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.
Herbert Fingarette, Existential Philosopher, Faces His Own Death and Mortality In his 1996 book about death, Herbert Fingarette argued that fearing one’s own demise was irrational. When you die, he wrote, “there is nothing.” Why should we fear the absence of being when we won’t be there ourselves to suffer it? Twenty years later, facing his own mortality, the philosopher realized that he’d been wrong. “It haunts me, the idea of dying soon, whether there’s a good reason or not,” he says in Andrew Hasse’s short documentary Being 97. Hasse, Fingarette’s grandson, turned the camera on the philosopher in the last months of his life. Being 97 is a poignant film that explores the interiority of senescence and the struggle of accepting the inevitable. In one scene, Fingarette listens to a string quartet that was once meaningful to his late wife. Hasse made the artistic choice to omit his voice from the film, so while he was filming the scene, he had to stifle the urge to comfort his grandfather. Fingarette died in late 2018.
Robin Joy Meyers: The Science of Loneliness and Isolation Dan Gartenberg: The brain benefits of deep sleep -- and how to get more of it 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
Beginning With the End Watch the trailer for David Marshall's documentary film about a hospice class in Rochester, New York, where students learn to care for dying. Photograph by Brigitte Bouvier High school seniors at The Harley School in Rochester, New York, have the option of taking a class called “Hospice.” Most who sign up for it don’t know what they’re in for. And none of them forget the experience when it’s over. David Marshall is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker who followed the hospice class for two years. The documentary will premiere at South By Southwest in March. Beginning with the End :90 Trailer from bspfilms on Vimeo. This web extra provides additional information related to an article titled, "A Matter of Death and Life," which appeared in the February 2014 issue of Mindful magazine. <div class="disqus-noscript"><a href="
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
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
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.
Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions Social isolation was associated with about a 50% increased risk of dementia and other serious medical conditions. Loneliness and social isolation in older adults are serious public health risks affecting a significant number of people in the United States and putting them at risk for dementia and other serious medical conditions. A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) points out that more than one-third of adults aged 45 and older feel lonely, and nearly one-fourth of adults aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated.1 Older adults are at increased risk for loneliness and social isolation because they are more likely to face factors such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and hearing loss. Loneliness is the feeling of being alone, regardless of the amount of social contact. Health Risks of Loneliness Immigrant, LGBT People Are at Higher Risk What Can You Do If You Are Experiencing Loneliness?
COVID-19: How Do We Re-open the Economy? With the IMF forecasting a 6.1% fall in advanced economy GDP in 2020 and world trade expected to contract by 11%, there is intense focus on the question of how and when to re-open economies currently in lockdown. But no ‘opening up’ plan has a chance of succeeding unless it commands the confidence of all the main actors in the economy – employees, consumers, firms, investors and local authorities. Without public confidence, these groups may follow official guidance only sporadically; consumers will preserve cash rather than spend it on goods and services; employees will delay returning to work wherever possible; businesses will face worsening bottlenecks as some parts of the economy open up while key suppliers remain closed; and firms will continue to delay many discretionary investment and hiring decisions. Taken together, these behaviours would substantially reduce the chances of a strong economic bounce-back even in the absence of a widespread second wave of infections.