First Impression: Schizophrenia

--Original published at Pisacane Perspectives

For this week I chose option 1 which contained the video simulating what a normal day for someone with schizophrenia is like. Although I’ve seen movies depicting people with schizophrenia, namely Danny Darko and A Beautiful Mind, I still found myself being anxious throughout the video because I didn’t know what to expect. This made me realize that although the media depicts the common symptoms of the disorder, they do so in a way that advances the plot or gives the story an antagonist (in the case of Danny Darko) and not in a way that’s actually accurate.

I found it interesting that the video used light to show “reality” and what was the disorder. In the beginning there’s no voices or hallucination, but as they start to appear it get’s darker and darker in the video. It isn’t until another person comes and grounds the person by talking about their medicine and opening the blinds does it become light again. Throughout the video the harsh words of the voices, the paranoia, and the hallucinations made me realize how difficult it is to just go about your day like a person without the disorder would. It’s very persistent unlike the way it’s portrayed in media where is comes and goes.

Obviously medication can help with these symptoms, and there isn’t any “typical” case of schizophrenia, but this video made it a lot easier to understand what life for someone with schizophrenia is like compared to what it looks like in movies.

First Impression post week 15

--Original published at Max'sPHY105blog

For this weeks first impression post, I choose to respond to option 1, in which I comment on a schizophrenia simulator. I thought this video was a little scary. I would have been shaking if I did not know that the man was experiencing hallucinations. As I watched this video, I tried to put myself in this man’s place. At first, I thought that if my everyday life was like what the video showed, I would probably get used to it eventually and become less likely to believe what I see. I thought that this would be especially true with hearing the man talk on television about someone coming to get me. When the simulation ended, it was mentioned that no one experiences schizophrenia in the same way. After I thought about that, it came to me that there might be different hallucinations experienced by people with schizophrenia every day, good or bad. So people with schizophrenia would have no idea what is real and what is not. So it was not wonder the man in the video had many protective thoughts telling him to not answer the door or eat a pizza, with the main though in his head that someone was trying to kill him. When I hear of schizophrenia on the media, I usually see things with a similar background as the video, but it ends up getting much worse. I usually see a person lashing out and trying to stab someone he thinks is trying to hurt him. In the media, I see people with schizophrenia as being overprotective as if they have seen a ghost. Although this might be true in some cases, I know that the hallucinations experienced by people with schizophrenia are not always deadly. Some of these hallucinations might even look good what the real thing is bad. Like the video stated, there is not one way to represent the hallucinations experienced by people with schizophrenia, so the effects of schizophrenia must vary across a wide range as well.

Blog Post Week 15

--Original published at Sidney's college blogs

For this week’s first impression post, I decided to do option 1. I watched the video, and it honestly made my heart race and my head was going a million miles an hour. I can not even imagine going through what these people go through on a daily basis. I have mentioned before that I am a huge fan of the show Criminal Minds. Those with schizophrenia are often depicted in this show. For example, there was an episode where a man was on a train and he ended up holding everyone in the train hostage because he believed that FBI had put a tracking device in his arm. He believed that the government knew everything about him and that they were after him. This episode showed his schizophrenic state by having a “man” behind his shoulder at all times. This represented the voice that he battled with inside of his head. The “man” standing over his shoulder would give him the ideas about the FBI. He would tell him if someone needed to be shot and ultimately what the outcome of the situation would be. He completely filled his head with insane thoughts and feelings. There were also delusions that he saw in the episode. He would imagine the people on the train telling him that he is stupid, and that the FBI already knows everything about him. No one said these things to him, but he imagined it himself. That episode reminded me greatly of the video I watched. In neuroscience, we recently learned about those who had schizophrenia, and it is truly a fascinating, but horrible disorder to have. The video put you in perspective as being the person who has this disorder. The person had no clarity and no control over themselves. The voices within his mind completely overtook his thoughts and his actions. The part that really surprised me was that the voices were able to convince him that the pizza and the medication were poisonous. So much that the pizza box actually said “Poizzon.” I am really glad that I was able to watch this video and see how a day in the life of someone with schizophrenia really is. I could never imagine having to deal with voices inside of my head determining my entire life.

Schizophrenia: Elyn Saks

--Original published at Manda's College Blog

Watching Elyn Saks was a breath of fresh air for me. I unfortunately don’t know too much about schizophrenia, assuming it was related to multiple personality disorder and they can never live a normal life. I get this impression from the media and also from one of my friends moms, who has schizophrenia. I’ve met her and she’s always talking about that someone is after her and that we need to check the closets in the house. She lives with my friend because my friend found her not taking care of herself on her own.

Elyn describes schizophrenia just like what I’ve witnessed, the paranoia and intense nightmares she experiences while she’s awake, opened my eyes. It’s incredibly scary and unpredictable for the person that has it. I admire the fact that Elyn has taken a stand and is not just a psychologist but a firm believer that people of mental illness should not be in restraints. Showing this to my friend, she said she needed to see this because she finds herself getting so angry at her mom, she needs to realize it’s not her fault and there is no thoughts of sending her to a psych ward.

Elyn should be shown to people in the medical world and take consideration of what she believes helps people like her.

Media Production Post

--Original published at KatiesPerspectives

News Article:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111109093729.htm

Scholarly Article:

http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(11)00912-7/fulltext

Word count article: 297

Word count reflection: 250

Article Rewrite:

A study was done to test and prove that telomere in depression and the general population are associated with a hypocortisolemic state. The study proved the correlation between people with depression and having telomeres with shorter length. Telomeres are the outermost part of linear chromosomes, that have lines of short nucleotide strings. This study showed that there was also a significant relation between the hypocortisolemic state of stress, which leads to depression which leads to having a short telomere length. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays a big part in the neuroendocrine response to stress. This HPA axis is commonly found to be dysregulated in people with depression. While there are outside factors that contribute to stress and the HPA response to stress, the depressive state itself acts as a stress generator and does not help the person with depression. A group of patients in a psychiatric care center in northern Sweden who all meet the criteria of major depressive disorder were evaluated in this study. Eighty-one participants and 253 control subjects were all involved in this experiment and all of them were questioned and had their telomeres evaluated. The first article mentions the correlation between short telomeres and depression, but does not mention which causes which, but whether or not they are systematic, but it is confirmed that they are very much correlated. Results showed that telomeres were indeed shorter in evaluated patients than those in the control group. It is also important to note that telomeres shorten with age and stress/depression can accelerate this shortening process. Telomere length was also associated with stress measured with the Perceived Stress Questionnaire. This research has been done multiple researchers and has been evaluated by many professionals, and the results are generally the same despite few aspects that may vary.

Reflection:

Considering the fact that I only had 297 words to work with, I found it extremely difficult to get all the information I wanted in my article rewrite. One might think it’s easier writing less words, but I found myself going back and rewriting sentences over and over again in order to condense my word count. In order to meet the word count, I was forced to leave out some very important information that was put in place to support the research. Although I was able to get everything in that helps to summarize the findings of this study, there were a lot of details that I had to leave out that would have made my research sound more valid and believable because it helps support much of the research. When I was looking for a news article to read about, I wasn’t necessarily looking for a short one, but if I found one brief enough to get the point across, then that would be a plus (or so I thought.) In the end, having more words to work with would have been beneficial to me and throughout this semester I have learned much about research articles and their validity. I have learned that some are more reliable than others and most of the time, extra words and that little bit of extra information is exactly what an article needs to be more reliable. The original article shows just how much I’ve grown since the start of the semester.

Week 15 First Impression Prompts – Mental Illness

Hand writing on a notebook

Here are the prompts for this week. Regardless of which prompt you choose, use the tag “Mental Illness.” The first impression posts will be due by the beginning of class on Monday, 4/23. The refinement posts will be due at 5pm on Sunday, 4/29.

Option 1

Schizophrenia is often depicted dramatically in the media, and has been the subject of many major films like A Beautiful Mind, The Soloist, and Donnie Darko. Less frequently, however, do people get the chance to think about the daily life of someone who experiences hallucinations and delusions. Watch this video which simulates the experience of a person with schizophrenia, share your reactions, and compare this to how you typically see schizophrenia in the media.

Option 2

People often associate schizophrenia with the homeless population or mental hospitals, but rarely do we think about people who are professionally very successful. One person who is thriving despite her schizophrenia is Elyn Saks, who received her law degree from Yale and is a professor at the University of Southern California. In her TED Talk, she describes how she struggled with her disorder and was eventually able to manage her condition and take control of her life. Share your reactions to the video, discuss how her story compares to the “typical narrative” of schizophrenia, and discuss why you think she turned out differently than other people with this disorder.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

Media Production

--Original published at Caleb C's College Blog

Study done by Researchers at University of British Columbia Discover that Smelling Your Partner’s Scent Could Decrease Your Stress Levels

Research conducted through the University of British Columbia has found that women who are exposed to stranger’s scents compared to their partner’s scent display differences in stress levels. The study was conducted to research how stress levels very in women when exposed to unfamiliar scents. In the study, 96 heterosexual women were randomly assigned to smell one of three scents (their partner’s, a stranger’s, or neutral) and then were exposed to an acute stressor to then evaluate their body’s response to the smell when matched with stress. The main aspects measured in the experiment were cortisol levels, as well as perceived stress. Cortisol is the stress hormone released in the body and perceived stress was defined in the study as “indicated anxiety, physical discomfort, desire to leave the situation, tension, and feelings of control.” Perceived stress was overall reduced in those exposed to their partner’s scent, and cortisol levels were increased in those women who were exposed to a stranger’s scent. The study found, based on these results, that olfactory cues in social interactions revealed that scents impact reactions to stress.

The researchers continue emphasize in the discussion how a “stranger danger” effect was occurring with the elevated cortisol levels and a “partner comfort” effect was observed with the perceived stress. Both of these effects were limited to either aspect. Some criticisms within the research point towards how the men, where the shirts the women had to smell came from, were told to not eat or do anything for 24 hours which would alter their natural smell. This had to be done to control “scents,” though naturally people do things such as use scented lotions or body washes which contribute to their overall scent. This could explain why only 63% of women correctly identified their partner’s scent when exposed to it.

Reflection

This was extremely hard to summarize the research due to all the information and important aspects within the study which are necessary to the study. Though, because I was only limited to about 300 words, I was forced to leave some aspects out in order to properly summarize the research. I believe it was most important to emphasize the main idea of the study as well as what the researchers found within the results. Though, I had to sacrifice some of the details of the experimental setup as well as not hit all of the 5 critical questions. While writing this, I developed more respect for journalists because they have to boil down studies in order to get the most important information out while at the same time appealing to the reader and not boring them. I found the entertaining part the most difficult because I feel like I need to add facts about the research to prove my credibility but at the same time I feel as if I just copied information over and did not make it sound very interesting. This makes me feel bad about how harsh I was when criticizing the article initially because it seemed like they left out a lot of necessary information, though they did give the main message the study found accurately as well as composing it in a way which was appealing to read. I believe the author of the article left out important aspects of the article to make it an easy read while emphasizing the main idea, while I decided to more focus on including as much facts about the study within my 300 word limit and just discussing the main idea towards the beginning. Though, I also had to sacrifice “wrapping up” my article because I could not decide what information to take out without feeling like it was incomplete. Overall, I gained much more respect for journalists through this process because I discovered first hand how hard it can be to summarize main ideas of a complicated article while at the same time not making it a boring read.

Article: https://health.usnews.com/wellness/health-buzz/articles/2018-01-05/smelling-your-partners-shirt-could-decrease-your-stress-levels-study-says

Study: Hofer, M. K., Collins, H. K., Whillans, A. V., & Chen, F. S. (2018). Supplemental Material for Olfactory Cues From Romantic Partners and Strangers Influence Women’s Responses to Stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/pspa0000110.supp

Stress

--Original published at CurtisCollegeBlog

Stress is said to be a state of mental or emotional strain or tension from certain adversity or circumstances. Everyone on earth goes through stress at times, some more than others. How people deal with stress is a whole other different animal. In essence, dealing with and managing stress is generally the same across different cultures and things like that. I’m going to discuss the tips in detail for college students, athletes and teachers.

As a college student, the amount of stress you deal with daily can be pretty overwhelming. You have to plan out your time with some sort of schedule to stay on top of things. If you have a job, you have plan things around your work schedule. The 1^st tip is to prioritize your own health over other unnecessary things in your life. Staying healthy will keep you lively and energetic and with that your mind will also become sharper and able to gain and retain information better. Things like sleep, healthy food, and exercise all keep your health at a maximum level. Meditation is another way to deal with stress as a college student. Even if you don’t want to meditate like a monk, just simply relaxing and breathing will help your cortisol lower along with your stress. Planning helps a lot with stress, because it avoids the possibility of procrastination, which is a killer among students. There’s no need to be stressed about a deadline, if you have all your work done before then. Lastly, they say to be grateful for the life you live, because you’ll never know what could happen. Make sure you’re grounded as a person and maintaining homeostasis. As a student, you have to take care of yourself, so your performance in the classroom rises as well as your own health.

Athletes are some of the most stressed out people in the world, especially student athletes because they have to deal with all the pressures above and even more. Now, you have the pressure to perform day in and day out because of your coaches and teammates. They say athletes need a lot of rest because of the toll that they put on their body. As you sleep, the body naturally starts to restore itself, so you’re replenishing your health physiologically and mentally while gaining energy. Time management is a big issue for student athletes as well, you have balance all your sports stuff, with your day-to-day life. A positive attitude is something that is good to have as mentioned in the article. This is sort of in line with something called the Facial feedback theory. This theory leads you to believe a forced emotion, will lean you more towards actually being in the state of that emotion. If you’re smiling, you will be happier more likely than not. It’s recommended that athletes find some recreational activities. Something that can help you blow off some steam. This way you have more options to keep you sane or level-headed when you get stressed out. The last tip is to develop a support system. This could be any group of people you are around that are there for you and your well-being. This could be your family or a group of friends that you have that have your back no matter what. No matter how bad you play, these people are right by your side. It proves to you there is more to life than just sports.

Teachers get a bad reputation for having an “easy” job, but no job is easy all the time. Even though most teachers have summers off, it’s not always like this. Some teachers teach during summer school, but a lot of them just make lesson plans for the year and prepare. A lot of times, teachers are also coaches (usually at the high school level) which is a huge added stress. Breathing was a big option for teachers, meditated breathing can improve your life in a couple ways. Breathing will lower physical stress and helps you to regain control. A quirky method is to just embrace the stress, view it as something positive. Looking at stress constructively will cause your body to respond differently to it and prevents long-lasting internal physical damage. Teachers are supposed to remind themselves that they are not perfect, and perfection isn’t expected of them. Mistakes often happen, and they’re generally not a big deal. Teachers should try practicing emotional first aid on themselves, which sounds crazy at first. Essentially, it’s just repairing yourself from any mental and emotional strain that you are currently dealing with. Another thing is to work smarter not harder which will help you prevent straining yourself or spreading yourself too thin. When in doubt, ask for help, getting help from others doesn’t make you stupid or look weak, it helps get the job done properly. Teachers are told to develop some sort of close connection as well, whether it’s a deep friendship or love. I feel as though most teachers are married, but in that case it doesn’t hurt to make the bond you have stronger.

These three sources seemed as if they were credible. Most of the tips they gave were in the book’s stress management tips as well. For the most part, the tips seemed to be around the same too. Confirming that four different places lead you to the same couple of tips, seems to make them look credible. All 3 told their audience to connect with other people. Having genuine bonds with other people puts less pressure on you in certain situations. Positivity showed up in a bunch of them as well. That is partially backed up by the facial feedback theory. Pretending to be happy will make you happier. I thought that exercise was going to be put in for all 3 like it was in the book. I assume they didn’t have it in for athletes because they generally are getting enough exercise between their practices and games.

https://eduadvisor.my/articles/avoid-stress-college-7-stress-management-tips-students/ (College)

https://www.recruitingrealities.com/2012/09/25/5-stress-management-tips-for-student-athletes (athletes)

https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/9-stress-management-strategies-every-teacher-needs-know(teachers)

Spotlight Blog 2

--Original published at Caleb C's College Blog

Based on studies done on DARE, conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office, the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Department of Education, they have consistently shown that DARE is ineffective in reducing the use of alcohol and drugs and can even be considered counterproductive. The whole DARE organization sounds like a good idea, and I grew up and went through middle school when the whole program was expanding to schools nationwide. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program is used in close to 80% of school districts in the US, and 54 other countries around the world, overall reaching 36 million students each year. Therefore, knowing its effectiveness is important when considering the massive footprint it brings every year.

DARE leaders, when criticized with empirical evidence, say that the DARE Program shouldn’t be judged similar to other organizations based on evidence, because they prefer to rely on feelings, impressions, and hopes. The DARE program and their leadership continually dismiss evidence which questions DARE’s effectiveness, they argue the program has no need to be evaluated because it’s based on educational theories and techniques. Even though this is the case, the research they are founded on include world renown psychologists, Carl Rogers, Maslow, etc., though these same researchers later admitted that the specific research done which is what DARE is based on was wrong and off-base. Bill Coulson, another well-known psychologist states that the program “is rooted in trash psychology.” It can be difficult to get DARE out of schools, even with empirical evidence to back up the criticisms, due to how parents simply like the efforts made to tell their kids to not do drugs. For example, MADD leadership points to surveys which asks students, parents, and teachers whether they like the program, and overall most people report satisfaction with DARE. The DARE organization then uses these feelings and surveys to avoid evidence based criticisms, even though the surveys don’t shed light on how the program is truly impacting the children.

When the National Institutes of Health/University of Kentucky found DARE to be ineffective, DARE’s leader responded with it being “academic fraud,” and claimed it was part of and anti-DARE vendetta by therapists. Furthermore, In Houston, a study showed a 29% increase in drug usage and a 34% increase in tobacco usage among students who participated in DARE. William Modzeleski, top drug education official at the Department of Education, says “research shows that, no, DARE hasn’t been effective in reducing drug use.” Overall, DARE has been proven to not work like we wanted it to, thus the program needs to be improved and continually tweaked through criticisms of studies to help establish a system which is proven to decrease drug usage in kids. DARE is “a fraud on the people of America,” says the mayor of Salt Lake City, stating that “for too long our drug-prevention policies have been driven by mindless adherence to a wasteful, ineffective, feel-good program.”

According to Scientific American, an article written by Scott Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz discuss why the “Just Say NO” method doesn’t work. This statement initially came from First Lady, Nancy Reagan in 1982, and following that adolescent drug prevention movements adopted this as their slogan. On the surface, these programs sound good considering how teachers and parents witness first hand how drugs and alcohol impact their children, though overall these programs have typically found to be ineffective across the board due to how they focus primarily on the educational aspect instead of emphasizing social interaction work. According to the article, a meta-analysis in 2009 of 20 controlled studies conducted by statistician Wei Pan, and Haiyan Bai of University of Central Florida, revealed that teens enrolled in the program were just as likely to use drugs as those who received no intervention.

I believe, based on my research done, that these abstinence programs should be removed from schools. Research shows they are ineffective and typically do not decrease the use of drugs or alcohol, and sometimes negatively impact children, enforcing behavior. On the surface, all these programs seem to be good and adults like that the “just say no” technique enforces an idea to kids that it is socially acceptable to say no to things such as drugs and sex, but in the end research shows that this does not work and ultimately could be enforcing the bad behaviors which we as a society are trying to mitigate.

Sources:

Hanson, D. J. (n.d.). Alcohol Abuse Prevention. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/alcoholfacts.org/DARE.html

Lilienfeld, S. O. (2014, January 01). Why “Just Say No” Doesn’t Work. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-just-say-no-doesnt-work/