#developing a healthy amount of emotional resilience or regulation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

drmboyiinc · 4 months

Text

Breaking the Silence: A Comprehensive Guide to Womb Cancer Treatment

Endometrial cancer, the official term for uterine cancer, is a quiet enemy that affects millions of women globally. Being the second most prevalent gynaecological cancer, knowledge about womb cancer therapy is critical to combating this sneaky illness. To give individuals who are impacted hope and empowerment, you will explore the most recent developments and holistic methods in the field of womb cancer treatment in this article.

Unlocking the Mystery of Womb Cancer

The primary sign of uterine lining cancer, womb cancer, frequently presents with mild symptoms that are easily missed. Early identification is the first step towards effective treatment, which is why routine health examinations and awareness programmes are so important.

Surgical Interventions

Surgical intervention is frequently the mainstay of womb cancer treatment. Common procedures include hysterectomy, which involves removing the uterus. Dissection of the lymph nodes may be advised in advanced situations to stop the malignancy from spreading. Modern minimally invasive surgical methods, such as robotic surgery and laparoscopy, have shortened recovery periods and lessened postoperative pain.

Radiation Therapy:

High radiation doses are used in radiation treatment to specifically target and kill cancer cells. This technique is frequently used to get rid of any cancer cells that remain after surgery. Improvements in accuracy, like intensity-modulated radiation treatment (IMRT), reduce the amount of harm to nearby healthy tissues.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a systemic womb cancer treatment that uses medications to kill cancer cells throughout the body. Targeted treatments and immunotherapies are emerging as promising choices that minimise adverse effects and improve overall treatment efficacy, even though they may be recommended before surgery to decrease tumours or after surgery to eradicate leftover cells.

Hormone Therapy

Hormone treatment could be suggested for some kinds of womb cancer treatment. This strategy uses hormone regulation to stop the development of cancer cells. Compared to conventional chemotherapy, this tailored therapy has fewer side effects, making it a more bearable course of treatment for many patients.

Holistic Approaches to Womb Cancer Treatment

Holistic techniques are becoming more widely acknowledged for their role in promoting general well-being both before and after womb cancer therapy, in addition to conventional medical therapies.

Nutritional Guidance

A balanced diet plays a critical role in improving the body's capacity to withstand the effects of cancer therapy. Foods high in nutrients help to sustain and strengthen the immune system. A nutritionist consultation can offer individualised nutritional advice catered to each person's needs.

Mind-Body Practices

In the process of womb cancer treatment, stress management is essential. Mind-body techniques like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness improve mental and emotional health, in addition to reducing stress. Including these routines in daily life can help promote healing and resilience.

Supportive Care

The physical and mental well-being of a patient receiving womb cancer treatment may suffer. In addition to offering priceless support, counselling and alternative treatments like massage or acupuncture may also promote empowerment and a sense of community.

Conclusion

Treatment for uterine cancer is a complex process that requires an all-encompassing strategy. The range of available therapeutic choices is changing, encompassing both modern medical techniques and natural well-being practices. A personalised treatment plan, comprehensive support, and early identification serve as the cornerstones of an optimistic and empowered road to recovery.

Keep in mind that every woman's experience with womb cancer is different; therefore, seeking individualised advice from medical specialists is crucial. For individuals traversing the difficult path of womb cancer treatment, there is a rising glimmer of hope because of improvements in research and treatment techniques.

#business #cancer #treatment

0 notes

rugrats-curious-minds · 8 months

Text

Nurturing Young Minds: The Importance of Yoga and Mindfulness Practice for Children

In today's fast-paced world, children are facing increasing amounts of stress and pressure. As parents, it's essential to equip them with tools to navigate these challenges and promote their overall well-being. One such invaluable tool is the practice of yoga and mindfulness. In this article, we will explore why introducing yoga and mindfulness to children is so important and how it can positively impact their physical, mental, and emotional development.

Physical Well-being

Yoga is renowned for its physical benefits, and these advantages extend to children as well. It promotes flexibility, balance, and coordination. As children grow, their bodies are constantly changing, and yoga can help them adapt to these changes more gracefully. The gentle stretching and strengthening exercises in yoga can contribute to better posture, reduced risk of injury, and improved overall physical health.

Stress Reduction

Children, like adults, experience stress in various forms. Academic pressures, social challenges, and extracurricular activities can take a toll on their emotional well-being. Mindfulness practices, often incorporated into yoga, can help children manage stress more effectively. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and body awareness can empower them to stay calm and centered in the face of stressors.

Emotional Regulation

Yoga and mindfulness provide children with tools to understand and manage their emotions. Through these practices, children learn to identify their feelings, acknowledge them without judgment, and respond in a healthy way. This emotional regulation is crucial for their personal development, as it enables them to navigate relationships and handle difficult situations with greater ease.

Improved Focus and Concentration

In our digital age, children are constantly bombarded with distractions. Yoga and mindfulness can enhance their ability to focus and concentrate. Mindfulness exercises, in particular, encourage children to be present in the moment, which can improve their attention span both in the classroom and in their daily activities.

Enhanced Self-esteem and Confidence

Yoga and mindfulness provide a safe space for children to explore their capabilities and build self-esteem. As they progress in their practice, they gain a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence. This newfound self-assuredness can positively influence their interactions with peers and boost their overall self-esteem.

Better Sleep

Many children struggle with sleep-related issues, which can impact their mood, behavior, and performance at school. Yoga and mindfulness practices can help children relax and unwind, making it easier for them to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night. The calming effects of these practices can significantly improve the quality of their sleep.

Social and Communication Skills

Yoga classes often involve group activities and partner poses, fostering a sense of community and cooperation among children. These interactions help improve their social and communication skills. Children learn to listen, cooperate, and communicate effectively with their peers, building essential life skills in the process.

Resilience and Coping Skills

Life is full of challenges, and learning how to bounce back from setbacks is a valuable skill for children. Yoga and mindfulness teach children resilience by emphasizing the importance of self-care and self-compassion. They learn that it's okay to make mistakes and that they can always start again.

In a world filled with constant stimuli and pressures, introducing children to yoga and mindfulness practices is a gift that keeps on giving. These practices offer a holistic approach to nurturing their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. By incorporating yoga and mindfulness into their daily lives, parents and caregivers empower children with tools to navigate life's challenges, build resilience, and foster a lifelong commitment to self-care and self-awareness. Ultimately, these practices lay the foundation for happier, healthier, and more balanced individuals, ready to face the world with confidence and grace.

#calm down #positive affirmation #poster bundle #therapy bundle #counsellorcronan #therapist games #teen mental health #self care #counselling kit #teacher tools #calm down corner #growth mindset #zones of regulation

1 note · View note

kalyafoods · 1 year

Text

Top 10 Reasons Why People Secretly Love Cold Pressed Oils

Energize Your Meal Using Cold Pressed Oils & Cherish Your Food

Introduction:

Cold-pressed oils are freshly prepared in a traditional way without any chemicals. Now you can get 100% pure cold-pressed oils online that are clear and made of completely organic components. These oils tend to have significant positive effects on human health, as they have excellent nutritional value and are strongly advised as a culinary substitute. They are abundant suppliers of fatty acids like omega-3 and omega-6, and also consist of potassium, zinc, and vitamins C, A, E, and D. They also contain lecithin and bioflavonoids. People are returning to the traditional mode of using cold-pressed cooking oils in their diets as a result of increased knowledge of the importance of leading healthy lives and making the right food choices.

Your health is entirely dependent on the food you eat, which is also the foundation of your life. Your emotions, skin, nutritional requirements, and overall health are all dependent as well. Therefore, it is essential to watch what we intake and also how it is made. A small adjustment to one's everyday diet can occasionally do miracles for one's overall health. Our diets must include oil; however, relatively few of us are aware of how it affects our health. Rather than entirely avoiding the usage of oil in cooking, one could look out for healthy uses for it. One of the best actions in these connections is the use of nutritious cold-pressed oil.

Elite Quality Cold Pressed Oils Online:

Undoubtedly, cold pressed oils are better for you than refined ones. After being subjected to huge heat and chemicals, refined oils lack nutritional value. Whereas cold pressed oils tend to retain massive amounts of nutrients because of the ignition-free and chemical-free process of manufacturing.

Now let's see why folks love these cold-pressed oils.

Boosts Immunity- Cold-pressed oils are rich in antioxidants and vital nutrients. Increasing your intake of these nutrients can aid your body in fighting off free radical harm while also boosting your immune function.

Healthier Cardiac System - While you might be wary of oils because you think they're high in cholesterol and bad for you, cold-pressed oils are a good source of polyunsaturated fatty acids which are thought to be good for your cardiac health. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are found to be denser in cold-pressed oils, which are beneficial for your heart.

Regulates Blood Sugar- Regular consumption of cold-pressed oils like olive oil helps you maintain your blood sugar levels and that may lower the chance of developing type 2 diabetes. According to research, cold pressed oils are thought to aid in lowering blood sugar levels, which is essential in diabetic patients.

Reduces Inflammation- Research studies state that cold-pressed oils can aid in lowering inflammation levels. Since they are denser in antioxidants and good fats, they have good anti-inflammatory properties.

Terrific to Your Skin- Cold Pressed oils are free from chemicals, loaded with a full of antioxidants and are resilient. This makes them perfect for the skin and scalp because they hydrate and guard against allergic responses and acne.

Enhance the Memory & Brain Health- Cold Pressed oils help in enhancing memory power and aid in healthier brains. Cold press oils, when taken regularly in your diet, can boost an individual's cognitive performance.

Treat Urinary Tract Infection- Cold pressed oils help in fighting against bacterial infections, and they also assist in lowering symptoms of UTI.

Cancer Prevention & Treatment- Cold pressed oils have a dense number of antioxidants. This helps to ward off free radicals that cause damage to cells, thereby helping in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Enhances Digestion- Cold pressed oils retain antioxidants, which are power-packed foods that stimulate enzymes in the liver and pancreas, thereby assisting in boosting digestion.

Obesity- Cold Pressed oils are easier for digestion and they are lesser in cholesterol level and denser in good fats. This aids in weight loss by increasing your metabolic rate.

Conclusion:

Kalyatatva produces food items that are organic, healthy, and devoid of chemicals. Buy cold pressed oils online at kalyatatva.com, a spot where you get organic and nutritious food choices.

Avoid refined oils and purchase only cold-pressed oils. A long healthy life awaits you if you consume foods that are healthy for your body and stay away from harmful substances. So, consider wisely and try to include healthy cold-pressed oils in your diet.

Note-The information provided in this blog is for information purposes only. Please consult your physician before adding any food choices to your diet.

Resource: https://kalyatatva.blogspot.com/2023/02/top-10-reasons-why-people-secretly-love.html

#Cold Pressed Oils Online

0 notes

prince876 · 2 years

Text

10 Surprising Health Benefits of a Good Sleep

The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep” – E. Joseph Cossman

We are all aware of the benefits of sleep and tend to spend a major chunk of our time trying to get adequate rest. Sleep is a natural state of mind and body marked by reduced consciousness, alertness, movement, and interaction with our body and environment.

The way we feel about our day in the mornings depends a lot on the amount and quality of sleep we get at night.

When we are sleeping, our brain does not only get a break from being overstimulated, but it also prepares to take on the challenges that we may face by developing new neural networks and condensing learning and memory.

This is just the tip of the iceberg though, let’s look at some surprising physical and psychological benefits that come with a good night’s sleep!

Helps with weight management by regulating ghrelin and leptin. These hormones directly impact our appetite! So, add in good sleep in your diet plan today!

Boosts athletic performance by supporting the body while it repairs itself during sleep and increasing the level of alertness that athletes need.

May reduce the risk of developing depression by regulating the healthy amount of serotonin in the body. A lack of serotonin is a common pattern in people who experience depression and healthy serotonin management can make us more resilient towards depression.

Improves memory and learning by the process of consolidation. When we sleep, our brain actively consolidates the new information we learn during the day which enhances memory and helps us build new skills.

May contribute to longevity by allowing the body and mind to repair and recover from daily stress and by reducing inflammation. Inflammation puts us at a greater risk of developing heart conditions, stroke, diabetes, and arthritis. Getting a good night’s sleep can help curb this inflammation.

Induces a spur of creativity by categorizing, recognizing, and reorganizing our learned skills and memories that can in turn boost creativity.

Contributes positively to social life by helping us stay alert in conversations, interpret social cues better, improve our motivation to engage in social activities, and by retaining our focus on the conversations.

Help reduce stress by restoring and calming our mind and body, sharpen our problem-solving skills, concentration, and judgment. A good sleep cycle also keeps a check on cortisol which is widely implicated in stress.

May help prevent cancer by regulating the production and uptake of melatonin. Recent research has found evidence that melatonin helps in protecting us against cancer. And by maintaining a balanced sleep schedule, melatonin can be regulated well.

Can keep us safe by helping us stay alert and respond to a crisis with better judgment and insight, thus reducing the possibility of being harmed in an accident. A lack of good sleep has been implicated in various road accidents.

Looking at the various physical and psychological benefits of sleep, it can be safely concluded that having a healthy sleep routine can greatly affect our quality of life!

Although a lack of sleep has been a cause of concern for many years, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the sleep quality and duration of people. This has added to the stress and worries that the coronavirus restrictions imposed on people.

Physicians are calling this ‘coronasomnia’ which is characterized by a significant decrease in productivity, resilience, increased risk of depression, and health related concerns. This has added to the already high number of people who experience sleep disturbances.

While the pandemic-related restrictions may take time to be lifted, we can all make small changes in our lifestyle to stabilize our sleep patterns and boost both our physical and mental health. One of the best ways to improve the duration, continuity, and quality of sleep is to work on sleep hygiene!

Sleep hygiene refers to consistent and beneficial steps that have a positive impact on sleep and are focused on making the body and the environment more sleep-friendly!

Wysa offers dedicated self-help tools to build a healthy and consistent sleep routine by allowing us to customize our sleep hygiene habits and fall asleep quicker with its calming sleep stories!

The sleep stories can help relax the mind, reduce the time we spent ruminating over stressful events, and facilitate quick and lasting sleep.

FAQs

Why is getting enough sleep important?

Getting enough sleep has many benefits for both physical and mental well-being. Good sleep can help us stay energized, healthy, motivated, less stressed and also contributes to improving our social lives.

Is it healthy to sleep all day?

On average, we require 7-9 hours of sleep every day. This remains consistent whether we are morning larks or night owls. Sleeping all day is a sign of irregular sleep and can have various underlying symptoms. This should be addressed with a sleep specialist.

Does oversleeping make you tired?

Yes, while oversleeping occasionally may result in temporary disorientation and confusion, persistent oversleeping can have greater ramifications on the body’s circadian rhythms and increase the risk of insomnia, depression, and other health-related symptoms.

Why am I still tired after sleeping?

Good sleep consists of sleep duration, sleep continuity, and sleep timing. Being tired even after getting enough sleep is an indicator of a disturbance in sleep quality or sleep timing. Working on a healthy sleep routine can help manage this better.

What is the longest has anyone slept?

While it’s tough to follow the full sleep duration, there are two people who have exhibited unusually long sleep duration. Wyatt Shaw (2017) slept for 11 days straight and before this, a UK hypnotist Peter Powers put himself under hypnotic sleep for 8 days straight.

How can I fall asleep in 10 seconds?

Time taken to fall asleep is a subjective concept that depends on a lot of factors like health conditions, sleep routine, mental health, etc,. There are ways like visualization techniques and breathing methods, which if done consistently, can help in falling asleep faster overtime.

#sleep deprivation #business #college

1 note · View note

yunsoh · 4 years

Text

kakeru’s presentation of childhood trauma: the other side of the coin

part of the intrigue of kakeru’s character is its blatant opposition to yuki’s. he shows a self-confidence that yuki lacks. he’s unaware of how his actions affect other people while yuki is hyper-aware. he comes off as emotionally open to the point of abrasion where yuki is intensely guarded and careful. he at first seems to be everything yuki isn’t. and, being that we know of yuki’s struggles, and are intimately aware of why he struggles, our first impression of kakeru may be that he doesn’t struggle at all. it’s what yuki believes at first, after all, and this impression tinges our viewpoint.

however, as the story evolves and kakeru becomes more of a presence, we start to see that he does struggle, and carries his issues from his upbringing in his own ways -- it’s just that his presentation is different from yuki’s (and machi’s, for that matter), and his presentation isn’t one that’s as easy to sympathize with.

he doesn’t suffer from self-loathing. he doesn’t internalize his traumas in a way that make him believe he’s broken or unlovable. instead, his issues lie within how he views other people -- his issues manifest as external and other’s-oriented. he assumes that he knows why people act the way they do, which bars him from learning how to read and sympathize with them.

and it’s because of this, maybe, that we become dismissive of how, or if, he’s affected by his own childhood.

we don’t see very much of kakeru’s childhood, but we see and hear of it in about the same amount as machi’s. i think it’s important that this is the case, and important to see where they present similarly and differently.

though they were raised by different mothers (possibly in different households as well; the amount of interaction kakeru had with their father isn’t known), they were raised under the same strict guidelines and the same competitive atmosphere that, ultimately, left them both without figures of emotional nurture in their formative years. kakeru mentions that his mom only “came to her senses” after he “went on a rampage” about his involvement in the inheritance issue -- as he started to be less emotionally repressed after this confrontation, we can take this to mean that this is when he finally started receiving the emotional nurture from his mom that hadn’t been present to him previously (we see later that he and his mother are much closer, even if they show it in aggressively teasing ways).

as machi never received that nurture from her parents, and was further abandoned by them, her and kakeru’s similar path of trauma split. however, her presentation of her issues -- cold, quiet, having sudden moments of aggression that peak to some form of destruction -- are traits she shares with kakeru. these traits were more blatantly shared until their early teens:

and these traits continue to show in kakeru even after he develops into a louder and bolder presence -- these moments are farther and fewer between, interspersed between him being more fun and free-spirited, but they still color how he handles conflict and difficult/negative thoughts:

i think, ultimately, that it’s a disservice to his character to treat his change in attitude after dropping the inheritance issue as a sudden and easy flip of a switch. he didn’t suddenly lose all that time of being cold, angry, and emotionally repressed -- these traits are still very much a part of him, even if it’s no longer a consistent or persistent persona he portrays.

but, as to why exactly he presents his trauma in a way that machi does not -- that is, why he struggles to see outside of his own perspective, and why he’s cruel to other people rather than himself: his means of self-preservation is to think highly of himself. as a child, it was all he was allowed to do in order to keep ahead of the game he was forced to play.

kakeru is more independent-thinking than machi, and this is where they differ in the manifestation of their trauma, shared as it may be. machi places a lot of blame on herself and constantly sees her own shortcomings in the face of her mother; her trauma manifests as internal (though it should be noted that her displays of aggression are by and large viewed as being intrusive to her peers; kakeru’s aggression is seen similarly, except he’s more intentional about it. he’s aggressive to them on purpose. machi isn’t.)

kakeru and machi both had certain “shortcomings” to battle against in their competition for their father’s inheritance: though machi was the legitimate child, she was younger than kakeru and a girl. though kakeru was the firstborn and a boy, he was illegitimate. machi’s means of dealing with those shortcomings follows the general socialization of young girls -- to be seen as mature, and to be seen as well-behaved and “good,” there’s a general rule of repression to be followed. she did everything her mother told her to do, and kept her opinions and wants to herself. she never acted out, and dealt with her stress in a way that, at worst, was something ultimately harmless: making footprints in the snow because its perfection stressed her out.

kakeru’s means of dealing with these shortcomings more typically follows the socialization of young boys, in that there was an allowance of higher self-focus. while he did was his parents told him and became repressed emotionally, him being able to not only question his place within the competition (“i’m being used as a pawn in someone else’s stupid game”) and then combat against it displays a self-assurance and self-confidence that machi does not possess (important to note, too, is that his illegitimacy actually gave him an out in this situation; while he could be removed from his father and the succession issue rather easily, this wasn’t possible for machi).

while he was successfully removed from the situation, there remained a downside: although now able to grow into a much more open and unabashed personality, he still missed out on the typical milestones of healthy emotional growth as a child and preteen. he was forced to focus on himself and his own successes as a child, and as such, didn’t develop a means to understand or connect with his peers (from what komaki says of him, it seems unlikely that he had friends during his childhood).

and this is where komaki comes in. kakeru, once he’s out of his shell, immediately begins to date komaki. we don’t know why he takes to her, but speculating, it’s possible that he knew of her crush on him, and saw the value of her being kind to him/liking him even when he was a difficult person. it’s likely, too, that his and his mom’s relationship was only in the very beginning stages of being repaired, so to have someone who liked him for him, despite everything, i think was very novel to him. he understands the value of how she feels towards him, and, in turn, becomes very loyal to her.

which, of course, is when he first runs into the issue of realizing that people don’t think through the same lens he does, and don’t necessarily share his thoughts and feelings about a given situation.

this lens was born out of living a childhood where he was only allowed to focus on himself, where he protected himself by focusing on himself, and where his successes were viewed as being the most important aspect of himself. he knows he’s intelligent in the classroom -- but what he doesn’t realize is that that intelligence doesn’t translate whatsoever to how he understands the emotions of his peers. without the emotional connections made between his family and his peers throughout his childhood, he never had the chance to build his emotional intelligence.

the reason why machi (and yuki for that matter, as he was similarly only highly regarded for his status and similarly removed emotionally from his family and peers) don’t have a similar experience lies largely within the issues of self-esteem, control, learned helplessness.

learned helplessness ties to the concept of psychological resilience, which regards how well a person is able to regulate emotions, react, and cope with crisis situations. children, when exposed to adverse situations, are better able to build resilience when they have protective factors (namely good cognitive self-regulation and positive relationships with adults). learned helplessness stems from experiencing repeated adverse situations outside of one’s control, and eventually growing a sense of powerlessness.

machi in particular shows this sense of learned helplessness, as she doesn’t fight back against the adversity she continues to endure. we see this as she doesn’t confront her parents over their misunderstanding, when she’s confronted by the girls at school over what she thinks of yuki or the various rumors that go around about her, and seems to feel powerless over her own destructive reactions. yuki doesn’t show this so much, as he’s learned to become adamant about making his own decisions (choosing his high school, telling his mother that he’s going to be making his own decisions about his future), but his fight against his own self-doubt and sense of powerlessness is still rather fresh to him. it’s a constant battle against himself that he is consciously fighting.

kakeru, on the other hand, never learned this sense of powerlessness. the moment he realized that he was being used, he confronted his mom, and she didn’t fight him back. he was shown that he was in control of his situation; while he experienced adversity as a child in the form of being used, he followed along because he wasn’t in a place to know better (“at first, i obediently went along with it and tried to live up to their demands. ‘cause, you know, when you’re a kid, your parents are everything.”) the control over his own life was handed over to him very easily, once he demanded it.

as a result, kakeru’s self-esteem doesn’t suffer in the same ways that yuki’s and machi’s do. while he was likely lonely as a child, and experienced a sense of loneliness once he realized that other people don’t necessarily share his point of view, he’s put in a position where he has control over his life.

the combination of a high self-esteem, sense of control, and lacking emotional intelligence is ultimately what creates this issue he has in which he not only assumes other people’s perspectives and emotions, but then feels the confidence to act on that assumption.

this combination ultimately is his personal downfall. his journey throughout the story is that of building emotional intelligence -- something that comes rather naturally to a number of the other characters, which is why his difficulty with it can come across as so abrasive to other characters and the reader.

however, it’s crucial to understand that he does realize this is something he has to actively work on. he doesn’t hurt people and ignore it. after hurting komaki (by first hurting tohru), he sets himself on a path to learn how to better see other people’s emotions and sympathize with their situations.

this isn’t an easy position for him to put himself in -- for kakeru, it’s actually quite vulnerable, considering that he’s actually quite private about his personal feelings and relationships with other people (machi, komaki, and tohru specifically). but he understands the worth in understanding, and understands, after some downfalls, that he isn’t above other people’s emotions.

he decides to do the difficult thing because he understands the worth in doing so -- after leading a childhood that was largely lonely and self-focused, it’s integral for him to learn emotional intelligence in order keep these new relationships around. his means of seeking friendships, and meaningful relationships, requires him to do the hard thing and make a conscious, active change in how he perceives the world and his place in it.

#fruits basket #kakeru manabe #machi kuragi #yuki sohma #am i sorry for going tf off? no #i'll spare everyone though and put this under a read more #bc its like. 2k words long.#also i'm sorry if this is at all confusing or incoherent i just have. a LOT of thoughts about this lmao #yunsoh meta #fruits basket spoilers

151 notes · View notes

soliair · 4 years

Text

What is Unani Medicine?

"Unani medicine is a system of alternative medicine that originated in ancient Greece but is now practiced primarily in India. Involving the use of herbal remedies, dietary practices, and alternative therapies, Unani medicine addresses the prevention and treatment of disease."

Unani (UNANI TIBB - Greco-Arabic Medicine) is the Arabic word for Ionian, or Greek. Greece's Islamic neighbors call Greece Yunanistan, or the Land of the Unanis. While Western Europe was in the Dark Ages, Greek Medicine and other branches of classical science and learning found a safe haven in Islamic lands. But Greek Medicine didn't remain static or unchanging; it continued to grow and evelve as Muslim scholars and physicians continued to make important discoveries and contributions of their own.

In the process, Greek Medicine was "Islamicized" into Unani-Tibb, or Greco-Arabic Medicine. This transformation proved that Greek Medicine was flexible, resilient and adaptable enough to absorb and incorporate new developments and influences. Within a few short centuries after its birth, the Islamic world had expanded to stretch from the Atlantic ocean in the west to the Indian ocean in the east, from Moorish Spain to the plains of Hindustan.

Everywhere the Muslims went, their Unani physicians went with them, adapting themselves to the local conditions and resources. In the words of Unani medical historians, Unani Tibb enriched itself by imbibing new medicines, techniques and treatments from the various cultures and medical systems with which it came into contact, which included Indian Ayurveda and Oriental Medicine.

Around the time of the Crusades, the Islamic world produced a few very prominent and influential physicians and medical scholars. Their names were Latinized, and their medical treatises were imported into Europe and translated into Latin, to serve as texts and reference manuals in the medical schools that were just starting to spring up in Medieval Europe. Ibn Rushd, or Averroes (1120 - 1198) was a physician and Islamic scholar and philosopher in Moorish Spain.

He wrote a five volume treatise on medicine called Al-Culliyat (The Fundamentals), or Colliget. Al-Razi, or Rhazes (865 - 924) was a Persian physician, chemist and alchemist. He wrote a vast medical encyclopedia called Continens, with many excerpts from Hindu and Greek medical sources.

But the greatest of these was undoubtedly "Hakim Ibn Sina", or "Avicenna". He wrote a five volume treatise called The Canon of Medicine, which became a standard textbook in European medical schools. Today, it serves as the basic handbook for all practitioners of Unani Medicine.

Unani Medicine found fertile soil in India. The Delhi Sultanate and later the Moghul emperors were great patrons of medicine. Many eminent physicians from Persia and Central Asia came to India not only to seek fame and fortune, but also to find a safe haven from the wars and strife devastating their homelands.

Under British rule, all forms of healing except conventional allopathic medicine were discouraged. But Unani Medicine survived, due to its popularity with the masses, and the safe, gentle yet effective nature of its treatments. Hakim Ajmal Khan (1864 - 1927) was an Unani physician, and also an Indian patriot and freedom fighter in the struggle for independence. He was also a great advocate and champion of the indigenous systems of Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine, and pioneered scientific research into their treatments.

Relationship Between Tabiyat and Asbab-e-Sittah Zarooriah

In the Unani system of medicine, tabiyat is an individual’s internal power or capacity to withstand or combat disease and to perform normal physiological functions. Believing that it is only tabiyat that is engaged in actually curing a disease, Unani hakims hold that they only assist from “outside” by prescribing therapeutic relief. If not adversely affected, tabiyat can eradicate most infections without medical treatment, using what may be thought of as the natural defense system of the mind and body.

Unani medicine recognizes six physical, or external, factors, called asbab-e-sittah-zarooriah, which are essential in establishing a synchronized biological rhythm and thus living a balanced existence.

The Six Asbab-e-Sittah-Zarooriah Are:

1. Hawa (air), in which the quality of the air a person breathes is thought to have a direct effect on his or her temperament and, thus, health.

2. Makool-wo-mashroob (food and drink), in which the nutritional value and the quality and quantity of one’sfood and drink are believed to ensure physical fitness by strengthening tabiyat.

3. Harkat-wo-sakoon-e-jismiah (bodily exercise and repose), which emphasizes the positive effects of balanced physical exercise on an individual’s internal resistance and tabiyat.

4. Harkat-o-sakoon nafsaniah (mental work and rest), which emphasizes the simultaneous engagement of the human mind in numerous emotional and intellectual activities. Just as the body needs systematic and planned exercise and rest, Unani medicine holds that the human mind and brain need adequate stimulation and proper relaxation as well.

5. Naum-o-yaqzah (sleep and wakefulness), in which an individual’s health and alertness are understood as being dependent on a specific amount of sound sleep in the course of a 24-hour (circadian) cycle.

6. Ihtebas and istifragh (retention and excretion), which considers the metabolism of food and liquid as both affecting and being regulated by tabiyat. According to Unani medicine, the assimilation of food andliquid facilitates the elimination from the body of excessive and noxious substances. Therefore, to maintain a harmonic and synchronized tabiyat, certain beneficial end-products of kaun-o-fasad (genesis and lysis) are retained in the body while harmful ones are expelled.

These six factors are believed by Unani practitioners to directly affect the harmony of the human mind and body. Socioeconomic, geographic, and environmental factors are considered secondary factors (asbab-e-ghair -zarooriah) in the Unani system and therefore indirectly influence tabiyat. However, both the primary and the secondary factors must be closely considered in the Unani process of treatment.

Modes Of Treatment

The initial approach to treatment in the Unani system entails the establishment of a regimen to normalize and balance the external factors (e.g., air, water, and food) involved in ailments and diseases. If this proves inadequate, then other means, such as treatment with natural medicines, may be recommended. Any Unani treatment prescribed by a hakim acts as an outside agent to help boost the patient’s tabiyat and thus restore good health and a sense of well-being.

There are various therapeutic approaches available to the hakim. Ilaj-bi-ghiza, or diet therapy, involves recommending a specific diet, which is the simplest and most natural course of treatment by a hakim. For fever, for example, Unani medicine stresses a nutrient-rich, low-roughage diet that might include dalia (porridge) and kheer (a milk broth). Both the amount and quality of food are taken into consideration. Relatively infrequent in modern Unani Therapy is ilaj-bi-misla, or organotherapy, a mode of treatment that involves healing a diseased organ with the use of tissue extracts from the same organ of a healthy animal.

Ilaj-bi-dawa, or pharmacotherapy, is the use of medicines by Unani hakims. This treatment method is considered by hakims to be natural, eco-friendly, and less intrusive and more effective than many other methods. The Unani system’s pharmacopoeia is vast, enriched with more than 2,000 medicines derived from various herbal, mineral, and animal sources. Unani medications are often processed by classical methods of preparation as originally described in Greco-Arabic medicine. Unani medicines are used singly or are compounded with other substances to achieve synergistic, antagonistic, or detoxifying effects or simply as bases for effective ingestion and assimilation.

In the 1920′s Indian physician Ajmal Khan revolutionized Unani medicine by advocating that research be conducted on various natural products that were claimed by ancient physicians to effect miraculous cures. In the 1930′s Indian-born scientist Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, who specialized in phytochemistry (the chemistry of plants), isolated potent constituents from a plant known in India as chhota chand (Rauwolfia serpentina). Subsequent pharmacological research determined that the plant was the source of a bio-active substance known as reserpine, which found use in Western medicine as a tranquilizer and as an anti hypertensive agent (lowering abnormally high blood pressure). Those uses supported some of the medical applications that had been described by hakims. Siddiqui named the derived medicines, which included ajmaline and ajmalicine, for Khan as a tribute to his groundbreaking research efforts.

Having gained recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1976, the Unani system became increasingly accepted internationally as a system of traditional medicine. In India several institutions engaged in Unani teaching and research. The Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM), an undertaking of the Indian government, for instance, facilitated the translation of classical heritage, the organization of clinical trials, the improvement of drug standardization, and the investigation of toxicological and phytopharmacological properties of natural products that had long been used by hakims.

Classical Unani medicine recommended established “regimental” therapies (tadabeer) in the treatment of various chronic and acute diseases. Those therapies include dalak (massage), hammam (bath and sauna), karat (exercise), fasd (venesection, or opening a vein to let out blood), hijamat (cupping, a process of drawing blood to the surface of the body by using a glass cup or tube), and amat-e-kai (leeching, or bleeding a person by using leeches). The essential function of all those regimens is to remove impure blood or impurities from the body.Surgical interventions, or ilaj-bil-yad, are a last resort. Their practice generally is beyond the realm of the hakim’s expertise.

Obstacles In Unani Medicine

Although a complete system of treatment, the Unani system, similar to other systems of medicine, has drawbacks in terms of application and effectiveness. The vast materia medica, from herbal and animal to mineral sources, as described in ancient Unani textbooks, is sometimes so vague that authenticity must be established by modern pharmacognostic assessments (by means of a basic, descriptive pharmacology) before medicines can be put to use. In addition, the use in Unani medicine of precious stones and minerals, the chief ingredients of many polyformulations (medicines containing multiple ingredients), is expensive. Those items often are unavailable as well, thereby hindering effective treatment.

Intense research is important for the use of kushta, the incinerated finely powdered substance prepared from known toxic metals, such as seemab (mercury), sam al-far (arsenic), sangraf (mercuric chloride), and khubs al-hadid (iron rust). Medicines made with those minerals, when used with caution and expertise, may be effective, but they have significant toxic side effects.

Today, the Indian government supports and subsidizes both Ayurvedic and Unani medical colleges and hospitals. But whereas Ayurveda has enjoyed a phenomenal surge in popularity, Unani Medicine still lags behind in recognition, perhaps due to its minority Islamic associations.

The SOLIAIR™ company regularly developed various blends and plant extracts that show promise and positive healing results in treating many illnesses and medical symptoms from a wide variety of diseases that are currently existing in this world. The SOLIAIR™ Food supplements are patented and are regularly been used by doctors, pharmacists and patients in Israel and around the world! - Please Contact Us for a professional advice and treatment!

Best Regards, Solomon J. (Naturopath/Alternative Therapist)

#####

youtube

1 note · View note

anilthomasnlp · 4 years

Text

NLP TECHNIQUES TO REDUCE STRESS

REDUCE STRESS AND ANXIETY

A certain amount of stress is good for us; it strengthens us and helps us build resilience. An excessive amount of however, produces an quite chemicals in our bodies, which over time will significantly and negatively impact our health. This post describes techniques which may reduce stress and anxiety to healthy levels.

APPROACH

Think about stress and anxiety as friends not enemies. They’re important messengers letting us know there something for us to hunt out out and alter in our lives. They’re awaken involve us to continue our adventure into the because of live our lives to the whole , within absolutely the simplest way we’ll.

Some people may find this too positive, but even in those cases seed it as an idea: even how we view stress and anxiety can change the effect they need on us. If you'd wish to understand how reduce stress take NLP Training and determine the way to regulate your mind and reduce stress.

THE STRESS PROOF INDIVIDUAL

Garner Thomson in his excellent book, Magic in Practice, outlines 6 psychological modulators that protect us from excess stress.

1. Social support and connectives: invest in our family, friends and network.

2. How of control, we'll focus more on what's under our control.

3. Predictability, which we get bet better directly we accept whatever is, and begin learning to enjoy and appreciate uncertainty.

4. Positive expectancy, occasionally planning for the downside is actually useful, however, 80% of our attention is best used on taking action towards what we'd wish to understand.

5. Meaning, purpose and spirituality, it’s empowering to possess a purpose both for us, and something bigger than us.

6. Dissipation, it’s useful to develop ways of getting obviate excess stress. Exercise, healthy eating, drinking enough water, sleeping well, stretching and meditative practices all help.

BUILDING ROUTINES AND DAILY HABITS

Establishing routines gives us senses of predictability and control, and also dramatically increases the possibilities that we’ll actually do those things that are genuinely important to us. A suggested start:

Morning habits:

1. Short exercise session

2. Short meditation session

3. Confirm your 3 priorities of the day: what are the key areas you'd wish to require a foothold a short time, energy and a spotlight on?

Evening habits:

1. Short body stretching session

2. Evening questions, mostly structured within the form – did I do my best to?

If you'd wish to form a habit of all this with an honest mentor you'll join the NLP Training in Mumbai, here you will get a mentor who teach you ways to producing routines and daily habits.

REDUCING AND OR INOCULATING STRESSORS

Life today includes many stress triggers, many people plan to attract our attention, and steal our time and energy, and push our emotional buttons to undertake to so. An initial step is typically to easily note whenever we’re distracted and triggered into a stressful situation. At the very best of every day, review our list and choose which situations we’ll

1. Accept (because it helps us in how

2. Simply avoid in future

3. Inoculate us against the trigger. Two ways of doing this are future pacing and spinning feelings, which follow later.

Doing this on its own improves our sense of control, which reduces stress. Taking further action reduces it further.

AMPLIFYING ‘FEEL GOOD’ ANCHORS

This is the reverse of the above: we frequently forget to note the triggers that help us feel good. During any day, make a note of anything that triggers us to feel good, these could even be very simple, like enjoying the smell of a cup of coffee, watering a series of pot plants, and hugging the dog (as well as some belongings you'd possibly not want to share!)

Build what you’ve enjoyed and appreciated into your evening questions. Every good memory could even be a resource you'll use within the long run. The art is to anchor both good experiences and thus the tactic of noticing and remembering them.

FUTURE PACING TO SCALE BACK STRESS AND ANXIETY

A lot of stress and anxiety is caused by bad planning. The challenge is that we’ve often got specialized at it, and continually replay what goes on in our heads as too short a movie. By too short, I mean that we finish with the challenge and problem instead of continuing the movie until we’re happily completing the primary steps of an answer.

So, consider a situation that we imagine will stress us. Continue with the movie in our heads until we’ve passed the challenge and located 1-3 positive actions we'll take fancy improve things. Replay the mental movie again, now as we explore the end of the day, we take the time to verify what we’ve learnt, and begin enjoying taking the steps to maneuver forward.

Remember that within any challenge, however bad it's going to appear, there are the seeds of future success and fulfilment.

It’s worth future pacing any situation that’s important to us, so we improve our odds of creating absolutely the higher of whatever happens.

You can join Gestalt therapy training to reduce stress and anxiety; this is often the effective training for stress management.

SPINNING FEELINGS TO SCALE BACK STRESS AND ANXIETY

This is how that I’ve successfully won’t to cure headaches for several years, but barely started learning the because of use it for stress and anxiety. It’s one among NLP co-creators Richard Bandler’s favorite’s approaches for helping with stress and anxiety.

#NLP Training #NLP Certification #NLP Training in Mumbai #Gestalt therapy training #Gestalt therapy

0 notes

fightersforpeace · 4 years

Text

Corona in Lebanon – how it affects people who lived through previous crisis and how they can cope

Interview with Nahla Harb, psychologist, and mediator, conducted by Christina Foerch Saab

Nahla Harb is a clinical psychologist and psychological therapist from North Lebanon. She is also a mediator and peace-builder. Nahla lived part of her youth during the Lebanese civil war. At first, she studied music and took up some courses in psychology, which she liked because psychology is “closed to science”. Now she works as a psychologist in North Lebanon and also engages in social and emotional learning in the Ministry of Education. She currently writes her Ph.D. about “Stakes of transitioning from trans-generational violence to non-violent resilience.”

I interviewed Nahla over the phone during the Corona crisis (Covid-19). I wanted to know from her, as she lived both through war and post-war times, how the Corona crisis affects the Lebanese people who were forced – and able – to overcome so many difficult times before this particular health crisis.

Nahla Harb: In Lebanon, we consider ourselves that we don’t need a psychologist. When I started my own therapy (during my studies), I realized that we need it, especially in a traumatic context. Lebanon is a context where we move from one crisis to another – we live in a constant crisis. Stability, as it is perceived in different countries, we don’t experience this since 1980. I can’t identify a period where there was stability. I can identify periods of severe or less severe crisis and periods that prepare for a crisis.

FFP: Since your Ph.D. is related to trans-generational trauma, do you think that the Lebanese people suffer from trans-generational trauma?

Nahla Harb: I guess that my generation suffers from trans-generational trauma. Trans-generational trauma can manifest itself as different forms of violence that our fathers and families before us had received and they passed them on without being aware of it. They were trying to protect us they passed their trauma on to us. Sometimes our reactions stem from all these past experiences the families’ past. Johan Galtung categorizes three categories of violence, and all three categories play a role in different generations: The structural violence could be reflected through many regulations that don’t promote equity or equal development in the region. This kind of structural violence has a lot of impact on families and my family is one of them. Structural violence limits you in your dreams and objectives.

Cultural violence – most of the times we don’t recognize it until we go through a crisis.

Direct violence – the wars, domestic violence, violence at schools, violence among peers. I guess that different generations have passed on these categories of violence.

FFP: Lebanon hasn’t been hit by Corona as severely as other countries. But yet, the Corona crisis can have severe effects on the psychological well-being of the Lebanese as well as on refugee populations (Palestinians, Syrians) living in Lebanon. What is it like, for the Lebanese who have experienced the civil war on one hand, and for refugees, on the other hand, to live through such a health crisis?

Nahla Harb: The Coronavirus trauma came just after another economic and political trauma. The fact that it didn’t appear to be as severe in this country as in other countries – many countries went from stability to Corona crisis. In Lebanon, we went from a crisis and mass protests which started in October 2019 to the Corona crisis. The crisis in October was taking the country to uncertainty, but with a hope for a transition to a better future, through the revolution and the mass protests. Then, all of a sudden, everything froze, we went to a different direction of uncertainty. My friends who are the same generation as me and younger, they had high expectations (in this uprising) and they were calculating the sacrifice they were willing to do because they had hope that after this transition we would move to something better. When the Corona crisis came, they were disappointed, they had a high degree of deception, because another – huge, global – uncertainty has come along.

Talking about the generation before my generation, I noticed that they went back to the survival strategies they used in wartime – they stood for hours to get bread and goods. It’s like they opened their past strategies, to list all the things they used to compile during the war crisis. Many verbalized it: “Oh, we’re used to that! Why do we need to go back to school? During the war, we didn’t go to school for long periods but we managed it before.” They passed difficult times and survived. Some others were really nervous and tired because they were afraid to live through such situations again.

It depends on what kind of roles they had in the past. If they were active, they had their strategies of survival and now they did it again. The ones who didn’t know what to do, they felt very insecure during this health crisis.

We are contacting Syrian refugees through schools. Some parts of the population are in denial and they say it’s a regular flue. I know that many of them are going back to Syria because Syria reported fewer cases of COVID-19.

FFP: The lockdown and hence the loss of control over your life, paired with multiple uncertainties (health uncertainty, an invisible threat, insecurity if the Lebanese state is well equipped to deal with the health crisis; then economic uncertainty, increasing poverty, the feeling of being “trapped” inside, the loss of a structure that leads you through the day….) – how does this mix of things affect people who have to cope with past traumatic experiences?

Nahla Harb: Those who are coping are the ones who have established a daily routine – those people are not feeling helpless. The uncertainty is decreased by a daily routine. You can anticipate what can happen and the level of anxiety and helplessness is less.

Those who already feel helpless and didn’t manage to establish a daily routine are the ones who fear the unknown. They don’t have clear expectations. Their feeling of helplessness will increase. Trauma breaks the compass of the person.

Corona could affect people, especially refugees, on different levels: Their health and the health of their loved ones. It can awake existential questions: What if we die – who will care? They are already marginalized. It will raise the question of how to cope with this and what’s next? I noticed that many of them answered these questions with a shortcut: God will decide.

It’s a way of delaying breakdown. For a period, they are less anxious, God will decide. But then, when there is a step to take, they enter a survival mode.

FFP: What are good coping mechanisms when experiencing a possible retraumatization due to the current health crisis? How can we strengthen people’s inner resources and resilience?

Nahla Harb: There are different categories.

Type One: Some of the Lebanese try to go through denial. They act as if it is not happening. This coping mechanism is amnesia, it decreases anxiety, but when they face an obstacle they have a huge anger problem.

Type Two is the humor: They try to decrease the impact of the crisis. They make jokes like this: “We have politicians that are worse than Corona.” It is a humor and they are observers, standing on the side.

Type Three is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder/ character. People who are acting obsessively – they want to be perfect: They reserve the exact amount of things, hold others accountable who don’t observe the measures, etc… although this is not their role. Those people go by the book, but sometimes, at some extreme, they judge others if they don’t observe the measures.

Type Four is hysteria/mania – they go and binge shop. They stock huge amounts of goods they don’t need.

As a coping mechanism, we should try to decrease helplessness. Simple routines are very important: sitting together at the table drinking tea, to sit and laugh together… And plan! It is important to visualize a plan for the future – there can also be different plans for the future. The sense of openness to having different scenarios for the future is important. We’re in a lockdown with narrow opportunities. In such a situation, it can help us to create, at least mentally, because then we are free, no one can block our minds! I want to highlight that for prisoners – especially for prisoners of war – the meaning of the openness of the mind and the freedom of ideas can help a lot in strengthening their resilience.

Look into the beauty of small things. We have a huge world crisis, but if my child smiles and laughs it is meaningful. I can see them growing up and measure them – cherish these small moments, even in difficult situations. This will help us a lot and give us a feeling that we don’t miss our life but we just live it differently. As long as we are healthy and safe, that’s important.

And for families who have Corona patients, it is important not to stigmatize them. It is not their fault, even if they didn’t respond to the instructions – such things happen. We need not stigmatize, but to love and support them. It could happen to anyone of us. No one knows when it will be our turn.

FFP: Nahla, thank you very much for your interview and your advice! Stay safe and healthy.

Article supported by IFA-ZIVIK

#Peacebuilding #fighters for peace #peace lebanon fighters ex-fighters sweden #coronavirus #lebanon #beirut

0 notes

self-esteem-for-teens-blog · 4 years

Text

Tips to Building Self-Esteem

While everyone has doubts about themselves and their abilities from time-to-time, low self-esteem can lead to insecurity and demotivation amongst students. A common assumption about low self-esteem is that the causes are easily identified, when, in truth, the reasons for our low self-esteem can often be a mystery to us.

Here are some general tips to improving self-esteem:

1. Be kind to yourself

We all experience failure and make mistakes from time-to-time. The difference between positive and negative self-esteem is how we mentally respond to these experiences. A lot of the time, people with low self-esteem are far more forgiving of people around them than they are of themselves. If something happens that causes us to think negative thoughts about ourselves, learning to challenge these negative thoughts is one way to improve self-esteem. A good start is to try and speak to ourselves the same way we often speak to those around us - with encouragement, support, and understanding.

What are THREE positive self-esteem affirmations you have about yourself?

2. Don’t compare yourself to people around you

The more we compare ourselves to the people around us, the more we fixate on things we don’t have, or things we aren’t able to do, etc. It’s important to set your own goals and focus on your own achievements because we are all different and have a different path to success, happiness, etc.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS: The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can help teachers promote positive self-esteem in the classroom. The industrial classroom model was designed around the assumption that there was one optimal learning solution for everyone. UDL and its associated strategies, reflect awareness of individuality, the unique nature of each learner, and the need to create real learning experiences that suit all learners (regardless of performance ability, prior knowledge, and entry points) and maximize their ability to progress. This encourages teachers to plan around the principle of universality and equity, and helps normalize and promote individual paths to success amongst students.

3. Diet and exercise

A healthy lifestyle is shown to increase motivation and improve emotional clarity. Having a fitness and diet regimen reinforces structure and gives us a space to practice setting goals, self-motivating, and building confidence through incremental personal success.

4. Set achievable goals

It’s important to try and be the best that you can be, but it’s also important to set achievable, realistic goals. When we consistently set goals for ourselves and achieve them, we realize that success is attainable, and this builds our confidence. If we aim for perfection, we put an unrealistic amount of pressure on ourselves. The less we experience success, even modest success, the more opportunity we have to doubt ourselves. We can’t really anticipate where our lives will take us, so, to reduce ambient feelings of failure, in most cases, achievable, realistic and short term goals are preferable to long term, unrefined, ambition-based goals.

5. Focus on things you CAN change

When we fixate on things that are out of our control, especially hypothetical situations, we place undue stress on ourselves. Students especially need to focus on identifying the things that are within their control (understanding expectations, self-advocacy, time management, self-care, etc.) and on developing strategies that will help them overcome these challenges.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS: Teachers can help students increase their sense of ownership. Choice leads to a boost in self-esteem and resilience. When teachers offer opportunities for decision making, students develop a sense of control over their lives. Choice, in turn, also promotes personal responsibility and helps foster self-advocacy and self-regulation. Providing multiple means for engagement is one of the best ways to accommodate different attention spans and interest levels. Allowing for choice increases relevance and authenticity and provides graduated levels of challenge.

6. Self-care

Self-care is essential to cultivating and maintaining a positive self-image. In part, this means taking the time to do things you enjoy, making time each day to focus on yourself. This can be time spent reading, playing an instrument, socializing, painting, cooking, gaming, watching TV, etc. Essentially, if it makes you happy, you have to make time for it because it’s part of what makes you a whole person. It’s important to do things that ensure you have the emotional, spiritual and physical energy to be successful in your commitments. This could include anything from maintaining a regular sleep routine, taking care of physical health, to taking sick days, etc.

7. Social relationships

Making positive contributions, having supportive, considerate relationships with the people around you will improve your self-image and esteem. Chances are, if you are helpful, supportive and considerate to peers, colleagues, friends, etc., you can find people who will be helpful, supportive and considerate to you. Negative/toxic relationships, friendships that make you feel bad about yourself, will consistently trigger your negative thinking. Developing positive, supportive relationships will help you feel better about yourself and resist cycles of negative thinking.

#self-esteem #positivity #mindfulness #mental health #resilience #confidence #affirmation

0 notes

midlifewithavengeance · 5 years

Text

What Sleep is Like at Every Age: 20s, 30s, and 40s

The blog post What Sleep is Like at Every Age: 20s, 30s, and 40s was initially published to https://midlifewithavengeance.com

From our first days as newborns all the way to our old age, sleep changes throughout our lifetimes. Sleep is a dynamic process, one that affects (and is affected by) every other aspect of our lives and our biology. Bio rhythms shift, sleep architecture changes, hormone production rises and falls, all of which deeply affect how, whenand how wellwe rest. Throughout it all, the demands of daily life affect the amount—and the quality—of our nightly sleep.

There are some challenges to sleep that are perennial: inconsistent sleep routines, overconsumption of stimulants such as caffeine, over-exposure to artificial light—especially blue light. (I just wrote about blue light blocking glasses, how important they are and how to pick the right ones for you.)

But some important aspects of sleep change as we grow older—and those changes need to be met with new and different attention to sleeping well.

Wondering what sleep looks like at your age? Read on to find out the most common sleep challenges we face throughout every stage of life, and how to navigate them.

What sleep is like in your . . . 20s

Think back to your 20s, how the decade started and how it ended. A lot of us spent our early 20s up for almost anything, no matter what the hour—in fact, the later the better. (Party starts at 10 or 11? Great!) By late 20s, things probably felt different. For many of us, by the time we got close to 30, leaving a party before midnight suddenly seemed like a pretty decent idea.

We have a major bio rhythm change to thank for that. The most common sleep-related change that occurs during our first full decade of adulthood is this: a shift away from a strong preference for evenings over mornings.In adolescence, changes to bio time make nearly every one of us into Wolves—up and alert at night, struggling to function in the morning. That bio time shift happens with the onset of puberty and lasts until sometime in our mid-20s. When it does, those changing bio rhythms shift many people into another bio type—one you’ll likely have for most, if not all, of the rest of your adult life. Some people become early-rising Lions. Many settle in to the middle-of-the-road Bear bio type. Some smaller number of people will shift into a short-sleeping Dolphin bio type, that’s characterized more by their insomnia-like sleep habits than a distinct preference for mornings or evenings. And some of us (including me) will stay Wolves—continuing to prefer evenings to mornings, in perhaps slightly less pronounced ways.

Don’t know your bio type yet? Take my quiz: http://www.thepowerofwhenquiz.com/

These late nights are one big reason that sleep deprivation catches young adults in their 20s unprepared. Social jet lag—the difference between the social schedule you’re pressured to keep and both the amountand timing of your body’s sleep needs—is a big issue for young adults. Feeling healthy, resilient, and full of energy, it can be tempting to think you can skimp on sleep without consequences. It’s true that a typical 20-something has a lot of sleep-related biological advantages going for them. Hormones that enable healthy sleep—including estrogen, testosterone, and human growth hormone, among others—are naturally high. While deep sleep amounts are lower than during childhood and adolescence, they’re also still running high, compared to where they’ll be in a few decades. But there really is no free ride when it comes to the impact of sleep loss. An abundant and ever-growing body of research shows how deeply the effects sleep deprivation—including on cognitive function,mood and emotional regulation, appetite, metabolismand weight gain—affect children and young adults, with consequences that can extend long into adulthood.

In their 20s and throughout their pre-menopausal lives, women regularly experience sleep problems that directly relate to their menstrual cycle. Fluctuations of the hormones estrogen and progesterone shortly before and during menstruation cause difficulty sleeping, as well as headaches, cramping, anxiety, and low mood—all symptoms that can compound sleep problems. I see patients in their 20s experience insomnia and other sleep troubles linked to menstruation. Recent research from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that about a third of pre-menopausal women sleep an average of less than 7 hours a night, and roughly 17% have routine trouble falling sleep.

What to watch for:Irregular sleep routines, and not making enough time for sleep. Most people in their 20s have the discretionary time and freedom to get the sleep they need, but their social schedules don’t allow for it.

What sleep is like in your . . . 30s to mid-40s

So many life changes take place during these years—and all of them have a major impact on sleep and sleep cycles. New and more demanding jobs, marriages, buying homes and having children. Our bodies in our 30s and early 40s remain naturally poised to sleep well—but the demands of work and family often make that difficult.

At a biological level, there are a number of important things happening during these years. By the 30s, you’ve settled in to the adult bio type that you’re likely to keep for decades—and maybe for the rest of your life. That makes this period an ideal time to identify the sleep routine and sleep amounts that meet your individual needs—and to start doing all you can to set daily routines that allow you to meet those needs.

(If you’ve taken my quiz to determine your bio type, now use my bedtime calculatorto find your ideal sleep schedule.)

Some bio types have an easier time than others in meeting sleep needs in the real world. Lions (early to rise, early to bed) and Bears (who fall right in the middle of a morning-evening preference scale) are more naturally aligned with society’s daily clock than night-wired Wolves and restless-sleeping Dolphins. Social jet lag continues to be a big issue for most sleepers—and by our 30s and early 40s, some bio types are feeling its impact more than others.

To learn about how bio type affects sleep and nearly every part of your waking life, check out my book, The Power of When.

Changes to sleep architecture also continue, and it’s during these years people may begin to notice. As we age, our sleep cycles contain less deep, slow-wave sleep. We spend more time in the lighter stages of non-REM sleep. This is a gradual shift—research indicates that we lose deep sleep at a rate of about 2% a decade, up to age 60. In our 30s and early 40s, people often begin to experience restlessness in their sleep, find themselves waking more easily and often at night, and feel less refreshed in the morning. It’s a good time to take a look at the natural supplements that promote sound sleep—many of which also help reduce stress and sharpen cognitive performance during the day. Here are 10 of the most effective natural sleep aids.

In addition to the ongoing sleep challenges that come with menstruation, women who go through pregnancy are likely face sleep problems that include significant sleeplessness—even if they’ve been sound sleepers in their pre-pregnant lives. Nearly 4 in 5 pregnant women report experiencing new problems with sleep. Changes to the body and intensely shifting hormone levels lead to many pregnant women feeling sleepy during the day, and restless and uncomfortably awake throughout the night. Pregnant women are at significantly higher risk for developing sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless leg syndrome.

Men who might think they can skate through these years on too little sleep without consequences: think again. Men’s risks for sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, are higher than women’s risks at this age. And shortchanging sleep can directly hurt male fertility. There’s a growing body of research showing that poor sleep reduces sperm healthand makes it harder to conceive. For example, this 2017 study found that both too little sleep and too much sleep—as well as late bedtimes—were linked to reduced sperm counts and diminished sperm motility, as well as an increase of production of an antibody that targets and destroys healthy sperm.

What to watch for:De-prioritizing your sleep. Suddenly, demands from your time are coming from everywhere—kids, spouses, work, community. It’s common for both men and women to flag their own sleep needs as low importance. Think of your sleep for what it is: an investment in the health, success, and happiness of all you’re working to build.

Next week, I’ll talk about the changes that happen for sleep as we head into middle age and beyond.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post What Sleep is Like at Every Age: 20s, 30s, and 40s appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Blog | Your Guide to Better Sleep http://thesleepdoctor.com/2019/07/30/what-sleep-is-like-at-every-age-20s-30s-and-40s/

from https://midlifewithavengeance.com/what-sleep-is-like-at-every-age-20s-30s-and-40s/

0 notes

thesimplyluxuriouslife · 5 years

Text

252: The Characteristics of Being a Late Bloomer, and How Embracing This Gift Could Change the World for Everyone

"By necessity, we late bloomers are on a different, more challenging trajectory. As we travel through life, we encounter obstacles like the push for conformity, the oppression of groupthink, and the pains of self-doubt. But . . . in all these challenges, we find our hidden treasure. We unearth our individuality. We see that a path to excellence, to reaching our true potential, is available to all of us. Within these challenges lies our true power, our covert talents and secret advantages as late bloomers." —Rich Karlgaard, author of Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsesses with Early Achievement.

Unsurprisingly, the new book by Rich Karlgaard spoke to me and offered an abundance of reassurance and exhilaration. If the comments on IG a few weeks ago when I posted an excerpt from the book are any indication, you are or will be as well.

Especially as Americans we greatly celebrate, strive for, and thus put pressure upon ourselves, and either unconsciously or consciously, to figure out our path early, to achieve success quickly and when we don't we make faulty assumptions about what we can contribute which can erode our self-confidence and potentially prevent the gem that resides within us all to be discovered and then shared with the world enabling us to find deep, lasting inner contentment.

Karlgaard's new book is worth reading in-depth, from cover to cover as he delineates the obstacles that our culture currently needs to address with historical details, new studies, multiple anecdotal examples of how indeed the "late bloomer" simply needs time, patience and awareness to blossom at their own time, as well as the most difficult support to refute findings - neurology.

So while I will encourage you to read the entire book, in today's episode/post, I wanted to share with you the characteristics that you might find yourself identifying with when it comes to being a Late Bloomer and not realizing the gift of opportunity you have given yourself to enjoy the rest of your life.

15 Characteristics of a Late Bloomer

1.Curiosity is the late bloomer's fuel

"By its very nature, curiosity demonstrates an independence of mind."

To keep on blooming throughout the entirity of our lives, forever remain curious.

2. We are predisposed to be compassionate

"In facing the ups and downs of life, many late bloomers gain a greater sense of compassion. They show greater reflective thinking, diminished ego-centeredness, and a deeper appreciation of others' challenges."

Because late bloomers have faced struggles along the way, have refrained from conforming at the expense of our social connections and acceptance into "the group", we can more easily put ourselves into the shoes of others, we are more empathetic.

3.Better leadership skills are developed

Due to elevated compassion, workers view leaders more favorably, and combined with "authenticity and integrity", this trifecta of skills "improves retention and employee performance".

4. Resilience is developed and strengthened

"When it comes to developing resilience, the regulation of emotions gives mature people an advantange over the young: 'There is a naturally learnable set of behaviors that contribute to resilience. Those are the behaviors that we gravitate to more and more as we age'."

5. Emotion regulation is easier which cultivates a calmer demeanor which leads to more effectiveness and better relationships

"Our brains are driven to seek calmness as we age. Columnbia University social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson claims that calmness is central to happiness . . . research has long established that calm leaders are more effective".

Late bloomers naturally develop the skills necessary to find calmness if we choose to keep exploring, learning, listening and observing what works and what does not. This is where our curiosity helps tremendously leading us to the blooming stage of our lives that is authentic and unique to each of us.

6. Extensive insight

"Our insights are the result of us drawing on our full mental library of experience, patterns, and context, yielding an idea of extraordinary value."

Karlgaard explains that "the right hemisphere [of the brain] matures in childhood; the development of the left is consistent with the development of the prefrontal cortex, which is not fully mature until the mid-twenties". Due to the left-side's difference in development compared to the right, it takes time for us to see the connection of the awesome or unique events, sights and experiences of our lives and make sense of how we can utilize them in our unique way.

7. Navigation of life's ambiguity becomes easier

"Perhaps this is the perfection defintion of wisdom: reasoning and cognition based on knowledge and experience".

In other words, we are not born wise, but so long as we choose to be curious, continue to be life-long learners, we begin to build it. "Wisdom is the ability to see the layers of light that were harder to see when one was younger". And consequently, we have the opportunity to hone our intuition as to how to best navigate our journey even with the unknowns that are presented.

8. More easily determine what's important versus what's trivial

To piggy-back onto #7, because we have acquired knowledge about the world over time and have made the conscious choice to continue to learn, we are then better at discern patterns faster and jump to logical solutions more quickly.

9. A desire to cut the apron strings with your parents

"To fully bloom, we must declare our independence from our family. That doesn't mean we must reject their love . . . it means only that we must reach our own conclusions about what does and doesn't support our blooming."

Creating a healthy culture in which to bloom is analogous to the proper soil and conditions for a plant to flourish. Each plant will need different types of soil, different amounts of sunshine and shade, varying temperatures - some extreme, some moderate, and it all depends on the plant. Unlike the saying, "bloom where you are planted", we should instead get out of the soil we have been planted in and explore to discover where we truly thrive.

10. Adult peer pressure is real, and if you've felt it and tried successfully or not to not succumb, you may be a late bloomer

"Some of this [peer group] influence can be healthy and positive, as when we join a hiking club or sign up for a program to quit smoking. But not every peer push leads us to a better version of ourselves; not all communities support growth and positive change."

To break free from our peer group, even when we don't know why it feels uncomfortable or wrong (but we know it does), is not easy and it takes great inner strength to do so. However, it does become easier because we eventually begin to feel more in tune with our true selves, we feel a burden lift, we feel our energy surge because we are no longer trying to be or do something that isn't truly in line with what we can offer the world.

11. Societal pressure to conform is limiting to our true potential

"[Today's media] also promote cultural, racial or gender biases, either through stereotyping roles and behaviors, or under- or overrepresentation of minorities. And repeated exposure to media content can lead viewers to begin to accept media portrayals as representations of reality."

From the media's portrayal of how to socially engage, what dating should look like, what children should be doing at certain ages based on their gender, the values are repeatedly shared and included in endless amounts of media such as video games, movies, television, newspapers, magazines, books and radio, and since it is a passive medium, unless we are critical thinkers questioning everything we receive, it is easy to accept what is applauded as normal and what we should adhere to regarding our life's journey.

12. Letting go of comparisons

"Mass media ask us to compare our body shape, sex life, marriage, house, car, family and community to unattainable television versions of perfection. Social media ask us to compare our own commonplace or even boring reality against the curated accounts of how absoutely wonderful someone else's life is — people we know!"

When we stop comparing and start celebrating, we liberate ourselves and enable the opportunity to observe our own awesomeness without the outside world's close-minded criticism or limited acceptance.

The author shared something that I think is worth sharing here as a reminder that there are many paths to success, to reaching a goal, to attaining contentment. He writes, "There are always many ways to achieve a goal, gain expertise, or find success. In sports or music, they are easy to see . . . But it's not as easy to see multiple paths for success in most endeavors . . . [which leads to confusion. As a result,] we default to following norms and take the road everyone else is taking". And these paths to success have as much to do with professional "success" as well as personal "success". Your definition of a life of contentment, as I have said many times before on the blog and in my books, will most likely be very different than mine, but that doesn't mean we both cannot feel the contentment that is spoken about and written about that provides deep satisfaction and peace.

It is important that we all recognize that each of us will bloom at a different time.

"Each of us deserves the opportunity to bloom in our own way."

When we do this there are many invaluable benefits:

1.We protect ourselves, and others we encourage to bloom, in our own time from the consequences of disappoitnment or failure. (this doesn't mean there won't be bumps along the way, but it reminds us that it takes time to understand where we are headed and why)

2.We learn how to work with self-doubt and let it be our superpower.

"To bloom, we all must learn not to fear self-doubt but to embrace it as a normally occurring opportunity for growth and improved performance . . . The key to harnessesing self-doubt starts at the very core of our individual beliefs about ourselves . . . self-efficacy".

3. We strengthen our self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is an individual's confidence in their ability to accomplish what they set out to do.

4. Obstacles begin to be seen as opportunities to grow rather than road-blocks

"While you may feel a general sense of self-doubt . . . [you] proceed anyway".

5. Improved positive self-talk

"Positive self-talk can improve our performance by helping us regulate our emotions, thoughts and energy".

When we begin to see skill-sets that render positive results, we are more likely to invest in them. For example, positive self talk leads to more confidence, a strengthening our self-efficacy and thus improved performance with whatever task is in front of us. And so we continue to practice positive self-talk and it becomes stronger with this skill rendering more positive outcomes.

6. Stronger, healthier relationships

When you bloom, gravitate toward those who celebrate your blooming, and for those who initially are not, give them a moment to understand why your blooming makes them uncomfortable. Depending upon the person, they may not realize that their discomfort with your growth is a reflection of their disappointment in what they feel they could have achieved but didn't. This is all about them. Some will grow from this and remain in your life, others will not, and you will need to move on. But all of the skills you have acquired and applied will help lead you toward building not only healthier relationships with others, but a healthier, less critical relationship with yourself.

7. Excellence will arrive when you let your curiosity take over

"When [curiosity takes over], a sense of exploration also takes over. I get in the zone, and I go for it. I feel pulled, not pushed — pulled by a beautiful power I cannot explain."

8. The courage to repot when necessary

"When it comes to repotting, late bloomers have a distinct advatnage over early bloomers. We're naturally curious and resilient. We're not afraid to follow a different path or break free of convention. We genuinely want to see what's around the corner or over the hill. These late bloomer strengths enable —even propel— the change we need to find the right people and the right place to help us thrive."

Once you have a clearer understanding of who you are and what cultures and communities are best suited for you to bloom, you will have strengthened, as was mentioned above in the first list, an awesome skill set. This skill set will be your bedrock for being able to repot when and if it is necessary.

"We need to give ourselves a break. We need to recognize and celebrate the fact that we're all different, with different skill sets, developmental profiles and backgrounds and that each of us will forge a different path toward blooming."

Being a late bloomer is most certainly something to celebrate, and when we "change our story, we can change our behavior and even our life".

Let me leave you with this lasting thought from the book that resonately powerfully with me:

"If we're not forced to conform to standard timetables for success, we can —and will—bloom on our own schedules. And we can do it with a deeper sense of mission and a greater feeling of contentment. What we accomplish in the marathon of life depends on our persistence, our patience, and an ability to see ourselves as we really are. Our cultural obsession with youthful talent, with early achievement, distracts us from this simple truth. . . . our late bloomer power is different. It is the power to renounce what's supposed to happen in life and intead embrace what actually happens in life, with its ups and downs, twists and turns. It's the power to explore and experience, to be an individual. It's the power that comes with knowing and valuing ourselves."

Petit Plaisir

~The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson

~read my review and reason for recommendation here.

TSLL BRITISH WEEK 2019 Posts:

Sunday May 19th

A Giveaway for Anglophiles: A Year’s Subscription to The English Home magazine and more!

TSLL’s First Annual British Week Begins!

~Do you enjoy reading TSLL blog and visit regularly, but would prefer to read the blog without ads? I have some good news for you. For a limited time, during British Week, the price for a monthly or yearly ad-free subscription has been reduced. Simply use the following promo codes below when you subscribe (or learn how to subscribe) here. The discount runs through Sunday May 26, 2019.

Yearly $69.99 – Now $60/year – use promo code YEAR60Ad

Monthly $6.99 – Now $5/month – use promo code BRITWK5Ad.

Learn more and subscribe here.

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

#tsllpodcast thesimplesophisticate

0 notes

dreddymd · 5 years

Text

5 Powerful Lithium Effects on the Brain

Source: 5 Powerful Lithium Effects on the Brain

by Dr. Edward Group DC, NP, DACBN, DCBCN, DABFM

Did you know lithium is a naturally occurring mineral — an alkali metal — found all over the earth? The name lithium derives from the Greek word lithos, meaning stone. Traces of lithium exist in granite rock around the world, as well as in soil and water.Lithium is so plentiful in our environment that even your food contains trace amounts. Like calcium and potassium, your body requires lithium to function properly.

While high doses of lithium may have some associations with mental conditions, the fact is, lithium is a critically important nutrient that supports your body and brain in countless ways. This article will focus specifically on the beneficial effects of lithium for brain health.

5 Benefits of Lithium for Brain Health

As a nutritionally-essential mineral, lithium supports brain health in several ways. The most well-documented lithium benefits include protecting the brain, boosting gray matter, and helping the brain adapt to stress.

1. Offers Neuroprotective Benefits

Lithium is neuroprotective, which means that it protects nerve cells (also called neurons) against damage. When something provides neuroprotection, not only does it prevent the breakdown of cells in the central nervous system — including the brain — but it may also play a role in nerve cell regeneration and recovery.[1]

Lithium not only protects neurons (nerve cells), but it boosts brain cell regeneration.

In the case of lithium, studies not only show that it protects brain cells from harm, but also that it promotes brain cell regeneration. In other words, this vital nutrient helps neurons repair themselves and grow even when they are under stress, rather than die off.[2]

2. Promotes a Healthy Response to Daily Stress

Stress is a normal part of life we all occasionally experience. However, studies show that regular daily stress affects your health and well-being. Lithium is an effective tool in combating these ups and downs with resilience. It promotes your body’s ability to heal itself.[3]

When you’re under stress, your body not only produces more stress hormones but also increases its production of free radicals.[3] Free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage otherwise healthy cells in your body. This damage is known as “oxidative stress.”

Over time, too much oxidative stress can lead to lifestyle-related diseases and premature aging.[4]Lithium’s antioxidant properties can help your body and brain counteract these free radicals.

For more ways to combat stress, check out Dr. Group’s Recommendations for Stress Management.

3. Increases Gray & White Matter

Your brain’s gray matter is responsible for storing memories, helping you make decisions, and perceiving the five senses (i.e., taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing).

White matter forms the deeper parts of the brain and regulates the sending of impulses throughout the brain and central nervous system.

Lithium’s ability to increase gray and white matter means sharper thinking skills, focus, and memory!

Research shows that lithium can boost both gray and white matter, particularly in the prefrontal cortex region of the brain — the part associated with emotion, thought, and personality.[5] Lithium may increase gray matter by stimulating the brain to generate new cells which then develop into neurons.[5, 6]

However, one study suggested that this increase in gray matter may be an artifact of the MRI imaging, and that brain hydration may account for the larger brain volume.[7] On the other hand, many studies have found that lithium does result in stem cells differentiating into neurons, so the jury is still out.

While researchers continue to seek a definitive answer as to how lithium increases the brain’s gray and white matter, we know that such an increase can sharpen your cognitive abilities (“thinking skills”), help with mood management, and sharpen your focus and memory.

4. Rejuvenates Nerves

Each nerve cell is coated with a myelin sheath. Myelin is a substance made primarily of lipid (fat) and protein. Think of myelin as the protective coating on your brain’s wiring — it keeps your brain cells functioning as they should by insulating them and telling nerve impulses where they should go.[8]

Myelin helps you do important things like stay focused at work, respond quickly, and so much more. When a nerve gets damaged for any reason, including normal age-related decline, it may lose some myelin.

Studies suggest that lithium may help add more myelin around your nerve cells, helping them function more effectively — otherwise known as remyelination.[9] Remyelination is your body’s way of repairing any damage done to the neurons within your brain and central nervous system.

In one study, scientists gave lithium to mice that had nerve issues affecting their facial muscles; it helped myelin genes express (which helps more myelin get produced) and, as a result, mice recovered the ability to move their whiskers again.[9] The study supports the idea that lithium boosts normal nerve cell repair and growth through remyelination.

5. Improves Mood & Focus

Decades of research shows that lithium has powerful mood-stabilizing properties, even in very low amounts.

One small study found individuals who were given micro-servings of lithium over four weeks reported steadily improved mood in areas related to happiness, friendliness, and energy.[10] The scientists concluded that low lithium levels have mood-stabilizing and mood-improving effects.

Remarkably, multiple studies have found that in locations where the drinking water contains higher trace levels of lithium, people live more peacefully. These studies were conducted in both Japan and the United States.[11, 12]

Sources of Lithium

Experts increasingly recognize lithium’s importance to human health. The World Health Organization added it to the list of nutritionally essential trace elements, along with zinc, iodine, and others.[13] Below are sources of this vital nutrient.

Foods

You can find small amounts of lithium in many foods, but legumes, vegetables, and other plant-derived foods contain the most. Try the following foods to get more lithium in your diet:

Legumes including lentils, garbanzo beans, and green peas

Vegetables including tomatoes, mushrooms, cauliflower, and cabbage

Seeds and nuts, particularly pistachios

Brown rice

Coffee

Depending on where you live, your drinking water may contain traces of lithium

Supplements

Many experts consider lithium an essential nutrient with a provisional recommended daily allowance (RDA) of 1 mg (milligrams) daily for an adult weighing 70 kg (154 pounds).[14] Slightly higher servings may help if you are trying to better manage daily stress and balance your mood.

Because your body naturally produces orotic acid, this carrier molecule is readily broken down and processed without side effects at low amounts. Small amounts can have powerful health benefits, without the side effects that come with more.[3]

If you take multiple orotate supplements — such as magnesium orotate, calcium orotate, or zinc orotate, as well as lithium orotate — you could end up with too much orotic acid, which can cause health concerns. Animal safety studies suggest between 50 to 100 mg/kg (milligrams per kilogram) of orotic acid body weight, equivalent to 2,250 to 4,500 mg per 100 pounds of body weight, are safe.[15]

Are There Side Effects?

In small servings, lithium side effects are virtually non-existent. The mechanism of action for low-serving lithium is quite different from that when it is taken in higher amounts, according to a comprehensive review by Dr. Timothy Marshall.[3]

Marshall states that the lithium orotate molecule is stable in the body. Once transported inside the cell, the orotate-mineral complex dissociates, releasing the lithium to its action sites. Not only that, Marshall states that lithium’s safety is comparable to low amounts of zinc and other nutrients.[3]

When taken in much larger amounts, lithium can have adverse effects on the kidneys and thyroid gland. Large servings may cause excessive thirst, nausea, hand tremors, and loss of coordination.[16]

Points to Remember

Lithium is a natural mineral that has a therapeutic effect on the human brain. This vital nutrient is best known for its mood-stabilizing and neuroprotective benefits. In addition to boosting brain health and helping balance mood, lithium can improve your ability to focus, protect your nerve cells, and help your body adapt to stress in a healthy way. Lithium may also help prevent behaviors that lead to social isolation and unhappiness.

You can find traces of lithium in your food and water supply, but to ensure you get the proper amount for optimal brain health, you can take a lithium orotate supplement. Global Healing Center’s Lithium Orotate is a naturally occurring, earth-sourced elemental mineral that supports healthy mood, brain health, emotional balance, and a healthy response to stress.

Have you tried lithium orotate? Share your experience in the comments!

References (16)

Vajda FJ. Neuroprotection and neurodegenerative disease. J Clin Neurosci. 2002 Jan;9(1):4-8.

Forlenza OV, et al. Neuroprotective effects of lithium: implications for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders. ACS Chem Neurosci. 2014 Jun 18; 5(6):443–450.

Marshall TM. Lithium as a nutrient. J American Physicians Surgeons. 2015;20(4):104–109.

Liguori I, et al. Oxidative stress, aging, and diseases. Clin Interv Aging. 2018; 13:757–772.

Monkul ES, et al. Prefrontal gray matter increases in healthy individuals after lithium treatment: a voxel-based morphometry study. Neurosci Lett. 2007 Dec 11;429(1):7-11.

O’Leary OF, et al. Lithium-induced effects on adult hippocampal neurogenesis are topographically segregated along the dorso-ventral axis of stressed mice. Neuropharmacology. 2012 Jan;62(1):247-255.

Cousins DA, et al. Lithium, gray matter, and magnetic resonance imaging signal. Biol Psychiatry. 2013 Apr 1;73(7):652-657.

Morell P, Quarles RH. The Myelin Sheath. In: Siegel GJ, et al, eds. Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, Cellular and Medical Aspects. 6th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott-Raven; 1999.

Makoukji J, et al. Lithium enhances remyelination of peripheral nerves. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Mar 6;109(10):3973-3978.

Schrauzer GN, de Vroey E. Effects of nutritional lithium supplementation on mood. A placebo-controlled study with former drug users. Biol Trace Elem Res. 1994 Jan;40(1):89-101.

Schrauzer GN, Shrestha KP. Lithium in drinking water and the incidences of crimes, suicides, and arrests related to drug addictions. Biol Trace Elem Res. 1990 May;25(2):105-113.

Ohgami H, et al. Lithium levels in drinking water and risk of suicide. Br J Psychiatry. 2009;194(5):464-465.

World Health Organization. Trace elements in human nutrition and health. 1996. Accessed 24 Dec 2018.

Schrauzer GN. Lithium: occurrence, dietary intakes, nutritional essentiality. J Am Coll Nutr. 2002;21(1):14-21.

Aguilar F, et al. Orotic acid salts as sources of orotic acid and various minerals added for nutritional purposes to food supplements. Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food (ANS). European Food Safety Authority. The EFSA Journal (2009):1187;1-25.

Gelenberg AJ, Jefferson JW. Lithium tremor. J Clin Psychiatry. 1995 Jul;56(7):283-287.

The Benefits of Lithium Orotate

7 Benefits of Lithium

Magnesium Deficiency: Top Solutions, Causes, & Signs

17 Home Remedies for Migraines That Really Work

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2X7N0Lr via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

quintinefowler-blog · 5 years

Text

5 Powerful Lithium Effects on the Brain

Lithium is so plentiful in our environment that even your food contains trace amounts. Like calcium and potassium, your body requires lithium to function properly.

5 Benefits of Lithium for Brain Health

1. Offers Neuroprotective Benefits

Lithium not only protects neurons (nerve cells), but it boosts brain cell regeneration.

2. Promotes a Healthy Response to Daily Stress

When you're under stress, your body not only produces more stress hormones but also increases its production of free radicals.[3]Free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage otherwise healthy cells in your body. This damage is known as "oxidative stress."

Over time, too much oxidative stress can lead to lifestyle-related diseases and premature aging.[4] Lithium's antioxidant properties can help your body and brain counteract these free radicals.

For more ways to combat stress, check out Dr. Group's Recommendations for Stress Management.

3. Increases Gray & White Matter

Your brain's gray matter is responsible for storing memories, helping you make decisions, and perceiving the five senses (i.e., taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing).

White matter forms the deeper parts of the brain and regulates the sending of impulses throughout the brain and central nervous system.

Lithium's ability to increase gray and white matter means sharper thinking skills, focus, and memory!

While researchers continue to seek a definitive answer as to how lithium increases the brain's gray and white matter, we know that such an increase can sharpen your cognitive abilities ("thinking skills"), help with mood management, and sharpen your focus and memory.

4. Rejuvenates Nerves

Each nerve cell is coated with a myelin sheath. Myelin is a substance made primarily of lipid (fat) and protein. Think of myelin as the protective coating on your brain's wiring — it keeps your brain cells functioning as they should by insulating them and telling nerve impulses where they should go.[8]

Studies suggest that lithium may help add more myelin around your nerve cells, helping them function more effectively — otherwise known as remyelination.[9] Remyelination is your body's way of repairing any damage done to the neurons within your brain and central nervous system.

5. Improves Mood & Focus

Decades of research shows that lithium has powerful mood-stabilizing properties, even in very low amounts.

Sources of Lithium

Experts increasingly recognize lithium's importance to human health. The World Health Organization added it to the list of nutritionally essential trace elements, along with zinc, iodine, and others.[13] Below are sources of this vital nutrient.

Foods

You can find small amounts of lithium in many foods, but legumes, vegetables, and other plant-derived foods contain the most. Try the following foods to get more lithium in your diet:

Legumes including lentils, garbanzo beans, and green peas

Vegetables including tomatoes, mushrooms, cauliflower, and cabbage

Seeds and nuts, particularly pistachios

Brown rice

Coffee

Depending on where you live, your drinking water may contain traces of lithium

Supplements

Supplements are the easiest way to incorporate lithium into your diet. Lithium orotate — lithium combined with orotic acid — is the ideal supplement form because its small size enables it to penetrate cell membranes.[3] Global Healing Center’s Lithium Orotate is a naturally occurring, earth-sourced elemental mineral that supports healthy mood, brain health, emotional balance, and a healthy response to stress.

Are There Side Effects?

Marshall states that the lithium orotate molecule is stable in the body. Once transported inside the cell, the orotate-mineral complex dissociates, releasing the lithium to its action sites. Not only that, Marshall states that lithium's safety is comparable to low amounts of zinc and other nutrients.[3]

When taken in much larger amounts, lithium can have adverse effects on the kidneys and thyroid gland. Large servings may cause excessive thirst, nausea, hand tremors, and loss of coordination.[16]

Points to Remember

Lithium is a natural mineral that has a therapeutic effect on the human brain. This vital nutrient is best known for its mood-stabilizing and neuroprotective benefits.

In addition to boosting brain health and helping balance mood, lithium can improve your ability to focus, protect your nerve cells, and help your body adapt to stress in a healthy way. Lithium may also help prevent behaviors that lead to social isolation and unhappiness.

You can find traces of lithium in your food and water supply, but to ensure you get the proper amount for optimal brain health, you can take a lithium orotate supplement.

Have you tried lithium orotate? Share your experience in the comments!

The post 5 Powerful Lithium Effects on the Brain appeared first on Dr. Group's Healthy Living Articles.

0 notes

whydoyouthinkileft · 7 years

Text

I made a post in January about how I basically write Jemma in the autistic spectrum even if not officially (I’m still researching) but because the list was very long and I bolded the traits she had, I want to put here the list of only those traits as reference - the full post is here, I kept all the traits there in case people were curious like me, though it’s not meant for self-diagnosis (then again, I don’t know why I’m so hesitant with writing about it officially - even if it’s not canon, there is nothing wrong with more representation of all kinds.)

under the cut because it’s too long this mostly refers to the way I write her... but there is a lot of canon Jemma too

May be difficult to understand subtle emotions (unless she’s explained why someone is acting the way he is)

Finds difficult managing emotions (the entirety of season 2)

May not be able to tell when someone is flirting with her (or in love, unless the flirting is openly sexual and cannot be confused with friendliness)

Great difficulty and very sensitive to conflict, stress, arguments, fighting, wars, gossip and negativity

May find it challenging to understand what others expect of her (when they don’t directly tell her like they do at work)

Understanding boundaries (usually more when she was younger)

Tend to have high average to genius intelligence

Superior long-term memory

Often have a rigid negative thinking, inflexible black or white thinking style or rigidity of thinking (when it comes to Ward ‘some people are just evil’ and specifically of my Jemma: Fitz and Daisy being just ‘good’, no flaws)

Often drawn to the helping, artistic or animal professions, and often an “expert” in her chosen field (she ended up being mostly a doctor, but also expert in biochemistry)

Hard-working conscientious worker

May get stressed if have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time

Tries very hard to avoid making mistakes, forgetting things

Tries hard to please others

Preference for one-on-one social interactions, single close friendships

Strong preference to engage in conversation related to their special interest

A history of being bullied, teased, left out and/or not fitting in with same-age peers, unless she had/has similar “Aspie” friends (Fitz was her first real friend)

An intense dislike of lies, but may lie herself

Experience great difficulty with conflict, arguments, being yelled at

Has great difficulty asserting herself (only on occasion so it doesn’t count) asking for help

May currently have or have experienced Post-Traumatic Stress, often due to being misunderstood, misdiagnosed, mistreated, and/or mismedicated.

Often does not know how to act in social situations

Often prefers to be engaged in her special interest, rather than socializing

May be considered the “black sheep” of the family

Others consider her different, odd, eccentric or “weird” by others

May feel like she has to act “normal” to please others OR does not care at all about fitting in (both depending on the situation, but sometimes she just doesn’t realize she’s being inappropriate)

A people pleaser, but then may burn bridges suddenly (for e.g., quit relationships), as they have difficulty managing conflict

Females appear to be better than males at masking the traits of autism in social situations. However, girls are less able to do so in unfamiliar settings (she was even more ‘odd’ in Hydra, when asking the coworker she barely knew to go karaoke with her and insisted too)

Difficulties communicating her thoughts and feelings, in words, to others, especially if anxious, stressed or upset. Often can type or write her thoughts much better

May dislike asking others for help, be unable to ask or not know how to ask for help

May be passive, not know how to assert her boundaries in a healthy manner (season 2 again)

May offend others by saying what she is thinking, even if she does not mean to

May point out other people’s mistakes

missing what people are trying to say

Often surprised when people tell her she has been rude or inappropriate

has a high pain threshold

May be overwhelmed or stressed by bright lights, coarse textures/clothing (specifically my Jemma wants very soft clothing)

May have to withdraw, isolate herself when overwhelmed by her senses

Things that should feel painful may not be (bruises but not know how they got there, due to clumsiness)

Recent brain scanning research points towards enlarged Amygdala’s role in intense emotions, anxiety and anger (her anger and anxiety are more often than not extreme)

May have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or traits (in her case traits)

May fidget or other movements with hands, twirl hair, stroke soft fabric to self-soothe (usually plays with sleeves or opens and closes fists or touches her neck and forehead)

May be very sensitive to medications, caffeine (in my Jemma’s case caffeine specifically)

May have sleep difficulties

May have a special interest in fashion and femininity

She loves quiet, solitude, peaceful surroundings

May have a strong preference for routine and things being the same day after day

Gets pleasure from being engaged in her chosen work and/or special interests

She may make it a high priority to arrange her life, events, work, and environment to avoid overwhelming, stressful or upsetting situations

May be ‘hypersexual”, fascinated by physical sexual contact (she really enjoys it too, though sometimes has difficulties connecting any emotion to it unless the emotion was present before)

A special interest may involve the person’s career

Ability to “hyperfocus” for long periods of time involved in the special interest, without eating, drinking or going to the toilet, is able to hyperfocus on her special interest for hours, often losing track of time

An intense love for nature and animals

Often not interested in what other people find interesting

Introspection and self-awareness. Many women spend years trying to understand themselves, reading self-help and psychology books and wonder why they feel so different, from another planet or that the “Mothership has dropped me off on the wrong planet”.

Feels things deeply

Other people’s moods affect her, especially if they are negative

Tends to be very sensitive to emotional pain

Deeply moved by arts, music, certain movies

Difficulty regulating emotions and managing stress

Experiences intense emotions of all kinds (for e.g. when she falls in love, she ‘falls’ in love deeply)

May think she is being compassionate, but her actions may not come across that way

Often too sensitive

A natural born leader, independent, strong-willed, determined and can be highly competitive (even with herself)

Has a high sense of justice and fairness, is a truth-seeker

Highly creative and may have ‘rushes’ of original ideas

Highly sensitive to criticism or perceived criticism

May have been told she cares to much, does too much for others and/or is too sensitive (when people keep a close eye on her or speak to her, otherwise she comes off as cold)

Is perfectionistic

Attention to detail

Obsessions/special interests can be long-term (can make a great career)

A strong sense of feeling different from her peers, often described as being from a different planet

Is intense in everything she does

May have a history of crying a lot, without knowing why

May have tried a variety of medications,

A history of depression, anxiety, eating disorders (not unless you count forgetting to eat or lack of appetite when upset), mood swings

May have developed a variety of dysfunctional coping mechanisms; for example, arrogance

Withdrawal and/or Avoidance

May “know” or have knowledge of certain things, but no idea how she knows

Autodictic – teaches herself

Intelligence, craves knowledge and loves learning

Can teach herself just about anything she puts her mind too

Has a strong will, is determined and independent

Have a remarkable long-term memory, photographic memory

Can work very well in a “crisis” situation

Deeply reflective thinker

Resilience, an ability to go from one crisis to another, to bounce back, to start again time and time again

Great in one-on-one situations or presenting to a group

May be gifted with art (singing)

May have a lack of cognitive empathy and hyperempathy for e.g., too much affective or sympathetic empathy

Compassionate Empathy, or “empathic concern”. This kind of empathy helps us to understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, and also be spontaneously moved to help them, if and when other need help.

May have an intense desire to please others and/ be liked by others.

May become highly distressed if she has the perception that someone does not like her or actually does not like her.

May have tocophobia, the fear of childbirth

Photographic visual memory (generally able to recall what she has seen to details, and also to repeat actions she has seen even when they involve other fields - can recreate some of Fitz’s and Daisy’s works)

#i think some of the hesitation comes from my closest rp partners rejecting this?#or i'd write about it more easily? but it's wrong of me to hesitate over something like that so i'll just do it #about jemma #headcanons #i could put gifs for each one of these but then the post would be extra long and never end #asdheadcanons #headcanon

4 notes · View notes

the-battle-lesbian · 7 years

Text

Okay little shits I want to say some words about the Earp Sisters- particularly my darling Willa

I see a lot of you guys have been giving her quite a bit of flack- you know for hating Waverly and shooting Nicole and unleashing a writhing tentacle beast on Purgatory. Now these are all very bad things. But I’d like to take a moment to explore how we got here. And as a clinical child psychologist specializing in abuse and trauma- I have A LOT to say about these three. Because OH BOY do they run the spectrum of child abuse outcomes in the real world.

Now, I want to start by saying all three of the Earp sisters were born into an abusive household. But the three had some very different experiences of abuse/neglect, and environment is SO important on child development. Like genetics is some basic groundwork but really it’s environment that does most of the shaping. In this analysis, let’s start youngest:

Waverly Earp. Now Waverly is like an ideal outcome from abuse. Clearly this girl was born with a hell of a lot of resilience in her genes (that Earp? legacy). She can bounce back from a crisis. But, she kinda got it easiest of the three: she was only in the homestead until she was 6- after that she was raised by Gus and Uncle Curtis in what was no doubt a much healthier, stabler household. Now see age 6 is important- because personality is generally done developing just before puberty- about 10 years of age. This factoid of personality development will come up again later, but for Waverly, being removed from a toxic environment at a young age meant she actually had a chance to unlearn/recover from many of the more nasty potential effects of severe neglect (she was by far the most neglected I mean a demon was her best friend and NO ONE KNEW) as well as the sibling abuse inflicted by Willa (blackmail, sadism, power plays- not a good sign in a child).

Now does the abuse still affect her? Hell yeah! She still lived through it and it changed her permanently- you see it in how she needs love and attention (why else go for Champ as soon as Wynonna leaves town? She needed ANYBODY) even at her own expense. She downplays herself, but simultaneously wants to be important (the Heir- cause you know her dad only cared about the Heir). And you know what I think? She didn’t resist telling Wynonna about Nicole because she was scared what she would think. No. Wynonna of course doesn’t care. No she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to even risk Nicole getting involved in the toxicity surrounding the Earp family. She wanted Nicole separate to keep her safe (remnant thought process from Willa using what Waverly loved to blackmail her). But still, even with all of this, she is not as severely affected as she would’ve been if she had stayed neglected and abused for say, 12 or 13 years. Waverly had intervention, and real world case studies of severe emotional neglect have shown that a child as old as 5-6 can bounce back remarkably well in the right care. I mean to where you wouldn’t know they had been through Hell- at least not immediately.

Wynonna Earp. Middle sibling, mix of neglect and abuse. She is the most moderate/common outcome from abusive childhoods- with healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms and personality traits meshed together. Like Waverly, resilient as hell, because she lived in that environment for 12 years, and unlike Waverly didn’t get a healthy stable home afterwards. No she got the foster care system and juvie and unhelpful counselors who essentially gaslighted her (unintentionally but it’s still gaslighting) which does no one any favors. So Wynonna had way more negative environment time, yet she still held on to her “good” side- she has a moral code she follows, she cares for those close to her, she’s able to have a healthy relationship with at least one person (Waverly). I’d almost say she’s shown the most resilience of the three. Now her childhood experience is interesting, because she’s in the middle of this spectrum. She didn’t receive the full force of Ward’s attention because she wasn’t the Heir, Willa was. So that’s less aggression abuse from him, instead she was more neglected by him. But her very close age with Willa put her close to that aggression abuse as she experienced it vicariously through Willa. She saw what he did to Willa by way of abuse and Waverly by neglect, and seeing that affected her. It made her so, so protective and parental. Of both Waverly and Willa. So while Ward may not have done much direct abuse to Wynonna, she still lived it. And it affected her to make her a caretaker.

It’s also a form of displacement on Wynonna’s part- to be a caretaker. The prospect of caring for herself is far too daunting but caring for another? More doable. Taking a caretaker role also helps her regain some sense of control, none of which she had when she had to witness Ward’s abuse and couldn’t help Willa or Waverly. Now some of you may be asking: “Didn’t she see Willa abuse Waverly? How could she still care for Willa?” Remember she had known Willa much longer than Waverly, and on top of that she knew WHY Willa was so callous and aggressive- she knew first hand why. So she explained it away because she loved Willa and saw she was broken and I’m willing to bet when she witnessed the sibling abuse, she stepped in. I have a feeling Willa did most of it under the radar. Hell I bet even Wynonna got some verbal or emotional abuse at times from Willa, but she went with it because it was less severe. And again she would explain it away. And in Willa’s absence, Wynonna idolized her even more, and she became a myth of herself. Her good qualities remembered over her bad ones. Waverly had a different experience seeing as she didn’t HAVE any good memories of Willa.

Now to the contentious point. Willa Earp. Now I’ve taken you through the personality development of Waverly and Wynonna. You see how they came to be. Now I’m going to show you how Willa came to be. As the Heir, Willa was THE focus of Ward’s attention. And this is where it begins. If she had been neglected she may have actually had a shot, ironically. Because Ward promoted aggression, antisocial behavior, and created a culture of fear. We’ve only seen glimpses but he was taking her out in the middle of night telling her how everyone would die and it’d be her fault. He was creating a paranoid soldier. Now this is awful for a child’s development, especially personality. Remember she lived under Ward’s thumb for 13 years- her personality had long since formed, and it formed to cope with constant fear and a desire to gain some semblance of control over her situation to stay safe. And to keep Wynonna safe. I do not doubt she loved Wynonna- but she loved her how she LEARNED to love another human. Ward had no problem hurting and scaring Willa in a horribly misguided attempt at raising her. She knew as a child that fathers are supposed to love their daughters. So Ward’s abuse must have been how you love (in the mind of young Willa), and you see her applying this with Wynonna. She was more than ready to kill Wynonna because she truly believed it was a kindness and a show of love.

Did Willa ever love Waverly? I do not think so. Because Waverly didn’t show up until Willa was already about 8 years old and completely bonded to Wynonna. And, I think she was too busy to learn to love her, which I’ll explain more later on. Even in a healthy family, it’s not uncommon for an older sibling to resent a younger one, but add in the way Willa has been treated and raised up until that point, and you get the extreme response of sibling abuse. Now you might ask “So why didn’t Wynonna do the same? Why did she get parental while Willa got aggressive?” and the answer is (for the first time in this whole spiel) likely genetics.

A quick lesson: everyone is born with a specific type of temperament, which in short is how a child naturally deals with their emotions. Do they sorta “go with the flow” of their emotions, are they a powder keg with strong, uncontrollable emotions, or some mix? Temperament forms the building blocks of all further personality development, and it is far far from destiny. But it’s a genetic predisposition to regulate your emotions in a certain way. And it is interconnected with that resilience I’ve mentioned previously.

Resilience, if you aren’t sure, is a child’s ability to cope with adversity. The greater the resilience, the more likely a child is to come away from adversity without major psychological harm. A highly resilient child, is more likely to have a “good” temperament (moderate level emotions, relatively easy to work with) whereas a child with low resilience is more likely to have an “at-risk” temperament (very strong emotions that are difficult to regulate). Wynonna, with her obviously high resilience, clearly had a “good” temperament growing up. Willa, most definitely was an “at-risk” temperament (her losing her cool at the slightest provocation with Whiskey Jim for example), and combined with the severe abuse and aggressive environment, that temperament blossomed into the rest of her personality.

A third vital ingredient in this is called cognitive load. What that refers to is basically how much mental effort/energy the brain spends performing a task or tasks. There is a finite amount of cognitive load the brain can handle, and so it must apportion its time as it sees fit. If there’s a lot of stimuli (external and internal) to deal with, the brain will prioritize, again, as it sees most fit, leaving out “unnecessary” information. EVERYTHING take some cognitive load, from thinking through a problem, to emotional regulation, to social relationships. And we all know you can only juggle so much.

Now let’s combine these three concepts together in Willa. Willa was born with an “at-risk” temperament, which means she has BIG emotions and cannot regulate them well. That takes a LOT of cognitive load to manage. She also has lower resilience to adversity, and some of resiliency’s power comes from a LARGE capacity for cognitive load. You are more resilient if you are better able to process and work through adversity instead of getting drowned in it. So low resiliency=low cognitive load capacity. This already low cognitive load capacity had to deal with emotional regulation of a veritable firecracker, so it’s mostly busy doing that. Add in her forced focus on Ward’s “training” (skills and cognitive tasks) and abuse, and her close bond to Wynonna (a social relationship to manage and someone to protect) and her poor brain is overloaded. It can’t handle any more responsibilities. So when Waverly comes along she sees another potential responsibility and says no. So instead Waverly becomes not only a nuisance to her (she’s got enough to focus on already), but an outlet for her frustration and pain. She has no control with Ward, but she can control Waverly like he does to her. She can feel big, and what kid doesn’t take comfort in feeling big?

Another major thing I want to point out with adult Willa is her obviously stunted emotional and social development, which is no surprise. I’m willing to bet growing up she really didn’t have any friends besides Wynonna, so all of her socialization happened in the Earp homestead (not a great place as has been clearly demonstrated). Willa shows an understanding of the world that is basically that of a preteen. It’s shown as a black and white understanding of other people when she tells Wynonna of the citizens of Purgatory “They hate us Wynonna, they’re evil they deserve that thing!”. It also plays into her lack of emotional regulation, because even a child with an “at-risk” temperament tends to improve some as they age because they learn ways to cope. Willa never did. Now not only did Ward contribute to this stunted development but so did being isolated by Bobo and Lou.

And finally it is here where I will address the Stockholm Syndrome briefly. Only briefly because while she clearly has it- believing Bobo loves her- it did not create Willa as she is. That happened long before Bobo. Bobo used what Ward had started, that’s probably part of what drew him to Willa. Bobo’s influence sure as hell didn’t help because all he did was reinforce everything she had learned up until that point. But Stockholm alone did not make Willa. It’s a much more complicated story and it is tragic and it is one that needs to be heard. She is a product of fear and pain and the need to survive, and while her history does not change the fact that as she is now she is a villain, she is a villain worth sympathy. Because the poor thing never really had a chance from day one. So I dare you to instead take a look at Willa not as the evil lesbian-shooter, but as a scared child trained to be a soldier who is solely responsible for everyone’s lives who cannot handle the pressure and needs to escape and doesn’t know any other way but destruction.

#earp #waverly earp #wynonna earp #willa earp #wynonnaearp #personal post #child pscyhology #analysis #earp analysis

974 notes · View notes