Winter Babies!

The season in which you are born may affect everything from your eyesight to your eating habits and overall health later in life. According to research, winter babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia than spring babies.  This particular study indicates the season-of-birth effect. The season- of-birth effect states that tendency for people born in winter have a slightly ( 5% to 8%) greater probability of developing schizophrenia than people born at other times of the year.  What causes this phenomenon is unknown but one indication leads to particularly pronounced in latitudes far from the equator.

Schizophrenia is a lifelong and disabling mental disorder that normally has an onset in late adolescence or early adulthood. It is a severe mental disorder characterized by two kinds of symptoms; positive psychotic symptoms - thought disorder, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia - and negative symptoms – impairment in emotional range, energy, and enjoyment of activities.

However, how can we prevent this happening to our unborn child due to the season? Pregnancy complications, such as maternal influenza, are risk factors that can be modified. Quality prenatal care can decrease the risk of the child having schizophrenia. Previous studies have shown a statistically significant link between schizophrenia and maternal influenza in the second trimester. Maternal influenza has been linked to schizophrenia because maternal influenza can cause central nervous system abnormalities and low birth weight. Therefore, the reasoning goes, many pregnant women become infected in the fall with a virus that impairs a crucial stage of brain development in a baby who will be born in the winter. 

The video below gives you an insight of what children with schizophrenia go through. This video may be a little disturbing and heart breaking because we usually do not see this disease at a young age. Jani, 7, is in this dark and haunting journey called schizophrenia. The video explains how her parents and family struggle to cope with her disease. But as they struggle together, they are learning to adapt into her strange lifestyle.

 

It's a habit!

 

 

We all have habits and routines in our daily lives, such as brushing our teeth before bed, showering, and sleeping. However, for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), patterns of behavior get in the way of their daily lives. OCD is an illness that causes people to have unwanted thoughts  and to repeat certain behaviors over and over again. OCD is an anxiety disorder, which, like all anxiety disorders, is neurobiological in nature.  It equally affects men, women and children of all races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.  In the United States, about 1 in 40 adults and 1 in 100 children have OCD.

 

Like a needle getting stuck on an old record, OCD causes the brain to get stuck on a particular thought or urge. Your brain contains complex chemical networks of neurons, neurotransmitters and receptors that work together to communicate messages for mood, body movement and behavior. OCD is a mental health condition resulting from low neurotransmitter levels that may improve with changes in nutrition habits.

 

Common themes in OCD center on feeling contaminated, being anxious about possible harm to self or loved ones, body imperfections or sexual preoccupation. The perpetual obsessions increase anxiety, and the anxiety escalates until the compulsion is carried out. This happens in a cycle that does not end without intervention.

For example, if the person has a great fear of getting dirty, he or she might be afraid of touching door knobs of public places or have a bottle of disinfectant spray everywhere he or she goes to spray everything she/he is about to come in contact with. If the person is obsessed with order and symmetry, he or she might take a very long time getting things arranged the ‘right’ way. Adults with this obsession feel a need to have objects placed in a certain order or position, or tasks or events to be completed in a set way. For example, "I need to sort all my clothes by color and have them face the same direction. Otherwise, it just does not feel right!"; "I just scratched my right arm twice and now I need to balance it out by scratching my left arm twice."

 

The video below demonstrates what an individual with OCD experiences in his daily routine. Millions of Americans suffers from OCD and one of those Americans is the famous comedian Howie Mandel. One stage he makes millions of people laugh, but off stage he can’t shake hands with them, touch a door knob or even be with his family at times.

 

 

Hooked on a feeling!

 

 

 

One morning I waited for the light to change so that I could cross the street to school. As the light in my direction turned green, I stepped off the curb. Suddenly, I froze as a car shot right past me through the red light and crashed into a car in the intersection. The car that went through the red light was not that close to me, but I felt terrified, then weak and shaky. That morning at school, whenever I thought about the accident I felt nervous and shaky. Although I was not physically hurt, my mind and body experienced a strong emotional reaction to a dangerous situation.

Emotions, often called feelings, include experiences such as love, hate, anger, trust, joy, panic, fear, and grief. Emotions are related to, but different from, mood. Emotions are specific reactions to a particular event that are usually of fairly short duration. Mood is a more general feeling such as happiness, sadness, frustration, contentment, or anxiety that lasts for a longer time. Indeed, emotions are associated with mild to extreme changes in the physiological processes occurring within our bodies. In addition to the changes just listed, these processes may include metabolic changes, altered muscle tension, changes in activity of the salivary and sweat glands, modified digestive processes, and changes in the levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

People have very similar internal responses to the same emotion. For example, regardless of age, race, or gender, when people are under stress, their bodies release adrenaline; this hormone helps prepare the body to either run away or fight, which is called the "fight or flight" reaction. Although the psychological part of emotions may be different for each feeling, several different emotions can produce the same physical reaction.

Physiologically, emotions aid in survival. For example, sudden fear often causes a person to freeze like a deer caught by a car's headlights. Because animals usually attack in response to motion, at its simplest level, fear reduces the chances of attack. When I froze in response to a car racing by me, this was an example of a physical response to an emotion that improved my chances of survival.

The video below explains what emotions are. Karen Ellis explains emotions, providing an elegant map for understanding what they are and their effect on performance. The video also explains what causes our high arousal and low arousal of emotions.