25
Feb
2016
Written by Bonney Bowman /
Alaska National Guardsmen gathered Monday for a workout called 22 WOD to End Veteran Suicide. The WOD, or Workout Of the Day, is a national CrossFit event geared toward raising awareness about suicide prevention. Despite increasing mental health services, the number of veteran suicides in Alaska may be growing. Eight vets took their lives during fiscal year 2014, versus five the fiscal year before. Nationally, an average of 22 vets commit suicide each day. It’s a staggering number the military is working to combat through events like 22 WOD, which recognize those lives lost. At the gym on Camp Carroll, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, service members took part in a work out so tough, SSgt. Oliver Meza said it’s almost like going into combat. “High stress, adrenaline, sweat — you’re giving everything you got so it’s almost replicating that environment,” he said. Exercise can help treat such issues as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and more.
24
Feb
2016
Written by Sharon P. Schultz / Capital Gazette
Ryan Lively first became interested in the human brain when she was a high school junior studying anatomy at Annapolis Area Christian School’s Upper School Campus in Severn. Now a senior, it was a “no-brainer” that Lively would select the human brain as the subject of her Senior Practicum, a year-long project that is a requirement for graduation from AACS. What made Lively’s project unique was the way she incorporated five dogs from Pets-On-Wheels into the brain study. This is a form of animal therapy, which is a mental health program used to help people with such issues as mental illness, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and more.
23
Feb
2016
Written by Felicity Thistlethwaite / Sunday Express
Any ailment can be frustrating and upsetting, but tinnitus sufferers will tell you the constant humming sound goes beyond that. Tinnitus is the term for hearing sounds that come from inside your body, rather than from an outside source. It is usually described as a ringing, hissing, buzzing, roaring or humming sound where there is no external sound source. It can lead to clinical depression. There may be a single sound or two or more, and the noise may be there all the time or come and go. It can be heard in one or both ears or in the head.”
22
Feb
2016
Written by Joanne Silberner / NPR
0.4 percent. That’s the proportion of global development assistance that goes to mental illness prevention, care and treatment, according to Daniel Vigo. It’s $1.5 billion of the $372 billion total health assistance spending around the world over the last 15 years. Vigo, a psychologist and psychiatrist at Harvard, believes that more money is needed. And he also believes that one reason the percentage is so low is that the world doesn’t do a good job of assessing the number of people who suffer from mental illness and the disability and the premature death that result. Those lost years — years when a person can’t work, can’t take part in family life — and those earlier-than-expected deaths are what’s called the “global burden of mental illness.”
18
Feb
2016
Written by Kim Banks / Examiner
Clinical depression is normally described as a common clinical mental health illness that affects one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Depression has symptoms related to feelings such as intense sadness, anger, and guilt, hopelessness and constant pessimism. Behaviors symptoms include withdrawing socially, lack of energy, low motivation, sleep problems, poor concentration and changes in appetite causing either significant weight gain or lose. Symptoms in thoughts include poor self-esteem, recurrent thoughts of suicide and loss of interest in regular activities.
17
Feb
2016
Written by Embry Roberts / TODAY
In the six years since Nik Glaser adopted a golden doodle puppy named Kramer, the animal has become more than a pet. He’s become a therapy pet. “I have clinical anxiety, and I go through phases where it can be overwhelming,” Glaser, 30, explained. “With Kramer around, I rarely get to the stage of having panic attacks. He’s very intuitive. If he sees I’m getting agitated, he’ll put his head on my lap or reach out with his paw. “It’s a subtle thing, but it calms me.”
06
Feb
2016
Written by Amanda Garrett / Beacon Journal
Dr. Richard Kogan’s fingers — sometimes fluttering, sometimes flogging the keys of a piano — spilled a cascading torrent of emotion across a lobby at Summa Akron City Hospital Friday as if it was Carnegie Hall.
03
Feb
2016
Written by The Opinion Pages / New York Times
The skyrocketing number of children with attention deficit disorders has led some pediatricians to question whether the diagnostic criteria for them — which is necessary for medication prescriptions and disability accommodations — is too subjective. Some children may be over-diagnosed and over-medicated, while others who fall short of the diagnosis go unsupported.
02
Feb
2016
Written by Amy Chillag / CNN
01
Feb
2016
Written by Alyson Shontell / AOL.com
Matthieu Ricard, 69, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk originally from France who has been called “the world’s happiest man.” That’s because he participated in a 12-year brain study on meditation and compassion led by a neuroscientist from the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson. Davidson hooked up Ricard’s head to 256 sensors and found that when Ricard was meditating on compassion, his mind was unusually light.