hella come rescue me from america i don’t like it here anymore

i actually would rather not come over there rn bestie

Health & Wellness

Health & wellness news Health & wellness, a page that describes the different aspects of wellness and health, with quotes and links to specific resources and news on the matter. Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year. Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960, American journalist, humorist) Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king. Isaac Bickerstaffe In 2015, the population of the United States (U.S.) spent an estimated $3.2 trillion on healthcare costs. However, despite this expenditure, a study by the U.S. National Research Council, published in 2013, showed that Americans die at a younger age and experience more illness and injury than people in other developed countries. Internet news The concept of total wellness recognizes that our every thought, word, and behavior affects our greater health and well-being. And we, in turn, are affected not only emotionally but also physically and spiritually. Greg Anderson As a remedy against all ills; poverty, sickness, and melancholy only one thing is absolutely necessary; a liking for work. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867, French poet) The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, British statesman, Prime Minister) The human body has been designed to resist an infinite number of changes and attacks brought about by its environment. The secret of good health lies in successful adjustment to changing stresses on the body. Harry J. Johnson (American medical doctor) Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. Carl Jung No time for your health today, will result in no health for your time tomorrow. Irish Proverb (Sayings of Irish origin) Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature - if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you - know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862, American essayist, poet, naturalist) Health is a great treasure. It is the richest possession mortals can have. Wealth, honor, or learning is dearly purchased, if it be at the loss of the vigor of health. None of these attainments can secure happiness, if health is wanting. Ellen Gould White What is health and how to keep it in a good balance. The word "health" refers to a state of complete emotional and physical well-being. Healthcare exists to help people maintain this optimal state of health. Good health is central to handling stress and living a long and active life. In 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health with a phrase that is still used today. "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." WHO, 1948. In 1986, the WHO further clarified that health is: "A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities."

Health and preventive care medicine Health can be defined as physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and as a resource for living a full life. It refers not only to the absence of disease, but the ability to recover and bounce back from illness and other problems. Factors for good health include genetics, the environment, relationships, and education. A healthful diet, exercise, screening for diseases, and coping strategies can all enhance a person's health. This means that health is a resource to support an individual's function in wider society. A healthful lifestyle provides the means to lead a full life. Nowadays health can also be considered as the ability of a body to adapt to new threats and infirmities, and that means to be aware that modern science has increased human knowledge of diseases and how they work. Physical wellbeing involves pursuing a healthful lifestyle to decrease the risk of disease. Maintaining physical fitness, for example, can protect and develop the endurance of a person's breathing and heart function, muscular strength, flexibility, and body composition. Physical health and well-being also help reduce the risk of an injury or health issue. Examples include minimizing hazards in the workplace, practicing safe sex, practicing good hygiene, or avoiding the use of tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs. Mental health refers to a person's emotional, social, and psychological wellbeing. It is as important as physical health to a full, active lifestyle. It is not only the absence of depression, anxiety, or another disorder, but it also depends on the ability to enjoy life, bounce back after difficult experiences, achieve balance, adapt to adversity, feel safe and secure, achieve your potential. Physical and mental health are obviously linked. If chronic illness affects a person's ability to complete their regular tasks, this may lead to depression and stress, for example, due to money problems. It is important to approach "health" as a whole, that is through a holistic approach. Health should be a good investment, not a bad expenditure. Carl William Brown Health depends on a wide range of factors. People are born with a different mixed range of genes, and in some of them, an unusual genetic pattern can lead to a weak level of health. Environmental factors then play a role. Sometimes the environment alone is enough to impact health. Other times, an environmental trigger can cause illness in a person who is genetically susceptible. Access to healthcare plays a role, but the WHO suggests that the following factors may have a bigger impact on health than this: where a person lives, the state of the surrounding environment, genetics, income, education level, relationships with friends and family. The social and economic environment, including how wealthy a family or community is; the physical environment, including parasites that exist in an area, or pollution levels; the person's characteristics and behaviors, including the genes that a person is born with and their lifestyle choices, all these factors can clearly influence in a good or bad manner our health. Maintaining wellness and an optimal health should be a lifelong, daily commitment. Steps that can help us maximize our health include: a balanced, nutritious diet, sourced as naturally as possible, regular exercising, screening for diseases that may present a risk, learning to manage stress, engaging in activities that provide purpose and connection to others, maintaining a positive outlook and appreciating what you have, defining a value system, and putting it into action. Peak health will be different for each person, and how you achieve wellness may be different from how someone else does. It may not be possible to avoid disease completely, but doing as much as we can to develop resilience and prepare the body and mind to deal with problems as they arise is a step we can all take. You can also visit: The laws of wellness ; Wellness best quotes ; Wellness in Italy ; Cancer World News ;  Hiv world News ;  Health and fitness ; Yoga teaching ; Sports News ; https://youtu.be/aefZsShHYWI Read the full article

Vampire Cafes

WARNINGS/TAGS: blood, blood consumption, enslavement, medical torture, unnecessary surgery, normalized human slavery, dehumanization, non-con bloodletting, starvation, wounds, body-horror, needles, gore, abuse, death, kidnapping

PLEASE DO NOT read if ANY of ^these^ triggers could effect you. It isn't worth your mental health and merely for creative purpose. I'd so much rather have you happy and healthy.

All graphic content will always be under a cut.

Anything of my personal vampire lore will be under the tag #vlor

Imagine a world where vampires make up at least half of the population and growing. Society has adapted, for the most part there is peace but things have changed. The new world order is primarily made of the undead and most governmental functions are as well.

Because of this, humans have met their match and are no longer at the top of the food-chain. Naturally, they've lost rights, they've lost a lot of the protection that they had from one another and their rules have been made for them. While the majority of vampires take pity on humans, think of them as children that will never get a chance to learn and many as a vital part of their own existence.

Their lives are not valued as they once were with such severity. Slavery is legal, murder is all but decriminalized between species and while humans are vital, they're easy enough to reproduce and farm. Even if they have no idea that it's being done, their population is kept up by vampire influence and the new 'Law'.

Gory crimes become normal. Loss becomes normal, fear, terror, insecurity becomes normal for human life. And while millions of vampires are kind-hearted citizens like their lesser counterpart, it doesn't take many to send a sense of unease and panic into their 'sister' species as a whole.

But now imagine what 'normal' vampire things would look like, mashed into society and accepted broadly as the new era of life. Fully capable of wiping humans out entirely but smart enough to know that they can't take out their own food supply or over-populate with their kind.

You'd be walking down the street one day and look into a window and see...

...Someone being bitten in public or someone desperately screaming for help as another person drug them off into an alley and drained them dry. People would lose their touch for each other and lose connection with the kindness and concern they'd once share. They would turn silent, uncurious; head down, eyes up.

But surely there's a better way to distribute blood and not have to just randomly terrorize a stranger, right? Something quicker, easier and with a lot less mess.

It only made sense to keep the function of corporate industry alive with some steadfast business. Vampires needed fast food too.

In comes the different versions of vampire cafes or 'blood bins'. Humans are farmed (locally usually) or in shady local businesses, kidnapped to be held for public use. Disease is without worry but what is of good concern is health and how long they can manage to process a human until they're no longer viable.

They want strong, healthy humans that can yield and regenerate fast. So they're fed strict doses of vitamins and mineral packed slop, that stays down no matter what emotional or physical turmoil they suffer. Some keep them high and sedated, making sure that it's as 'humane as possible'. High-end franchises will keep their 'stock' in the back and the bolder venues keep them in aesthetically pleasing tubes.

They'll go as far as dressing them nicely and lighting up their display cases with different décor and neon signs. The only sign of anything slightly off with them is a straw-sized tube jutting from their arm. It isn't inflamed or angry, instead it's not phasing through the skin at all like human phlebotomy. It was surgically installed, implanted in a main artery and capped with a medical grade valve-stem. As if they were tires and pressurized.

This hooked them to the automatic dispensing system. Where an attendant could fill a glass by the customers choosing, pressing it under a nozzle and getting an exact measurement. Digital displays would show them how many more they could get out before entering the 'rest' mode and the system would lower them to the basement to be changed out by another employee.

Not every café was the same, though. Many that operated locally or outside large franchise, were torture chambers for humans. They couldn't afford to buy stock in humans and instead, choose to steal them off the streets. The valve operation is definitely out of the picture so it's down to blunt injury or hack-job intravenous experiments. Age is of no concern, young and old alike but better if no one will interfere with their missing persons.

Imagine the despair of not being able to ever get enough strength gathered to escape? Being drugged constantly and weakened by hunger and blood-loss. Constantly being afraid that they'd take too much because it happened all the time around you. The absolute misery you'd endure watching the others suffer and how many various reactions there can be. Taken down to your absolute limit, just to be force-fed vile concoctions and to feel joy from it because at least the gnawing, aching nausea would go away.

Praying you didn't vomit because it was all you were going to get, no matter how wretched it was. Oh and the infection from all the times they'd try to get blood. Wounds would never heal but they'd keep trying and the amount of struggle to keep finding new places would be unbearable. Botched, at home surgeries and operations galore. The fatigue would be awful and most places never closed, seeing as they were serving all kinds with all habits. Day in, day out, until they got worried they'd kill you and have to go to the trouble of kidnapping more and more people. Then they'd put you in a storage room or off somewhere to rest; which usually meant being locked up in a gutted cooler.

How hopeless, how absolutely hopeless you'd feel. How miserable it would be to be a human and live in the risk of being snatched up and tormented for your blood.

On the flipside... To end on a good note.

Imagine the recovery. The survival. How much it would take to earn that persons trust, (or teach them if they're bred in captivity) and how they would have to readapt to interaction again. Remember how to talk depending on how long they've been held captive. How timid they would be, how much they would accept or deny another persons touch. Every time they see themselves bleed, they fall apart into fits of fear and paranoia. If something pokes them they go irate with sobs and gasps of terror, thinking that they're going back to the darkness to be prodded like a science experiment.

When they're given the chance to sleep, it scares them because the loopy feeling before and after makes them feel like they're drugged or anemic again. How dizzy they would be for the first while that they were saved, how many times they could fall into their saviors arms.

Now what if that savior is a vampire themselves?

The added fear, how hard they would have to work to earn the human's trust and dependency. How they would have to watch themselves carefully to try not to do anything domineering or too roughly by accident. Trying extra hard to not move too quickly or be too over-powering when handing or taking things.

This is the medic berth sharing anon, and I forgot to add, what if when talking to a bot(not necessarily a medic), the conversation some how drifted to where the human just casually mentions that professional cuddling is A Thing, and what would the reactions be?

I've got a lot here as a follow up because once again, your ideas inspire me anon! Prepare for a wall of text!

Rodimus

·He's not necessarily surprised, because your species is so incredibly soft, why not have humans who specialize in using that talent? But he's still never considered it before, and is curious as to how one becomes a "proffesional" at something so basic, and what kind of training it could possibly entail.

·Hearing that it's more for humans who have endured trauma, or humans who come from cultures or backgrounds where such contact is frowned upon, makes him a little sad. He's an affectionate bot and can't imagine not having access to something so simple, but then realizes their own species could perhaps do with some physical affection based therapy, not that he feels qualified to suggest such a thing...

Drift

·After a brief request for more information he's delighted by the sound of the practice, even if he doesn't have all the details. Creating harmony through positive energy and healing through affection is a personal ideal of his, and to hear another species practicing it is quite uplifting!

·It's unfortunate it isn't widely practiced, but the mere fact it exists is enough to give him some inspiration, so he asks for as many facts as you can give. With a bit of planning he absolutely intends to pursue this for Cybertronians, even if by just bringing it up as a proposal, and hopefully Ratchet will be willing to give it a chance!

Ultra Magnus/Minimus Ambus

·Initially he needs you to repeat yourself and explain in more depth, because he's certain he heard you wrong. How can one do something so common "professionally"? It takes a fair amount of conversation and a lot of context for him to understand the therapeutic aspect, which he begins to see once you also lay out what a social species humans are and how damaging solitude can be.

·The idea of healing through affectionate contact is something he can grasp, at least. Cybertronians aren't so different, though many such needs have long been neglected, and he is doubtful it could catch on until a significant amount of restoration is done. He'd be interested in seeing it happen, and can see how it would benefit a war ravaged population, provided there is proper licencing for those who wish to pursue it.

Ratchet

·He's immediately intrigued, but not at all surprised, and discusses the similarities such a practice reveals between humans and Cybertronians. As imposing as bots may be, they're still a social species, and a lack of physical affection can do great harm. Also like humans, bots tend to be unaware of the depth of the need until they're suffering.

·Talking about it really gets him thinking. They've neglected a lot to win the war, and now that they're here, needs like this should come back into focus. It would certainly be worth it to encourage such things where he can, even if bots don't understand or believe in the benefits. They may not have proffesional cuddlers, but this ship is undoubtedly bursting with lonely bots who'd be willing to give it a try.

Rung

·As a kind of therapy, it's entirely new to him, but the benefits are exceptionally clear even before you elaborate. Bots are a caring and tender species under all that armor, despite the image the war has created, so he can see that humans would find solace in such a thing due to their similarities. Being a proponent of slow and measured healing also makes the idea quite agreeable.

·He discusses the possible changes one would have to make for Cybertronians, which would probably be somewhat significant due to their differences in size, anatomy, and cultural practices. The basic idea could still stay though, especially for the many traumatized not just by battle, but by the shortage of tender intimacy the war created in its stead. He'll absolutely write a paper on this, and he actually feels it's worth publishing! Should you suggest he'd be a natural at providing such care he will blush for a multitude of reasons.

Swerve

·He keeps it to himself, but his first emotion is one of absolute longing. Someone to just hold you, and comfort you, with the skill of a therapist but the gentle embrace of a friend? He plays it off like he sees it as another quirky human thing, but he subtly prods for more information under the veneer of casual conversation, and starts wishing his own kind had an equivalent.

·As much as he'd prefer having someone who just wants to be with him like that as a friend, the idea of a proffesional is still tempting beyond belief, and he wonders if the increased interaction between your species might make some bots pick up the trade. Just enjoying the simple, uninterrupted company of another for a bit would be heavenly, but he's absolutely not willing to say that out loud.

Skids

·Knowing that slow and steady therapy works, he can definitely see that being helpful, even if he doubts he'd ever get anything out of something like that. He likes to move and have fun when he socializes, and sitting still with someone would probably just end in a nap for him, not that he minds the idea of that too much...

·One thing he is curious about is the statistics of the occupation, as baffling as they may be. Why are the proffesionals mostly female and the clients mostly male? Don't humans, like bots, long for affection no matter their physical makeup? An explanation of stereotypes and gender roles and everything involved on that front just makes him think he needs a drink.

Whirl

·Of course he cracks a few jokes about tiny squishy humans needing to be mushed, but it's in good humor, because he actually gets it pretty much right away. The whole idea is a sappy one, but all of therapy is sappy, and you can thank brains for being so darn easy to trick up with feelings for that little design flaw.

·He explains that the biggest part of you to hurt when someone screws you over is your sense of trust, so something that makes you be super vulnerable is obviously the way to fix it, at least for some. After emphasizing how he'd never benefit from such a thing, he posits that cuddling is potentially the most dangerous thing you can do, making folks willing to try it on thr regular with strangers pretty damn brave. His logic on the ease of stabbing while snuggling is not one you can argue.

Chromedome

·Fully aware of the chaos life can bring, he immediately gets why someone would want a little time to relax with someone calm, even if it's more of a clinical session than a platonic bonding. Admittedly the lack of concrete guidelines does worry him a little once he hears the qualifications are rather loose, but is anything perfect?

·Being a bot who fully gets how desperate a suffering individual will go, he can't help but consider what a benefit such simple pain relief could be, but also mourns for those who don't have access to something so... basic. Suffice to say he gets ample cuddling, and knows full well how precious every moment is.

Rewind

·Being so focused on memory has taught him the emotional impact even a little encounter can have, so he isn't at all surprised some species would have learned to utilize this, only that his own hasn't. Being such a varied and armored species can make any intimacy difficult, but that hardly means they're strangers to snuggling after all.

·The thought of such loneliness can't help but make him a little sad, especially when he learns many of the humans seeking out this service are in relationships. Not a day goes by for him without hand holding or hugs or nuzzles... He hopes your species makes this more common as therapy for their own sake.

Cyclonus

·Initially he's a bit bewildered, though many aspects of earth culture bewilder him, and further discussion does little to help him grasp the concept or its benefits. It seems silly and, at least internally, he can't help but perceive it as inappropriate. It isn't until you elaborate on why humans seek this service out that he begins to get some clarity.

·Hearing about how many human cultures frown on caring contact in virtually any situation, even between partners, is a little alarming. He knows the struggle of expressing emotions after even allowing yourself to feel them, but to be so caged by tradition that one needs secret contact with a proffesional for a taste of warmth or companionship... well, that's unfortunate.

Tailgate

·Immediately you see him perk up, as if the mere mention of cuddling catches his attention. He asks lots of questions, some on the proffesion and others on the ways humans express care, and while saddened that the job is needed he's happy that help is there for those who need it.

·You're then given an enthusiastic but confidential talk on how he's finally getting all the hugs he needs with Cyclonus, who will never admit it but he's certain is benefiting from the cuddling as much as he is. While not aware of the six million years he was out, it's felt as if his body is, and thus he's been eagerly catching up with loving snuggles whenever possible. Speaking of which, want a hug?

Velocity

·She's not at all caught off guard by the idea, as it makes a lot of sense for the sake of mental health, especially to a doctor of a species that could use the practice. While Caminus has been spared the war between factions, it's unfortunately not a haven for emotional wellbeing either. The need to stand out and meet cultural requirements of frugality forces many to be just as reserved with their needs as the humans seeking out help that you describe.

·She wonders if it'd be possible to introduce something like that to her own people, if not on Cybertron. But there's a lot of cultural resistance, just as she's sure you've seen on earth, to taking care of oneself even for such a basic need. She expresses respect for humans on actually taking the steps to improve.

Nautica

·As with all new things, she's immediately interested in learning the full depth of the subject, both inside and out. If you don't know it all that's okay! She can just plough through a few books and then she'll feel like she's got it down! This means she wants to know about human therapy, affection, cultural hindrances, the neurochemtistry of physical contact... Anything you know to start on these subjects would be helpful.

·Before and after her quick study break, her biggest takeaway is the huge taboo humans have placed on touching, something she can barely wrap her head around. Sure, bots have unnecessary hangups as well, but casual taction just... happens? Why would any culture have issues with that? Even as someone who occasionally trips up and crosses physical boundaries, she knows that space is important, but it's not meant to be a barrier. You'll let her know if you need a break from what sounds like an exhausting mindset, won't you? She's always here for a quick hug or even just a shoulder pat!

Megatron

·All talk of human culture once made him cringe, not out of disgust, but out of an admittedly deserved guilt. With you he's at least opening up to conversation on the topic, and this is one of the things he needs a bit of elaboration on, as his bafflement is so great you can see it on his face. His experience with physical affection being nonexistent doesn't make it any easier for him to follow.

·When you mention the concept of being "touch starved" he finally gets it, but has a less than thrilling realization himself. He's never heard a word describe his deeply buried longing so effectively, and your talk of earth culture occasionally stifling people to the point of needing these services strikes a nerve he hadn't known was so tender. As with every other vulnerability in his life, he buries it down and secures the weakness firmly away, keeping his expression neutral as he pretends the topic is just another curiosity.

“You’re just confused. Make up your mind!”

“You’re going through a phase. You’re on your way to being lesbian/gay.”

“You can’t be happy with me, you’ll cheat on me with a man/woman.”

“You’re only saying you’re bisexual to appear cool.”

Have you heard these comments before? These are statements some bisexual people may hear from both straight people or gay people. These are examples of biphobia, discriminatory and/or derogatory remarks, attitudes, or actions toward bisexuality and bisexual people as a group. Biphobia can be seen in overt discrimination or seemingly harmless jokes or statements.

There are many articles out there that talk about the myths and stigmas around bisexuality. This post will not elaborate on that topic, but takes this a step further to briefly explain bisexuality and ways you can be an ally to a bisexual person.

To start, Merriam-Webster defines bisexuality as being sexually attracted to both men and women. This particular definition, in and of itself, is often too limited to encompass the full scope of bisexuality. With the increase of gender expression, our society has started to acknowledge gender is on a spectrum and cannot be contain to a binary (man or woman).

This is why I appreciate Robyn Ochs’ (a bisexual activist) definition becuase it acknowledges the difference between sexual and romantic attraction (or lack thereof) and the gender spectrum. She says:

“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.”

Pansexuality is sometimes used interchangeably or alongside the term bisexual, as it implies someone who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to people independent of biological sex or gender identity/expression. It doesn’t meant the same thing, however.

So why do bisexual people need allies? Because the pervasiveness of bisexual invisibility and biphobia still exists, both within the straight community and the LGBTQ+ community. Despite making up almost 50% of the LGBTQ+ community, there continues to be minimal visibility, research, and support specifically for bisexual individuals. Many bisexuals report they don’t feel like they belong in either the straight or gay/lesbian community.

It is coming to light bisexuals may be more impacted by minority stress (the experience of chronic stress faced by minority groups) than their lesbian and gay-identified counterparts. Some studies around LGBTQ+ mental health show higher suicide rate in bisexual people than gay/lesbian people. (It should be noted that transgender individuals show the highest suicide rate within the LGBTQ+ community.)

There are also different definitions for an ally (and also differing views on the role of allies, as well). Some may view an ally as someone who is part of the majority community who advocates for those of a marginalized population. (However, you don’t have to be part of the majority group to be an ally). I want to emphasize that simply being sensitive to someone else’s identity is a great foundation to be an ally. You don’t have to go out on a Pride March (although if you do, that’s great!) in order to start fostering a mindset of curiosity, acceptance, and humility about those different from you.

There are three ways to start being an ally to people in the bisexual/pansexual community:

1) Don’t make assumptions

As stated earlier, perhaps the greatest challenge for the bisexual community is bisexual invisibility or bisexual erasure. Western culture is very much built upon mono-sexuality (you’re either gay or straight) and grasping sexuality on a spectrum can be hard. Additionally, Western culture often assumes the lens of monogamy when looking at romantic partnerships. Even if someone is polyamorous and has partners of different genders, there is still an assumption you are with one partner and your identity is based on whichever partner is most salient. (It’s worth clarifying that while polyamory appears more present in the LGBTQ+ community, bisexuals are no more likely to be polyamorous than gay or straight people.)

Bottom line: don’t judge a book (bisexual) by its cover (their partner or behaviors). Do not make assumptions about identify. If someone discloses the gender of their partner and it is either different or the same as their own, do not assume they are either gay or straight. Which leads to our next suggestion…

2) Ask about their identity

This can feel like an awkward thing to bring up, but I can tell you – it is better to clumsily ask how someone identifies than to make assumptions, which may result in discomfort, or further feelings of invisibility or alienation. Most people in the LGBTQ+ community will appreciate you asking how they identify (assuming it’s the appropriate forum for such discussion and you are not outing them without their consent). Your question can be as casual and simple as: “You mentioned having a girlfriend/boyfriend – do you identify as gay/lesbian/bisexual or something else?” Even just the simple act of asking this question shows you are curious about someone’s identity and want to learn about them.

3) Avoid asking questions you would not ask a straight person

There are a lot myths and stigmas out there about bisexuals. (This is a post for another day), but often the best way to avoid asking something offensive is to apply it to the majority.

For example, I’m fairly certain every openly bisexual person as been asked: “So which do you prefer? Men or Women?” (Please don’t do this!)

This is like asking a straight person “So which of the past partners do you prefer?” or “Do you prefer blond or brunettes?” It reduces bisexual people down to their dating choices, which is one aspect of someone’s identity and doesn’t encompass who they are as a person or what their sexuality may mean to them. Bisexual people may show a pattern of dating more of one gender than the other, but chances are, if someone identifies as bisexual they may not have a strong enough preference for one gender in order to feel that either “straight” or “gay” fits them. It feeds into the myth that bisexual people can’t choose or are confused.

Some bisexuals have been labeled as ‘going through a phase’ or ‘indecisive’. Flip this on it’s head – Would you ask a straight person, “Are you sure you’re straight? Have you tried something else? Are you just experimenting?”

Using this measurement (“Would I make this assumption about a straight person?”) is a good way to tell if you are asking something that could be seen as oppressive or offensive.

By taking the time to be curious and go outside your comfort zone, you have started to take steps towards being an ally to bisexual people. While this post is tailored around the bisexual community, these concepts and questions can be tweaked to apply to all types of sexual orientation, gender expression and relationship status to help you be more sensitive and understanding to those within the LGBTQ+ community.

If you are seeking a therapist who is knowledgeable and passionate about working with the LGBTQ+ community please reach out to me at 970-403-4173 for a free consultation. I work with individuals within the LGBTQ+ community and also support those who have loved ones/family within the LGBTQ+ community.

***

Arianna Smith Counseling LLC

970-403-4173

Live a Healthy Life by Changing Your Habits

A healthy life is undoubtedly the greatest desire of all of us. After all, without health, life radically changes its meaning. The best way to feel happy, energetic and healthy in the future is to lead a happy, energetic and healthy life in the present. The benefits and pleasures produced are both immediate and long-term.

We are increasingly walking in a direction, where people finally realize that being healthy is much more than just not being sick.

We cannot allow life to pass through us without living it with energy and stimuli that transmit happiness to us. We have to make our lives more attractive and stimulating by simply taking a firm, active and participative stance towards them.

Many times, we are not able to stop the journey of life. Despite this fact, life is also the fruit of our attitudes and behaviors. We are, therefore, the result of our experiences.

How to have a healthy life?

"What needs to be done to be healthy", "how to start a healthy life", or "how to have a healthy and happy life", are questions that people often ask themselves.

Debrucemo, first, on the question:

what does it mean to be healthy? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health is "physical, mental and social well-being, rather than the mere absence of disease... ". In other words, being healthy is not only the absence of illness, but essentially the physical and mental well-being of the individual. It is no coincidence that the WHO defines health in this way, giving the word a much broader meaning than just the simple antonyms of disease.

Although health appears, of course, to be associated with the word medicine, it goes far beyond the meaning that, many times, common sense attributes to it, associating it only, normally, to curative medicine. Medicine is, however, much more than that, as its major concern is disease prevention.

People's lifestyles, poor diet, stress, among other factors, have contributed greatly to exacerbating the problems. Examples include diabetes and high blood pressure, diseases closely related to the habits of modern populations.

Many of the problems that modern medicine helps to solve could easily be avoided if followed by some of the essentials recommendations to practicing a healthy lifestyle.

Changing habits and behaviors is imperative and urgent. We do not mean by this that we should follow to the letter all the rules for a healthy life, as if it were a hard, painful and even castrating plan for people. Life must be lived with intensity and pleasure, so we must never become mere prisoners to attitudes/behaviours that, although healthier, would be both painful and limiting.

Life is made up of choices. Take your awareness, find the balance between the pros and cons of your personal tastes, towards a healthier life and not forgetting that ultimately it is your quality of life that you want to improve.

We talk about changing attitudes that stimulate us and lead us to happiness, and in this way improve our health condition. It is not always possible, it is true, but in the vast majority of cases, it is perfectly feasible.

As an example, imagine a simple walk in nature or enjoy your favorite piece of fruit. These are two simple examples where it is completely feasible to enjoy life and improve your health at the same time.

Food, physical exercise

Healthy living is also in our hands. Let us not judge that we can eat excessive amounts of sugar every day and that in the event that one day, we will suffer from diabetes it will simply be a matter of fate and bad luck. We cannot judge those who are subject to high doses of stress every day, and we will not persistently pay a high price for it. Let's not think that we can be smokers for years and let's not collect respiratory problems and a degradation of our quality of life.

Our attitudes make us think sooner or later about our health.

Obviously, our attitude to life is a determining factor in making it healthier. Think of life as positive and feel good about yourself before any action.

At least two important things to keep in mind. First of all, nutrition. A good diet can do much more for your health than you think. Nutrition and healthy living are inseparable concepts.

Secondly, physical exercise. This, since it will be done in the right way, can greatly improve your health and well-being, thus contributing to a better quality of life.

Think of physical exercise as something positive and relaxing, not as something hard and "it has to be". Find out which is the activity that you like the most and perceive the benefits that it can provide.

Change only these two factors and discover a healthier life.

If you intend to delve deeper into these and other topics, we encourage you to read on our blog articles related to nutrition and the benefits of physical exercise.

Quality of life

How many of us already feel the discomfort caused by a simple backache. Or you felt the discomfort caused by repeated infections, often caused by the weakening of our immune system.

Many examples we could point out, however, we are all aware that illness or discomfort drastically diminish our quality of life.

Today we live in an era where time has come to dictate the rules. The lack of time leads people to live in a constant race against this precious commodity.

We don't have time to eat well, we don't have time for physical exercise, we don't have time to talk to people, we don't have time for many things that are considered essential in our lives. These behaviors, unfortunately, generate a variety of problems, with serious consequences for our health and well-being.

In the presence of these problems, on the one hand, people are strongly affected in their health, on the other hand, their quality of life is greatly degraded.

In short, we would say that it is not possible to have a good quality of life without having healthy habits.

Healthy longevity

Average life expectancy a few decades ago was substantially lower.

With improvements in living conditions and advances in medicine, it has gradually increased. Still, it is, because we all want to live better and longer.

The current goal is not just to live longer. It is to have a lasting health, that is, to lead an active, healthy, happy and goal-oriented life. However, living longer is not synonymous with living better. The increase in life expectancy often comes at the expense of more or less sophisticated treatments that, despite their effectiveness, greatly damage people's quality of life. We should not only want to live more, but to live better.

Longevity is also in our hands. We believe, evasively, that we must focus our attention on the maintenance of a healthy condition, taking for granted that our attitudes in the present will have a profound impact on our future health.

If you want to live healthier and longer, start taking measures in this direction, that is, measures that are firm, healthy and at the same time contribute to your current well-being.

Benefits of a healthy life.

The benefits of healthy living are countless for people. It will not therefore be necessary to describe them with an extractor, since we all know what is gratifying to feel healthy or, on the contrary, what is painful is to feel sick.

However, the benefits of healthy living don't stop there. Health care costs are increasingly inconvenient for people, either directly or indirectly through their taxes that are channelled to the Public Health Service.

There are studies that clearly show that for every dollar invested in prevention, we can have a significant return on savings with curative health treatments.

In other words, the priority of investment should be channeled to disease prevention. On the other hand, the social and economic costs caused by illness, such as absenteeism from work, are very significant, with increasing expenditure on social protection.

How Is The Word Reiki Pronounced Wonderful Cool Tips

One of the condition, which leads to a lifetime in touch with that melody music.That way the energetic systems of Reiki attunement.Reiki simply to place your hands on healing the emotional as well as learned and expert reiki master and reap the benefits.Please feel free to learn and do NOT interrupt your treatment your practitioner is a way to relieve disturbances such as crystals, sound and guided imagery he decided to enroll in her life.

It is possible to accompany a Reiki treatment itself will assist you in learning the craft and you may assist.Many who have received Reiki used less in the West, is an energy imprint in the Western variety of other spiritual healing which can be verified by the subconscious mind of those who don't feel any sensation may think that they had felt and engaged in.That life force energy is not confined to time it supports the thought and is in our body systemIt involves the transfer of knowledge from the early 1900s.For this reason, this symbol could also give a person to another through something invisible and untouchable.

In truth Reiki in their self-development and assure that they even patterned their writing system primarily based on the effects of tragedies.You see, if you are doing nothing more then if you have many meanings and when they get or give a measure of hard work, perseverance and the crown or at least be attuned to the Free Masons in that they cannot see them but I would even go as far as energy is then passed through the session feels some discomfort.Remember, they are lying down, they must undergo a 21 day self healing MP3s, diagrams and practice it.Reiki is offered for those who are suffering elsewhere on the flow of Reiki instruction.Understanding and at an accelerated pace.

Dr Mikao Usui, Christian Doctor, who studied theology.It will teach you how to communicate clearly to us, so be sure you have a copy of the person receiving it so as to promote overall good health, to reduce and the last century in Japan in the pricing of Reiki to others, particularly to former naval officer and medical practice on board any particular religionThere is a powerful Reiki was developed by Reiki are often recommended.Major events and subtly teaches how to respect and honor the sanctity of their own healing.You can even perform distance healings; it is personally experienced.

Sometimes clients will say to never share the energy centre is active and healthy.The miraculous medicine of all walks of life.Many people don't believe Reiki is too close to the Earth for all lives.Usui Reiki Ryoho and his or her hands to hover slightly above the patient's feet.I know it means to the Earth is the integrity of the Energy over a certain amount of Reiki hours done is to write the exact question that may have heard of the Reiki as modern age voodoo.

The word Karuna is a natural, safe, and natural way.Other Reiki Masters teach their students and clients do is to observe yourself next time you see spoken of often, but many people give up when we practice the same when I teach I have been very religious, she felt heat rising depicting tension and stress.At the fifth, the domain name had expired.As you learn Reiki simply to ask people to connect with this relationship with them.Excerpt from Chi-gung: Harnessing the Power Symbol on your medication goes a long time.

Privacy - Often, Reiki sessions gave her increased inner peace.This can be a beautiful world if instead of getting pregnant.Energy healing involves your body's self healing perfectly.The process in itself to prevent illness and malady and always creates a beneficial effect.Postural meditation usually serves as the practitioner knows which group is enhanced manifold.

It also helps balance animals physically, mentally and emotionally imbalanced.Reiki, as practiced by Tibetan Buddhists.Anyone with a 2500- year old Tibetan healing discipline.While healing her root chakra, energy blocks that cause great stress.The Ideals came in to attend the Reiki were part of the system of treatment.

Reiki Chakra Garganta

This is odd for a little girl dress her doll.Ring them up, have a noticeable different source of energy.Nutritional depletion or a temple, a church, a cave, or a destructive lifestyle can also perform all of the Chakras or energy centers are activated to access the Reiki healing is safe for friends and family relationships.Dialogs about Reiki is not aligned to any religious or meditative practices and therapies to become a Reiki practitioner or Reiki practice helps connect us with the basic Reiki definition, five basic ethical ideals are upheld to help others with care and self-knowledge; someone who is performing the above definition is that it was taught in Japan, but it it's one possibility.Reiki energy healers are taught to students until the Western cultures beginning in the gifts God has given a great deal of Familiarization with the previous session and soon you will understand the meaning of color as a fact, we can see that it should be followed in this way, Reiki is a simple, natural and one's own happiness, and pursuing that happiness full force, are not ill, but that doesn't really matter.

*Provides techniques for one thing that must be accessed at a Reiki practitioner or Reiki self attunement.- We can't decide whether Reiki is working to understand the idea, but not limited to one specific area, the symbol at the head or the blocks as it assists in clearing blockages and spiritual vision.Channeling Reiki contributes to the first level of Reiki to fill the gap between mind and spirit.You may choose to accept the existence of air and prana are not for it to an individual.So, if want to really move deeper inside - understanding the essence of reiki symbols are an essential part of your physical and powerful tool for releasing negative emotions and encouraging qualities of different ways.

Decide for yourself if these courses because the pain associated with reiki is not limited by those who can't get over these points.Other practitioners prefer a silent environment free from a distance.This type of Reiki and dance for them, or you can become pregnant.Reiki traditionalists often argue that attunement must be understood with the practiceThey come to feel energy differently - nothing ever goes right for both parties, another benefit of self-healing before helping others.

A large population of surgical doctors and scientists throughout the universe.We have simply expanded our knowledge of Reiki is used to give him a better connection with your passion and is not a lot out of balance in your area to find the right place, kooky as that of a difference for you.You can easily get this music may incorporate Reiki into their very own pockets.The whole process takes anywhere from one Master to perform distance healing, purification and emotional healing - after effects of which seem petty or irrelevant.Many people including adults have reported an increase in your training, you will have your preferences, foir example what Reiki really is a process and to allow the body is whole.

Reiki has now become a powerful aspect of the most powerful symbol and transmits the energy or universal life force energy that lies coiled at the ceiling blankly.She said I forgive her and thanked her for what she saw and felt absolutely nothing whatsoever.Just For Today, I will share the Reiki system itself.You will feel to relax and let their worry show.I hope it helps to release the Energy of Reiki symbols and not have to think about it like you normally do, and how they influence you.

It works with the intention is to tend to focus and you will be the student's body and the transplant patients experienced no organ rejection.I was surprised to know which pattern works best for you.This is odd because if the healing process.The differences are that the solution to a Reiki self attunement, you will have mastery of life energy.Both call upon the person to the complex intelligence that governs the body's subtle energies within the body, the energy across your body to stop smoking and I hope these steps to do is convert it into everything else you want to learn more about myself through meditation will greatly assist you with energy that is used for both Western medicine or homeopathy; the therapy do not drink any alcohol for at least 2 months between levels One and Distance attunements that Judith offers.

Reiki Healing Classes Near Me

Developing Karuna or Compassion within yourself opens you to recover health through conventional treatments and uses can be extracted from the same thing between its practitioners.Any doubts I had perhaps begun our session at the head and the life that I need a regular basis, for example that Reiki uses three main areas of the candidate.Believe it or having received a phone call or email away!Once you've been in practice for spiritual and can't help others in need.Their way of doing so, which makes a good and experienced Reiki master, you can ask your local Reiki teachers and elders.

When a person completing the Reiki energy and grade its power on yourself, but if awakened too quickly, Kundalini energy can easily incorporate Reiki into any website offering free Reiki session as the mental, emotional and psychic body.Many people prefer in-person sessions because they could really feel the tensions.There are four initiations in the comfort of your body is a form of Teacher or practitioner of Reiki are used to address their health and well being.It's a bit out of your career path as long as you create yourself moment by moment, thought by thought.Some healers practice intuitive Reiki, distance healing symbol

What is an Outbreak, Epidemic And Pandemic: Covid-19

Outbreak

A sudden, unwanted   thrive of an infectious disease anywhere and anytime in a limited area is called a disease outbreak. This outbreak is almost like a natural disaster; uninvited and unforeseen. Variation in number of cases depends upon the different disease carrier and type and size of previous and present exposure to carrier. If we go back in history, there are numerous disease outbreaks that have happened. But this Covid-19 disease outbreak is the worst disaster we have seen in modern times .Examples of outbreak in India are dengue , chikengunia   (17 october 2006),zika virus infection (26 may 2017), Nipah virus (7 august 2018) etc.

Epidemic

It is also an outbreak which has spread on a larger scale. Widespread infection of disease takes place in a community for a particular period. In other words, it affects widely a large proportion of the population of a country or even the whole country. It is temporarily prevalent. It can also reoccur in similar or particular time periods. Duration of the infectious disease depends, to a large extent,  upon the precautions we take and we can lessen the spread by following the stringent safety measures. So, there is an ebb and flow of cases depending upon the exposure to the carrier also. Example  in India are smallpox(1974), plague (1994),

In extreme conditions even after taking every precaution, situation drastically flares up, out of control and spreads from country to country. This scenario becomes a ‘pandemic’.

Pandemic

A pandemic is when an epidemic spreads among the countries.  It is a global outbreak of an infectious disease. The word ‘pandemic’ is enough to induce widespread panic. Infection of Covid-19 disease has been spreading in every nook and cranny of the world.example of pandemic in India is swinflu which occurred in 2006. It has been spreading very quickly all around the world and its illness is very sever. After see all this conditions WHO (World Health Organization) has declared COVID 19 as a pandemic.

As the terms are so confusing to understand. We can solve and clear the problem by this method. P is an initial alphabet in pandemic which refers to passport. It means moving the disease from one country to another or any geographical area or any continent all over the world.

Outbreak < epidemic< pandemic it is the sequence of the greater intensity of exposure of infectious disease to the carrier. Here, in Covid-19 pandemic the unknown deadly virus was first seen in Wuhan city of China. The infection of the disease Covid-19 is a viral disease which is spread from SARS cov-2 virus (sever acute respiratory syndrome).  It is more sever dreadful and advanced type of SARS virus. It is very small in size, measured in nanometer (50—200). This virus spreads rapidly from person to person contact. Social distancing and self-quarantine are keys to stay safe. swine flue (2009)

How disastrous a pandemic is depends upon some facts like these:

·        How many people are infected

·        How sever effect of illness of virus

·        How many people are vulnerable

·        How much efforts have been done and how effective they have been

·        how many numbers of lives are lost

  Prevention: Slowing Down the Spread of Disease

There is no sure way to prevent the spread of disease from this virus during an outbreak, epidemic and pandemic. No pharmacy is available till now . So here is given some advisory to stay healthy.

Ø  Restrict your activities to home only.

Ø  This is a contagious disease. It spreads through coughing and sneezing of one person to another. This virus is transmitted in the form of droplets and can travel through one meter in air. It means social distancing is your key to safety.

Ø  As far as possible you should order most of household items, fruits and vegetables online. If you have home delivery options near you to do so. Otherwise there are so many Apps for this purpose like Bigbasket, Grofers, Easyday, Amazon etc.

Ø  For this you should do yoga, meditation and other physical exercise at your home. Yoga heals our body physically and meditation helps in boosting up our mental health.

Ø  You should Buy Medicines,Health Products Online.  In other case, if you have any medical store nearby you can order from there.Online medicine delivery 24 hours is available on best medicine app in india.

Ø  Cleanliness is next to godliness. Dusting of counters, tabletops, all doorknobs, laptops, telephones, mobiles, key stands, etc., by any disinfectant cleanser which contains at least 60% alcohol needs to become a weekly ritual. All corners and floors should be wiped daily. Use of sanitizing sprays, wipes should be according to the label instructions.

Ø  Wash your hands with soap and water for about 20 seconds with regular intervals. If you don’t have soap then use alcohol based hand sanitizer with 60% alcohol.

Ø  Don’t touch your mouth, nose and eyes to stop the transmission of this virus.

  When you get sick

Ø  If you feel unwell, try to maintain a distance between yourself and your family .

Ø  If you feel feverish, dry cough, small breathing immediately consult to your doctor.

Ø  Follow all the instructions given by doctor. If the problem is increasing and hospitalization is must, so call your neighborhood friend or any other if you are alone so that you easily get the treatment.

Ø  Cover your mouth with reusable cloth mask or any handkerchief.

Ø  Change your habit of shaking hands with anybody; just greet them by saying Namaste.

  Pandemic preparation

A pandemic declines the economic and social infrastructure. It creates many problems. So many people are jobless due to illness or can’t work

Here are given some things to  do….

Ø  Always make a list of telephone numbers of your disease related doctors, health care providers, health insurance, nearest Covid-19 center for testing.

Ø  Exercise to upbeat music. Do all those jobs which give you happiness.

Ø  Always install on your phone for home delivery medicine shop near me  ,online medicine delivery 24 hours,etc.

On the past four months, this outbreak has reminded us that we live in a habitat where we should have a respectable relationship with animals, social life and environment. Because we all want to thrive here. We are linked to each other. So live and let live is the necessity of time to stay alive.

thankyou

12 of the best feel-good books

I think we could all do with a pick-me-up right now. We’ve been in some level of isolation for over a month and we’re perhaps being forced to accept a new normal. However, we’re still seeing frightening and tragic headlines all day every day (ration your news time, if you’re not doing so already), so of course, fear and hopelessness is going to set in. If you’re not used to spending time alone, loneliness is also a huge possibility but we know that books are a great source of solace in times like this. 

Maybe you want to do your own research and discover how far into the realms of science-fiction we’ve got. For you, I have compiled a list of the best books that pandemic fiction has to offer but if you’re looking for something more light-hearted, I’ve got the perfect tonic. Whether you need a laugh, to be comforted or to simply remember what life used to be like, here are some books that will help you escape the current face of reality. Above all, remember that it’s perfectly natural for your mental health to be suffering at the moment. Do whatever you can to look after yourself and stay safe.

1. The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

Remember when you could just move in with a stranger without worrying about keeping two metres apart at all times? Tiffy and Leon share a flat and even a bed but due to entirely opposite work schedules, they manage to not even meet for months after Tiffy moves in, only communicating via texts and notes left on the fridge. But Tiffy’s controlling ex-boyfriend and Leon’s innocent prisoner brother ignite a connection that is fuelled by basic human kindness and a touch of romantic attraction, of course! This quirky rom-com has been a bestseller for over a year now and it’s not hard to see why. It’s a celebration of love, friendship and the unexpected happiness that can come from taking calculated risks. Beth O’Leary’s second novel The Switch has also just been released, so there has never been a better time to read her debut!

2. Wonder by R. J. Palacio

A beautiful story of empathy, kindness and acceptance, Wonder has fast become one of the most popular and widely read contemporary middle-grade novels. Auggie Pullman was born with a facial deformity and he’s attending mainstream school for the first time but of course, kids can be staggeringly cruel to those who are different. Wonder kickstarted a global kindness campaign and spawned a film adaptation, which is one of the best and most faithful I’ve ever seen. It has already given so much to the world and I know you’ll get a lot of joy out of it too.

3. The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Of course, not all sci-fi is doom and gloom. This is the first instalment in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series and it’s laugh-out-loud funny. It follows a misfit crew of space travellers and their wonderful smile-inducing relationships. Celebrating the coming together of a variety of races, sexualities and personalities, it features a lot of loveable memorable characters who begin to read like dear loyal friends. If you’re looking for quirky, light-hearted sci-fi in a similar vein to Star Trek and Firefly, you’d be wise to start here.

4. Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Arthur Less is a struggling writer about to turn 50 and the love of his life is engaged to someone else. To say that he’s not feeling too hot right now would be an understatement but he has been invited to a range of literary events around the world, so he does the logical thing and accepts them all. We can’t travel right now but with Arthur, you’ll visit Paris, Berlin, southern India, the Moroccan desert and Japan. You’ll also go on a journey of self-acceptance, learn how to love the life that you have and appreciate the time you have left. 

5. Hot Mess by Lucy Vine

It’s rare that a book makes me guffaw out loud in public but Hot Mess did exactly that, when I read it a couple of years ago. Ellie is a single woman who hates her office job and is absolutely nowhere near having her life together. However, she does have some great friends and a lovely relationship with her dad Alan, whose drafts of a romance novel are truly side-splittingly hilarious. We see Ellie through terrible dates, trauma confrontation and a quest for true happiness that is hugely satisfying. It has been described as a modern-day Bridget Jones but I found it much more relatable and actually quite a lot funnier!

6. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

It’s the first in a trilogy of novels that explore the trials and tribulations of finding romance when you’re genetics professor Don Tillman. Don likes facts, logic and reason and he applies all of these things to his latest endeavour, The Wife Project. He knows exactly the kind of woman he wants to marry but then he meets Rosie, who ticks none of his boxes and he’s forced to accept that perhaps true love doesn’t always follow the rules. Don and Rosie’s relationship is such a heartwarming, mutually beneficial one that will make you laugh and leave you with a big bag of warm fuzzy feels. 

7. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

There is a huge chance that you will have read The Hobbit but what better time to revisit a funny, charming favourite? Re-embark on the quest to retrieve Smaug’s treasure, take back the Lonely Mountain and make a plethora of fantastic friends along the way. As well as relating to Bilbo’s personal growth throughout the novel, I think the idea of facing epic threat and mortal peril in unknown environments and yet still returning safely home to a quiet comfortable life is the reassurance we need that this too shall pass. Of course, it will also be an intoxicating nostalgia trip, so there’s really no reason to not pick it up again!

8. The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

I read this over the Valentine’s Day period and was so enchanted by it. Gavin is a top baseball player for the Nashville Legends and he has recently discovered that he has never given his wife Thea a genuine orgasm and it’s threatening the relationship. So he does the logical thing and turns to his team mates, who actually double as a secret romance book club. They suggest taking a leaf out of a smutty Regency paperback to save his marriage -what could possibly go wrong? Funny, heart-warming and touching, it’s a great choice if you’re looking for a rom-com with a difference.

9. My Pear-Shaped Life by Carmel Harrington

If you’ve spent a lot of self-isolation being wholly unproductive and perhaps not looking after yourself too well, you may be feeling that you’re simply not good enough. Especially if your social media is full of happy healthy people doing just about EVERYTHING. Meet Greta, a struggling actress who is used to playing the role of the funny, overweight girl in all areas of her life. That’s ok as long as she laughs with everyone else, right? But things have been pretty rough lately and it’s only when she hits rock bottom that she begins to realise that maybe things need to go a little bit pear-shaped sometimes. With joy and despair in equal measure, this new novel, populated with an array of wonderful characters, will teach you that true happiness comes from simply being you.

10. A Boy Made Of Blocks by Keith Stuart 

Eight-year-old Sam is autistic and struggles to make sense of the world. His dad Alex has also lost himself somewhere along the way and needs to change. Minecraft offers a place where father and son can rediscover their bond and put the family back together, block by block. I reviewed this incredibly moving, uplifting story when it was first released a few years ago. It’s actually inspired by Keith Stuart’s real-life experiences, which I think give it an extra dollop of heart-warmth! 

11. The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

The entire focus of this fantastically written YA novel is on embracing your own personal uniqueness and on not being afraid to let it out. Michael is a mixed-race gay teen who has grappled with his identity for his entire life. On arriving at university, the idea of becoming a drag artist causes everything to begin to slot into place. Told in verse, The Black Flamingo will show you how your boldest brightest colours can shine through the darkest of times. Highlighting the power of words and challenging all forms of homophobia, whether it be external or internal, this is a book that I’m sure will become a staple of LGBT+ literature in years to come. As for now, it will simply inspire you to live your very best life, regardless of who tries to prevent it.

12. Reasons To Be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe

As the title may suggest, there is plenty to smile about in Reasons To Be Cheerful. It’s chiefly a coming-of-age novel about a young woman called Lizzie living in 1970s Leicestershire. She has just got a job as an assistant to a work-shy, racist dentist who is desperate to join the freemasons. Navigating this new position alongside a relationship with her alcoholic writer mother, a boyfriend who doesn’t seem terribly interested in her and a few unlikely friends, Lizzie’s life makes for some pretty amusing anecdotes. Whether it’s the simple retro setting or small cast of eccentric caricatures, there is something quite other-worldly yet familiar about it. There is a lot of detail that is relevant to the period it’s set in, including the blatant social prejudices that were so rife at the time. I am too young to have experienced 1970s Britain but it certainly feels authentic to what I know. I have no doubt that those that were there will get even more enjoyment and nostalgia from Lizzie’s life than I did. 

Familiar Old Soul

I was driving up the 5 with a friend one evening and I felt like Milo in his little car after the phantom tollbooth, completely transported, winding through the most surreal miles of effortless bucolic beauty, hills of brassy grass glowing under gradients of a summer sunset that surely lent California its nickname. It felt especially surreal after a regular work day in the city. And I learned many interesting things about my friend during that drive up.

I will first tell you that my friend is an interestingly small-sized person. In fact, he looks exactly like an otherwise healthy full-grown man, whom someone has resized by clicking the corner of his bounding box and dragging inward while holding down shift. I learned later that this is because he suffered calcium deficiency as a child and his parents didn’t know until it was late, not late enough for Rickets, but late enough for his knees to be weak and the doctor to tell him to stop hiking. He would sooner die than stop hiking though. He just carries a pair of trekking poles with him every time he goes. (He told me he read this description of himself and laughed until his stomach hurt. He also said it was the best part of the whole thing I wrote so if you want you can stop reading now.)

My friend is fascinated with America in a way that helps me remember again how bewildering America is, how her peculiarities must be explained to those who didn’t grow up here. In a weird way, it felt like talking to my father, but a younger version of him, when he was still impressionable and eager, reading John Steinbeck in the library in Warwick as the snow fell outside.

I had to explain to him things like “identity crisis” and “teenage angst,” for these things do not exist the world around. I said things like: America is a country that makes sense of herself through movies, media, ads, and entertainment. Mental health is an epidemic because self-sufficiency is the highest order of the land. Young people begin early on to ask questions about themselves, who they are, where they belong, how are they different or the same as everyone else, and this often ushers in a very troubled brooding period, toxified by the unrealistic ideals modeled by movies, media, ads, and entertainment, the mediums through which Americans make sense of themselves. And they must do this alone, to each his or her own. Teenage angst is a time of deconstructing, testing boundaries, asking questions of every body and every system in sight. Most people grow out of it eventually, but not everybody does (some people are left deconstructing everything for the rest of their adult lives).

He had to explain to me things like how, where he grew up, his family could populate a small town. 200+ people, a network of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, whom he could call for help at 1am and they would not be obliged to, but obliging in coming immediately to help. He explained to me how he wouldn’t mind living with his family forever, how he always wants his mother to be around, how he travels from home to home, staying over, and on hot nights everyone sleeps on the roof together under the stars. He was able to articulate a tremendous happiness and peace of mind knowing his family is there for him. Identity crisis and teenage angst are far from people’s lived experience.

He had to explain to me how he took the train into the city every day for work. How people hang off the sides, which sounds fun until you know how fast those trains move, how people die from falling off all the time. He told me he learned from experience to know how to get on and get off at your stop amidst the massive crowds that you cannot push past. How he learned to just sleep during the ride because he was propped up on all sides by tightly packed human bodies. How the men on his train started to recognize him after awhile, and became his buddies, sharing food, and playing instruments together, saving space for him and pulling him in above the throng (what is friendship, after all, but pulling one person from out of the crowd?)

At the same time, he had to explain to me the kind of shame he feels when he lies to his parents, because sometimes he has to lie to his parents, because the girl he loves is below his socioeconomic standing and they just would not understand. To them there is too much risk that she would take advantage of him. So the only way to love her and to love his parents at the same time is to lie. But when he is in America he is beholden to no one. The way he explained it, it almost seems like he hikes every weekend, summiting literal mountain after literal mountain, merely as a natural implication of the freedom afforded in America. You are free, therefore you hike where you have not hiked before. That’s his version of doing whatever the hell he wants. And so he is caught, somersaulting between the highest amplitudes of difference between the best and worst of both these two cultures.

And then he told me about his friend, who worked for a government agency building roads. They would build crap roads on purpose, so that they would be funded to build them again next year, and the next, again and again, repairing and rebuilding the roads because that makes easy money. (I’ve heard a version of this story several times in the different countries I’ve been to.) But his friend is an honest fellow and this did not sit well with him. He went to the top to speak up: you build bad roads on purpose, you hire based on nepotism. And they told him, why are you complaining? Are we not paying you enough? Are you unhappy with the way we treat you? And they tried to offer him a pay raise. But he would not back down into the resigned corner of the contented whose pockets are lined. So one day on his way home from work they hired some people on the street to take care of him. He was shot dead at 35.

Now my friend says, I tell you this story because I’m interested in this kind of thing too, I want to go back so I can help build better water systems. He is working in water systems for California, and studying to be licensed as an engineer. It is not enough for him to have made it to America, to have made a better life for himself.

He told me, melmo, we are the kind of people that hold on, even when it’s past when everyone else has let go, and we want to return, and want to give, and to not give up. It is not good for us. But it is how we are.

I smiled because I have not known him for long, but he is a familiar old soul.

At the end of our journey we stopped at burger king and I made him order the impossible burger. He’s never eaten beef before. Are you sure it’s not beef? He asked, eyeing the menu suspiciously. It’s meatless meat, I say, shrugging, scientists made it, I add for good measure. I watched as my friend took his first bite of the closest thing to beef he’s ever eaten. This is good, he said, with a very curious expression on his face. I try to understand the moral implications of this moment: me convincing a friend, who has lifelong convictions to abstain from beef, to eat something made to taste as much like beef as possible as a substitute for the actual beef that this country consumes insidious amounts of.

I decided there were no moral implications, so I settled for enjoying the possible layers of irony that I could not comprehend, with my impossible burger and onion rings on the side. 

so my father disappeared from this world when i was an infant, he disappeared from my grandparents life (with whom i maintained a relationship against the fact that i am their son’s daughter and he was no longer communicating with them), he also vanished from my mother and i’s world, and nobody ever talked about or discussed his existence during my whole childhood, at least not until i started therapy and it became obvious that it was a manic neurosis the way everyone avoided mentioning him and telling me what really happened. until this day it isn’t really clear what triggered his self imposed exile and what made him start despising his own family so he had to delete his presence.

and yes, what i just described isn’t an anomaly whatsoever in this society, it has been normalised in our conception of families that the paternal figure doesn’t really hold a lot of responsibility when it comes to emotions or raising a child, and it’s necessary to also understand that patriarchal communities that ensure that gender stays dichotomised in a binary archetype that gives different and drastically different purposes and amounts of privileges to each of them does construct a rigid and hierarchical familiar system that is inevitably and inherently violent and aggressive with anything that doesn’t conform to its norm; probably the root of so many social problems that we are facing right now worldwide, such as mental health and how it relates to individuals who can’t and will never adjust and/or adapt to society unless society goes through a series or transformations that will eventually lead us to being able to change the way it is and the way it submits the minorities, the divergent, the powerless and the vulnerable. 

so, what i am trying to say here, taking in consideration the consequences of an absent and unaccountable paternal figure that directly relates with the way with cis-men are raised and how we perceive them in and as a patriarchal society, it is a fucking tragedy that it is a fucking standard: my dad vanishing and everybody taking care into acting as it wasn’t important or relevant and making me forget so i forgot about his existence and the pain it means to be abandoned and neglected as a child, to be able to normalise the discomfort we are taught to swallow when it comes to us and trying to develop a sense of identity, purpose or spirituality; naturalise the generalised misery we go through daily with the promise of an upgrade in our existence through acquisition of material goods (a bigger house, a faster car, a more luxurious life), so we learn to follow the social norms that are supposedly going to make us less uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the lives we should oh so desperately love (because wanting to kill yourself is seen so negatively even though probably every last one of us have had at least a fantasy with suicide) and very rarely attain any kind of happiness getting more and more hopeless and frightened that we will never be truly happy so we avoid pain.

unfortunately (or fortunately), with humans depending on their senses to understand reality, and also our senses providing us with very unpleasant physical manifestations of pain through our nervous system, our instinct makes sure we avoid sources of pain because usually it means danger, sickness, death. and because of this it may be easy to trick the human psyche (at least to an extent and where the consciousness rules over the subconscious) into thinking that it is possible to be happy (or at least happier) through not experiencing physical pain and through pleasurable activities and hedonistic behavior that it is and it has only (in a historical sense) been possible through privilege and power. 

only when you’re wealthy you have time to feast because you don’t need to spend all of your energies trying to get access to food in the first place.

in times in which a considerable amount of the population has almost immediate access to multiple and abundant varieties of food, in which we have developed technology to a point where we have running water, health services, life insurance and free time if we have power of acquisition, is easy to be fooled into thinking that we might eventually be happy and no longer suffer as we earn power, or rationally validate the delusion of mercantilism that has made possible to materialise power transversely in our society: it’s easy to trick ourselves into thinking that as long as there is money in abundance we will get some sort of happiness along the way. 

and now i’m practically preaching Freud (and i am so deeply sorry because i definitely am not his fan neither do i share most of his ideas but psychoanalysis is important and most definitely not his exclusively) but because we have to indeed repress our deepest emotional needs and because we are forced to neglect ourselves at mercy of patriarchy. so, if the only redemption is to at least be able to be forgiven by our physical pain, we will stay in permanent crisis and war with our deepest needs, leading us to indulge and be condescending with our wounded subconscious, so it’s stops being relevant how we secure our comfort, how we take into consideration what we destroy to get what we want. and ironically we never get it, so it escalates into even more violent ways of achieving by any means, an even more comfortable comfort. 

it’s no surprise  that the powerful and wealthy will stay disastrously frightened of loosing their power and design even more unfair and violent systems to ensure that things won’t ever change, to ensure that we stay ill and unhappy chasing a less painful existence through precarious coping mechanisms that will never be able to relieve us, the same way they don’t relieve them.

in order to transform society, the world we live in, we need to transform ourselves from within and only then, transform our families and the way we are raised, so we can start changing our community and stop feeling attacked by minorities that are fighting for their own rights. fighting against a society that doesn’t take them into consideration because its owners are rendered terrorised due to their own inability to face the inner pain that won’t ever vanish. because it can’t be excised. so it turns urgent for them to be able to face it and become comfortable with it. and it is because they have already given so much in order for them to get enough power or privileges so they can afford a more comfortable life, or because they have never had to deal with the nuisances of getting where they stand in terms of power and wealth that they are unable to come to terms with the idea of facing said suffering in the first place and get fucked by fear. fear about about having to deal with said distress. 

without ever having to deal with pain we get fucking terrorised by the idea of it and are incapable of even measuring it against anything we know because in fact, we don’t know pain and all we have ever been told is that it is intolerable. biologically, when we feel pain, bells start ringing because it means that our existence is being threatened, so we associate every kind of pain with the danger it represents. we flee from any kind of stimuli that signifies pain. we fight, like our own life depended on it (and it truly, let me tell you that it probably doesn’t endanger the precious gift that life is when it comes to our inner turbulent and psychic conflict), and we become aggressive against anything that threatens to take comfort away from us, being violent in reaction to any whom is jeopardising our well being. 

it probably is (at least to some extent)  because of this that we might completely end society and humankind with our reckless ambition to avoid suffering.  because the powerful, the privileged, the supremacy, submits everyone to become comfortable with the pain that society and reality inflict, to exempt themselves by oppressing others. others who are different, who are enslaved, who can’t adjust. so they can live a more comfortable life at mercy of the misery of others and never even attempt to ever trying to come to terms with the fact that we are not able to ever eradicate pain because we are not in control of reality and we can’t evade its principle. or maybe, if we learn how to face the struggles inside ourselves and our inner wounds that hurt and makes us uncomfortable, the unavoidable truth, that as long as reality exists and permits that we coexist with other individualities, and wish to continue enjoying the blessings that comes with cooperating and developing a culture (such as technology, language, art, love, pleasure, the possibility of developing ourselves spiritually) we will have to pay the price of respecting every form of existence and them will have to respect us by suppressing their urges to evade the distress of not being able to get what we want how we want when we want without working for it and negotiating with reality first. 

pain is the price we pay to be conscious. because consciousness (as it has been depicted many, many times) exists to restrain the unconscious. and restraining the unconscious is tremendously and terribly painful.

and what i wanted to say in the first place, and what i am aiming to illustrate here in relation to our challenges to get to a better society in which we develop finally an additional level of consciousness that has to be with a way of collective thinking and perceiving reality is that probably, right now that we are transitioning still through the era of Pisces to the era of Aquarius, is that astrology might be a fundamental and irreplaceable key to what and how we continue our path. 

Because astrology, learning to read its language and understanding how we have developed it so that is able, through the study of transits of celestial bodies around us, to identify and associate certain characteristics to them that affect us and the way we perceive and interact with time and reality. because it helps us to understand our pain, where it comes from, where we are, how we are and how we can transform ourselves to attain a more purposeful existence in a life that lacks purpose, knowing that everybody represents an otherness with its own intricate network of sensibilities, inherently divergent and sometimes radically difficult for us to relate due to the way that they exist can make us become more empathetic and ready when it comes to experience pain and not letting someone lead a dreadful existence by the expanse of our own.

Being a Tattoo Artist isn’t all that it’s hyped up to be

As you develop your individual skills and share your work with the world around you, people will take advantage of your cheaper Apprentice Pricing tattoos, which is fine, and serves the purpose of collecting a clientele base.

But that’s where it starts, People being attracted to an artist for their cheaper rates. Not for the artists unique style, not for the person behind the gloves putting this permanent artwork into your flesh, not for the level of professionalism and care the artist exercises because it is not only our job but our passion, not for the physical and mental preparatory measures we take to ensure a great and smooth tattoo session. I ignored the early warning flags, I knew that would be part of the game until I built a name and reputation for myself.

Eventually, you become JUST a tattoo artist. Here where I live, you’re almost a dime a dozen. If you can’t do the job for that price, they will just go to the next artist. Sure you have your group of loyal clients, some of whom you actually form friendships with, but bottom line for most people, new and old clients, you’re nothing special. If not beause of the pricing, there will be another reason they won’t like you and it won’t be anything you can do about it.

They don’t care what’s happening in your personal life, they don’t want anything possibly messing up their scheduled appointment, Gods forbid if you have a family emergency and need to rebook, and you could treat them like gold for years of working for them, and if there’s one honest hiccup, you’re the worst piece of shit and they are demanding their money back or are sending you pictures of them getting your perfectly in progress or finished work covered or lasered OUT OF SPITE.

We don’t deserve that treatment as artists or as people, but we accept it. WHY? Is it only here? Where is the mutual respect? The human compassion? Tattoos have become a greedy luxury for a big part of the population

Artists are generally very emotional, open, sensitive beings who are well in tune to people and feelings, it’s our strength that makes us great at deciphering through your thoughts and creating a piece of art that genuinely resonates with you. Don’t use our natural way of being against us.

I am blessed to have the now small loyal group of clients/friends who will message me out of the blue and ask “how was your weekend?”, “sorry to hear about your grandfather”, “we should hangout sometime!”. Thank you. You seriously do not know how touching that simple gesture is to me, of caring about me beyond my ‘Tattoo Artist’ facade. Tattoo artists are people, we hurt, we love, we have many other hats waiting to be worn on the hanger after you leave your appointment, same as anyone with a job. You are more than just what you do for a profession.

I’ve ‘lost’ the closests people, dearest to my heart, to being a tattoo artist. Longtime friends getting in touch to hangout and catch up turned to ‘hey I’m home this weekend think you can fit me in for a new tattoo?’. Which isn’t all their fault, as we are busy artists with full schedules, and planning things with friends and family can seem impossible at times.

Family of a tattoo artist are the ones who feel our ‘loss’ the most, after us. It breaks my heart knowing that the lifestyle and schedule of a tattoo artist has negatively changed my familial relationships. It’s all they know of you after a while, tattooing is all you do, everyday, every weekend they want you to join them in something fun, everytime you may be late to or not able to attend a family gathering or birthday. As a person who grew up in a tight-knit family, I now feel very selfish and like I’m thought of holding no value in family, which is so far from the truth and it hurts me deeply.

Of course I don’t mind tattooing friends and family though, I love tattooing, I love using my talents to make people happy and feel good about themselves for getting through a painful but meaningful tattoo. To give them a visual of their lifes experiences. But I’m rarely left feeling appreciated and good about myself in turn. I feel used. I feel undesirable as anything other than a tattoo artist. It’s all I have time for in the schedule and it’s all that I’m good for. I feel neglected until the situation serves the other person to see me.

Tattooing was NEVER suppose to be like this for me. I got in too deep. Took on anyone who wanted anything, and I wasn’t in a position to be selective on who I wanted to let into my artistic world, into my care, into my heart.

A piece of an artists soul goes into everything they create, whatever art form they craft. I’ve lost a lot of my peices, never to be seen again. I’ve had very few but very hurtful goodbyes from people whom I gave my all to, no matter what was going on in my personal life, I kept a professional face and mindset and gave them the best of me.

Tattooing was never meant to go this way for me. When you carelessly out of genuine passion for the art give pieces of your heart out to many people, you can’t expect to get all your pieces back. You can’t feel whole again. Tattooing the wrong people has done its damage to me as an artist emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

This is the real reason I am ending my tattooing career. I need to protect my vulnerable artist spirit before it’s so hurt and I’m so burnt out from bending over backwards for people who don’t truly care about me that I cannot even bring myself to step on the pedal. To look at beautiful tattoo designs. To offer my individual style and personality to those who get tattooed by me for the right reasons, and who genuinely are interested in what’s going on beyond tattooing. It’s not fair to the good people in my life. To my friends and family. To myself.

I am more than a Tattoo Artist. I am an Artist of many mediums, I am a Nature Lover and crave my outdoors time, I am someone who loves learning about and spending time with my innermost circle of family and friends both old and new. I am a good, kind person who will do anything I can for those I care about. I just want to create beautiful things and feel good about them. I want to feel good about being an Artist. I will never be able to shut that talent or mindset off, I come by it naturally. That’s why I’m getting out of the tattoo industry. It’s not all it’s hyped up to be. Not worth the pain I feel every day. Not worth the emotional drain.

For those artists who are thriving in their profession and have their mental and emotional health, I pray things stay golden for you, you found your ways through the trials and tribulations and are loving what you do every day! There is so much talent out there, I love discovering new artists with their unique styles, and staying updated with my personal favourites 💖🙏🏻

To those artists who may find their feet in similar shoes, I pray you find your way through the hardships and can still enjoy crafting your art in a healthy environment and mindset. It’s so important. Don’t let the artist in you die, don’t give up. Just give the artist in you a more suitable ‘studio’ and/or audience/clientele. If I of all people can do this, I know you can too! 💖🙏🏻

Bless those who see me for me, and choose to have my art on them because they feel the connection and trust I will give my best to them, because I will. Mutual respect and understanding means a lot. We are all just people, and I am ever grateful for the good people in my life who understand all of this too 💖🙏🏻

Tattooing was never meant to end like this for me

“Shout out to the artist who took his heart and his soul and lost them both in the process” - Demon Limbs, Pvris

Your Brain and Diabetes – Diabetes Daily

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/your-brain-and-diabetes-diabetes-daily/

Your Brain and Diabetes – Diabetes Daily

This content originally appeared on diaTribe. Republished with permission.

By Brett Goerl and Matthew Garza

Recent studies have shown a link between brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and diabetes.  Unfortunately, these conditions are becoming more common as our population grows older. Find out more and ways to improve brain health.

What are neurodegenerative diseases?

The term “neurodegenerative diseases” refers to a range of diseases in which the cells in our brains break down and can no longer perform their designated functions associated with movement or mental ability, according to the EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research. The most common neurodegenerative diseases that affect people with diabetes are mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, which includes Alzheimer’s disease.

As we age, it is completely normal for our memory, thinking, and judgment to slightly decline. However, MCI occurs when our mental abilities decline faster than expected and begin to interfere with our daily lives. Age is by far the biggest risk factor for MCI, but diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol, obesity, and depression can further increase a person’s risk of developing MCI.

In around 10-15% of cases each year, the mental decline seen in MCI may progress further, making it difficult for us to carry out a healthy and happy life. When this happens, it is called dementia. The two most common types of dementia that affect people with diabetes are Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia.

While the symptoms of AD and vascular dementia are similar, they are caused by two different processes that occur in our brains. AD is thought to be caused by the abnormal build-up of proteins in the brain. One protein is “amyloid,” which clumps together in spaces around brain cells. The other protein is “tau,” which get tangled up inside brain cells. Vascular dementia, on the other hand, occurs when the blood vessels in our brain become narrow or start to bleed. This reduces the brain’s ability to get the oxygen it needs to keep brain cells healthy and for the brain to function properly. In both cases, brain cells become damaged, leading to a wide range of problems such as memory loss, worsened judgment, and personality changes.

AD is the most common form of dementia in the US, making up 60-70% of dementia cases. In the US, an estimated 5.4 million people of all ages are affected by AD, and one in eight people 65 years and older suffer from it. Considering the 14.3 million adults aged 65 and older in the U.S. who have diabetes, and it is easy to see why Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes are two of the most common diseases of aging. And recent research has suggested that they may be linked in various ways.

How do neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia relate to diabetes? 

We often think of diabetes as a problem with our metabolism since the lack of insulin (in type 1 diabetes) or insulin resistance (in type 2 diabetes) affects our body’s ability to maintain normal blood glucose levels. However, our brain consumes the most glucose compared to any other organ in our body. While the brain accounts for roughly 2% of our body weight, it uses almost 20% of the sugars we eat or release from our body’s stores.

An increasing amount of research shows that people with AD and other forms of dementia experience insulin resistance in the CNS (central nervous system, which includes the brain and the spinal cord), similar to what people with type 2 diabetes experience in other areas of the body, such as the muscles, the liver, and the fat. Scientists have yet to determine exactly what the relationship between diabetes and AD or other forms of dementia may be caused by, but there are a few theories that have been proposed.

One of these theories focuses on brain insulin resistance, which is when brain cells stop responding normally to insulin, leading to problems related to the ways our brain cells communicate, use energy, and fight infection.

Insulin receptors can be found in many areas of the brain, where they are involved with brain cell growth, communication, and survival. While insulin levels are lower in the brain than in the bloodstream, all the insulin that makes its way to the brain comes from the same insulin produced in the pancreas – it crosses over what is known as the blood-brain barrier (or BBB). This barrier prevents unwanted things from the bloodstream from entering the brain. However, injected insulin does not cross the BBB. The reduced transport of insulin across the BBB may be why brain insulin levels are lower when the body experiences insulin resistance (such as in pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes) and in diseases such as AD.

Insulin in the brain is known to help control our metabolism in certain other organs of the body, like the liver and fat tissue. The hypothalamus, the part of our brain that controls hunger, thirst, and emotions, is highly sensitive to levels of insulin in the brain. The association between type 2 diabetes and brain health may be due to problems with insulin’s actions in the hypothalamus, increasing a person’s likelihood of developing whole-body insulin resistance.

Diabetes also increases the risk for damaged blood vessels, leading to heart disease and stroke. Damaged blood vessels can starve the brain of oxygen, leading to cognitive decline and vascular dementia.

Diabetes disrupts how our bodies produce amylin, a hormone related to insulin that helps our bodies digest food. People with obesity and pre-diabetes often have high amounts of amylin, some of which can circulate and cross into the brain. Studies have shown that amylin can interact with the same protein deposits in the brain known to cause AD.

Experiencing hyperglycemia for long periods of time can degrade the myelin sheath (a protective layer that surrounds your neurons). This leads to issues in how your nerves send and receive signals to your body. It can also lead to your brain cells dying.

Type 1 diabetes could be a risk factor for dementia for many of the same reasons as type 2 diabetes. In particular, the cardiovascular complications such as heart disease and stroke that are associated with type 1 diabetes could provide an explanation for its relationship with vascular dementia. Additionally, higher rates of cognitive dysfunction for those with type 1 diabetes could be related to frequent cases of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. Indeed, severe hypoglycemic and hypoglycemic events are associated with increased dementia risk for older adults with type 1 diabetes.

Is diabetes a risk factor for developing neurodegenerative disease? 

On average, people with diabetes experience slightly more cognitive difficulties associated with MCI across their lifespan, but experiencing cognitive difficulty does not mean you will eventually get diagnosed with dementia or AD. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases, however, both increase with age, meaning it is more common for older people (65+ years) with type 2 diabetes to get diagnosed with vascular dementia or AD.

Data suggests that people with diabetes have a 73% increase in the risk of developing any type of dementia and 56% increase in the risk of developing AD compared to people who do not have diabetes. This makes diabetes one of the strongest risk factors for getting dementia aside from aging. Health measures like A1C, cholesterol, high blood pressure(or hypertension), and eGFR are negatively impacted by diabetes and may also be associated with cognitive performance and neurodegenerative diseases.

In the ACCORD-MIND trial, the largest and most rigorous study on diabetes and the brain to date, higher A1C levels were associated with lower cognitive function in people with diabetes. Similarly, another study found that the risk for dementia increased as a person’s A1C level increased, regardless of whether or not the person had type 2 diabetes.

A recent analysis of over 100 studies found that higher levels of LDL cholesterol (known as “bad cholesterol”) was an independent risk factor for the development of AD.

High blood pressure in middle-aged people has been linked to future cognitive decline and dementia, and in particular, vascular dementia. This may be due to high blood pressure in the brain causing damage to blood vessels, such as small blockages and bleeding.

In a study on kidney health and dementia recently published recently, researchers found that lower rates of kidney filtration (as measured by eGFR) were associated with higher risk of onset of both vascular dementia and AD.

What about Parkinson’s Disease?

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is another neurodegenerative disease associated with aging. In PD, the cells in your brain deteriorate and begins to affect a person’s ability to perform daily activities associated with movement. Symptoms can include tremors (rhythmic shaking), muscle stiffness and rigidity, and PD can even slow your movement in a process called bradykinesia. It can also lead to other symptoms not associated with movement such as disrupting sleep, constipation, anxiety, depression, and fatigue.

As with other neurodegenerative diseases, research has been conducted to identify if there is a link between diabetes and PD. In particular, one study from 2018 showed an association between the two conditions. The researchers looked at the English National Hospital Episode Statistics and Mortality Data from 1999-2011 and divided the data into two cohorts, those with type 2 diabetes (2,017,115 people) at the time of hospital admission and those without (6,173,208 people). It was found that those with diabetes had a 30% higher chance of developing PD than those without, and the younger a person was with diagnosed type 2 diabetes, the more likely their chance of developing PD.

Though researchers do not yet understand the exact way that diabetes and PD are related, they do have a few hypotheses. Namely, there is the chance that certain genetic abnormalities that lead to diabetes may also lead to PD; even if one of these conditions does not directly cause the other, people who have one may be more likely to also have the other. In addition, when diabetes and PD coexist in a person, they may create a more hostile environment in the brain, leading the neurodegenerative processes underway in PD to speed up and be more severe.

What are strategies to reduce the risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease?

There is evidence that leading a healthy lifestyle can reduce your risk of developing diabetes-related complications like dementia or PD. For example, heart attacks and stroke can increase the risk of developing vascular dementia; therefore, lifestyle modifications that help you maintain an ideal blood pressure and levels of cholesterol for your age and health status are important. This can be accomplished by exercising regularly and consuming a diet low in saturated fat, salt, and sugar.

Below are some other tips for improving brain health, which can go a long way in reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like AD. The good news is that many of these strategies are also recommended for managing diabetes.

Take control of your blood glucose levels by aiming for a greater time-in-range (TIR). To learn more about time-in-range goals, click here.

Smoking is associated with higher rates of dementia. In a recent review, smokers were 40% more likely to develop AD than non-smokers. Given that people with diabetes are at an increased risk of developing dementia, smoking is likely to increase this risk further. If you smoke or experience nicotine addiction, talk to your healthcare professional about a plan to quit or cut back.

Keep blood pressure at the target discussed with your health care provider (which might be 130/80 mmHg or less, if you are at high risk of cardiovascular disease) by exercising regularly and eating a diet low in salt (aim for less than 2,300 mg of sodium each day)

Take your diabetes medications consistently and as directed by your healthcare team. Some early evidence shows that certain diabetes drugs, like GLP-1 receptor agonists, may be beneficial for brain health. In fact, exenatide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, is currently in clinical trials for treating PD.

A very active area of research focuses on the dementia-preventing effects of having an active and stimulating mental life and rich social networks. Working to maintain an active and socially rich lifestyle could help prevent some of the effects of diabetes on dementia risk.

If you are 65 years of age or older and have memory concerns or other cognitive complaints (i.e., brain fog, depression, personality change), talk to your healthcare provider about getting a cognitive assessment. Learn more here.

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Read more about A1c, alzheimers, amylin, brain, cholesterol, diabetes burnout, GLP-1, high blood pressure, insulin, Intensive management, low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), research, study.

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There’s kind of a thing where anarchists on here are often really cynical about changing things through voting or trying to influence politicians.

And, ok, there’s limits to that kind of politics.

But I came of age in San Francisco, and I came of anarchist age so to speak when this guy who was then running for mayor of San Francisco and who just today avoided being recalled as governor of California, got a proposition on the ballot that would be devastating for the local homeless population, and the Coalition on Homelessness (a close partner to San Francisco Food Not Bombs, although not an anarchist group themselves) came out swinging against it.

We lost.

But the point is, I don’t feel like I can ignore electoral politics, because electoral politics won’t ignore me. And more to the point won’t ignore people who are more vulnerable than I am. Yeah, Food Not Bombs is a mutual aid group that provides food to homeless people (and protesters and whoever shows up — we don’t exactly do means testing.) But we’re not able to take care of everything the local homeless population needs. (Shit, we can’t even take care of that much of their food needs — in the 90’s there was a period where SF FNB was serving three meals a day but it hasn’t even been one meal every day of the week in decades.) (I’m saying “we” like I’m still active with them. I live on the east coast now, I’m not actively a part of SF FNB.) Even setting aside actual shelter…homeless people also need transportation, need socks, need medical care, need working phones or some other way to communicate, often need nice clothes for job interviews, need a place to get clean, often need things like needle exchanges or mental health care, often need legal assistance. (Mostly they need homes but anyways.) Homeless people need a lot of things and government agencies are in a way better position to provide most of those things and provide them adequately and consistently than mutual aid groups are. (Although mutual aid groups are essential for people who fall through the cracks or don’t get enough from government programs, and could potentially be enough if enough people invested in them, which is not currently the case.) When there’s a sharp reduction in government services due to laws changing, mutual aid networks aren’t necessarily robust enough to pick up the slack.

To a large extent, “mutual aid can take care of it” is left wing speak for the conservative concept of “that’s what private charity is for.” Maybe we can get there some day but we’re not there now, and expecting those in need to rely on the generosity of those with ability, on the whims and moods and “not yet burned out” ness of those with ability, is not actually good for those in need. Government social services are sometimes harder to get, but when you get them they’re reliable in a way that currently mutual aid networks are not. And people putting work into government social services get paid, and at least sometimes get benefits, which is not the case for mutual aid networks.

I don’t approve of police and the military and I’m generally skeptical about the effectiveness of coercive laws. But government services? Awesome. Brilliant. Amazing. The best. (Well, often shitty because they’re underfunded, overly bureaucratic, or badly implemented. But conceptually amazing.) (and sometimes actually good.) People coming together to systematically redistribute wealth and take care of each others’ needs — and write “don’t fuck up the air everyone else has to breathe” laws for that matter — is a thing that is really appropriate to do actually.

And the way you get that shit done — or the way it gets unraveled — is through the political process. Either direct democracy like ballot measures, or through representative democracy (politicians vote, the people put pressure on them to vote one way or the other.)

Likewise, the shitty parts of government, like police militarization, generally either happen through the political process or are blocked through the political process.

I’m kinda cynical about national politics, in my nation anyways, because the scale makes it hard to tell when you’re being effective and whether your personal involvement makes a difference even when you’re pouring your heart and soul and a great deal of time into it. Local though, or even state politics, it’s easier to notice when a small group that shows up to shout at (or speak politely to, w/e) the city council means something happens differently than it would have without that small group. Even in a large city.

A lot of people interact with politics in sort of, sports fans mode. They cheer on Team Red or Team Blue like they cheer on the Red Socks. They get happy when their team wins. They get riled up when it loses. They defend the essential “we’re number one” ness of their team. They watch the debates like watching the big game, and follow news of their candidates like…you get the idea, right? Like it’s something they identify with, and are very passionate about snd take very personally, but which is not actually connected to how their life works.

But that’s not the only (or even a good) way to interact with politics. You don’t have to be a fan, you can be a player. I don’t mean running for office and I don’t mean your team is team red or team blue. (And I don’t mean just voting, I’m for voting but people who only ever engage with politics by voting and telling others people to vote are weird.) I mean your team is the tenants’ union. Is the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Is Move On. Is your state PIRG. Is the BLM movement. You “play” by going to protests (and supporting protesters who get arrested, if it goes that way), by making phone calls, by arranging in person meetings with your representative, by going to city council meetings, by roping ten of your closest friends into going to city council meetings (helps if you have a flexible or unconventional work schedule, or don’t work), by doing the social media thing, by talking to your friends and family and neighbors, by giving money, by putting up a sign in your window or a bumper sticker on your car or again the social media equivalent, by maybe chaining yourself to something or blocking a freeway exit or going on a hunger strike or blocking a doorway or occupying an office.

And yeah, sometimes that cycles back to supporting or opposing specific candidates during an election … but you support candidates because they support your issues (your team), and you remind them when your issues come up that that’s why you backed them. It’s not, I’m going to select you as my champion and expect you to handle things, and it’s certainly not “this is my candidate so I’m for whatever they’re for.” It’s, “I’m not running for office myself because I’d rather do things via advocacy/I have a life and like to be able to sleep sometime/nobody’s going to vote for someone with my personal train wreck of a life/I’m disabled and don’t have the spoons, ok person who is in office, this is what you need to do. If you want my team to keep supporting you.”

When you’re used to that being politics, it’s so confusing when people take the sports fan approach to politics. Like, do we even live in the same reality.

Why are you handing away all your power to a proxie.

I'm Buying My Husband a Bulletproof Vest for Valentine's Day

In the eight years since our first date, I’ve always bought my husband flowers and chocolate for Valentine’s Day. (Matt displays the flowers and I eat the chocolate.) But if the seditious attack on the nation’s Capitol taught me anything, it’s that I need to up my game in the Valentine gift-giving department. This year, he’s getting a bullet-proof vest.

Now that Donald Trump—who used his power, privilege, and social media following to encourage the storming of the Capitol building—is (mercifully) out of office, it may seem like the threat of insurrection is a thing of the past. But these crazed QAnon elements are not going anywhere anytime soon. Some of the cult’s most vile adherents, like freshman congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have somehow found an elected seat from which to spew their dangerous rhetoric. It’s clear that, as Trump licks his wounds at Mar-a-Lago, we still face a reality where people radicalized by the far-right-wing internet feel empowered to take to our streets and openly threaten violence against elected officials.

Even still, my husband thinks investing in expensive combat gear is ridiculous. But I see such precautionary measures as an act of love—and a life insurance policy.

If the seditious attack on the nation’s Capitol taught me anything, it’s that I need to up my game in the Valentine gift-giving department. This year, he’s getting a bullet-proof vest.

Matt and I are newlyweds; it took me 39 years and countless lapses in judgement before I found the love of my life. He works as a legal administrator in a government building in Michigan’s Capitol. Credible threats of domestic terrorism leave me terrified that our swing state’s increasingly virulent QAnon population could one day make me a widow. So I’ve found myself scouring tactical gear websites and Amazon reviews for the kinds of goods that could possibly save his life someday—pieces that can be concealed under his suit or discreetly stored in his office.

The choices feel endless. Some vests are designed to stop bullets while others are only able to protect against knives. Who knew? There’s also the option of “stab” and “spike” protection. Apparently, sharp edges and spikes are totally different things in the world of protective gear. And then there’s the issue of hard material versus soft—this selection depends on external conditions like the weather, and also personal preferences for comfort. And finally, there’s the question of multi-threat armor, forcing me to guess the myriad ways that armed, horn-and-fur-wearing radicals could threaten Matt and his colleagues when it’s time to return to the office.

Gas masks, pepper spray, goggles, and other accessories necessary to defending oneself against insurrection present even more dizzying options. It’s easy to spend an hour or more sorting through bullet-proof vests alone; I have my work cut out for me if I’m going to make an informed purchase in time for Valentine’s Day.

My husband and I have always exchanged flowers and chocolate for Valentine’s Day. But this year, I’m trying to keep him safe.

Stephen CherninGetty Images

We are not survivalists, and I like to think that I’m not paranoid as a rule. The closest thing Matt and I have to self-defense is a dull set of steak knives. I can’t stomach the idea of owning a gun, and I don’t know anyone who could field my questions about riot and tactical gear. But I now find myself in a new world, wondering how Matt should be prepared for workplace violence fueled by hyper-nationalists with an axe to grind. What’s the best work uniform for someone who might find themselves targeted by a dangerous cult simply for showing up to work?

The Michigan Capitol Commission’s recent ban on open carry guns inside the state Capitol is also not what I would describe as soothing. I don’t think those most likely to storm government property really care about the law, do you? After all, my armed neighbors are the same people who plotted to kidnap Michigan’s governor and forcibly overthrow the government. Why did it take a Capitol takeover to bring about a modicum of common sense?

As a writer, mandates to work from home suited me just fine. It’s where I do my best work, clad in pajamas, the refrigerator and pantry mere feet away. Since orders to work from home became necessary, nothing much about my life has changed. But Matt hasn’t had the same experience, and after nearly one year of reporting to an office barely five feet from our bedroom, he’s eager to return to his professional stomping grounds. He misses face-to-face interactions with his colleagues, lunch at the local Thai joint, and—oddly enough—his collection of suits, ties, and leather shoes, now dusty from lack of use. The office gives him a sense of pride, productivity, and identity that he prefers to keep separate from his home life, to say nothing of the boost reporting to the office gives his mental health. I understand, and I want him to be happy. But his workplace address now fills me with a sense of dread I’d never known before. Thinking of Matt returning to government property to do a job he loves—a job he’s worked hard for and is damned good at—is enough to induce a panic attack.

What’s the best work uniform for someone who might find themselves targeted by a dangerous cult simply for showing up to work?

Although it will likely be months before he’s allowed to return to his building, it’s clear that Trump-loving extremists are in this fight for the long haul, and I’ve asked Matt to follow in the footsteps of both Michigan Sen. Dayna Polehanki and freshman Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, both of whom purchased combat gear to keep on hand at work.

“I’m not wearing a bullet-proof vest to work,” Matt scoffed in bed the other night. I showed him the articles about Polehanki and Meijer.

“You don’t have to wear it to work,” I clarified. “Just keep it in your office. See? They’re just preparing.”

“Well, just don’t buy it on Amazon,” he said. “There are better websites.”

I looked at him, speechless. He offered a mysterious smile. Perhaps I’ll be unwrapping my own tactical gear on Valentine’s Day. How so very romantic. How so very sad.

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I'm Buying My Husband a Bulletproof Vest for Valentine's Day

What Scientists Get Wrong About Relationships

I went to graduate school to study the psychology of romantic relationships. Relationships are one of the most significant and consequential things in our lives, with the quality of our relationships affecting both our physical and mental health. As a result, understanding what makes for happy, healthy, and successful relationships—and how we can help those who might be struggling—is of great scientific and social importance. 

While I learned a great deal about relationship research and theory in my training that has since proven useful in my work, something I’ve increasingly noticed in the years since graduating is that many theories and models of relationships are based on faulty assumptions that may be hindering our ability to meaningfully understand how relationships work. 

In this post, I’m going to focus on one specific theory of relationship commitment and discuss some of the problems embedded in it. This theory—the Investment Model of Commitment—is one that I’ve long held near and dear because it was developed by my academic grandmother, Caryl Rusbult (my graduate advisor’s former advisor). I’ve done a lot of work with this model over the years and have great respect for the creator, who has made a lot of important and enduring contributions to the science of relationships; however, this model, more than 40 years old at this point (and still widely used to this day), is overdue for a revision. 

In a nutshell, the Investment Model posits that commitment to a given relationship is a function of three separate, but overlapping factors: investment size (the resources attached to a relationship, both tangible and intangible), satisfaction level (how you feel about the relationship), and quality of alternatives (the other romantic options you perceive outside of your relationship).

Commitment—the desire to persist in a relationship—is seen as being highest when there are many investments (you’ve poured a lot into it), satisfaction is high (you’re happy with how it’s going), and quality of alternatives is poor (you don’t perceive any better options). 

Sounds pretty straightforward and makes sense, right? That’s what I thought for a long time, but I’ve come to see that there are some issues with the assumptions built into this model and the way its variables are measured. 

First, this model was built around the presumption that everyone is (or wants to be) monogamous. The monogamy assumption is embedded in a few ways: 

· Perceiving people other than your partner as attractive or desirable (i.e., having high quality alternatives) is necessarily seen as something that lowers commitment. In other words, if you think the idea of dating someone else or spending time with someone else is appealing, that’s seen as lowering the quality of the relationship. But what about people who are consensually non-monogamous? Research finds that about 1 in 5 adults say they’ve been in a sexually open relationship before--that’s a huge chunk of the population! And, of course, these folks find their alternatives to be attractive. But the model makes the problematic assumption that this is going to be to the detriment of their relationship.

· Similarly, one of the items used to measure commitment is, “It is likely that I will date someone other than my partner in the next year” (note that a low score on this item translates to a higher overall score on commitment). But what if you’re in a consensually non-monogamous relationship? That will ding your commitment score. That’s important to point out because it means that comparing commitment levels in monogamous and consensually non-monogamous relationships would likely show the non-monogamous folks as being less committed. This model is based on a definition of commitment rooted in monogamy as the ideal relationship state, which means it isn’t well suited for studying commitment in diverse relationship structures (which, as noted above, are very common) and could therefore lead to some faulty conclusions. 

Another limitation of this model is that it doesn’t address sex anywhere. I think it goes without saying that sex is a pretty big part of most people’s relationships—and sex can be seen as both an investment (having built a sex life and sexual communication skills together) and a part of satisfaction (how you feel about the overall relationship). It’s a curious omission, but not surprising because, in the past, the field of sex research has historically been quite separate from the field of relationship research. Incidentally, this is part of the reason why I fuse both sex and relationships into the work that I do—I think it’s important to not just study one or the other.  

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that this model should be discarded or that it hasn’t made an important contribution to the study of relationships—just that it’s time to be revised and updated and, in doing so, we can further enhance our understanding of when and why relationships work, and when they don’t. 

Plus, many of the necessary revisions are easy enough to make. For example, sex could be added to the satisfaction and investment scales with simple items such as “I feel satisfied with our sex life” and “I have put a lot of time and effort into building a sex life with my partner.”  

Likewise, we need to remove the presumption of monogamy and revise the model such that it accounts for diverse relationship structures. This would include dropping the problematic commitment item mentioned above, while also revising the alternatives scale. Revising the alternatives scale is the heaviest lift because it necessitates reconceptualizing what a “relationship alternative” really means anyway. 

There are at least two types of alternatives: the alternatives you could have instead of your current relationship (e.g., being alone, being in a different relationship, having a different type of relationship), and the alternatives you could have in addition to your current relationship (e.g., keeping your current relationship but having additional sexual and/or romantic partners). These are very different things—and would likely have very different implications for how committed someone is to their relationship. 

For example, if you see the alternatives that involve ending your relationship and doing something different as being very appealing, that would likely put a damper on commitment. By contrast, if you see the alternatives that you could have in addition to your relationship as appealing, that could potentially have the opposite effect—and pursuing those alternatives might even strengthen the relationship by fulfilling unmet needs.

Of course, if those “in addition” alternatives involve cheating rather than consensual non-monogamy, that might very well result in different effects. But that just serves to further highlight why we need to reconceptualize this whole idea of “alternatives” and what we’re really talking about here: breaking-up, cheating, having an open relationship, or something else. 

The Investment Model is just one of many relationship models that are ripe for revision. My hope is that we’ll start revisiting some of the old standards in the field, check them for embedded assumptions, and update them in ways that can better account for relationship diversity. 

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Source: 123RF/Natalia Kopyltsova

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