Inconsistent Home Life/Common Family Problems May Increase Risk of Brain Disorders by Up To 60%

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Because parents don’t have enough to worry about, two new studies point to the impact of a child’s home life on brain development.

The first study looks at how common family problems like lack of affection, poor communication, parental arguments and the like actually resulted in children developing a smaller cerebellum than children who did not experience the same type of common family problems.

The study led by Dr Nicholas Walsh, lecturer in developmental psychology at the University of East Anglia (UEA), used brain imaging technology to scan teenagers aged 17-19. It found that those who experienced mild to moderate family difficulties between birth and 11 years of age had developed a smaller cerebellum, an area of the brain associated with skill learning, stress regulation and sensory-motor control. The researchers also suggest that a smaller cerebellum may be a risk indicator of psychiatric disease later in life as it is consistently found to be smaller in virtually all psychiatric illnesses.

Previous studies have focused on the effects of severe neglect, abuse and maltreatment in childhood on brain development. However the aim of this research was to determine the impact, in currently healthy teenagers, of exposure to more common but relatively chronic forms of ‘family-focused’ problems. These could include significant arguments or tension between parents, physical or emotional abuse, lack of affection or communication between family members, and events which had a practical impact on daily family life and might have resulted in health, housing or school problems.

“We show that exposure in childhood and early adolescence to even mild to moderate family difficulties, not just severe forms of abuse, neglect and maltreatment, may affect the developing adolescent brain. We also argue that a smaller cerebellum may be an indicator of mental health issues later on. Reducing exposure to adverse social environments during early life may enhance typical brain development and reduce subsequent mental health risks in adult life.  READ MORE.

This study could go a long way to explaining the significantly higher rates of ADHD, childhood depression, anxiety,  and other emotional problems in the last 20 years.

The second study is even more shocking.  It shows that frequent school moves increase a child’s risk of adolescent psychosis by up to 60%.

“Changing schools can be very stressful for students. Our study found that the process of moving schools may itself increase the risk of psychotic symptoms — independent of other factors. But additionally, being involved in bullying, sometimes as a consequence of repeated school moves, may exacerbate risk for the individual.”  At the age of 12, participants in the study were interviewed to assess for the presence of psychotic-like symptoms including hallucinations, delusions and thought interference in the previous six months. Those that had moved school three or more times were found to be 60% more likely to display at least one definite psychotic symptom.  READ MORE

What’s the takeaway?  That being a consistent, extravagantly affectionate, radically attached parent who works hard on your marriage is the best way to give your child everything he or she needs to be mentally and emotionally healthy, not just from a psychological perspective but from a neurophysiological perspective as well!

For more information on how you can give your child every emotional and psychological advantage in life, check out Parenting with Grace:  A Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids (2nd ed rev.) and Beyond the Birds and the Bees:  Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids today!

What’s Your “Relationship Work Ethic?”

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Some couples do a better job of prioritizing their relationship than others.  And some couples are simply more comfortable having a more casual attitude toward making time for their marriage.  But a new study shows that all couples–even the ones with a more “don’t sweat it” attitude toward couple time–experience a greater risk of marital problems over time if they don’t learn to cultivate their “relationship work ethic.”

Is a date with your partner as important to you as a meeting at work? A University of Illinois study recommends that couples develop a relationship work ethic that rivals — or at least equals — their professional work ethic.

“When people enter the workplace, they make an effort to arrive on time, be productive throughout the day, listen attentively to co-workers and supervisors, try to get along with others, and dress and groom themselves to make a good impression,” said Jill R. Bowers, a researcher in the U of I’s Department of Human and Community Development.

Couples should be at least as invested in their relationship work ethic, prioritizing their partner and putting the same kind of energy into active listening, planning time together, finding a workable solution for sharing household tasks, and handling personal stress so that it doesn’t spill over into the relationship, the researcher said.  READ MORE

In For Better…FOREVER!  A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage, I outline a “Marriage Maintenance Schedule”  that takes all the guesswork out of the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual “appointments” you need to make with your spouse to develop the kind of Relationship Work Ethic that will make your love last a lifetime.  Check it out!  Your spouse might just put you up for a promotion to “Best Mate Ever!”  Sure beats the corner office!

Ricki Lake to Produce Documentary on Dangers of the Pill

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I admit I never saw this coming.  Check out the story here which includes an anti-contraceptive pill tweet from Ms. Lake herself.    Here’s a sample of the article.

Lake will act as executive producer alongside director Abby Epstein in a full-length film based on Holly Grigg-Spall’s book Sweetening The Pill: or How We Became Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control.

“In the 50 years since its release, the birth control Pill has become synonymous with women’s liberation and has been thought of as some sort of miracle drug. But now it’s making women sick,” the two said in a statement. “Our goal with this film is to wake women up to the unexposed side effects of these powerful medications and the unforeseen consequences of repressing women’s natural cycles.”

In addition to the oral contraceptive pill, the film is said to deal with Yaz/Yasmin, the NuvaRing, and other forms of artificial contraception.

The duo, who worked together on three previous documentaries and a book on natural childbirth and nursing, plan for the film to be released in 2015.

“Oh whoa, this sounds pretty intense!” celebrity blogger Perez Hilton wrote. “We wonder if the film will scare everyone off the pill!”

From Perez Hilton’s mouth to God’s ears.   And if you’d like to be on the cutting edge, you can get ahead of the curve by picking up a copy of Holy Sex!  A Catholic Guide to Mind-Blowing, Toe-Curling, Infallible Loving, your practical, go-to guide for passionate, graceful, and  chemical-free loving.

Double-Blind Study Shows Lavender Oil Capsules As Effective as Lorazepam (Ativan) for Treating Anxiety

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This is fascinating.  In doing some research for a client with generalized anxiety disorder, I found this double-blind, placebo-control study on the effectiveness of lavender oil capsules (silexan) for treating anxiety.  Remarkably, the study appears to show that the lavender oil capsules were as effective as lorazepam (Ativan) AND it had no side effects or potential for abuse.  Additionally,  participants experienced relief from their anxiety without any drowsiness.  Here is an excerpt from the conclusion section of the study.

In conclusion, our results demonstrate that silexan is as effective as lorazepam in adults with GAD. The safety of silexan was also demonstrated. Since lavender oil showed no sedative effects in our study and has no potential for drug abuse, silexan appears to be an effective and well tolerated alternative to benzodiazepines for amelioration of generalised anxiety.  Read the abstract and the link to the original study at PubMed here.

At the Pastoral Solutions Institute, we’re committed to helping Catholics find effective, faith-filled, solutions to life’s difficult questions.  If you  or a loved one are struggling with anxiety, I invite you to learn more about our Catholic tele-counseling practice by clicking this link or calling 740-266-6461.  Let us help you find graceful ways to respond to the challenges you face in your life and relationships.

NY State Bishops Pen Pastoral Letter on Mental Illness.

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Praise God for this incredibly important step toward better pastoral care for all Catholics–and all people–with mental illness. It’s very brief but completely worth the read.  I hope you’ll take a moment to look it over and then meet back here to discuss it.  My thanks to Deacon Greg for alerting us all to the exciting things happening in his neck of the woods. Here’s a sample….

Our society has made great strides in our understanding and treatment of mental illness. But in many cases the labels and fears remain, continuing to influence public policies related to how people access the services they need to reach their full potential in society. For example, our society continues to assume mentally ill individuals are prone to violence, either directed against themselves or others. Yet, fewer than 5 percent of violent acts are committed by people with serious mental illness. Persons with mental illness are more often victims than perpetrators of violent acts, and they also are more likely to be victims of sexual abuse.

While a small percentage of individuals with very severe and untreated mental illness may be at an elevated risk of violence, especially when substance abuse is involved, this risk diminishes significantly with medication and treatment. Still, fear of violence and the unspeakably tragic examples of mass shooting by untreated mentally individuals perpetuate a stigma that threatens public support for continued movement toward a community-based model of treatment.  READ IT ALL HERE.

 

Happily Ever After–Dr. Greg and Lisa Interviewed in National Review on New Book, “Just Married.”

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Kathryn Lopez posted her interview with Lisa and I on what it takes to make marriage last a lifetime. 

‘All the research says that a good marriage has little to do with where you and your mate come from and everything to do with whether you are willing to learn the skills it takes to have a good marriage — and to learn about each other to build your unique marriage,” husband and wife Gregory and Lisa Popcak write in their new book, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage. They are directors of an active telecounseling practice, the Pastoral Solutions Institute, dedicated to helping people work through marriage and family challenges. They discuss the realities of marriage and Just Married with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: “No newly married couple knows what they are doing when it comes to marriage. No one.” Not one?

Greg Popcak: Really, no. You might know your parents’ marriage. Or your friend’s. You might know the marriage you want, but no one knows what it’s going to take to make the marriage you are trying to have with this person work

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they were either born to have a good marriage or not. Or they think their partner was born to have one or not. Then, when things don’t work out they say, “I married the wrong person” or “There was something wrong with me.” All the research says that a good marriage has little to do with where you and your mate come from and everything to do with whether you are willing to learn the skills it takes to have a good marriage — and to learn about each other to build your unique marriage.

Lisa Popcak: Neither of us was destined to have a great marriage. Nothing in our backgrounds would suggest that either of us has any special talent when it comes to having a wonderful relationship. But I think our faith helps us be humble enough to know what we don’t know and our commitment to each other makes us willing to learn what we need to learn to do better.
 

Lopez: You mention the phrase “great love story” more than once. What is such a thing? How is it possible? Does it exist in the world today? You and Lisa sound perfect, but can it exist even in marriages that may not feel perfect?

Lisa: That’s funny! I hope it doesn’t sound like we’re perfect. It’s true we’ve been blessed in our relationship, but we’ve not always been there for each other like we should, and there are times we’ve hurt each other very seriously. Not on purpose. But you can’t try to “make two into one” without the worst parts of each other mixing and blowing up in each other’s faces now and again.

Greg: A great love story isn’t a perfect love story. That’s boring. Did you ever see a good love story without some drama? Some fear? Some sense that it could all be torn apart any minute? Of course not. Don’t get me wrong. A great love story also isn’t “all drama all the time.” That’s as crazy as a perfect life is boring. But a great love story — to my mind — is any love story where two ordinary, broken, hurting people somehow find the strength to stand in the face of all the stuff life throws at them and create something powerful, long-lasting, and beautiful together. It’s about hanging in there and fighting, and loving, and being willing to be humble enough to say, “I don’t know, please teach me” when you don’t know how to reach through the walls you’ve built to protect yourselves. It’s about being willing to wake up every morning and say “I do” all over again, whether yesterday was good, bad, or otherwise.
 

Lopez: You also repeat in various ways that loving feelings follow from loving actions. What if I don’t feel very loving and he doesn’t deserve loving actions?

Greg: Ultimately being loving is as much about you as it is the other person. You can choose to not be loving if “he doesn’t deserve it,” but that’s going to turn you into a walled-off, bitter person in pretty short order. In my book For Better . . . Forever, I have a section called “A selfish person’s guide to love.” Spoiler alert: I’m the selfish person I’m referring to. There are days I don’t wake up feeling particularly loving, or maybe I (erroneously) think Lisa didn’t “earn” my loving effort, but I also know that if I don’t choose to act as lovingly as I can manage, then I don’t like the person I start becoming, almost immediately. I start feeling bitter and cut off. Not a great way to start any day. But if I choose to be loving anyway, more often than not I feel better both about myself and about her.

Lisa: A lot of times people withhold love to try to say, “There’s a problem. I’m not happy and we need to fix that.” But there are more effective ways to do that. If I’m frustrated about something, I could choose to still do loving things and, in the context of being loving, bring my concerns directly to Greg and say, “Hey, look, I’m really trying to take care of you, but such and such isn’t working for me.” If I do that, my attempts to address the problem will have a lot more credibility than if I first spend a couple days moping and passive-aggressively not being loving to try to make him as miserable as I am.  READ THE REST HERE…