Stand By Her » Emotions & Sex

Be with just the Happy people

Stand By Her — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:06:28 +0000

People who spend time with happy people are more likely to become happy themselves. That’s according to a July 2010 study that examined how emotions spread contagiously.

David Rand: The more friends you have that are content with their lives, the more likely you are to become content. And the more friends you have that are discontent, the more likely you are to become discontent.

David Rand of Harvard is one of the study’s authors. He said this study was designed to understand how changes in long-term emotional states – meaning, whether you consider yourself a happy or sad person overall – are affected by the people you know.

We found that sadness is twice as infectious as happiness.

Rand and his co-authors compared emotional states of groups of friends, families, and coworkers to models of how infectious diseases – like the flu – spread. Then they looked at the probability that a person would become happy or become sad, based on the number of happy or sad people around them.

One aspect that’s new is that we showed in a formal sense that these long-term emotional states really are contagious. Which is interesting, and it’s important for trying to understand why people feel the way they do about their lives. Rand said that understanding the “contagious” aspect of emotions was key to the study.

A contagious process is something where your probability of contracting it–if it’s a disease–depends on whether your friends are sick. If you think about your probability of catching the flu, the more sick friends you have the more likely you are to get the flu. That makes it contagious. So we find that same thing with happiness or sadness.

Rand and his co-authors used data from the Framingham Health Study, which has been collecting health and social information from the community of Framingham, Massachusetts, for the past 40 years. They deduced the real-life social networks of the town based on information the study participants filled out about their family, work, and contacts. The information about emotions came from a standard 20-question psychology survey that categorizes people as happy, sad, or neutral.

In order to ask whether the process is infectious or not, you want to know, if you are in a “neutral” state, is there a probability of switching from neutral to happy increasing in your number of happy friends? So we took all the people who were neutral, in the first measurement wave, and we asked how many of them had zero happy friends. We looked at all the people who had no happy friends, and asked how many of them switched from neutral to happy. Okay, what about all the people had one happy friend, two happy friends, and so on.

They found that, like the flu, the more friends a person had who were happy, the more likely the person was to become happy themselves. Additionally, they found that sadness was more transmissive than happiness – meaning, it takes fewer sad friends to make you become sad. But Rand added that people recover from sadness more quickly than they recover – or change states – from being happy.

So dump all those sad sacks, and get on the Happy Train, folks! Happy Holidays…later Scrooge!!!

People who spend time with happy people are more likely to become happy themselves. That’s according to a July 2010 study that examined how emotions spread contagiously.

We found that sadness is twice as infectious as happiness.

So dump all those sad sacks, and get on the Happy Train, folks! Happy Holidays…later Scrooge!!!

Indecision

Stand By Her — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:06:28 +0000

Some times, when you actually get a break from caregiving, you have some time off and you have no idea what to do with that time. You can’ t make a decision. It’s really hard. Because time has become so important, you feel you must do something with it. Work. Clean up. Work out. Pay some bills.

Yet you can’t get motivated to do anything. And that’s OK. It’s REALLY OK. That’s because you’re just plain wrung out, and need to do NOTHING. And doing nothing is your right, that you’ve earned.

So watch TV aimlessly, read a book, take a nap. Enjoy being with just yourself.

Burned Out? So are your kids

Stand By Her — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:28:34 +0000

This from the New York Times:

January 27, 2010, 12:36 pm

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Parents who complain of feeling burned out at work are more likely to have kids who are burned out at school.

The evidence that burnout runs in families comes from a study of 370 ninth graders from 11 schools in Finland as well as one or both of their parents. Researchers have developed measurement tools to assess the level of burnout in workers and students, with burnout defined as feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by work and school demands, feelings of cynicism about job and school work or feeling inadequate and powerless.

When the researchers assessed the level of burnout experienced by both parents and students, they found several factors — including the size of the daily workload as well as financial stress — were primarily responsible for the level of burnout adults and teens were feeling at work and school. However, they also showed that burnout runs in families. There was a particularly strong association between work burnout in mothers and school burnout in their teen daughters.

Given the current economic recession, burnout in families may become a larger problem. The study found that family finances predicted a higher level of shared burnout among parents and teens. The findings appeared in The European Journal of Developmental Psychology.

“It seems that burnout can spread in the family,” said Katariina Salmela-Aro, a University of Helsinki psychologist, in an e-mail. “Parents act as role models, particularly the same gender, and burnout in parents might lead to negative parenting and low involvement to their kids, and this can also lead to burnout.”

Doctors offering care and concern to the caregiver

Stand By Her — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:26:01 +0000

This is a very interesting, and timely article that was written by a doctor about the need for the medical community to be more aware of, and concerned about, the caregivers of their patients. Click Doctor’s need to be more concerned about their patients’ caregivers.

Ever feel like Charlie Brown?

Stand By Her — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:32:57 +0000

What does it mean to feel like you’re Charlie Brown? Some times, the world just feels brown, doesn’t it. Not red, or green…just plain old brown. So what do you do when you’re kinda Charlie Brownin? Get up off the coach, and call a friend. Or go for a run. Maybe get a big old hug from someone. Or pat your dog. After all, even Charlie Brown had Snoopy.

Boxing your problems away doesn’t work very well

Stand By Her — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:50:09 +0000

Pilots in the Air Force are trained to compartmentalize their thoughts into little boxes when a situation starts to get overwhelming in the air. So, for example, if he’s worrying about his marriage while trying to land an F-16, at night, on an aircraft carrier, it’s important for him to “box” his marital problem away so he can hit the landing strip properly. That works for the landing but what about the marriage? Boxing up problems into an emotional warehouse doesn’t mean they go away. If you leave concerns, worries, and troubles in boxes, they just fester and grow inside you..until one day, they break out, in ways you can’t imagine, or control. So open up those boxes before the holidays begin.

“Tough” by Craig Morgan

Stand By Her — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:26:46 +0000

Talk about Stand by Her… check out this song that’s performed by country western star Craig Morgan which is all about the woman that he loves going through breast cancer. Click:

“Tough”

And here’s the lyrics written by Monty Criswell/Joe Leathers

She’s in the kitchen at the crack of dawn
Bacon’s on, coffee’s strong
Kids running wild, taking off their clothes
If she’s a nervous wreck, well it never shows
Takes one to football and one to dance
Hits the Y for aerobics class
Drops by the bank, stops at the store
Has on a smile when I walk through the door
The last to go to bed, she’ll be the first one up
And I thought I was tough

Chorus
She’s strong, pushes on, can’t slow her down
She can take anything life dishes out
There was a time
Back before she was mine
When I thought I was tough

We sat there five years ago
The doctors let us know, the test showed
She’d have to fight to live, I broke down and cried
She held me and said it’s gonna be alright
She wore that wig to church
Pink ribbon pinned there on her shirt
No room for fear, full of faith
Hands held high singing Amazing Grace
Never once complained, refusing to give up
And I thought I was tough

Chorus
She’s strong, pushes on, can’t slow her down
She can take anything life dishes out
There was a time
Back before she was mine
When I thought I was tough

She’s a gentle word, the sweetest kiss
A velvet touch against my skin
I’ve seen her cry, I’ve seen her break
But in my eyes, she’ll always be strong

There was a time
Back before she was mine
When I thought I was tough

Deep Blue Sea – Crossing the Gulf Stream

Stand By Her — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:39:53 +0000

This article symbolizes the ebb and flow of feelings that men have as they traverse the Deep Blue Sea of their emotional journey. Written by Angus Phillips, it is about sailing through the Gulf Stream. Read more: “Gulf Stream turns fall to summer, but not without bumps”

Study Shows Family Caregivers, Simple Touch Techniques Reduce Symptoms in Cancer Patients

Stand By Her — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:17:09 +0000

This just came in from our good friend, Claudia Lee , President of C. Z. Lee & Associates, Breast Center Consultations in Hudson, NY. It’s a study released last month at the 6th International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology. And the findings are incredible. Here’s what it had to say:

Family caregivers can significantly reduce suffering in cancer patients at home through use of simple touch and massage techniques.

The study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, evaluated outcomes of a 78-minute DVD instructional program and illustrated manual in a sample of 97 patients and their caregivers. The multi-ethnic sample represented 21 types of cancer (nearly half with breast cancer) and all stages of disease. Caregivers included spouses, adult children, parents, siblings and friends. The project was conducted in Boston, MA, Portland, ME, and Portland, OR using English, Spanish and Chinese languages.

The DVD program is now released to the public, titled “Touch, Caring and Cancer: Simple Instruction for Family and Friends.” in English, Spanish and Chinese. More information and video trailers are available at http://www.partnersinhealing.net.

According to the principal investigator, William Collinge, PhD, president of Collinge and Associates “Touch and massage are among the most effective forms of supportive care in cancer, but most patients cannot access professional practitioners of these methods on a regular basis. This study sought to determine whether family caregivers receiving brief home-based instruction could deliver some of the same benefits as professionals. It appears they can.”

In the study, couples were randomized to either an experimental group using the program, or an attention control group. Caregivers in the experimental group were asked to apply the instruction for at least 20 minutes, three or more times per week for a month. Those in the control group were assigned to read to the patient for the same amounts of time. Patients completed report cards before and after sessions rating their levels of pain, fatigue, stress/anxiety, nausea, depression, and other symptoms.

Results indicated significant reductions for all symptoms after both activities, indicating that companionship alone has a positive effect. However, while symptoms were reduced from 12-28% after reading, massage from the caregiver led to reductions of 29-44%. The greatest impact was on stress/anxiety (44% reduction), followed by pain (34%), fatigue (32%), depression (31%), and nausea (29%). Patients reporting an optional “other” symptom (e.g., headaches) saw reductions of 42% with massage. Caregivers in the massage group also showed gains in confidence and comfort with using touch and massage as forms of caregiving.

According to Collinge, “It appears that family members who receive simple instruction in safety and techniques can achieve some of the same results as professional practitioners. This has important implications not just for patient well-being, but for caregivers as well. Caregivers are at risk of distress themselves – they can feel helpless and frustrated when seeing a loved one suffer. This gives a way to make a difference for the patient, and at the same time increase their own satisfaction and effectiveness as a caregiver. It also appears to strengthen the relationship bond, which is important to both.”

SOURCES:
6th International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology. November 13, 2009, New York, NY
Society for Integrative Oncology

Cancer Land Leave pass

Stand By Her — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:29:54 +0000

It’s important to take time off from your loved one to regroup and reset. That time can be for just a couple of hours. So take a Cancer Land leave break today. Football, for many guys, is a great escape. Today, there is a great rivalry to watch between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys at 4 pm today. Set your DVRs and enjoy. Then give her a hug after the game, and tell her how much you love.