The Science Is Clear…Smiling Changes Your Brain Chemistry For The Positive

December 5, 2020admin

On my digital medical chart there is a photo of me so that nurses and doctors can easily identify who I am. I chose to be photographed at the office of my oncology gynecologist with the biggest, open smile I can manage. I look like I’m having a blast and I want you to join in on the fun. Over the years the effect of that photograph has been noticeable and profound. Clerks at the hospital registrar, nurses, PAs and doctors have commented on that photo. They love it, and that is likely due to it being uncommon. Most people posing for a cancer hospital ID photograph for their personal charts are probably not grinning from ear to ear. I’ve noticed a more positive, happy tone from the nurses and doctors and my follow up visits are generally quite pleasant for all of us. My radiation oncologist told me yesterday that my visit was a happy start to the day.

So activate yours and everyone around you’s brain happiness circuitry and smile. Even when it hurts.

Neuroscience Says Doing This 1 Thing Makes You Just as Happy as Eating 2,000 Chocolate Bars

Smiling, as it turns out, has truly remarkable effects. First, doing it actually makes you feel good even if you’re not feeling good in the moment. A 2009 fMRI study out of Echnische Universität in Munich demonstrated conclusively that the brain’s happiness circuitry is activated when you smile (regardless of your current mood). If you’re down, smiling actually prompts your brain to produce feel-good hormones, giving credence to the adage, “fake it til you make it” when it comes to your state of mind.

Smiling is also a predictor of longevity. In a 2010 out of Wayne State University, researchers looked at Major League baseball card photos from 1952. They found that the span of a player’s smile actually predicted his lifespan — unsmiling players lived 72.9 years on average, while beaming players lived a full seven years longer.

Similarly, a 30-year longitudinal study out of UC Berkeley examined the smiles of students in an old yearbook, with almost spooky results. The width of students’ smiles turned out to be accurate predictors of how high their standardized tests of well-being and general happiness would be, how inspiring others would find them, even how fulfilling their marriages would end up. Those with the biggest smiles came up on top in all the rankings.

Finally, research demonstrates that when we smile, we look better to others. Not only are we perceived as more likable and courteous, but those who benefit from our sunny grins actually see us as more competent (something to keep in mind while giving presentations or interacting in the office).

Want to know where you stack up when it comes to smiling? Know this: under 14% of us smile fewer than 5 times a day (you probably don’t want to be in that group). Over 30% of us smile over 20 times a day. And there’s one population that absolutely dominates in the smile game, clocking in at as many as 400 smiles a day: children.

Online Bullying, Part 3: Online Bullies Are Silencing Scientists And We All Lose

March 19, 2019admin57 Comments

Just within the last month there has been an increase in news media articles on how online activists are bullying and threatening doctors and scientists into retreating from online public discussions. They are “terrorizing into silence” using tactics intended to intimidate and threaten in order to shut all opposing thoughts, opinions and even research they do not agree with. In some cases, scientists have even abandoned their research.

These are not situations where there is a difference of opinions expressed in a civil discussion or debate. This is about power to control the narrative by libel, insult, threats, invasions of privacy, attacking family members. For many scientists, it’s a new normal: From climate change to vaccines, activism and science are fighting it out online. Social media platforms are supercharging the battle.

We all lose when scientists are bullied into silence about their research. Below are three examples of how online bullying has redefined how doctors and scientists engage in their work, research and how they communicate their findings to the public.

Anti-vaccine activists have doctors ‘terrorized into silence’ with online harassment

Dr. Dana Corriel wrote on Facebook in September that the flu vaccine had arrived and encouraged patients to come to her office for a shot.

Within hours, the post was flooded with thousands of comments from people opposed to vaccines. Corriel initially decided to allow the postings to continue, hoping to use the moment to educate people about the importance of immunizations.

But then she began to feel threatened. People she had never treated gave her one-star ratings online. Commenters called her a “pharma vaccine whore” and a “child killer,” according to screenshots shared with The Times. Someone looked up her office address in New York City and mailed her an anti-vaccine book.

But the platforms also facilitate far more antagonistic behavior, with doctors facing online harassment and even coordinated attacks for promoting vaccines.

Since late 2017, there have been more than 50 of these online campaigns against health providers who promote vaccines, some of which have led to threats of harm that prompted calls to the police, said Chad Hermann, communications director for Kids Plus Pediatrics, a Pittsburgh practice that faced one of these online attacks in 2017 and then began tracking them.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Activists Target Research Scientists

Reuters contacted a dozen professors, doctors and researchers with experience of analysing or testing potential treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome. All said they had been the target of online harassment because activists objected to their findings. Only two had definite plans to continue researching treatments.

Sharpe no longer conducts research into CFS/ME treatments, focusing instead on helping severely ill cancer patients. “It’s just too toxic,” he explained. Of more than 20 leading research groups who were publishing treatment studies in high-quality journals 10 years ago, Sharpe said, only one or two continue to do so.

The world’s largest trials registry, clinicaltrials.gov, indicates that over the past decade there has been a decline in the number of new CFS/ME treatment trials being launched. From 2010 to 2014, 33 such trials started. From 2015 until the present, the figure dropped to around 20. This decline comes at a time when research into ways to help patients should be growing, not falling, because the condition is more widely recognised, scientists interviewed by Reuters said.

Simon Wessely, a professor of psychological medicine at King’s College London and former president of Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists, said he decided to stop conducting research into treatment approaches for CFS/ME several years ago because he felt the online abuse was detracting from his work with patients.

But he is still the subject of what he calls “relentless internet stalking.” Wessely’s employers at King’s College London have taken advice on the potential risk and have instituted X-ray scans of his mail, he says.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Anti-GMO Factions Force GMO Scientist To Quit The Public Arena

Folta is a plant geneticist and the chairman of University of Florida’s horticultural department. When he’s not teaching or researching the genomics of strawberries, Folta spends a good deal of time speaking out on places like Twitter about agricultural biotechnology, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Like most scientists, Folta does not believe that GMOs are inherently harmful; unlike most scientists, Folta spends a lot of time online trying to convince the rest of the world he’s right. That has made him among the most hated scientists on the web.

People posted ads to a local Craigslist site, publicly sharing Folta’s phone number and address and writing that his dead mother would have been ashamed of his industry ties.

People called him a whore and a Monsanto cheerleader. A meme circulated featuring Folta’s head Photoshopped onto a baby being fed by a bottle labeled “Monsanto Money.” Folta’s wife was afraid to stay home alone after an email that said Folta’s harassers knew where she liked to bike.

The harassment also made its way into the real world: the university was so inundated with requests to fire Folta that it changed his office number and asked the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Task Force to remain on alert.

After a few weeks, Folta and his university decided that the trolls had won. Folta announced via Facebook that he was stepping out of the public conversation.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

“Move That Ambulance NOW!”

July 12, 2018admin69 Comments

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-43104314

Woman writes a scathing note and leaves it on an ambulance parked in front of her house (they were at the neighbor’s) to MOVE THEIR VAN NOW…

We’ve reported lots of this sort of stuff on E-hell but this takes the cake, plate, server, and topper. 0218-18

A snippet from the above linked article…

A woman left an abusive note on an ambulance dealing with a 999 call, ordering paramedics to “move their van”.

The writer said she did not care if “the whole street collapsed” and the crew had “no right to be parked here”.

The hand-written message was left on an ambulance in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, earlier.

Operational manager Mike Duggan said the paramedics also received verbal abuse.

He shared an image of the note on Twitter saying he was “very angry”.

Paramedic Katie Tudor tweeted Staffordshire Police asking: “Is there anything that can be done about this? It’s becoming a regular occurrence.”

It takes a special kind of snowflake to insist that an ambulance is violating her space and must be moved. It’s short -sighted, selfish and represents a character deficiency …almost sociopathic, in my opinion.

A member of my extended family is a paramedic and, oh, the stories this person can tell. Once he and his partner were trying to resuscitate an elderly woman who appeared to have had a heart attack. Two of her grandsons, both adults, threatened to kill them if they were unsuccessful in saving her. Both paramedics promptly stood up, left all the equipment there, walked out of the house, locked themselves in the ambulance and called 911 for police assistance. At least in the US, there are certain things that, if said, automatically triggers a required response from the first responders. Death threats said in the heat of emotions is number one on the list of things you do not say to the EMS or paramedics. The elderly woman died, btw.

Medical Concern Trumps Manners?

July 3, 2018admin26 Comments

Recently at lunch with several girlfriends, one inquired about my recovery from a medical procedure. It was in line with the normal caring expressed between close friends, not prying. However, upon hearing the name of my doctor B exclaimed loudly and proceeded to spend 10 minutes reviling the doctor, claiming someone in her family had had a terrible experience, that other doctors had warned her of his incompetence, on and on. When she finally wound down to find all us us staring at her in surprise, B simply shrugged, and said “Sorry, but you need to know.”

Certainly, I wish she had spoken to me privately and not made quite such a spectacle. Plus it leaves me in an awkward frame of mind. I’m in the MIDDLE of treatment with this doctor. I have no way of verifying anything she believes; nor is it really practical to switch or get a second opinion at this stage. And, yes, I’ve also heard GOOD things about him.

I suppose medical concerns can override our typically polite interactions, and this hit several. It made me wonder how I’d balance the rules of manners and friendship if I found myself in her position. Hopefully, I’d at least opted for a more private conversation. 0430-18

The surgeon who did two of my cancer surgeries has a reputation for being short tempered, opinionated and a verbal bull in the china shop. Nor does he have a cuddly bedside manner. He’s also an exceptionally talented surgeon who will tell me the truth rather than blow twinkie dust at me.

People have opinions about doctors that may have nothing whatsoever to do with their actual competence so it’s wise to take those opinions with a grain of salt. The passion with which your friend relayed her information indicates this is a serious issue in her mind and that she is concerned for you. One can appreciate the level of concern while ignoring the content of the message.

And You Thought Your Momster-In-Law Was Bad

November 9, 2017November 8, 2017admin68 Comments

So fiance’s parents finally accepted that I was not pregnant, and as soon as his mom realized this…well she wasn’t okay with her baby boy getting married anymore. So she worked on him and he’s no longer my fiance…or boyfriend…or anything really.

Funnily while insisting that I was not with child, I got with child. I skimmed over the antibiotics label and completely missed the ‘messes with birth control’ thing. My bad…I’m about 8 weeks now.

Anyways, after I found out I texted my ex and told him and that I wanted us to talk about things and please don’t say anything yet because I want to figure out what I want before including parents. So of course, being a momma’s boy he goes and tells her and now she wants us together and getting married again. I said, no, that I’m not dating anyone who is so co-dependent on their mother ever again.

So now everything is a big mess and they try to include me and actually pay attention to my dietary needs now that it could hurt her baaaby. (She says it really long “MY BAAABY”.) They tried to call dibs on me for Thanksgiving and Christmas for the next twenty years and his mom keeps coming over to my new apartment unannounced and wants to be in the delivery room, and, oh, by the way, don’t I know breastfeeding is tacky! Besides if I bottle feed, she can give me all of motherhood off.

Now I’m an introvert and don’t talk much in social settings but when she came to the family meeting I called (didn’t want my parents finding out from someone else) and she was going on and on about HER child, I flipped out. I might’ve crossed the line a bit, but seriously!? This is the woman who tells stories of my ex getting drunk at age 8 because she didn’t put her glass out of reach or her younger kid playing in the litter box like they are funny!

In short…my life is a bad TV sitcom now. 0914-14

Please tell me you didn’t tell this woman where you are having the baby or announced the beginning of labor on social media and she just showed up at the birthing center.