Thought for The Day

Do Peer groups help reduce Stigma within Families?

In our own voice-family companion: reducing self-stigma of family members of persons with serious mental illness.

Perlick DA, Nelson AH, Mattias K, Selzer J, Kalvin C, Wilber CH, Huntington B, Holman CS, Corrigan PW.

Source

Departmentof Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NewYork, NY 10029, USA. deborah.perlick@mssm.edu

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

This article reports preliminary findings from a novel, family peer-based intervention designed to reduce self-stigma among family members of people with serious mental illness.

METHODS:

A total of 158 primary caregivers of patients with schizophrenia were recruited from a large urban mental health facility (93 caregivers) or from a family and consumer advocacy organization (65 caregivers). Caregivers (N=122) who reported they perceived at least a moderate level of mental illness-related stigma were evaluated on measures of self-stigma, withdrawal, secrecy, anxiety, and social comparison and randomly assigned to receive one of two, one-session group interventions: a peer-led intervention (In Our Own Voice-Family Companion [IOOV-FC]) designed to stimulate group discussion or a clinician-led family education session, which delivered information about mental illness in a structured, didactic format. IOOV-FC consisted of playing a videotape of family members who describe their experiences coping with stigma, which was followed by a discussion led by two family peers who modeled sharing their own experiences and facilitated group sharing.

RESULTS:

Of 24 family members and ten consumers, 96% rated the videotape above a predetermined acceptability threshold on a 19-item scale assessing cultural sensitivity, respect for different stakeholders, relevance of content, and technical quality (α=.92). Caregivers receiving IOOV-FC with low to moderate pretreatment anxiety reported a substantial reduction in self-stigma (effect size=.50) relative to those receiving clinician-led family education (p=.017) as well as significant reductions in secrecy (p=.031).

CONCLUSIONS:

Peer-led group interventions may be more effective in reducing family self-stigma than clinician-led education, at least for persons reporting experiencing low to moderate anxiety levels on a standard questionnaire

Live Food Verses Dead Food/What you need to know

The Importance Of Live food, Vs Dead Food

Simply put and explained by Raymond Francis;

 Live food promote life,

Dead food promotes disease.

Dead foods

Live Foods

Nutrition Differences Between Living Food and Dead Food

Food is food, right? Well, unless you've been hiding in a well stocked fallout shelter for a couple of decades, you no doubt have seen countless news reports telling you what's good and what's bad when it comes to food. One aspect of food that is sometimes implied by such reports—but never specified or explored—is the difference between dead food and living food.

Before we explain the difference between the two, you may be wondering why you should care. The answer is simple: nutrient value and the health of your body. Living foods—especially fresh, raw foods—are more nutritious because they still have all of their vitamins, minerals, and enzymes (which the body needs to help you properly digest and metabolize food). These nutrients in food typically get clobbered during the processing, cooking, and packaging that dead food goes through. In the most egregious categories of dead foods—those that have refined flour and added sugar—they may actually suck stored vitamins out of your body as your system tries to metabolize them.

Now, back to dividing up our comestibles into the living food and dead food categories. Generally, if a food spoils quickly, it's a living food. Fresh fruits and vegetable fall into this category, as do milk and cheese, freshly made baked potatoes and potato dishes, and freshly baked breads. If a product is more resistant to spoilage than a Teflon-coated nacho chip, it's dead food. But in some cases, just using the spoil-o-meter test to determine whether an item is a living food or dead food is too simplistic. For instance, grains, if properly stored, can be milled or sprouted many years later to make high-quality living food. Similarly, nature has designed raw nuts and seeds—for example, hazelnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds—to be fairly resistant to spoilage, and they too are excellent living food.

Living Food/Dead Food Categories

Several categories of food deserve special mention:

• Meat and Fish – Some would argue that the flesh of dead animals by definition cannot be living food. Those who can stick to a vegetarian diet do accrue certain health benefits from it and are to be commended for choosing a "food lifestyle" that is healthy, animal friendly, and environmentally friendly. But those interested in the living food concept should not feel they have to go vegetarian to begin adopting a living food diet.
• Processed Food – The rule here is easy: The more milled, cooked, and dried-out a product is, the deader it is. Items that fall into the crispy/crunchy category are particularly dead.
• Raw Food – Raw vegetables, fresh fruit, unroasted nuts and seeds, and sprouted grains, beans, and legumes are at the top of the living food pyramid. They are packed with vitamins and enzymes, all perfectly intact because the food is fresh and unaltered by heat, processing, or containerized storage.
• Cooked Food – Living-food purists will argue that cooking greatly reduces the nutrient value of all food and creates new compounds within the food that are inimical to health. In an interview on living-food.com, author David Wolfe asserts, "You cannot revitalize [your body's] living cells with dead food." We do agree that raw food is superior in terms of active vitamin, mineral, and enzyme content. But, as with meat, we're going to suggest that you not let the perfect be the enemy of the good; that you can get plenty of benefit by increasing the amount of fresh, uncooked food in your diet without feeling that you have to go 100% raw.

Living Food/Dead Food Examples

So, those are the general rules for determining what is living food vs. dead food. Here are some specific examples:

	LIVING FOOD	DEAD FOOD
	Potato	Potato chips
	Wheat bread	Wheat crackers
	Beef	Beef jerky
	Fresh fruit	Fruit rollups
	Fresh vegetables	Vegetable chips
	Toast*	Melba toast
	Oatmeal**	Boxed cereal
	Peanuts	Peanut brittle
	* Living, but less so than the original bread ** Oatmeal is not a perfect living food—you'd have to make your cereal from oat groats to achieve that—but it's far better than the crispy, crunchy, sugary, highly heated, desert-dry oat cereal you get out of a box.

Juice and Fruit Drinks — Living Food or Dead Food?

In some cases, how a food item was made determines whether it's living or dead. For instance, juices are tricky because there are so many ways to make juice and related beverages.

Freshly squeezed juice – Fresh juices from vegetables and fruits are very much living food. They usually qualify as "super foods"—the tippy top of the nutrient-dense living food pyramid.

Juice from a carton, bottle or can – This is a big step down from freshly pressed juice (or from just eating the raw fruits and vegetables themselves). Processing, heat, storage, and exposure to sunlight all take their toll on vitamin and enzyme content. Bottled and canned juices that are 100% juice aren't particularly bad to consume; they just aren't anywhere near as good as fresh-pressed juices.

Juice drinks – Any beverage that contains only 10% juice, with the rest being water and sweetener, has 9 of its 10 toes in the dead-food category.

Flavored soft drinks – These are dead, dead, dead. A smattering of "natural flavors" does not save these products from being considered dead food.

Final Advice on Living Food

To get the maximum punch of the vitamins, minerals and enzymes your body needs to run well, stick with raw, living food as much as possible. Living food is not only better for you than dead food, it's better for the environment too. When you buy living food, you eliminate the energy, raw materials, and waste products associated with processing the food and storing it in cans, bottles, boxes, and shrink wrap. And the more raw food you eat, the less energy you use for cooking.

We do have to admit that unless you're in monk training, it's going to be pretty hard to get completely away from dead food. But there are plenty of times when choosing living food is plenty convenient—even if it's not quite as fun. Sometimes it's just a matter of better planning; for instance, consider keeping a bag of natural trail mix in your desk drawer rather than a bag of chips.

Take an inventory today…how much of your diet is ‘live” don’t be alarmed but  do make  efforts  to  implement  live  foods  often

 and daily start  with one  change a month. But do start.

It makes sense that we will feel better with less toxins in our food sources. We already know  that processed  foods  cause  depression, mania, heart disease, high blood  pressure  live and kidney problems.

So what dead food  can  you give  up today and substitute  with a live  food?

Peer Engagement: A new way to recover.

Fellow Consumers of Cobb CSB!

Are you new to the circle or are you perhaps someone who has been here for some time and even though you are working toward your recovery you feel that something is missing? If so, let us examine a few things about your jubilant journey through the program. For some of you it maybe longer than others, but can you think back to your first day here at The Circle? What do you remember, both good and bad as well as those things that should have been in place to make you your journey more manageable? One thing that consumers have found to be missing is peer engagement. Peer engagement, an effort by consumers to help fellow consumers who are new to the program, is a relatively new concept across the board, however; it is done regularly in the Peer Support Program here at The Circle. I was first versed with the concept while studying to become a Certified Peer Specialist while learning specific axioms about Peers and Peer Support. I must say I learned the concept at the CPS training but it is not indigenous to the training itself as both the CPRP, Louise Sterling and CPS Alison Golden teach these concepts daily. One specific axiom is that a consumer or peer will connect with one another in such a way that the pair forms a bond or a mutual supportive relationship which helps to strengthen both parties involved. Peers helping peers, what a concept! With that being said we also asked some of the peers what they thought would have been helpful in their journey into recovery and here’s what they said: 

Do you think having a peer liaison would be helpful in the onsite of the recovery process and what would you think they could do for you to make the process an efficient and good experience? 

Laura: I use to cry a lot when I first got here. I wanted 2-3 months to have someone to call. Meds were turned off for about 2 months. Could have used someone to talk to.

Bryannetta: She came to the program angry and not trusting that the system would take care of her. A peer would have been easier to talk to than a staff because she didn’t trust authority.

Robin:  She wanted someone to help her relax. Someone to call after hours.

Nate: A peer to provide hope that meds could get  us better, that they would get better

Veretta: Came out of jail. It was harder to adjust and would have liked to talk to a peer who was in jail.

Emerson: Had a peer support team: Two peers took him under their wing. Favorable experience.

Allen: Wanted to be introduced to people. Some hope might have prevented a hospitalization or two.

Myra: Needed someone to get meds straightened out.

Mike B: Mike would have liked to talk to another African American man who was on the same page as him.

As you can see many people are in need of someone to help with their experience. The good news is it is coming soon.                                          

6 Ways to Burn 100 Calories in 10 Minutes

“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.”

 Winnie the Pooh quote

6 Ways to Burn 100 Calories in 10 Minutes

Jumping rope. You can burn 119 calories in 10 minutes by jumping rope at a moderate pace. If you're an expert and can move rapidly, you can burn a whopping 142! If you don't actually have a jump rope handy you can pretend. The idea is to catch some air under your sneakers and rapidly jump up and down. This will be a sweaty few minutes. Try doing it right before you go in for your morning shower. You'll be totally energized and ready to charge happily into your day.

Stationary biking. You can work up to 131 calories in 10 minutes on a stationary bike at a moderate pace, and if you go flat out (it's only 10 minutes, right?), you can burn 155. Do lots of jumps on the bike and make sure you've got a good resistance on there. You want those legs to burn by the time you hop off.

 Lace up those running shoes and hit the track. Running 1 mile will burn 100 calories

Pop in a video or head to the gym for 10 minutes of high impact aerobics

Drop and give me ten. 10 minutes of pushups that is!

Run up stairs. This is perfect for a lunchtime workout in your office building. Running up stairs, as quickly as you safely can, will burn a whopping 178 calories in 10 minutes. Please make sure you're doing it in flats, not heels or dress shoes, and preferably in sneakers so your feet don't take a beating (remember there are cocktail parties to go to!). If that doesn't work, you can run in place in your living room for 10 minutes to knock off 95 calories (almost 100).

The idea here is to attack your 10 minutes with intensity. Make sure that you're constantly moving as hard as you can. Again, it's only 10 minutes, and at the end of that time, you'll feel healthy and energized. You'll also have a nice metabolism boost that lasts much longer than those 10 minutes.

These figures are based on the average 150-pound person. If you'd like to find out exactly what the calorie count would be for you or for an activity not listed here, just out this great calculator at Self.com.

Thought For The Day:

Sugar is dangerous us all

 Studies show Sugar is toxic and has negative effects on :

Depression, anxiety, allergies, mental illness, our bodies can't handle refined sugar!
WHY SUGAR IS TOXIC TO THE BODY
[link to www.karlloren.com]

"In the 1940s, Dr John Tintera rediscovered the vital importance of the endocrine system, especially the adrenal glands, in "pathological mentation"-or "brain boggling". In 200 cases under treatment for hypoadrenocorticism (the lack of adequate adrenal cortical hormone production or imbalance among these hormones), he discovered that the chief complaints of his patients were often similar to those found in persons whose systems were unable to handle sugar: fatigue, nervousness, depression, apprehension, craving for sweets, inability to handle alcohol, inability to concentrate, allergies, low blood pressure. Sugar blues!

Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides only that which nutritionists describe as "empty" or "naked" calories. It lacks the natural minerals which are present in the sugar beet or cane. In addition, sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and elimination make upon one's entire system.

So essential is balance to our bodies that we have many ways to provide against the sudden shock of a heavy intake of sugar. Minerals such as sodium (from salt), potassium and magnesium (from vegetables), and calcium (from the bones) are mobilized and used in chemical transmutation; neutral acids are produced which attempt to return the acid-alkaline balance factor of the blood to a more normal state.

refined sugar is a poison because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals. "What is left consists of pure, refined carbohydrates. The body cannot utilize this refined starch and carbohydrate unless the depleted proteins, vitamins and minerals are present. Nature supplies these elements in each plant in quantities sufficient to metabolize the carbohydrate in that particular plant. There is no excess for other added carbohydrates. Incomplete carbohydrate metabolism results in the formation of 'toxic metabolite' such as pyruvic acid and abnormal sugars containing five carbon atoms. Pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the abnormal sugars in the red blood cells. These toxic metabolites interfere with the respiration of the cells. They cannot get sufficient oxygen to survive and function normally. In time, some of the cells die. This interferes with the function of a part of the body and is the beginning of degenerative disease."