DRINK,  BE MERRY,  BUT BE SAFE!!!

“Nearly half of all women in the United States experience heightened stress during the holidays. And what do these women rely on to get them through the holidays? 41 percent of women use food and 28 percent use alcohol as comforting mechanisms during that time.”

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (APA)

Know the true reason your rejoicing,  the birth of  Christ not just present giving.  Play Christmas music like it’s going out of style; it will calm your nerves and help you to re-focus your Christmas resolve. Attend church. Be open to various charities gathering help for the holidays.  Give gifts of the heart.  Make some time just for you as well as for your immediate family; extended family gets the next shift, followed by church and friends. 

Kathryn Elizabeth Jones Writer from her 7 ways how to get through the holiday stress.

Navigating through a jolly holiday season and wishes for a wonderful new year when living with a chronic, debilitating health condition or caring for someone might have you thinking, “this is no holiday!” But researchers are documenting how expressing thanks can lead to a healthier, happier and less-stressed life. Noted expert Robert Emmons defines gratitude in part as, “… an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received. This doesn’t mean that life is perfect; it doesn’t ignore complaints, burdens, and hassles. But when we look at life as a whole, gratitude encourages us to identify some amount of goodness in our life.”

Family caregivers are often portrayed as the epitome of goodness, and rightly so. Time and again spouses, adult children, other relatives and friends who care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s, stroke, cancer and other health conditions, dig deep to put the needs of another before their own needs. They move personal life priorities to the back burner — work, family, travel, their own health — to ensure the safety and well-being of another person. But no well is bottomless and no caregiver can give in a limitless manner, always being kind, helpful, supportive, compassionate, honest and more, without doing harm to themselves. In this season of giving, acknowledgement of the giving that goes on all year long can get overlooked.

As a caregiver, there are ways to cultivate a greater sense of satisfaction coupled with a culture of gratitude this holiday season, both for the person receiving care and for yourself. To get a start, try these exercises to help focus your actions:

Connect with people: Holiday time is both about spending time with people we truly enjoy, but also with those to whom we feel obligated. Here’s a very specific exercise to help identify who receives your precious time during this season. Write down the names of family and friends with whom you’re likely to spend significant time this holiday season. Put a (*) by the names with whom you have a relatively simple, uncomplicated, mutually beneficial relationship. Mark an (x) by those people who make you feel uncomfortable (tense, inferior, frustrated, guilty, etc.). Ideally, would you like to spend (1) more, (2) less, or (3) about the same amount of time with each person on your list? Put a 1, 2 or 3 after each name.

Embrace the season’s activities: We often enter into the holidays wanting to be inclusive and accommodating. Every year family and friends gather to share meals and exchange gifts. Why should this year be any different? Write down all of the activities you look forward to or anticipate doing as part of the holidays. Here are a few to help you get started: Buy gifts, decorate, make travel plans, plan and shop for holiday meals, cook, bake, clean, host guests, host grandchildren, volunteer for charitable causes, participate in spiritual or religious activities, participate in special family traditions (gather at the family cabin, make tamales, sing at the local nursing home) and more. The list may sound both endless and compelling. Now revisit your list. Put a (*) by the activities that make you smile and feel content. Mark an (x) by the activities that you do not have time to fully enjoy, or that seem to have lost their meaning or become a burden for you, the person you care for or your extended family.

Cultivate a sense of goodwill towards yourself and others: At this time of year there is more pressure to appear happy and joyful. Feeling and expressing your true feelings, especially if these truths appear negative to others, can be discouraged and seen, at the least, as not acting in the spirit of the season. Here are some of the feelings that family caregivers have expressed to us, as well as some from those on the care receiving end of the relationship. See if any of these fit for you: Ambivalence, anxiety, anger, boredom, disgust, embarrassment, exhaustion, frustration, happy, grateful, grief, guilt, impatience, irritability, jealousy, loving, lack of appreciation, loneliness, loss, an opportunity to give back, peaceful, resentment, sadness, satisfaction, scared, thankful, tired, worried, hopeful. List any other feeling you know to be true for you. Now put a (1) by the feelings that get in the way or disrupt your life, a (2) by the feelings that just are there but don’t really get in the way, and a (3) by the feelings that you want to cultivate to feel more often.

What is doable and what reflects wishful thinking? To complete this exercise, draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On the left side of the page note your 1’s from the first exercise, now write down the (*)’s from the second exercise, and add the 3’s from the third exercise. List the remaining items on the right side of the page. When you have finished scan your lists. What steps can you take to include more of the people, activities and feelings from the left side of the page into this holiday season or the near future? What items reflect wishful thinking but more realistically represent something to hope for some time in the future?

Here are few examples of actions to take this season:

The gift of listening: Putting everything else aside to focus your full attention on a loved one. Listen to them tell you about their life; ask questions about the origin of family stories and rituals, share a chuckle over past adventures.

Communicate gently but honestly: Tell the person you care for or the person who cares for you, sensitively but honestly, what you need and how you would like to meet that need. It’s better than speaking angrily or resentfully when the other person doesn’t know why. Sometimes you might just need some time away from the care situation. Try these suggestions for communication with someone living with brain impairment.

Revisit expectations: If you are caring for a family member living with moderate to severe dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, making heroic efforts to include your relative in a holiday gatherings can be tense and exhausting. Sometimes it can work wonderfully when family members and friends pitch in so that you can take a break to enjoy yourself. But, too often caregiving tasks and anxiety about actions by the person with dementia can drain any enjoyment from your time at the event. Encourage family and friends to spend time with your family member with dementia by visiting the person where they live, rather than at loud, busy family gatherings. A smaller gathering in more familiar surroundings gives visitors and hosts a much greater chance for meaningful time together. Here are more tips for navigating dementia care during the holidays.

Cultivate gratitude in your life: What would it feel like to focus more of your thoughts on what is good in life? If you have time, consider keeping a gratitude journal, writing down a few items each day. You’ll find a link to more about this project in the resource guide below. Reading just a few sentences from your journal before you go to bed and when you wake up can help you to focus on the good in your life. As a way to communicate within the family, some people create a “gratitude bowl” where everyone in the household jots down things they are grateful for on a slip of paper and places them in the container. Read a few of the slips out loud each day when you’re together at meal time or post a note on the refrigerator.

Navigating the holidays on top of all of the other daily activities of life for those living with chronic illness can be fraught with frustration and a sense of disappointment. Giving thought to what is truly important for you and your family, while taking steps to communicate your interests to others can open up opportunities for you to have a less stressful and more satisfying season.

Striveforgoodheath.com wishes all readers old and new Happy Holiday Season and Safe One!!

In their chapter on evolutionary psychology as it relates to homicide in the book “Evolutionary Psychology and Violence,” David M. Buss and Joshua D. Dunley hypothesize that aggression is a trait inherent in humans that dates back to the prehistoric era. People had to compete with one another for resources.

Is this what our society has resorted back to with how far we have gone in technology, science, disease?   Very sad if true since I am a human and in this category.

People are often confronted with feelings of disappointment, frustration and anger as they interact with government officials, co-workers, family and even fellow commuters to people just in society. Most can control their actions to the extent that relatively few of these interactions end in a radical action like being racist to violence.

What help build a individuals feelings to turn out in a negative result (like bullying someone to protesting to worse rioting to violence or killing) is factors.

Factors being:

1.YOUR CHILDHOOD UPBRINGING. Your childhood builds the foundation of how you turn out as an adult. If you have good upbringing where there are good morals, values, ethics with limitations or rules and regulations in what you can and cannot do with mommy and daddy overlooking from a distance in watching the child’s actions/interests/who they play with/what they’re doing on the computer or watching on T.V or even listening to music will help give direction for their child to be effective in society. Including, as the child shows good choices than more independence in getting older with still guidance and direction as needed. Remember your a young adult at 17 and a full fledged adult at 21 years of age to make all decisions in your life.

2.BEING AN ADULT.   This includes accepting the turn outs of how a situation finally results; before the final result if you did everything you could legally try to reach your hope of a turn out and did reach it great, it makes you a stronger person. Now lets say you didn’t than acceptance is necessary of what the result turned out as which also makes you a stronger person with being an asset in the community. Than your next step whether it be alone or in society overall move on without being an insult to the community where it effects the society in a negative way (like killing 2 innocent police officers just for wearing the color blue in uniform, predjudice=a radical action).   Being able to allow acceptance in your life which doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to helps you move on in life making you less out to be radical in your behavior. Take the riots (which they call protesting a radical approach from Missouri to New York) and see what their results turned out to be. Stopping people from getting to a destination point who had nothing to do with what the protestors were protesting about, to damage of property of innocent people’s business to the worse DEATH. Like this radical move did anything productive for humans in society. It obviously didn’t.

First lets look at what turns anger into action? Mostly cognitive control, or to use a less technical term, self-control.  University of Michigan professor of social psychology Richard Nisbett, the world’s greatest authority on intelligence, plainly said that he’d rather have his son being high in self-control than intelligence, one year ago. Self-control is key to a well-functioning life, because our brain makes us easily [susceptible] to all sorts of influences. Watching a movie showing violent acts predisposes us to act violently. Even just listening to violent rhetoric makes us more inclined to be violent. Ironically, the same mirror neurons that make us empathic make us also very vulnerable to all sorts influences. This is why control mechanisms are so important. If you think about it, there must be control mechanisms for mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are cells that fire when you grab a cup of coffee (to give you an example) as well as when you see someone else grabbing a cup of coffee. So, how come you don’t imitate all the time? The idea is that there are systems in the brain that help us by imitating only “internally”—they dampen the activity of mirror neurons when we simply watch, so that we can still have the sort of “inner imitation” that allows us to empathize with others, without any overt imitation. The key issue is the balance of power between these control mechanisms that we call top-down—because they are all like executives that control from the top down to the employees—and bottom-up mechanisms, in the opposite direction, like mirror neurons. Whereby perception—watching somebody making an action—influences decisions—making the same action ourselves.

Neuroscience uncovered why people behave so violently looking into the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007 with many other like incidents also which were still a small percentage of people. What happens in these individuals is that their cognitive control mechanisms are deranged. Mind you, these individuals are not out-of-control, enraged people. They just use their cognitive control mechanisms in the service of a disturbed goal. There are probably a multitude of factors at play here. The subject is exposed to influences that lead him or her to violent acts—including, unfortunately, not only the violent political rhetoric but also the media coverage of similar acts, as we are doing here. A variety of issues, especially mental health problems that lead to social isolation, lead the subject to a mental state that alters his or her ability to exercise cognitive control in a healthy manner. Again also childhood plays a big role. The cognitive control capacities of the subject get somewhat redirected—we don’t quite understand how—toward goals and activities that are violent in a very specific way. Not the violent outburst of somebody who has “lost it” in a bar, punching people right and left. The violence is channeled in a very specific plan, with a very specific target—generally fed by the media (like take the protesting that has gone on from Missouri to New York for a month or more with media showing every news flash each day)through some sort of rhetoric, political or otherwise—with very specific tools, in the Giffords case, a 9-millimeter Glock.

Now lets look at what are the signs of a person who is disturbed enough to take some form of action to killing.   The signs are quite visible, although difficult to interpret without a context—and unfortunately they unfold very quickly , and people can rarely witness them before the action is taken (which happened with Brinsley in New York killing officers in Brooklyn on duty just doing their job), . The action itself is a sign, a desperate form of communication from a disturbed individual (Brinsley did put on the internet a warning the day it was going to be done, Sat 12/20/14. Unfortunately, nobody was chatting with the guy when he left his final messages on Internet before getting into action. But I bet that if somebody was communicating with him before the act and saw those signs and read those messages on social network he was using, that person could have done something, could have engaged him in a sort of conversation that might have redirected his deranged plans. Indeed, by connecting with the subject, that person might have redirected some of the activity of mirror neurons toward a truly empathic behavior, rather than in the service of the deranged imitative violence leading to action.

My readers I tell you this information not to persecute a person dead not even a race or politicians but this LEARN HOW THE BRAIN WORKS.   Most importantly to PARENTS bring your children up AS A CHILD not as an adult until they reach adulthood with giving good direction and guidance as their primary mentor. You the parents make our next generation who are now children and even for future parents learn so they will have a more productive working society. For now the society in America works as a  nonproductive unit of people to all races, creeds, genders, sex preferences, & nationalities of all kinds. Especially in being compared to the 1980’s; yes they had their problems but not like today’s with people treating each other with more respect even if things didn’t go their way. Our nation went off the deep end in allowing us to have freedom of everything without limitations or better rules/regulations legally in place not followed which we are paying a good price for and will take a very long time to fix. Remember when someone or now a group of people get hurt you can forgive but healing is like a wound it takes time to heal. Example: Look at Hitler, people still haven’t forgiven him, those that did have not forgotten it and they shouldn’t. Protesting can be effective where its peaceful, quiet, and not bothering other people in the area who aren’t involved. Look at Missouri and New York City this past month, MUCH DAMAGE due to not thinking first but acting out first.

“About half of all men and one-third of all women in the US will develop cancer during their lifetimes. Today, millions of people are living with cancer or have had cancer.

The risk of developing many types of cancer can be reduced by changes in a person’s lifestyle, for example, by staying away from tobacco, limiting time in the sun, being physically active, and eating healthy.”

AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY

Cancer can be a simple disease or a monster to the body and let us first start reviewing the basics of cancer to understand this sentence. 

The body is made up of trillions of living cells.  Normal body cells grow, divide to make new cells, and die in an orderly fashion.  During the early years of a person’s life, normal cells divide faster to allow the person to grow. 

After the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries. 

The pathophysiological responses of a patient with cancer are frequently determined by the size and extent of the tumor and by the presence or absence of metastases.

Cancer starts when cells in a part of the body start to grow out of control. Cancer cell growth is different from normal cell growth. Instead of dying, cancer cells continue to grow and form new, abnormal cells. Cancer cells can also invade (grow into) other tissues, something that normal cells cannot do. Growing out of control and invading other tissues are what makes a cell a cancer cell. Cells become cancer cells because of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) damage.

DNA is in every cell and it directs all its actions. In a normal cell, when DNA is damaged the cell either repairs the damage or the cell dies. In cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired, but the cell doesn’t die like it should. Instead, the cell goes on making new cells that the body doesn’t need. These new cells all have the same damaged DNA as the first abnormal cell does=cancer cells.

The normal cells of a human body=Our red blood cells (our iron and cells that provide nutrition to our tissues by feeding oxygen to all our tissues), our white blood cells (fight infection off our body-part of immunity system), and our platelets (controls our clotting of the blood) all are taken over by the cancer cells especially if the cancer is primarily in the bone or metastasized to the bone since this organ in the human body produces all our blood cells in the bone marrow and the cancer in that causes the bone marrow to make cancer cells which is hard to cure especially if your cancer in the bone is at grade 3 or 4.   If a patient’s cancer is grade 1 or 2 its much easier to treat to possible completely cure. 

Again cancer can be a simple disease or a monster.

People can inherit abnormal DNA (it’s passed on from their parents), but most often the DNA damage is caused by mistakes that happen while the normal cell is reproducing or by something in the environment. Sometimes the cause of the DNA damage may be something obvious like cigarette smoking or sun exposure. But it’s rare to know exactly what caused any one person’s cancer. In most cases, the cancer cells form a tumor.

Some cancers, like leukemia, rarely form tumors. Instead, these cancer cells involve the blood and blood-forming organs and circulate through other tissues where they grow. Neoplasms or “new growths” are relatively autonomous (independent).  This means that the growth and its behavior are more or less independent of the host (the normal body functions).

  Neoplasms have been defined as benign or malignant; cancer is a common synonym used to refer to a malignant neoplasm.  The difference between a benign and malignant neoplasm depends on its behavior in the host.  Now if the neoplasm stays localized, enlarges slowly, is homogeneous in appearance, and can be resected or removed, then it is benign. 

On the other hand, if the neoplasm spreads or metastasizes to other areas of the body, infiltrates and causes the destruction of normal tissue, left untreated, will kill the host, then the neoplasm is considered malignant (it takes over in the body).

If a large tumor is occupying the oral cavity, then the patients will have problems with ingestion that might lead to an altered immune-responsiveness. 

If the tumor is in the large colon, then obstruction of the lumen, changes in bowel habits, and GI bleeding can occur. 

In addition, if tumors are large they often outgrow the blood supply, which leads to necrosis and bleeding. 

However, all the above changes are relatively late signs; the tumor would be quite large for a patient to exhibit these effects.  Most small tumors are painless and symptomless. 

In one sense this is unfortunate.  If small tumors were painful, perhaps more patients would seek earlier treatment and tumors could be treated more successful being diagnosed before they are large.

Leaving food out too long is one of the biggest holiday food safety problems. “It is so easy to linger around the table, but when food sits outs for more than two hours in the danger zone — above 40 degrees and below 140 degrees  — it is prime for bacterial growth,”

Blakeslee. Adds Cody via Web MD.

To make sure your holiday dinner is not only delicious but as safe as possible, WebMD asked the experts for their best holiday food safety tips. Here are their top 10 suggestions: 

1. Have a master plan. Chefs do it, and so should you. Consider your refrigerator, freezer and oven space, and how you’ll manage to keep hot foods at 140 degrees or higher and cold foods at 40 degrees or below. If you need to use coolers, make sure you have plenty of clean ice and check it frequently to be sure the ice hasn’t melted. “Whatever you do, don’t rely on the natural outdoor temperature on the porch to keep foods at proper temperature” says Cody.
2. Cook to proper temperature — and use a thermometer. There is simply no other way to determine that food has been cooked enough to kill bacteria. “Turkeys, stuffing, side dishes, and all leftovers should be cooked to at least 165 degrees and kept above 140 degrees during serving to be sure that any potential bacteria is destroyed,” says Karen Blakeslee, MS, of the Kansas State University Food Science Institute. “Remember the golden rule: Keep hot food hot and cold food cold.”
3. Refrigerate leftovers within two hours of preparation. Leaving food out too long is one of the biggest holiday food safety problems. “It is so easy to linger around the table, but when food sits outs for more than two hours in the danger zone — above 40 degrees and below 140 degrees  — it is prime for bacterial growth,” says Blakeslee. Adds Cody: “Store leftovers in 2-inch deep, shallow containers and make sure the refrigerator is not over-packed and there is plenty of air circulating around the food so it can be properly cooled.” Blakeslee suggests cutting the meat off the turkey to allow it to quickly cool to proper temperature, as well as make it easy to store.
4. Properly defrost your turkey, or buy a fresh one.  “If you choose a frozen turkey, allocate 24 hours per 5 pounds to defrost in the refrigerator, and whatever you do, don’t defrost the bird on the kitchen counter,” says Blakeslee. In light of drought conditions in certain areas of the country, defrosting the bird using frequently changed cold water seems wasteful. But it is safe (albeit time-consuming), as long as you change the cold water bath every 30 minutes.
5. Wash your hands thoroughly and often — before, during, and after food preparation.  “Simply washing hands is one of the easiest ways to minimize bacterial contamination and keep your food safe,” says Blakeslee. Wash with hot water and soap, up to your wrists and between your fingers, for approximately 20 seconds.
6. Wash all fresh produce. Wash even prepackaged greens, to minimize potential bacterial contamination. Make sure kitchen counters, sponges, cutting boards, and knives are all well scrubbed.
7. Reheat leftovers to 165 degrees. Filling a plate of food and popping it into the microwave for a few minutes may seem safe enough. But, says Cody, you really need to use a thermometer to make sure all the food is reheated enough to kill bacteria. “Microwaves heat in an uneven manner, so let the covered food sit for a minute or two to let the heat destroy any bugs, then check the temperature all around the plate.” she recommends.
8. Keep guests (and sticky fingers) out of the kitchen.  “Holidays occur during cold and flu season, which further compounds the fact that about half of all people have staph aureus bacteria on their fingertips,” says Cody. “So it is important to prevent anyone from picking at the food while it is being prepared,” She suggests serving simple appetizers to give guest something to nibble on until the meal is ready.
9. Serve only pasteurized apple cider. Most juices, including apple cider, are pasteurized to destroy any harmful bacteria. While you can buy unpasteurized juice, it will contain a warning that it can cause serious illness in vulnerable people. “To be on the safe side, serve pasteurized cider at your holiday gatherings,” says Blakeslee.