Coronavirus is a 'personal nightmare' for people with OCD and anxiety disorders Sarah Mergens showed signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder long before she was diagnosed with it as an adult. It initially took the shape of harmless quirks, like organizing dinosaur toys by shape and color. More debilitating symptoms crept in as she got older, such as being afraid of public doorknobs or worrying that she'd use a bad egg when baking and cause someone she loves to become ill. As an adult, Mergens, 27, held her OCD symptoms at bay through exposure and response prevention therapy, supportive friends and family and internal pep talks. "I can't think of another event that's hit me like this has," said Mergens, a psychotherapist who lives in the Minneapolis area. Her thoughts became an endless stream of "what ifs." "I'm afraid that I'm going to want to continue those when the crisis is over," Mergens said of her constant hand-washing and sanitizing, "and as a result, really take steps back in my progress." Unlike anything they've seen before Let our news meet your inbox.
Robin Joy Meyers: The Science of Loneliness and Isolation 7 Creative Ways to Record Your Time in Australia - Insider Guides | Study in ... Published by Belinda Your time spent here in Australia will be a whirlwind of new experiences, lessons, and time spent with friends. In the years to come, you’ll want those memories close at hand. In case you don’t have time to write it all down every night, here’s seven creative ways international students can record their time in Australia. 1. Invent a unique hashtag and attach it to all your photos and posts. 2. Imagine coming home to a whole stash of letters and postcards of your time abroad. 3. You can easily set up a blog account for free on sites like WordPress.com, Squarespace or Tumblr. 4. Yes, this one’s for the food lovers, but there’s more to it than just indulging yourself and taking pictures. 5. Every period in your life comes with a playlist. 6. Instead of long journal entries, try the 20 word a day journal. 7. There’s plenty of these, and they come with all kinds of functions.
Dan Gartenberg: The brain benefits of deep sleep -- and how to get more of it Reprint Published: 22 February 2018 ID: G00320462 Analyst(s): Martina Kurth, Amresh Nandan, June Ainslie Summary This Magic Quadrant rates major vendors that sell end-to-end OSSs to communications service providers in the global marketplace. Market Definition/Description The market for operations support systems (OSSs) comprises communications service providers (CSPs) looking to source commercial off-the-shelf software packages and support services to address back-office processes. The OSS encompasses primarily network and service abstraction layers, which instantiate customer-facing processes through a set of integrated solutions. Traditionally, core OSSs reside in the network engineering or operations departments (that is, within the vicinity of the CTO). OSS is traditionally categorized into two major domains: Leading vendors in this Magic Quadrant cover both the traditional OSS and the new OSS orchestration architectures in the form of SDN/NFV orchestration solution capabilities. Magic Quadrant
Chatbots take the strain from Denmarks emergency helplines In a health crisis medical helplines — as many people are now discovering first hand — quickly get overwhelmed. “We were worried because the call volumes more than doubled for us,” says Freddy Lippert, chief executive of Copenhagen Emergency Medical Services, who is responsible for both the emergency call line in Copenhagen and an advice line for less urgent medical problems. Both became completely jammed as people began to ring about Covid-19, even before the pandemic had really begun to spread in the country. Advertisment “We put more staff on but we couldn’t keep up with the volume. In the Copenhagen area, Lippert had around 50 staff taking calls — trained medics who were needed in caring roles. The chatbot answers people’s questions about their symptoms and advises them when they need to get additional help. “We were worried that it might lead to more calls or that it might miss people who are in real need. And it may give us some of the first clues on when lockdown can end. Future Proof
The risks of social isolation Overview CE credits: 1 Learning objectives: After reading this article, CE candidates will be able to: Identify the effects of social isolation and loneliness on physical, mental and cognitive health.Explore how loneliness differs from social isolation.Discuss evidence-based interventions for combating loneliness. For more information on earning CE credit for this article, go to www.apa.org/ed/ce/resources/ce-corner.aspx. According to a 2018 national survey by Cigna, loneliness levels have reached an all-time high, with nearly half of 20,000 U.S. adults reporting they sometimes or always feel alone. Such numbers are alarming because of the health and mental health risks associated with loneliness. "There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators," HoltLunstad says. Who is most likely? Effects of loneliness and isolation Combating loneliness
pronunciation: what should we be teaching? What Is Health? “He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.” Health is more than just a good or bad feeling, an external aesthetic look, or numbers on a medical chart. Health is the all-encompassing state of who we are as individuals. Unfortunately, health has been misconstrued in our society, misrepresented by the media, and warped to be used synonymously with things like thinness or physical strength. In reality, true health is the intersection of our physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual state of being at any one time. Today I’m going to share with you details about the four areas that define health and my interpretation of them. Health is the most important aspect of our existence. Health is defined by wellness in the following areas... Physical health is the state that your bodily structures and systems are in at any given time. Mental & Emotional Health Mental health refers to the condition of your mind and your ability to balance your emotions. Social Health
Nokia, Ericsson spot huge biz potential in telecom sector consolidation With consolidation becoming a reality and the Indian telecom sector set to have just three private mobile players soon, network equipment providers such as Nokia and Ericsson are seeing it as an opportunity. They say healthy operators are good for their business. This is because the mobile operators need to invest heavily in infrastructure to tackle the immense traffic of data, which is growing at over 40 per cent annually. "Overall I do feel that from network vendor's perspective, it is a good sign. Maybe in the short term, we will have some impact, but in the longer term, we will have more healthy operators, and that's good for us," Sanjay Malik, India Head of Nokia told Business Standard when asked about consolidation in the telecom market. Analysts say the sector is heading towards a three-player oligopoly with Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea Cellular, and Reliance Jio controlling 95 per cent of the revenues.
Could Canada build a fairer society after COVID-19? he COVID-19 pandemic first looked like a repeat of the 2008 global financial crisis, given the market turmoil as the crisis began. Now, however, with the lives of front-line workers and citizens threatened, government controls on freedom of movement, and mass mobilization of financial, health, and commercial resources to address the crisis, commentators rightly draw comparisons with mobilization for the Second World War. Does this suggest there may also be lessons from 80 years ago that apply today, particularly in building a decent and sustainable society? One wartime precedent overlooked to date: planning for post-crisis economic and social reconstruction, something the Canadian government should do as soon as possible. Three dimensions of that wartime planning merit attention today. The first was planning for post-war social programs. Both reports laid bare inadequacies with pre-war social models. The current crisis shows our vulnerability to changes in the environment.