Mood swings of bipolar patients can be predicted, study shows

Mood swings of bipolar patients can be predicted, study shows

Currently Iam writing a report about a patient who is having bipolar symptoms. He has job, family related stress and is having an episode of depression. Again, google is my best friend for helping me to come out with better ideas to write assignment =)
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ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2011) — The future mood swings of people with bipolar disorder can be predicted by their current thoughts and behaviour, a study published April 19, 2011 has found.

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Psychologists from the Universities of Manchester and Lancaster say their findings are important because they mean talking therapies, like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), could prove effective treatments for the condition.

People with bipolar are prone to extreme mood swings that take them from great emotional highs to the pits of depression; the cause of these mood swings is often put down to the patients' genes and biology rather than their own thoughts and actions.

For this latest study -- published in the American Psychological Association journal Psychological Assessment -- the researchers followed 50 people with bipolar disorder for a month. The team found that the patients' thinking and behaviour predicted their future mood swings even when their medical history had been accounted for.

"Individuals who believed extreme things about their moods -- for example that their moods were completely out of their own control or that they had to keep active all the time to prevent becoming a failure -- developed more mood problems in a month's time," said study lead Dr Warren Mansell, in Manchester's School of Psychological Sciences.

"In contrast, people with bipolar disorder who could let their moods pass as a normal reaction to stress or knew they could manage their mood, faired well a month later. These findings are encouraging for talking therapies -- such as CBT -- that aim to help patients to talk about their moods and change their thinking about them."

A new form of CBT, known as TEAMS (Think Effectively About Mood Swings), is being developed by Dr Mansell and colleagues, at The University of Manchester. It aims to improve on previous therapies by focusing on current problems, like depression, anxiety and irritability, and helping patients to set goals for their life as a whole.

The aim of this new approach is to encourage patients to accept and manage a range of normal emotions -- like joy, anger and fear -- and a controlled trial is about to start following a successful case series of the TEAMS approach.

How to embrace laughter, & Quick Tips for Reframing

How to embrace laughter.

http://www.theemotionmachine.com/the-psychology-of-laughter

Here are some suggestions of things you can do to embrace laughter:

• Learn to laugh at yourself. Seriously, laughing at your mistakes allows you to take them less seriously and not get so hung up on the little things.
• Learn to crack jokes about stressful situations rather than complaining.
• Keep stuff around you that lightens the mood. A toy on your desk or a funny poster in your room can become a daily reminder to not be so serious all of the time.
• Make games out of things and be more playful, especially with children or pets who appreciate the attention.
• Watch a funny movie or TV show.
• Find one or two comics to follow on a daily basis. Read them during your morning coffee or on the train to work.

Quick Tips for Reframing

http://www.theemotionmachine.com/quick-tips-for-reframing

Reframing is to look at a situation or experience from another perspective so that we can learn something new or think and feel better about a past event. Some ways we can reframe include:

Turning a negative into a positive.

If something bad or painful happens in our lives, we can often reframe that experience as something that made us a stronger or smarter person in the end. Failures can be seen as learning experiences. Psychologists are also now identifying something known as “post traumatic growth,” where those who go through trauma end up more resilient and optimistic. Being able to find the good in the bad is a key characteristic for any healthy mind.

Broadening your perspective.

In the moment, a bad experience can feel like the end of the world. But when you look back on it after a week, month, year, or even decade, the event often loses a lot of its affect. How many of you can look back on an experience you once thought was really terrible, and now it seems like nothing? Sometimes we wonder why we ever got so upset in the first place. Imagine yourself 20 years down the road, will you care as much about those same things that are troubling you now? When we broaden our perspective, things don’t often seem as important as we like to make them out to be.

The “things could be worse” perspective.

No matter how bad things are for you, there is almost always an alternative situation that is even worse. Imagining how things can be worse can help us be more grateful toward the things we do have, and not necessarily focus on just the things we lost. This attitude works especially well for aspects of life that are outside of our control. Maybe your house burned down and you lost everything, that is an awful situation, but you can reframe it and think “at least I still have my friends and family.” Maybe you are currently going through some financial troubles, but does it really compare to the lives of those in poor third world countries? Imagining how things can be worse is a great way to change your perspective and be more thankful for what you have.

You can read more about this kind of reframe (from the perspective of Stoicism) here.

Empathic perspective-taking.

Empathic perspective-taking is a type of reframe where we imagine ourselves experiencing a situation from another person’s perspective. By stepping into someone else’s shoes we can get a better idea of their intentions and why they acted the way they did. This can be a very useful skill for understanding why people sometimes do things that hurt us (intentional or not), and we can better learn to forgive by letting go of resentment, grudges, and other negative feelings we hold against others.

JUST FOR TODAY!

10 little thoughts from Dale Carnegie’s book: How to stop worrying and start living:

1. Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that “most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.

2. Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them.

3. Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse it nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.

4. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration.

5. Just for today I will exercise my soul : I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out.

6. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticise not at all, nor find fault with anything and not try to regulate nor improve anyone.

7. Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime.

8. Just for today I will have a programme. I will write down what I expect to do every hour. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. It will eliminate two pests, hurry and indecision.

9. Just for today I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax. In this half-hour sometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective into my life.

10. Just for today I will be unafraid, especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful, to love, and to believe that those I love, love me.

If we want to develop a mental attitude that will bring us peace and happiness, here is Rule 1: Think and act cheerfully, and you will feel cheerful.

I don't want to miss a thing-lyrics

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
While you're far away and dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Where every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

Don't want to close my eyes
I don't want to fall asleep
Cause I'd miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing
Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing

Lying close to you feeling your heart beating
And I'm wondering what you're dreaming
Wondering if it's me you're seeing
Then I kiss your eyes
And thank God we're together
I just want to stay with you in this moment forever
Forever and ever

I don't want to close my eyes
I don't want to fall asleep
Cause I'd miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing
Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing

I don't want to miss one smile
I don't want to miss one kiss
I just want to be with you
Right here with you, just like this
I just want to hold you close
Feel your heart so close to mine
And just stay here in this moment
For all the rest of time Yeah yeah yeah

I don't want to close my eyes
I don't want to fall asleep
Cause I'd miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing
Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing

I Don't want to close my eyes
I don't want to fall asleep
Cause I'd miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing
Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you babe
And I don't want to miss a thing

Don't want to close my eyes
I don't want to fall asleep
And I don't want to miss a thing

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/aerosmith/#share

How do you use the word being in english grammar? Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_use_the_word_being_in_english_grammar#ixzz1MHe1GGEH

The word being has several forms: am, is, was, were, be, being, been. In general the word is used to mean that something is currently in a particular state. For example, I might say that "You are being annoying" or that "It is raining outside. I will give some examples below of the different uses:

am (about oneself): I am at home. I am friendly. I am a person.

is: (about an object other than oneself): She is friendly. It is snowing outside. Pizza is a tasty food.

was: (past form of am and is). I was walking home. She was friendly but now she is mean.

were: (plural of was): They were walking to the store.

to be: (this is the non-conjugated form of the verb, it means to exist or to be in a certain state) To be good at archery, one must practice a lot. You should be good, and you will receive a treat.

being: (this indicates that something is in the on-going, present state of existing or having a given property) You are being silly. Being good at something takes work.

been (indicates that something has been ongoing in the past and up through the present): The stock prices have been plummeting for the past week. The Mets have really been on a bad streak lately.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_use_the_word_being_in_english_grammar#ixzz1MHdV4VDR

How to reset hibernate mode in Vista

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/re-enable-hibernate-option-in-windows-vista/

I often have to reset this hibernate option for my precious laptop as I accidentally delete everything to boost up the memory (I dislike the slow speed..., which is distrupting my work). So I have decided to copy into my blog instead, although this piece of technical knowledge has nothing to do with psychology/life.. just to make myself convenient, instead of searching google again =)

An alternative method with more steps was suggested by Shane in the comments. If the above doesn’t fix your problem, you can use these steps.

• Go to the command prompt icon in the Start menu under Accessories and right click the icon: click “Run as administrator”.
• Paste: “powercfg.exe /hibernate on” and hit Enter and also paste “powercfg -h on” and hit enter just to be safe.
• Open Control Panel and type in “Hibernate” in the Search.
• Click “Turn hibernation on or off”
• Click “Change advance power settings”
• Scroll to and expand the “Sleep” option.
• Select “Off” to the “Allow hybrid sleep” option.
• Scroll to and expand the “Power buttons and lid” option.
• Select “Hibernate” for the “Sleep button action” option. 10. Select “Hibernate” for the “Start menu power button” option.