Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Autism book by Harvard researcher offers holistic strategies but no guarantees

Excerpt from: Washington Post (click for full article)

 

Often, parents of autistic children are told that the disorder is genetically hard-wired, destined to remain fixed forever. A new book offers parents hope for a different outcome.

“The Autism Revolution,” by Harvard Medical School researcher and clinician Martha Herbert, aims to approach autism methodically, with strategies to help parents better meet their child’s needs and make their lives as full as possible.

Herbert shares real-life success stories of children and adults on the autism spectrum who, as she describes them, “didn’t follow the textbooks.” They followed recommendations to optimize nutrition, strengthen immunity and reduce stress and environmental toxins. They “got better — some dramatically so,” writes Herbert.

Stressed Out? Connecting Stress to Mental Illness!

Excerpt from: Healthy Place (click for full article)

 

Receiving the diagnosis of mental illness is frightening and the process we take to recover can feel impossible. Add in a little–or a lot–of stress and what feels impossible can become impossible. This is why it`s important to recognize the difference between stress and possible relapse.

Self-care is an invaluable tool when it comes to understanding and relieving stress. The simple things like exercising, eating well, and working to adhere to a schedule allow us to work through the tough parts in life.

When you do experience a life change or symptoms of stress, even if they are not intruding upon your life, it’s worth it to visit your psychiatrist. This is part of self-care.

Try to remember that stress can be healthy; stress is a symptom of change and change is normal. Without change, the world would be a boring place—without change we would not grow as individuals. Work to embrace change, change makes us human, and it makes life interesting.

8 Tips for Relieving Stress Quickly

Excerpt from: Ruhanirabin (click for full article)

 

Stress can come from anywhere.  Work and school, of course, are the main sources of stress for adults, although anything from relationships to taxes could also induce stress.  But work is the most common venue for stress.  Luckily, there are plenty of ways to deal with unpleasant situations and return to a calm state of mind.

Here are some ideas:

Exercise.  

Breath deeply.

Inject some nature into your work-space.

Music

Find a hobby

How Chronic Stress Accelerates Alzheimer’s Disease

Excerpt from: Science Daily (click for full article)

 

Why does chronic stress lead to increased risk for dementia? The answer may lie in the elevation of stress steroids that is seen in the brain during stress, Sara K. Bengtsson suggests in the thesis she is defending at Umeå University in Sweden on March 22nd.

These stress steroids can inhibit the general brain activity. Allopregnanolon is one of them, and the doctoral thesis shows that chronically elevated levels of allopregnanolone accelerated the disease development in two transgenic Alzheimer disease models. The Alzheimer mice responded with impaired learning and memory. They had also increased brain levels of beta-amyloids, i.e. the proteins that form plaques in Alzheimer's disease.

The thesis also demonstrates that high levels of beta-amyloids corresponded to dysfunction among brain synapses. This was seen after a period of chronically elevated levels of allopregnanolon, but not after placebo treatment. The effects were identified early in the disease development when the animals normally have intact memory function. A similar acceleration of AD in humans could mean the difference between living self-sufficiently at home and living with requirements of professional care.

Stress in Children and Adolescents: Tips for Parents

Excerpt from: National Center for Learing Disabilities (click for full article)

 

How Parents Can Help

• Be aware of your child’s behaviors and emotions.
• Build trust with your child.
• Be available and open to talk with your child when they are ready.
• Encourage the expression of feelings.
• Teach and model good emotional responses.
• Encourage them to tell you if they feel overwhelmed.
• Encourage healthy and diverse friendships.
• Encourage physical activity, good nutrition, and rest.
• Teach your child to problem solve.
• Remind your child of his or her ability to get through tough times, particularly with the love and support of family and friends.
• Keep your child aware of anticipated family changes.
• Monitor television programs that could worry your child and pay attention to the use of computer games, movies, and the Internet.
• Use encouragement and natural consequences when poor decisions are made.
• Help your child select appropriate extracurricular activities and limit over-scheduling.
• Make your child aware of the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol before experimentation begins.
• Monitor your own stress level. Take care of yourself.
• Contact your child’s teacher with any concerns and make them part of the team available to assist your child.
• Seek the assistance of a physician, school psychologist, school counselor, or school social worker if stress continues to be a concern.

Exercise May Help Protect Children From Stress

Excerpt from: The New York Times (click for full article)

 

Physically active children generally report happier moods and fewer symptoms of depression than children who are less active. Now researchers may have found a reason: by one measure, exercise seems to help children cope with stress.

Finnish researchers had 258 8-year-old boys and girls wear accelerometers on their wrists for at least four days that registered the quality and quantity of their physical activity. Their parents used cotton swabs to take saliva samples at various times throughout a single day, which the researchers used to assess levels of cortisol, a hormone typically induced by physical or mental stress.

There was no difference in the cortisol levels at home between children who were active and those who were less active. But when the researchers gave the children a standard psychosocial stress test at a clinic involving arithmetic and storytelling challenges, they found that those who had not engaged in physical activity had raised cortisol levels. The children who had moderate or vigorous physical activity showed relatively no rise in cortisol levels.

Common Causes of Caregiver Stress

Excerpt from: About.com (click for full article)

 

If you’ve been taking care of a chronically ill spouse or elderly parent, you may be feeling the effects of caregiver stress. If you’re feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, or are experiencing increased stress symptoms, you’re not alone. Providing this type of care can place a great deal of pressure on a person, and caregivers are often surprised by the amount of stress they feel. The link above lists just some of the pressures that many caregivers face.

Family Inc.

Excerpt from: The Wall Street Journal (click for full article)

 

A key finding of positive psychology is that happiness depends in large measure on relationships. Our families are our primary relationships, yet we spend almost no time trying to improve them. As Eleanor Starr told me in Idaho, "You have your job, you work on that. Your have your garden, your hobbies, you work on those. Your family requires just as much work, if not more."

Today, we have more knowledge than ever before to help make that work easier, much of it from America's leading organizations. The task for parents is to find time to implement it. As Harvard psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar wrote in his book "Happier": "There is one easy step to unhappiness—doing nothing." The opposite also holds: The easiest path to happiness is to do something. In the end, this may be the most enduring lesson of all. What's the secret to a happy family?

 

The Least Stressful Job in America: Professor

Excerpt from: TaxProf Blog (click for full article)

 

A "study" by CareerCast (a job portal site) and a resulting article in Forbes -- both asserting that college professor is the least stressful job in America -- have created considerable faculty stress (and anger) in the last few days. ...

"University professors have a lot less stress than most of us," said the article. "Unless they teach summer school, they are off between May and September and they enjoy long breaks during the school year, including a month over Christmas and New Year’s and another chunk of time in the spring. Even when school is in session they don't spend too many hours in the classroom. For tenure-track professors, there is some pressure to publish books and articles, but deadlines are few. Working conditions tend to be cozy and civilized and there are minimal travel demands, except perhaps a non-mandatory conference or two."

That sort of analysis prompted a flood of comments to Forbes, with professors pointing out their deadlines, their summer teaching schedules, the reality that faculty members who teach at community colleges or off the tenure track face numerous challenges apparently unknown to Forbes, and professors' lack of the sort of Mr. Chips life that the magazine apparently believes still exists. ... The latest rejoinder -- an article called "Top 10 Reasons Being a University Professor Is a Stressful Job" -- appears in Forbes.

Reacting to stress

Excerpt from: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (click for full article)

 

We all experience stress at some point. There are interpersonal stressors, like arguments. There are overloads. I have too much to do and no time! And there are network stressors that happen around you. Researchers reviewed the National Study of Daily Experiences to see how people react to stress, and how that affected long-term health.

David Almeida is a professor of human development at Penn State.

“People who reported being emotionally reactive were 30 percent more likely to report chronic health conditions 10 years later.”

People were more reactive to interpersonal stress that involved their family. If you’re feeling stressed…

“Get away from the situation. Try to take a break. And, if possible, engage in some sort of physical activity.”

The study in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.