Month: March 2017

Teen Suicide Facts

Real and Shocking Teen Suicide Facts – Youth Suicide Statistics

Teen Suicide has been a nightmare situation in the US. Currently there is thousands of teen’s suicide each year in the United States. Shockingly, it is the third leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds in the US.

Almost 1 teen among 5 thinks of suicide as an option annually. According to the earlier statistics, there are about 1 million teens who attempted suicide out of which 300000 needed/received medical attentions whereas 1700 died. Currently, the most effective suicide prevention programs equip mental health professionals and other community educators and leaders with sufficient resources to recognize who is at risk and who has access to mental health care.

Some Shocking facts about Suicide in Teens

  1. Nearly 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year.
  2. Spring time is the time when there is maximum number of suicides.
  3. On an average, there is a suicide committed every 16.2 minutes.
  4. More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED.
  5. Almost all the kids or teens who have tried to commit suicide have given clear warning signs.
  6. The risk of suicide increases dramatically when kids and teens have access to guns or firearms at home.
  7. 60% of all suicides in the United States are committed with a gun.

Checking on the method of Suicide

The first way of suicide in teens is by the guns or firearms at home. Next method is overdose using over-the-counter, prescription, and non-prescription medicine. Suicide rates and attempt rates differ between boys and girls a lot. While more girls attempt suicide, boys tend to die twice as much as girls due to suicide. The reason is girls think about suicide, but use drug overdose or cutting the wrist as the method, whereas boys think less but take a lethal method like guns, hanging, etc.

Suicide cases in 90% of teens who kill themselves have some type of mental health problem, such as depression, anxiety, drug or alcohol abuse, or a behavior problem. Some of the teens will be victim of physical or sexual abuse causing them to take extreme step.

Possible warning signs

  1. Talking About Dying — any mention of dying, disappearing, jumping, etc.
  2. Recent Loss — divorce, separation, broken relationship, self-confidence, self-esteem, loss of interest in friends, hobbies, etc.
  3. Change in Personality – becoming more sad, withdrawn, irritable, anxious, tired, etc.
  4. Change in Behavior – sudden poor performance on school, work, routine, etc.
  5. Change in Sleep Patterns
  6. Change in Eating Habits — loss of appetite and weight,
  7. Fear of losing control – acting erratically, harming self or others
  8. Low self esteem — feeling worthless and shameful

How to tackle World which is filled with Sadness?

Can you tackle World which is filled with Sadness without getting effected?

Here are many top tips to help you on Sadness coming from the external world around us. The world is a crazy place, where several crazy things happen daily. You need to learn to tackle the world and the upcoming sadness from this. Here are few of the tips to help cut down the stress and take the path ahead.

Avoid the mainstream news

Every day in the morning you will read many racist, fear-mongering headlines which will not do any good to your day and your mood. Promise yourself a full month of media fast every year and you can see the results of it on your mood. The negative energy we have for the world is always better spent on positive thought and action. In addition there are various reasons you cannot trust the honest account of current happening in the world. Remember, news gathering and news creation both has been proven innumerable times earlier.

Channelize your frustration in some Creative thing

Getting mad and hysteric is not going to take you anywhere. It will just add complication. So do not stress yourself, but be poetic and start writing, drawing, painting, vlogging or blogging, playing a musical instrument, etc. Remember, creativity is a wonderful antidote to depression. You do not have to learn to perform, but to spend the good amount of time doing something constructive.

Disconnect All your Devices (to reconnect with life!)

Break from Social media and phone can relax you a lot more than you can think of. According to a study from Denmark, we’d all feel much happier if we had a break from social media. The study also found that people who quit using phones, tablets, laptop, etc., interacted lot more with real-life human beings.

Take control of your mind

Forget about past, Live in Present and Plan for Future is what you should be reminding yourself to live in the present moment is a very effective way to eliminate worrying and get some perspective. Participate in global group meditations which can help you visualize world peace.

Remember: millions of people feel the same as you!

You are not alone in this feeling. You need to realize that you are not the only one facing this issue. Just remember the millions of people around the world who are campaigning for change. Surround yourself with like-minded people, and never underestimate the importance of a hug.

Hearing Inner Voices

Simple tips to Handle Betrayal and Hearing Voices

Betrayal harms us more than anything else in the world.  It can go down till the deepest parts of us. Yet it is possible to reach those inner dark places which hide the darkest fears and desires. It is possible through gentle love and listening.

Whether it is a child suffering from sexual abuse or a partner dealing with domestic violence, the trauma is overwhelming since it involves someone with intimate relationship. Since you are dependent on the other person for food, shelter, emotional wellbeing, support, etc. the suffering received is also severe in the case of abuse.

In the cases of abuse and betrayal, many times people start hearing their names being called out from the back. When they turn around, there is no one. This hearing of voices if happens more than 2-3 times a week, is not normal and comes under the category of issue called hearing voices which has its roots in the betrayal and abuse you had suffered from deep inside.

When our experience of hearing voices goes beyond hearing names, then we tend to feel concerned. These in other words are also called auditory hallucinations which may not necessarily always be abnormal.

Differences in Voices origin

Different people hear voices from different places. Sometimes the voices appear to come through ears and sometimes, it is like coming from inside the head. There could be many voices or single voice coming from these places.  These voices can be both encouraging or intimidating coming either from someone you know in your life or from someone you never heard of.

Betrayal trauma can lead to visual and auditory hallucinations such as victims hearing the voice of their abuser.

Advice for those hearing voices

The following advice can help you recover from the deep hurt from these voices:

Acceptance

Accepting your voices and stop battling with yourself to avoid them, will make you in better position to understand them.

Control

There are different ways you can gain control over your voices. You can distract yourself from the voices by listening to music through headphones. You can also start a dialogue with the voices you hear. If the voices you hear are threatening, tell them that they have no power over you.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy – DBT for BPD and Mental Health Problems

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a type of CBT (cognitive behavioral treatment) that was initially developed to treat chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). It has been over the time recognized as the gold standard psychological treatment for this population.

It is also effective in treating a wide range of other disorders such as substance dependence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders.

Although, DBT is the brainchild of Dr. Marsha Linehan, a clinical psychologist from Seattle, many others have contributed and the development of the treatment continues.

DBT has four sets of behavioural skills.

  1. Mindfulness – the practice of being fully aware at the current moment
  2. Distress Tolerance: tolerating pain in difficult situations, not change it
  3. Interpersonal Effectiveness: How to maintain self-respect
  4. Emotion Regulation: how to control emotions when you want to control them.

General Characteristics of DBT

 

DBT help the patient identify his or her strengths and build on them.

Cognitive-based – This type of therapy helps people find about their thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions that make life harder for them.

Collaborative: It requires constant attention to relationships between clients and staff. In DBT people are encouraged to work out problems in their relationships with their therapist and the therapists to do the same with them.

Diary cards

Specially formatted cards for tracking therapy interfering behaviors that distract or hinder a patient’s progress. Diary cards can be filled out daily, 2-3 times a day, or once per week.

 

Limitations of DBT

There are a few criticisms and limitations, if using DBT for treatment of depression and allied illnesses.

  1. Much of the available research on the efficacy of DBT included small sample sizes and focused on a specific sector of the mental health population. Critics argue more research should be done to determine whether DBT works well for those with varied or complex mental health concerns.
  2. DBT uses a detailed manual and requires solid training to implement. In many of the research studies where DBT was found to be effective. This does not necessarily indicate a weakness in the model itself but underscores the intensive amount of training required to deliver the services as designed. Therefore, expanding the availability of comprehensive training could be useful for community mental health organizations.

Depression makes world look Dull

Depression literally converts the world in all shades of Gray and Black

A depressed person often says that the world looks dull and gray and flowers no longer smell sweet. He might seem to speak figuratively, but now there is some truth in it. According to two recent studies conducted in Germany there are concrete evidences that sensory perception is diminished in depressed individuals.

The study was conducted by neuropsychiatrist Ludger Tebartz van Elst of the University of Freiburg. He tied up depressed patients and controlled subjects to a pattern electroretinograph which is a device to measure electrical signals in the retina. When viewing black-and-white checkerboard images, people who had depression showed lesser electrical impulses as compared to the other controlled subjects.

As per Tebartz van Elst, using this technique, it would be easy to diagnose depression without the need of the patient to open up verbally. They just need to keep their eyes  open and the test can be performed.

Top findings of this Study on Depression grays and blues

 

In the study below are the key findings which the scientists measured:

  1. People with major depression were not able to detect differences in black-and-white contrasts on the checkerboards.
  2. People with no depression were able to identify the changes in pattern and contrasts on checkerboard very effectively.
  3. The level of activity on the retina was lowest in the person with worst depression.
  4. The depressed patients had dramatically lower retinal responses to the varying black-and-white contrasts than healthy individuals.
  5. The results held regardless of whether patients were taking antidepressants.

The retina ECG shows the response of neurons inside the retinal cells. It is not the conscious vision, but a very much earlier response of the retina to changing patterns.

Best tips to Deal with Depression and its Gray World

Everyone wants to know the ways to get out of the blues and gray of depression and conquer it from the bottom. But, rarely, we find something which can do this miracle. Here are some tips to perform this action with ease and speed.

  1. Bond with mother nature

Do not ever underestimate the healing power of the natural world. You need to be connected to Earth and it is crucially important to restore the energy levels by staying connected.  The great outdoors is a very precious stress-free zone. Without a wifi zone, cell phones buzzing, cameras, noise, etc. all around us, we are bound to get the time of the day.

Few tips to consider is to head to a park during lunch, exercise outside rather than in a gym, and plan regular weekends away to escape the oppressive urban jungle.

 

  1. Turn off the TV

Switch off the idiot box to stop feeling like an idiot all the time.  TV according to many studies is like a drug which can change your brain chemistry. If you can’t stop watching TV altogether at least, try to cut down on your consumption. You should see positive, funny, uplifting or educational stuff on TV sometime, but limit that too.

 

  1. Get involved

 

There is nothing which can be achieved by sitting and cribbing about global issues and concerns at hand. There are many such issues from which you can choose one and concentrate your energy in that cause instead of putting only thoughts on multitude of issues. Dwelling on the many urgent global issues isn’t going to help you or anyone else. If you care or concern about animal cruelty, you could offer to help out at your local shelter.

So stay involved and do not doubt about the things which a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can do to change the world.

  1. Nurture yourself

Believe in yourself and always do things to reward and nurture yourself. Exercise, sleep and eat well. Do what you love. Give yourself a break. Be your own best friend. Dancing around your living room to uplifting music will give you an instant energy and endorphin boost. Sing in the shower. Smile even if you don’t feel like it.