Category Archives: Current News

Topics on Mind Health, lifestyle, everyday dilemmas

Diet Coke Drama

Sweet but sad and mostly corn syrup.
Sweet but sad and mostly corn syrup.

We are being frivolous to refer to this issue as just “drama”. For years, we have been warning you about the risks related to aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. Now there is data from years of tracking women in a very large study and here’s what’s been found: Increased blood pressure, increased cholestral, increased belly fat and increased risks of diabetes. In addition, daily diet soda drinking is thought to cause an increase of 30% in your risk of heart attack and an increase of 50% in your risk of dying from heart attack.

So will you switch back to regular soda with its’ corn syrup sweetener? Not so fast! Corn syrup is associated with causing dementia and Alzheimer’s. Well what should you drink? WATER! Okay, some of you want something a little sweeter.  That is, the bacteria that live in your gut are in there poking your intestines and begging for a sweetener, which is what they need to procreate and thrive. How about an all natural drink? Iced herbal tea with honey or a natural sweetener like the herb, stevia. Some tasty brands are NuNevia and Sweet Leaf. We like them because of their natural taste. They are available in powder as well as non-alcohol liquid. Some other brands have troubling fillers

Chicken Nugget recall & Cereal Questions

Do your kids eat chicken nuggets? This first week in April, 2014, Tyson Foods has issued a recall of 5 pound bags of chicken nuggets sold at Sam’s Clubs. They reportedly received calls from customers reporting plastic particles mixed into some of their packaged nuggets.  And while we’re looking at chicken nuggets, there have been a number of reports about how other manufacturers make chicken nuggets and the sources and types of meat used to make them. While Tyson, in the current press release notes that their chicken nuggets are made from white meat, reports of questionable nugget content associated some brands with a form of chicken “pink slime”.

PinkCknSlimeMomonaSpiritualJourney

Some clinicians have noted that children presenting with ADHD and other neurological problems reported daily or weekly consumption of chicken nuggets and some higher sugar-content breakfast cereals.

Many pure food advocates feel that ALL cereals are poor nutrition for children and expose them to a number of additives & chemicals used in the processing of grains into cereal.  In addition, many children may be missing important minerals and vitamins because they consume these processed foods instead.

High quality protein to start the day is associated with better behavior, longer attention spans and better memory. Sources of protein are lean meats, eggs, fish and various beans.  Morning smoothies made with frozen organic fruit, a few kale leaves, nut milks,  hemp protein powder and no added sugars, juices or syrups provide a quick, healthy start.

What?! No waffles, pancakes, pop tarts, granola bars, biscuits, donuts and other forms of the same stuff the cereals are made of on the recommended list? Certainly not.

Black children expelled from school 3 times more than their white counterparts

Black students with learning disabilities were suspended much more often than white students with the same problems.
Black students with learning disabilities were suspended much more often than white students with the same problems.

A study released today by the US Department of Education shows that racism is alive and well in public schools across the country.  This study included data from every school district in the country which showed:

  • Black students were expelled or suspended at triple the rate of whites
  • Black girls were expelled more often than most other students and at more than double the rate of white students
  • Black students had less access to qualified and trained teachers than white students
  • 25% of school districts pay teachers in less diverse schools up to $5000 more than teachers in predominantly black or Latino schools
  • This disparity in treatment begins early with black preschool students representing 43 percent of preschoolers suspended more than once when they are only 18 percent of the preschool population.

This early pattern of school mistreatment shapes black children to fit into the school to prison pipeline, with 16 percent (black students’ population) comprising 27 per cent of students referred to law enforcement and making up 31 per cent of students arrested in school. Recall the case of the five year old Florida girl who was handcuffed with her ankles bound for throwing a temper tantrum in 2005 or the six year old Georgia kindergartner who was handcuffed and taken to the police station  for having a meltdown over candy.

A vegan staple for your new way of eating

You are what you eat, so eat pretty!
Above: Coconut Squash soup. Find the recipe in Karyn’s Conscious Comfort Foods.

Who says vegetarian fare isn’t better than the everyday processed gunk that your body can’t process away?  Can you imagine eating rich, creamy and incredibly delicious food and not gaining weight, not feeling like you’re going into a coma afterward and actually building your immunity to colds & illness at the same time? Well, start imagining it because that’s what we’ll be bringing to the website – news and recipes on how to eat well and stay happy and slim.

Start with some basic searching.

Search out the closest and best sources of fresh, organic produce. If you eat meat, find organic and preferably local butchers or farms. People are surprised to find that many of these are right under your nose or right down the road from you. Fresh, cold water fish is a major source of essential fatty acids – excellent fuel for the brain. Find the best sources near you. Some major grocery chains have been caught using bleach to kill the bacteria and smell of past prime meat and fish in black communities.
It’s essential to know where your food really comes from.

Look up http://www.csa.org for Community Supported Agriculture which will show local farms, farm stores, food drop off points and farmers markets. Find one that delivers near you or is located near you and buy a “farm share”. A full share usually provides you with fresh picked produce for a family of 4 weekly from May to November. A half share for the same 24 to 28 weeks will cost you around $300 or about $12 per week.  A pretty good deal! And a great alternative to half-dead produce that has excess pesticides, might be a genetically modified crop and may have been shipped thousands of miles. Some pesticides are outlawed in this country but are used in others. We buy that produce and the chemicals affect our brains. Often cheap processed food has many more chemicals in it, so if you’re going to save on something, maybe you don’t want it to be at the risk of your health.

Just Get Over It! And Other Insensitive Things That People Say……..

 

How many times have you heard someone shriek, mutter, moan, yell, spit, murmur or plead, “Just get over it!”, usually followed by the less audible, “Will you?” The answer is, you won’t.  The fact that you are displaying emotion  through your words, facial expression, body language, tears or a big fat sign with four-letter words is THE POINT. What would make someone think that just telling you to get over it would fix it for you?  Two things: One, the assumption that emotions are totally within one’s control and, two, that you just need to change your thinking and apply a little discipline to change your mood.

People fear feelings

This simplistic thinking is  the equivalent of magical thinking. Just close your eyes and pretend what’s happening is not real and think    happy  thoughts so I won’t have to come up with the right words to make you feel better. So my telling you to straighten your face and look happy is really an expression of my fear of not being a good enough partner, parent, friend or sibling.

The effect of experience

Some people are very literal thinkers. If they feel things deeply, they don’t tell anyone, not even themselves. If they don’t feel things deeply, they don’t understand how you could. Literal people often don’t understand that what someone might express emotion about might really mask something totally different that they are upset about. Like people who cry at the movies when the hero dies. They might actually be thinking bout a pet’s death early in their childhood. And some people  who have had many disappointments in their lives  might react intensely to anything. Opening the container that holds their emotions might cause them all to spill out. One could imagine that for some people, each subsequent loss made it harder and harder for them to contain their sadness or anger.

It is often said that African Americans are likely to be more expressive of their emotions than whites, that Latinos are more expressive than European Americans, and the British more conservative in expression than Italians. In these instances we may be referring to cultural learning about what is acceptable  expression of feelings.

Sensitive brains and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Here’s another something to consider – the brains of some people, and their nervous systems ( which their brains are connected to, by the way) are extra sensitive. In the field of neurofeedback, you can look at the speed with which brain cells are firing in an EEG (electroencephalograph). Those people who have extra fast firing neurons in the front of the brain tend to get stuck on thoughts and feelings, sort of like your car tires spinning on ice. Such people can’t help themselves  from getting carried away when they get upset. They will obsess over it until something or somebody gives them a push or a pull out of that rut that they are creating. Luckily, neurofeedback, also known as brain biofeedback, provides a non- intrusive, drug-free way to slow down the troublesome brain activity.

The power of positive thinking

So many people who have grown up in difficult situations have found help from positive thinking courses. It is the poor man’s form of self- treatment and it can be very useful if there is not a biochemical cause of mood disorders. Positive affirmations introduced years ago by folks like Norman Vincent Peale and reframed twenty years back by Iyanla Vanzant in her book, Acts of Faith, began a very successful trend  of giving folks new roads out of despair.  Mental health problems can come from  physical disorders like diabetes or heart problems, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, dementia, lupus, etc. because in these disorders the chemistry and functioning of the organ systems are altered, thereby affecting the brain.

The  power of CBT

So there are different ways of accessing mental health problems in order to find solutions to them. Solutions from the inside might include medications, diet change, detoxification or supplements. Solutions from the  outside may include psychotherapy, group therapy, acupuncture, transcranial magnetic stimulation, neurofeedback, meditation, yoga, exercise and other treatments. For some problems, a combination of several of these may be just the ticket. While the current medical treatment in America emphasizes drugs above psychotherapy, the rule of thumb over the last twenty years has always been psychotherapy first and medication second if there was no risk of harm to life and limb or safety. In more recent years drugs have dominated nearly every area of medical treatment such that people assume there is nothing else. In other countries, where the success of medical care for everyday health issues is more successful than in the United States,  alternative, non drug therapies are a matter of course.

One of the most effective, short term therapies, is Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). In talk sessions, one’s specific thoughts underlying your feelings and behavior are examined. Those that are logical and are working for you are reinforced. Those thoughts that are mythical, incorrect or left over from some previous bad experience  are corrected and replaced with more helpful thoughts. It has been proven that CBT and other forms of talk therapy actually change the brain and provide long lasting improvement for most people.

It is important to ask your provider, what is the safest, least intrusive way to solve your problem and is this an area in which they specialize. There are many people with depression who have been on medication for years and yet have never been evaluated by a therapist – an expert in mental health needs. A general antidepressant is often given out by gynecologists and family practitioners based on your answers to a checklist of questions. This can be helpful where there are no trained mental health providers but in most populated areas there are many and in rural areas telephone or Skype therapy is possible.

Since antidepressants don’t cure depression or rid you of its’ cause, once you stop taking them you may be right where you started or the real cause of your depression may have disappeared for unrelated reasons. A responsible and comprehensive approach would include having a full medical work up to eliminate physical sources of problems, for which depression or anxiety might be the first symptoms.  In the meantime, one can begin therapy and learn how to use insight to identify choices and learn techniques to change their behaviors and feelings. They can’t just be told to “Get over it”.

Mental health or behavior problems aren’t just a matter of choice.