headlock and then strangled her while in the throes of a nightmare during a romantic weekend away. Thomas, 59, from Neath, near Swansea, was only freed in November when the prosecution acknowledged that the cause of his behaviour was RBD rather than malice.

What causes it?

Scientists don't yet know what causes RBD, though around 40 per cent of sufferers go on to develop Parkinson's disease.

What's the treatment?

Getting the disorder diagnosed in a sleep clinic is an essential first step. Sleeping alone, preferably on a mattress, is advisable. Some sufferers tether themselves to the bed or use pillow barricades. "It is now standard practice to treat RBD with clonazepam, a non-addictive benzodiazepine, though it is not yet licensed for this purpose in the UK," says Dr Chris Idzikowski, Edinburgh Sleep Centre director (www.edinburghsleepc entre.com ).

Restless Legs Syndrome

What is it?

One in 10 of the population experience an irresistible urge to move their legs as a result of an itching, burning, or otherwise uncomfortable feeling in the legs when they are sleeping. Eight out of 10 RLS sufferers also experiencing involuntary leg twitching during sleep. Until recently it was frequently misdiagnosed as a brain or muscle disorder, or sufferers were thought to be depressed. Now, however, doctors have started to recognise that RLS is a serious health problem, disrupting sleep and having an adverse effect on quality of life.

What causes it?

Recent research at John Hopkins University suggests that an iron deficiency in the brain is a major cause of RLS. Scientists are optimistic that on-going research funded by the pharmaceutical industry will soon produce a drug that cures RLS by targeting the way the body regulates iron intake.

What's the treatment?

Get a diagnosis at a sleep clinic. There is no licensed treatment for RLS, but specialists in the UK will try a range of medications to treat the disorder, including anti-epileptic drugs, opiates to induce relaxation and sleeping pills. Practise Pilates, yoga or other stretching exercises late in the day.

Bruxism

What is it?

Eight out of 100 people grind their teeth at night, disrupting sleep, damaging teeth and causing facial pain.

What causes it?

A typical sufferer is a young, educated adult who smokes, drinks lots of coffee and alcohol, and may be suffering from anxiety. People with obstructive sleep apnoea are also at higher risk.

What's the treatment?

Wearing a plastic gum shield prevents the noisiest grinding as well as wear and tear of teeth. Hypnotherapy can also help.

Sleep walking

What is it?

Nearly one in five children are somnambulists – which involves getting out of bed and walking around the room or house in a confused state while deeply asleep. It's most common between the ages of three and five. But it can persist into, or even begin in, adulthood.

What causes it?

Obstructive sleep apnoea (see below) is one of a number of sleep disorders that can trigger sleep walking, as is bed-wetting in children. Adults start sleep walking usually as a result of sleep deprivation or of being under the influence of sedatives, including alcohol.

What's the treatment?

Sleep walkers may become angry if woken – but it's far more dangerous not to wake them. Making the bedroom safe by locking doors and windows, and removing sharp objects around the (non-bunk) bed, is an obvious strategy. Hypnotherapy can help. Dr Idzikowski recommends paroxetine and clonazepam for adult sleep walkers – as well as cutting back on caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol, and going to bed at regular hours.

Sleep paralysis

What is it?

The brain signals that inhibit muscle movement during REM sleep may not stop immediately on waking. Four out of 10 people experience this phenomenon at least once in their lives. They feel paralysed, and and one in five of this group also experience bizarre and often terrifyingly realistic visual and auditory hallucinations. Most frequently they report seeing or feeling a ghostly, devil-like or human presence in the room. The disorder used to be explained as the work of witches or nocturnal attacks by devils or evil spirits, according to Chris French, Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths University, London. But today, he says, it's more likely to explain the relatively widespread belief in alien abduction,

"People need a logical explanation to reassure themselves that they are not losing their sanity. They read about sightings of UFOs and the endorsement of alien abduction by a handful of maverick scientists. And then they discover that other people have had the same experience, and as an explanation, it becomes almost comforting," says Professor French. "What clinches the conviction is the widely held belief that aliens routinely wipe all memories of the actual kidnap, so that just because you can't remember being abducted doesn't mean it didn't happen."

The widely quoted statistic that 3.7 million Americans believe they have been abducted by aliens is actually based on a questionnaire which listed the symptoms of sleep paralysis. "The research assumed that anyone who had a memory of being unable to move while feeling the presence of frightening creatures or humanoids had actually been abducted," says French.

What causes it?

It's probably an hereditary disorder and often happens to people with narcolepsy (below), occurring most frequently as a result of sleep deprivation or stress.

What's the treatment?

Avoid getting overtired, sleep at regular hours, and reduce stress as far as possible. Be aware that disruption to the sleep cycle such as jet lag or shift work raises the risk. Most people need only reassurance – and many can learn

to enjoy, or at least tolerate, an occasional episode. But for those severely affected, anti-depressant drugs that suppress REM sleep may be necessary.

Narcolepsy

What is it?

This condition, affecting one in 2,500 men, women and children, is experienced as an irresistible need to sleep for up to an hour during the day. This excessive day-time sleepiness can be triggered by laughter, anger, surprise or sexual arousal, and causes havoc if it occurs while eating a meal, driving a car, bathing a baby or cooking food. Relationships, both personal and at work, also suffer, and people with narcolepsy frequently develop low self-esteem, depression and a terror of falling asleep at an inappropriate time.

What causes it?

Recent research suggests that narcolepsy is the result of the body's failure to produce a brain chemical called orexin, which may be genetic. It may be associated with other sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnoea and and restless legs syndrome.

What's the treatment?

Counselling, lifestyle, advice on exercise, scheduling sleep and mealtimes, and cognitive behavioural therapy help to come to terms with the disorder and control the unplanned naps. Stimulants including amphetamine can be prescribed to increase alertness.

Obstructive sleep apnoea

What is it?

This major cause of road traffic accidents due to day-time sleepiness is caused by the muscles in the back of the throat failing to keep the airway open, despite efforts to breathe. In severe OSA, the sufferer doesn't breathe for up to one minute, sometimes as many as 400 times a night. It's not a killer – at least not directly. The body has a self-preservation mechanism where the brain wakes you up in order to make you breathe. But up to one in 10 of the population, mostly middle-aged men, have their sleep seriously disrupted by OSA, with partners suffering from the noisy snoring that goes with it.

A recent Israeli study suggests that far from being dangerous, OSA actually extends your lifespan, possibly because the constant breaks in oxygen and blood supply to the heart and brain, caused by the pauses in the breathing, somehow strengthen these organs and make them better able to cope if a heart attack or stroke occurs. Most experts, however, insist that treatment is essential, and the Department of Health is now funding treatment and research to what is seen as a major social and clinical problem.

What causes it?

Obesity, a double chin, smoking and drinking are all thought to contribute.

What's the treatment?

The most effective method, using a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure device, is usually prescribed only after diagnosis in a sleep clinic. This nasal gadget keeps the airways inflated so that the lungs receive oxygen throughout the night. Those with milder symptoms can wear a plastic gum shield (a Mandibular Advancement Device), which forces the lower jaw forward and stops the tongue from blocking off the airway to your throat.

1:06 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
December 12, 2009 - Saturday 

SAN JOSE, CA (KGO) -- An innovative math program is boosting scores in some schools. It uses computer games and an animated character which may be the answer to this country's math crisis.

Just three years ago, Anderson Elementary in San Jose was the lowest performing school in Santa Clara County. To put it in perspective, there are about 250 elementary schools in that county and Anderson was at the bottom.
"The students were so low academically," said Karen Allard, the school's former assistant principal. "We remember walking into a fifth-grade classroom and sitting there teaching fifth-graders the long 'A' sound."

Only 19 percent of the kids were proficient in math.

Allard and principal Destiny Ortega were hired to make drastic changes. Then came what is arguably the most popular math teacher the school has ever had -- an animated penguin named Jiji.
"We're at 72 percent proficient in math right now," said Ortega.
In September, Anderson had the greatest API gain in the entire county -- 136 points. The API measures a school's proficiency in math and English. Their API test scores went from 674 to 810.
California's Department of Education wants every school in the state to reach 800.
Jiji is a computer game the students at Anderson love. But in fact, the penguin teaches them about fractions through animated diagrams on the computer, not by using numbers. In one example, a half-circle plus another half-circle put together equals a whole.
"What our research says is that all the students can engage immediately with the visuals and then they can get quick success in learning math," said Andrew R. Coulson, president of the education division of Mind Research Institute in Santa Ana which owns Jiji.
While Jiji makes math easier to comprehend, students at Anderson still had to learn the mathematical concepts in English.
"It's difficult for students to understand mathematical concepts when there is a language issue," said Glen Ishiwata, superintendent of Moreland School District.
Most are English learners. So the school implemented a math board program where the kids learn the language by repeating over and over again what the teacher says and by using props and visuals.
Several University of California scientists came up with the software program with animated diagrams. In one lesson, a student must figure out how many rotations and steps it will to take to place Jiji in the space where the key to a treasure lies. By doing so, she's thinking multiple steps ahead, like in chess.
"And being able in your mind's eye to kind of rotate it around and think about how this is going to fit next to that, all of that kind of reasoning skill ,, that's something these kids are going to be excellent at in the future," explained Coulson.
It's a great skill to have when studying engineering and physics. The teacher also learns who is getting it and who is not.
"The teacher gets a printout report after they go into the computer lab of how the students are progressing," said Ortega.
Jiji has been such a huge success at Anderson and at two other schools in the area, that this year 24 Silicon Valley schools have started using it. The ultimate goal is to produce a solid workforce for Silicon Valley companies.
"As you know, they've had to go outside the country to get some of the people that they have in their businesses today," said Ishiwata. "We don't want that. We have the people here, we have the youngsters here who are ready to take those jobs and we'll make sure that we get them prepared."
(Copyright ©2009 KGO-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
 
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/focus_on_solutions&id=7167104
1:03 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate