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Ten Unusual Ways to Get in the Top 1% of Happiness

December 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

At midnight my door opened and I saw the shadow of someone about 4 feet tall walk into my room and stand by my side of the bed. “I can’t sleep,” she said and she was smart enough to also say, “my mind is racing”. Over the nine years of her life so far she has probably heard me say that many times. Like when I was losing a home and I threw a chair and the police were called. The third time police had to be called on me in life (out of five).

So I took her hand and we walked downstairs and she gave me a lecture on what was going on in each one of her classes and she concluded with a discussion of the various Greek gods (“Athena is my favorite,” she said. “Who is yours. Hermes?”) And then I saw her yawn and I said maybe now she can try to go back to sleep, which she did.

I’m scared for her. My mind races also. How many times has my mind woken me up at midnight to remind me of how little money was in my bank account, or how many bills I had to pay, or how much I hated my job, or even hated being an entrepreneur with customers, clients, people screwing me, people hating me. I don’t want her mind to wake her like that when she’s older. It’s the worst pain. And I might not be there then for her to talk to.

Will she kill herself? Will she wake up her husband or girlfriend or whatever and say, “my mind is racing. Talk to me.”

One time some bad business things were happening to me. Something was shutting down, other things were going down. Some people were cheating me. Whatever. My mind was racing. I woke up Claudia. “Breathe like this,” she said. It was two in the morning but she wanted to help. She had me do a breathing exercise that involved quickly exhaling but I forget the rest of it. Then I fell asleep.

One investor of mine told me I had a “scarcity complex” - that I always had a strong feeling that I had nothing even when I had many things to be happy about. This was about eight years ago. I agreed with him. He wanted to be my mentor. I wanted him to sell his business and then let me invest the money. So I agreed to everything he said. I did that back then. But in this case maybe he was right. Unless I’m at optimal health in every way I constantly feel like I have less than nothing. It’s post-traumatic stress from losing everything several times and watching my father lose everything twenty years earlier.

No toys will ever patch that bleeding.

The country now has a scarcity complex. “The banks took everything.” “The government took everything.” “There are no jobs.” “There is no money”. Everyone is in despair. Everyone is scared about feeding their family. Scared and scarred. Greece, Japan, China, Libya, terrorism, Jamie Dimon, Obama, Rich Perry. These are the monsters in the closet at night.

I’m tired of monsters in my closet. Anger won’t change anything. Complaining won’t change anything.

I want to be consistently in the “1%”. Not of money. Money comes and goes, talking of Michelangelo.

I want to be in the 1% of the happiest people on Earth.

My only goal is to be in the 1% of happiness. Else, if I’m in the 99%, then all of my other goals will also fall short of the 1%. You can’t meet the love of your life, for instance, if you’re in the botton 99%. At least, from my experience it will be harder. It’s like taking out the garbage and expecting to meet the love of your life in the garbage can.

My life is like a laboratory and happiness has been the experiment. Only when I’ve been in the 1% of happiness have my other goals been satisfactorily achieved.

So I know what I have to do when I slip into the 99%. This might not work for everyone. Maybe some people have to protest with signs to be in the top 1% of happiness. That doesn’t work for me.

But these ten things work for me:

A) Lately, exercise has worked for me to stay in shape and sweat out toxins. Bad stuff builds up in the body. You have the usual disgusting methods to get out bad toxins that go into the digestion system. But what about bad stuff that builds up in every pore of your body. You have to sweat it out. Sometimes just 100 pushups a day will do it. For me, I like doing yoga.

B) I don’t have a lot of friends. But I do know enough people that I can do this: every day I make sure I don’t talk to people who bring me down. And I try to meet new people who bring me up. I won’t do business with anyone who brings me down. The last time I tried that, my body told me, “Bad James!” On the second day on the job I fell straight to the ground and sprained my ankle for no obvious reason. If you let it, the reactions in your body (any part of your body) will tell you if you are with good people or bad people. When I get an email from someone who is bad for me, I usually get a quick stomach ache. So I delete the mail and put the emailer in Spam. Its’s the only solution if I want to be in the 1%. I don’t engage at all with anyone who is going to bring me down. Why should I? [See. "How to Deal with Crappy People"]

C) I like to be creative. Whether it’s through this blog or writing down a list of ideas or even drawing. It makes my brain come to life in ways that it’s not used to. It’s important here, to never expect results from your creativity. When I was working on the pilot of a TV show, for instance, it made me very anxious to know whether or not it was going to get accepted. I was too attached to the results of the creativity. Just like now I might be too attached to blog traffic.

D) I like to avoid these nine obstacles to my success. Any one of these nine will make me unhappy.

E) I try to avoid all leaks. For instance, I’m happily married. Cheating on my wife would make me unhappily married. BAM! That would put me in the 99%.

F) I try to be as grateful as possible. When I remind someone what they’ve done for me and how happy it made me it not only brings back memories of that happiness it also makes me happy that I’m helping them be happy by being grateful for them.

G) I try to “surrender”. I say to myself, “I can’t do everything. I can’t take this pain. I can’t have everything I want. Sometimes I’m helpless in the face of my material goals. So YOU figure it out.” I don’t even know who I’m talking to. Who YOU is. I might be talking to my teddy bear when I say that. But having a sense of surrender and humility will help me reduce my needs (I don’t need a yacht for instance) and help me to feel humility. There’s a physical exercise that’s good to practice surrender if you are not good at it. In America we’re not really good at surrender. We never give up. We want to win every war. The exercise is to reach down and touch your toes. It obscures your vision (because you are staring at your knees), its almost impossible (you have to be flexible, both physically and mentally), and it looks like your bowing, which is an unusual thing for Americans to do. So it teaches surrender if you are uncomfortable with it.

(Claudia touching her toes)

H) I try not to lie to anyone or harm anyone. Because then you have to keep track of which lie was told to who. Or you feel bad about who you harmed, which was usually as a result of either anger or greed. If I never harm anyone I never have to deal with anyone’s anger (unless it’s irrational anger). Anger makes me unhappy.

I) Sometimes you can’t avoid work that you don’t want to do. We all have to feed our families. But, in general, if I move every day towards staying away from corporate America (fluorescent lights and bosses make me less happy) then I’ll be more happy.

J) I need a tenth thing so that I can call this post, “Ten Ways to be in the Top 1%” so hold on a second while I think of something…coffee? No, sometimes it spills on me. A lot of sex? Makes me VERY happy but sometimes makes me jealous or anxious. Ahh, sleeping 8-9 hours a day. Because then I know I’m in the top 1% for at least 1/3 of the day. And I also know I won’t be tired the other 2/3, which would put me in the bottom 99%.

And if I’m consistently in the top 1% of happiness, maybe there’s a slight chance my two daughters , and maybe others I interact with, will be in the top 1% when they’re older. Happiness is both contagious and hereditary. And so on.

 

Source: https://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/10/ten-unusual-ways-to-get-in-the-top-1/

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychology, Self-Sustainability Tagged With:

Stress And How It Affects Your Body

December 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Along with a lot of joy, having a new baby can bring a whole lot of new stress. There are many drastic changes taking place in your home, and if you are a first time mom, it can be especially stressful. This article will give you some wonderful tips for making your life with your new baby a little less stressful.

Practice preventative health care maintenance and give yourself fewer reasons to stress-out! Not only do questions about your health keep you stressed, but failing to engage in preventative health measures can really harm you in the long run. So, make sure you keep regular check-ups and appointments for screenings to keep you thinking healthy, being healthy and less stressed!

When you feel your body reacting to stress, you need to have an outlet for the stress so that it does not interfere with your life. The best way to rid your mind and body of stress is to exercise regularly, ideally for thirty minutes at least five days a week. Not only will this help you feel more calm, it will boost your energy throughout the day.

A great tip that can help you feel less stressed is to go back and finish something that you started. We all know the lingering feeling of leaving something unfinished. By going back and completing something that you left unfinished, your stress will go down and you’ll feel much better.

Make time for stress. Instead of feeling stressed all day long, minor stress and worrisome thoughts can wait. Tell yourself you’ll worry at a certain time of the day and when you have a stressful thought, remind yourself that it’s not the right time. When you finally get to the appointed worry time, you might find that you’re not even stressed anymore.

In order to deal with stress at work consider getting a stress ball. This is a great way to privately and quietly deal with your stress. The exertion used on a stress ball will at least help to deal with stress in a manner that allows both you and your co-workers to go about your day.

If you have problems with stress, try joining a sport team or community. Look for adult softball, racquetball, basketball, or other team sports. Sports are great for relieving stress because they satisfy our need for competition as well as proving exercise. Let yourself have some fun and burn some calories to relieve your stress.

Create a peaceful saying. Many people use a positive saying or affirmation that they say repeatedly when they begin to feel stressed. By repeating the affirmation, you can silence the more critical thoughts you are having about the situation. Next time you are feeling stressed, try saying the affirmation ten times in a row.

Learn positive thinking techniques to conquer stress. When you are feeling stressful, sit down and take some deep breaths. Close your eyes and think of yourself in your favorite relaxing place. Whether it is on a beach relaxing and sipping a drink or at a ball game with your kids, laughing and having a good time. Just thinking about positive and stress free situations will make the stress go away.

This next tip for dealing with stress may sound like common knowledge, but not many people realize it. To get rid of stress in your life, you must remember to avoid the cause of the stress. Stay away from situations that are stressful. The more you stay around stress, the worse your life will be.

As was stated at the beginning of this article, having a new baby can bring a lot of stress into your life. Learning how to deal with the new stress can be challenging. Hopefully, after reading this article, you will feel a little more prepared and will use the tips to help you chill out, when things become too stressful.

 

Source: https://www.survivingthefuture.com/stress-and-how-it-affects-your-body.html

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychology Tagged With:

After Duty, Dogs Suffer Like Soldiers

December 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

SAN ANTONIO — The call came into the behavior specialists here from a doctor in Afghanistan. His patient had just been through a firefight and now was cowering under a cot, refusing to come out.

Apparently even the chew toys hadn’t worked.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, thought Dr. Walter F. Burghardt Jr., chief of behavioral medicine at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland Air Force Base. Specifically, canine PTSD.

If anyone needed evidence of the frontline role played by dogs in war these days, here is the latest: the four-legged, wet-nosed troops used to sniff out mines, track down enemy fighters and clear buildings are struggling with the mental strains of combat nearly as much as their human counterparts.

By some estimates, more than 5 percent of the approximately 650 military dogs deployed by American combat forces are developing canine PTSD. Of those, about half are likely to be retired from service, Dr. Burghardt said.

Though veterinarians have long diagnosed behavioral problems in animals, the concept of canine PTSD is only about 18 months old, and still being debated. But it has gained vogue among military veterinarians, who have been seeing patterns of troubling behavior among dogs exposed to explosions, gunfire and other combat-related violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like humans with the analogous disorder, different dogs show different symptoms. Some become hyper-vigilant. Others avoid buildings or work areas that they had previously been comfortable in. Some undergo sharp changes in temperament, becoming unusually aggressive with their handlers, or clingy and timid. Most crucially, many stop doing the tasks they were trained to perform.

“If the dog is trained to find improvised explosives and it looks like it’s working, but isn’t, it’s not just the dog that’s at risk,” Dr. Burghardt said. “This is a human health issue as well.”

That the military is taking a serious interest in canine PTSD underscores the importance of working dogs in the current wars. Once used primarily as furry sentries, military dogs — most are German shepherds, followed by Belgian Malinois and Labrador retrievers — have branched out into an array of specialized tasks.

They are widely considered the most effective tools for detecting the improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, frequently used in Afghanistan. Typically made from fertilizer and chemicals, and containing little or no metal, those buried bombs can be nearly impossible to find with standard mine-sweeping instruments. In the past three years, I.E.D.’s have become the major cause of casualties in Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps also has begun using specially trained dogs to track Taliban fighters and bomb-makers. And Special Operations commandos train their own dogs to accompany elite teams on secret missions like the Navy SEAL raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Across all the forces, more than 50 military dogs have been killed since 2005.

The number of working dogs on active duty has risen to 2,700, from 1,800 in 2001, and the training school headquartered here at Lackland has gotten busy, preparing about 500 dogs a year. So has the Holland hospital, the Pentagon’s canine version of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Dr. Burghardt, a lanky 59-year-old who retired last year from the Air Force as a colonel, rarely sees his PTSD patients in the flesh. Consultations with veterinarians in the field are generally done by phone, e-mail or Skype, and often involve video documentation.

In a series of videos that Dr. Burghardt uses to train veterinarians to spot canine PTSD, one shepherd barks wildly at the sound of gunfire that it had once tolerated in silence. Another can be seen confidently inspecting the interior of cars but then refusing to go inside a bus or a building. Another sits listlessly on a barrier wall, then after finally responding to its handler’s summons, runs away from a group of Afghan soldiers.

In each case, Dr. Burghardt theorizes, the dogs were using an object, vehicle or person as a “cue” for some violence they had witnessed. “If you want to put doggy thoughts into their heads,” he said, “the dog is thinking: when I see this kind of individual, things go boom, and I’m distressed.”

Treatment can be tricky. Since the patient cannot explain what is wrong, veterinarians and handlers must make educated guesses about the traumatizing events. Care can be as simple as taking a dog off patrol and giving it lots of exercise, playtime and gentle obedience training.

More serious cases will receive what Dr. Burghardt calls “desensitization counterconditioning,” which entails exposing the dog at a safe distance to a sight or sound that might set off a reaction — a gunshot, a loud bang or a vehicle, for instance. If the dog does not react, it is rewarded, and the trigger — “the spider in a glass box,” Dr. Burghardt calls it — is moved progressively closer.

Gina, a shepherd with PTSD who was the subject of news articles last year, was successfully treated with desensitization and has been cleared to deploy again, said Tech. Sgt. Amanda Callahan, a spokeswoman at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

Some dogs are also treated with the same medications used to fight panic attacks in humans. Dr. Burghardt asserts that medications seem particularly effective when administered soon after traumatizing events. The Labrador retriever that cowered under a cot after a firefight, for instance, was given Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, and within days was working well again.

Dogs that do not recover quickly are returned to their home bases for longer-term treatment. But if they continue to show symptoms after three months, they are usually retired or transferred to different duties, Dr. Burghardt said.

As with humans, there is much debate about treatment, with little research yet to guide veterinarians. Lee Charles Kelley, a dog trainer who writes a blog for Psychology Today called “My Puppy, My Self,” says medications should be used only as a stopgap. “We don’t even know how they work in people,” he said.

In the civilian dog world, a growing number of animal behaviorists seem to be endorsing the concept of canine PTSD, saying it also affects household pets who experience car accidents and even less traumatic events.

Dr. Nicholas H. Dodman, director of the animal behavior clinic at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, said he had written about and treated dogs with PTSD-like symptoms for years — but did not call it PTSD until recently. Asked if the disorder could be cured, Dr. Dodman said probably not.

“It is more management,” he said. “Dogs never forget.”

 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/us/more-military-dogs-show-signs-of-combat-stress.html

Filed Under: Animal Rights, Mental Health, War Tagged With: ,

Norway Massacre: Breivik Declared Insane

November 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Psychiatrists assessing self-confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik have concluded that he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

They believe he was in a psychotic state both during and after the twin attacks on 22 July that led to the deaths of 77 people and injured 151.

Their report must still be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists.

Breivik will still be tried in April but it seems likely he will be placed in psychiatric care rather than prison.

Breivik admits carrying out the attacks but has pleaded not guilty to charges, arguing that that the attacks were atrocious but necessary for his campaign to defend Europe against a Muslim invasion.

The two psychiatrists who interviewed him on 13 occasions concluded that he lived in his “own delusional universe where all his thoughts and acts are guided by his delusions”, prosecutors told reporters.

Online manifesto

The 243-page report will be reviewed by a panel from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine.

Breivik, 32, is due to stand trial on 16 April for a hearing scheduled to last around 10 weeks.

Norwegian prosecutor Svein Holden: “The observed person was psychotic”

“If the final conclusion is that Breivik is insane, we will request that the court in the upcoming legal proceedings pass sentence by which Breivik is subjected to compulsory mental health care,” prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh told reporters in Oslo.

She later told the BBC that the trial would be unaffected by the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia: the only difference was that the prosecution could not ask the judge for a jail sentence.

“It will go as a normal trial as if he had been sane. We will ask him questions and the defence will ask him questions and the judge will ask him questions and he will have his time to talk,” she said.

Analysis

Norwegians have reacted with surprise and disbelief at the report stating that Breivik is criminally insane.

“I don’t see how Behring Breivik’s opinions set him apart from war criminals, who are tried in court as if they are sane,” said one man.

Hours before the announcement, radio news reports were still saying that such a verdict would be highly unlikely.

The shock is heightened by the media portrayal of Breivik as carefully planning his actions as a functioning member of society. He does not match the public’s idea of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Some see the verdict as Norwegian society’s attempt to marginalise and silence extreme right-wing opinions. Clearly this would harm open debate concerning these ideas.

Norwegian courts tend to abide by forensic reports.

If people do not see Breivik receive what they consider due punishment, it could reduce public faith in the courts and the Norwegian legal system.

Breivik’s defence lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said he was not surprised by the psychiatrists’ findings, adding that his client was unlikely to be surprised either.

But the deputy leader of the opposition Progress Party, Per Sandberg, thought the conclusion that Breivik was criminally insane was “completely incomprehensible”.

“How can someone who has planned this for such a long time… be considered insane,” he told Norwegian TV.

Before the report was made public, a lawyer for the victims said it did not matter what the conclusion was as long as Breivik was not allowed to go free.

“What will happen in the case, no matter what the conclusion, is that he [Breivik] will of course be incarcerated,” John Christian Elden said.

“And if the outcome is criminally sane or insane, that is, first and foremost a psychiatric question. The most important thing in our clients’ opinion is that he will not be able to walk the streets.”

On 22 July, Breivik disguised himself as a police officer to plant a car bomb that exploded close to government offices in the capital Oslo, killing eight people.

Still in uniform, he then drove to the island of Utoeya, where a summer youth camp of Norway’s governing Labour Party was being held.

In a shooting spree that lasted more than an hour, he killed 69 people - mostly teenagers.

In a manifesto he published online, Breivik said he was fighting to defend Europe from a Muslim invasion, which was being enabled by what he called “cultural Marxists” in Norway’s Labour Party, and the EU.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15936276

Filed Under: Crime, Extremism, Law, Mental Health, Police, Racism, Religion Tagged With: ,

Political Psychiatry, Social Control & Pharma, Psychology

November 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The relationship of big Pharma, Government and Psychiatry

Dr. John Breeding, Ph.D. psychologist talks about the use of psychiatry as in instrument of social control; political psychiatry.

The relationship of big Pharma, Government and Psychiatry. Are mental illness just social stigma placed on people as a means to control the society? How does this relate to eugenics? Where does the use of psych meds or drugs come in?

 

Filed Under: Big Pharma, Drugs, Mental Health, Politics, Psychology Tagged With:

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging - Full Movie (Documentary)

November 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This video provides the facts about psychotropic drugs and the huge profits they create for the pharmaceutical industry. These drugs are not safe and have not been on the market long enough to provide sufficient long term studies regarding their effects.

These drugs do cause addiction, however most “doctors” would call this dependence because you do not have to take an increasing dose over time. They are completely fine with you being addicted to the same amount of any given drug on a daily basis.

Over half of the people that commit suicide in the United States are prescribed to psychotropic drugs. (Ex: Paxil (Paroxetine), Zoloft (Sertraline), Prozac, Wellbutrin (Bupropion), Effexor, Seroquil, Ultram (Tramadol), etc.)

 

 

 

Filed Under: Big Pharma, Drugs, Health, Mental Health, Psychology, Suicide

Grief, Mourning, & Broken-Hearted Animals. No Doubt Many Animals Grieve The Loss Of Family & Friends

November 27, 2011 by 1 Comment

Over the past couple of years I’ve written about various aspects of the rich and complex emotional lives of animals, including essays on grief and mourning. I began one of those essays by writing, “There is no doubt that many animals experience rich and deep emotions. It’s not a matter of if emotions have evolved in animals but why they have evolved as they have. We must never forget that our emotions are the gifts of our ancestors, our animal kin. We have feelings and so do other animals.”

From time to time it’s worth revisiting the how’s and why’s of animal grief and mourning because more and more data have shown clearly that it’s arrogant and wrong to argue that we’re the only species in which grief and mourning have evolved. And grief crosses species barriers. The most obvious example is how we grieve the loss of our companion animals, a topic that will receive attention in Psychology Today by Dr. Jessica Pierce. Renowned anthropologist Barbara King, who is writing a book on grieving in animals, notes no one who has lived with a companion animal can doubt they grieve. I agree.

Of course our nonhuman companions also grieve the loss of their human friends. Many show such deep and enduring loyalty and devotion that they continue to follow the same routines in which they took part with their human friend for years after the human died or they choose to live out their lives where their human is buried. Among the most famous stories are those of Hachiko, an Akita who for ten years after his human companion’s death looked for him at the same train station in Tokyo, Japan, and of Bobby, a Skye Terrier, who took up residence for 14 years near the grave of his human companion, John Gray. When Greyfriar’s Bobby died in 1872 he was buried in the churchyard close to his master.

Many other animals display grief and mourning. A moving picture of chimpanzees grieving the loss of a group member, Dorothy, that went viral on the worldwide web can be seen here and a moving video of a chimpanzee mother’s grief can be seen here. I’ve literally felt the grief elephants feel for the loss of an other elephant. About 6 years ago I had the opportunity to observe elephants with renowned elephant researcher Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save The Elephants. Iain and I were driving into the field in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya where he and his team of researchers have conducted groundbreaking fieldwork for many years and I saw a group of elephants who formed a very loose group. Their heads were down, ears drooping, tails hanging listlessly, and they were just walking here and there, moping around, apparently broken-hearted. I asked ian if there was something wrong because not only could I see it but i could feel it and he told me the herd’s matriarch had died recently and it wasn’t clear if these individuals would get together again as they had been a tightly bonded group before she died. Just a few kilometers down the road I saw a group of elephants, each of whom was walking tall,heads up, ears up, and tails up. I could feel their happiness, clearly they were close friends, and they looked as content as could be. (For more on elephants see also.)

Perhaps one of the most well-known descriptions of the deep grief that animals feel when they lose a loved one is Jane Goodall’s observations of Flint, a young chimpanzee who withdrew from his group, stopped eating, and died of a broken heart soon after the death of his mother, Flo. Here is Goodall’s description from her book Through a Window:

Never shall I forget watching as, three days after Flo’s death, Flint climbed slowly into a tall tree near the stream. He walked along one of the branches, then stopped and stood motionless, staring down at an empty nest. After about two minutes he turned away and, with the movements of an old man, climbed down, walked a few steps, then lay, wide eyes staring ahead. The nest was one which he and Flo had shared a short while before Flo died. . . . in the presence of his big brother [Figan], [Flint] had seemed to shake off a little of his depression. But then he suddenly left the group and raced back to the place where Flo had died and there sank into ever deeper depression. . . . Flint became increasingly lethargic, refused food and, with his immune system thus weakened, fell sick. The last time I saw him alive, he was hollow-eyed, gaunt and utterly depressed, huddled in the vegetation close to where Flo had died. . . . the last short journey he made, pausing to rest every few feet, was to the very place where Flo’s body had lain. There he stayed for several hours, sometimes staring and staring into the water. He struggled on a little further, then curled up- and never moved again.

There’s no doubt Flint was grieving and feeling totally lost in the world. Life was no longer worth living.

We really don’t need more data to know other animals grieve and mourn the loss of family and friends and I’m sure as time goes on more and more species will be added to the list of animals who grieve. But for those who do want more, a book called Animal Grief: How Animals Mourn was recently published that contains new information on how a wide variety of animals respond to death. Accompanied by striking photographs of a wide range of animals is a text filled with new information about animal grief. Topics covered include animal souls, self-awareness, the neurobiology of grief and mourning, mourning rituals, stages of grief, and numerous examples of grief in a wide variety of animals, including elephants, chimpanzees, cats, dogs, and various birds. A large amount of information is packed in its 80 pages and it’s an easy read.

A big question still remains, namely, why has grief evolved? The functions of grief (why it has evolved) remain a topic for discussion. I ended my earlier essay on grief in animals as follows, and these explanations still seem to hold.

“Why do animals grieve and why do we see grief in different species of animals? It’s been suggested that grief reactions may allow for the reshuffling of status relationships or the filling the reproductive vacancy left by the deceased, or for fostering continuity of the group. Some theorize that perhaps mourning strengthens social bonds among the survivors who band together to pay their last respects. This may enhance group cohesion at a time when it’s likely to be weakened. Grief itself is something of a mystery, for there doesn’t seem to be any obvious adaptive value to it in an evolutionary sense. It does not appear to increase an individual’s reproductive success. Whatever its value is, grief is the price of commitment, that wellspring of both happiness and sorrow.”

Grieving and mourning clearly show that nonhuman animals are socially aware of what is happening in their worlds and that they feel deep emotions when family and friends die. Clearly we’re not the only animals who possess the cognitive and emotional capacities for suffering the loss of others.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201111/grief-mourning-and-broken-hearted-animals

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health Tagged With: ,

Don’t Let Life’s Hassles Get You Down

November 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

By Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. on November 19, 2011

Everyday hassles can cause more stress than you realize.

Life presents us with many challenges that test our ability to cope. If you or a loved one has faced a major personal loss or lived through a disaster, you know that these major life events take their toll. What you might not realize is how much your overall well-being and health are affected by the little annoyances and frustrations of everyday life. Psychologists Richard Folkman and Susan Lazarus used the term “hassles” to refer to these background stresses. Their large-scale study on coping carried out in the late 1970s showed definitively that the more the number of hassles people faced, the poorer their adaptation.

Why are hassles so harmful to our health? Unlike cataclysmic events or death of people close to us, they don’t directly threaten our lives and don’t force us to confront a personal loss. Instead, they raise our arousal levels bit by bit. Hassles erode our well-being by triggering small, but chronic, fight-or-flight responses.

Let’s take a closer look at the mini-stressors that qualify as hassles. Here’s a list of the common daily annoyances that show up on some of the most popular hassles scales.

1. Misplacing or losing things

2. Someone owes you money.

3. Dislike co-workers

4. Unexpected company

5. Preparing meals

6. Auto maintenance

7. Too many things to do

8. Legal problems

9. The weather

10. Silly practical mistakes

11. Shopping responsibilities

12. Traffic

13. Rising prices of common goods

14. Not enough money for food

15. Difficult customers/clients

How many of these common situations can you identify with? If you were taking an actual hassles questionnaire such as this one, you’d be asked to rate these plus another 100 or so common situations on a 3-point severity scale. If your severity scale is more than twice the number of hassles, you may be experiencing unhealthy levels that might require your seeking help.

Let’s examine why these common situations can be so stressful. Everyone reacts differently to the same situation, but some of these situations present common challenges. Making mistakes and losing things are not only annoying and time-wasting, but threaten our sense of competence. We also begin to worry that if we made a mistake in the past, we’ll make more in the future.

Other hassles threaten our sense of control. Traffic, the weather, auto problems, rising prices, and too many things to do are situations that make us realize that there are forces outside of ourselves that keep us from achieving our goals. We’re hassled because we realize that there’s nothing we can do to change them.

Then there are the situations that persist over time and present us with continuous threats to our ability to meet our basic needs. The most common is not having enough money or time to spend with family. Hassles are especially likely to accumulate during holiday seasons. Apart from your normal daily responsibilities you now must find more time in your busy day to shop, cook, and visit with family. Add to these problems with traffic, weather, and money, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a holiday meltdown.

Finally, relationship problems present their own share of hassles. Co-workers, difficult customers, and people who owe you money threaten that part of our well-being that comes from pleasant relationships with other people.

What are the dangers of hassles to your well-being? In one study of over 160 undergraduates, Boston University psychologist Kevin McIntyre and his colleagues found that the more a hassle evoked a negative emotion, the greater the perceived stress. In other words, if you become sad, angry, or frustrated, the hassle will make you feel more stressed. No matter where it comes from, stress can hurt you, especially if your negative emotions get the better of you.

You may be convinced by now that hassles are indeed an important challenge to your well-being, but what about the claim that they can be as bad, or worse, than a calamity or personal stress? Catastrophes create traumatic reactions, but they also create hassles. You may escape from a fire, tornado, hurricane, or accident with your life but none of the supports that keep your life going. Aside from your possessions being damaged or destroyed, you need to replace all of your lost papers and documents. Even something as trivial as getting back your medications can mean hours if not weeks of stress. You now have to deal with all sorts of agencies, from your insurance company to the government to try to get your life back in order. There may be legal issues. Meanwhile, you may still have to go to work and/or care for your family.

Regardless of their cause, how can you cope successfully with hassles? The key is to manage your emotions. As the McIntyre study showed, it’s not the hassles per se but the negative emotions from hassles that lead to distress. You may not be able to change the situation that caused your stress, but you can change your reactions. Looking for the silver lining, seeing humor in your predicament, or regarding the situation as a test of your faith are all ways that you can manage your emotions and get through even the most stressful hassle.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201111/dont-let-lifes-hassles-get-you-down

Filed Under: Mental Health Tagged With: , ,

Suicide Casts Long Shadow After Decade Of War

November 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

KILLEEN, Texas (AFP) - A soldier kills himself and his wife. Another war veteran hangs himself in despair. Yet a third puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger outside a gas station in a confrontation with Texas lawmen.

Suicides by veterans like these once would have left people reeling in this military community. But troops and their families here these days call it the “new normal” for a US Army that’s spent a decade at war.

Melissa Dixon sees the stress in the tattoos she draws on soldiers back from combat.

“Some of them have issues with their wives or their loved ones, where they’re fighting, or one will have a friend commit suicide,” she said.

There’s no place like Fort Hood in the Army. A post that sent soldiers from two divisions to Iraq three times since the invasion, it’s logged more suicides since 2003 than any other — 107.

Soldiers at big posts like Fort Hood that have played key roles in deployments are at the greatest risk of killing themselves. The post here in Killeen, northwest of Texas’ state capital, Austin, set an Army record last year with 22 suicides.

Elsewhere, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, has lost 77 soldiers to suicide since 2003.

At Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home to the 101st Airborne Division, 75 soldiers died by their own hand over the last eight years.

But the problem is widespread. Last year, a record 300 soldiers in the active-duty, Reserve and National Guard killed themselves.

The numbers appear to be down slightly in 2011, but 32 active-duty staff killed themselves in July, the highest since the Army began tracking the phenomenon in January 2009.

The Army’s vice chief of staff, General Peter Chiarelli, expressed disappointment but insisted that an array of suicide-prevention programs instituted in the wake of widespread publicity over the deaths was helping.

The Army has distributed booklets and cards to help spot suicidal behavior, launched a task force that tracks deaths and develops new intervention strategies, and has begun two major research projects.

“While the high number of potential suicides in July is discouraging, we are confident our efforts aimed at increasing individuals’ resiliency, while reducing incidence of at-risk and high-risk behavior across the force, are having a positive impact,” he said.

Progress is hard to see.

Suicides have risen steadily since the Iraq war began, with the number doubling from 80 in 2003 to 162 in 2009.

Most of those dying are lower-level enlistees.

Roughly two in every three victims have served at least one combat tour.

The vast majority are men.

One, Staff Sergeant Jared Hagemann, was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head earlier this summer. An Army Ranger in Washington state, he had deployed eight times.

The Army’s recently retired chief of staff, General George Casey, once insisted it wasn’t clear if combat stress was a factor.

But last year he conceded that stress as well as such problems as ruined relationships played a role as well. “As I look at it, it has to add stress,” Casey said.

Yet active-duty troops aren’t the only war-weary soldiers.

Last year’s suicide mark was driven by a sharp rise of deaths in the guard and reserve.

With more than half the year gone, the Army Reserve’s top commander, Lieutenant General Jack Stultz, sees little improvement but is still trying to reach out to his troops, who are citizen-soldiers often disconnected from military support.

“Our suicide rates in the Army Reserve are trending about where they were this time last year, which I guess the good news is it doesn’t seem to be increasing, the bad news is it doesn’t seem to be decreasing,” he said.

Many of those killing themselves have done so quietly.

Sergeant 1st Class Gregory Eugene Giger grew despondent in the wake of a divorce that began while he was in Iraq.

One of the 22 suicides at Fort Hood in 2010, he was found hanging by a necktie in his apartment off the post. His mom called Giger a “tall quiet Texan,” devastated by the breakup. “I think he probably had a lot going on that he just stuffed down inside of him,” Helen Giger said.

Killeen, an Army town since World War II, has seen its share of violence that includes a 1991 massacre where a gunman killed 23 restaurant patrons before shooting himself.

Nearly two years ago, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was shot after a rampage that left 13 dead and 32 wounded on Fort Hood.

Yet over one long weekend last year four soldiers, all combat veterans, committed suicide.

One, Sergeant Michael Timothy Franklin, was believed to have murdered his wife at their residence off the post before killing himself.

Just a month earlier, Armando Galvan Aguilar Jr., 26, was cornered by police outside a gas (petrol) station northeast of Fort Hood at the end of an early morning high-speed chase.

“Mando” as friends called him, had been home from Iraq for a year. Fort Hood doctors had treated him for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, but he still struggled.

He had trouble sleeping and sometimes mixed alcohol with his medications.

On the last night of his life, Aguilar drank 30 beers.

Then he shot himself in the head with a .45-caliber handgun that he’d taken from a fellow soldier, ironically, to stop him from committing suicide.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/08/suicide-casts-long-shadow-after-decade.html

Filed Under: Mental Health, Military, Suicide, USA, War

The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World

November 18, 2011 by 1 Comment
The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World was launched simultaneously on 11 November 2011 at several locations around the world.
Please sign and share widely. Thank you for your compassion and support.

The aim of this Charter is to create a worldwide movement to end violence in all its forms. The People’s Charter will give voice to the millions of ordinary people around the world who want an end to war, oppression, environmental destruction and violence of all kinds. We hope that this Charter will support and unite the courageous nonviolent struggles of ordinary people all over the world.

As you will see, The People’s Charter describes very thoroughly the major forms of violence in the world. It also presents a strategy to end this violence.

We can each play a part in stopping violence and in creating a peaceful and just world. Some of us will focus on reducing our consumption, some of us will parent our children in a way that fosters children’s safety and empowerment, some of us will use nonviolent resistance in the face of military violence. Everyone’s contribution is important and needed. We hope this Charter will be a springboard for us all to take steps to create a peaceful and just world, however small and humble these steps may be. By listening to the deep truth of ourselves, each other and the Earth, each one of us can find our own unique way to help create this nonviolent world.

Why did we choose 11 November as the date to launch The People’s Charter?

‘When I was a boy … all the people of all the nations which fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was at that minute in nineteen-hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields at that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.’
(Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an atheist humanist, in his novel Breakfast of Champions.

Organisation

So far, the organising groups in various locations have organised launch events in their localities around the world. Some groups are organising follow-up events so that other people have the chance to become involved in local, personal networks.

See ‘Future Events’ for information about the next public event nearest you.

Signing the Charter

The People’s Charter can be read and signed online: click on ‘Read Charter’ or ‘Sign Charter’ in the sidebar.

 

‘A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.’ Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

Source: https://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/

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