2009 | Good Medicine

Recent research: diet associated depression, weight & violence, vitamin D fall prevention, IBS & anxiety, yoga & mindfulness

Originally added on 26th November 2009
Last updated on 30th November 2009

Here are a mixed bag of six recent research papers on diet, vitamin D, IBS and yoga (all details & abstracts to these studies are listed further down this blog post). The first three papers highlight the toxic effects on psychological health, physical health, and society of our processed, high sugar diets. Sanchez-Villegas et al map a bit more clearly the potential link between diet and depression. They conclude "Our results suggest a potential protective role of the MDP (Mediterranean dietary pattern) with regard to the prevention of depressive disorders; additional longitudinal studies and trials are needed to confirm these findings." Fiorito et al show that intake of sweetened drinks in 5 year old girls predicts overweight over subsequent childhood and adolescence, and - rather scarily - Moore & colleagues show a link between confectionary consumption at age 10 and subsequent violence in adulthood. They concluded "Children who ate confectio

Peer groups: Cumbria autumn group – reflection

Originally added on 25th November 2009
Last updated on 27th November 2009

Wednesday morning - about 36 hours since we got back to Edinburgh and less than a week since we began the group. The last half day started as usual with some of the "self-care practices" that quite a few us use (Tai Chi, meditation, running, and so on). Good breakfast, then sadly one of the group needed to leave early due to a crisis at home. He asked if we could meet ten minutes sooner than usual as a full group so he could voice his appreciations and say goodbye to us. Moving. Normally we're pretty tough that anybody who bids in to come for the group should make sure that they can stay for the full time - obviously though there are exceptions to these loose "rules".

Peer groups: Cumbria autumn group – challenge & flowing on

Originally added on 23rd November 2009
Last updated on 27th November 2009

I wrote in my last blog post how the group had begun to work more deeply/flowingly. Yesterday was the final full day. I've been dunking in the cold flood stream further upriver than during other groups.

Peer groups: Cumbria autumn group – flowing

Originally added on 22nd November 2009
Last updated on 27th November 2009

And it's the third morning of the group. Yesterday again I took time for a usual mix of "self-care" - yoga, meditation, stream-dunking, tea & fruit. As I wrote yesterday, I was very aware of feeling frustrated and impatient with how I felt the group had been going and how, particularly later in the day, I hadn't felt much emotional engagement with it. Then it was breakfast and the small groups. I was ready to "pop" by then and came in pretty much right at the start to ask for a bit of time. It's a good rule of thumb in the group - and often in relationships more generally - that if I'm going to find it hard not to be distracted from what other people might do & say by what's going on in me, then it may well be sensible to raise the issues that are distracting me. Unmentioned elephants in the corner of the room make conversation about othe

Peer groups: Cumbria autumn group – frustration

Originally added on 21st November 2009
Last updated on 27th March 2011

Yesterday I wrote about arriving for this Men's Group in Cumbria. It's the second morning. Groups - particularly these residential interpersonal groups - seem a bit like rivers to me. They move on inexorably, often full of surprises. I may have some guesses as to how a group will evolve or what will happen next, but so regularly I come round the next bend of the river and where I expected rapids, there is a deep smooth-flowing straight section - or where I thought all would be beautiful and calm, the river plunges into a gorge and it feels like I'm struggling to keep my vision clear in the emotional spray.

Peer groups: Cumbria autumn group – arriving

Originally added on 20th November 2009
Last updated on 26th November 2009

It's a little after 6.00am and I've been up and about for a while. It's the first morning of one of the four day residential peer groups that I've been coming too since 1991. This is the autumn Men's Group. In the Spring several of us also meet here in Cumbria for a Mixed Group. The groups are about friendship, emotional/interpersonal learning, a chance to get a break in the country. I love this time - with all its honesty, deep connections, pain, laughter. The groups can be something of an emotional roller coaster. I've written extensively about them before - both why describing these gatherings is relevant for a blog about stress, health & wellbeing, and also more detailed reports from last year's Men's Group and from the Mixed Groups earlier this year and

Recent research: two studies on panic, two on attention training for anxiety disorders, and three on the effects of child abuse

Originally added on 19th November 2009
Last updated on 30th November 2009

Here are seven recent papers on panic, attention training, and the effects of childhood sexual abuse (all details & abstracts to these studies are listed further down this blog post). Pfaltz & colleagues report on a novel ambulatory respiratory monitoring system that seems to demonstrate that panic sufferers are not routinely suffering from breathing abnormalities (e.g. hyperventilation) when they go about their daily lives. The CBT theory of panic disorder would go along with this - panic being seen as due, in part, to catastrophizing about the meaning of experienced physical sensations rather than due to simply having unusual physical sensations. Shelby et al's paper extends this understanding concluding that with sufferers from non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) "Chest pain and anxiety were directly related to greater disability and indirectly related to physical and psychosocial disability via pain catastrophizing.