No matter what tasks I have before me, who I am with, or where I happen to be, joy is within my soul. It springs up from the very depths of my being, from the presence of the indwelling Christ. This joy is peaceful, loving, and fulfilling.

As an inner quality that is part of my nature, joy is waiting to be expressed by me at any time, in any situation. All that is required is my participation. So I activate my inner joy by loving and by living with anticipation, wonder, and appreciation. I am joyous, radiant, and fulfilled.

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I’m not sure if it’s because we’re strung out on “Lost” episodes, or if it’s because we’re still suffering from a post-9/11 stress disorder that makes us crave “breaking news” alerts, or if it’s because the economy has turned us into distraction junkies. But one thing is painfully obvious after Michael Phelps’ marijuana “scandal” erupted last week: Our society is addicted to fake outrage — and to break our dependence, we’re going to need far more potent medicine than the herb Phelps was smoking.

If you haven’t heard (and I’m guessing you have), the Olympic gold medalist was recently photographed taking a toke of weed. The moment the picture hit the Internet, the media blew the story up, pumping out at least 1,200 dispatches about the “controversy,” according to my LexisNexis search. Phelps’ sponsors subsequently threatened to pull their endorsement deals, and USA Swimming suspended him for “disappointing so many people.”

America is a place where you can destroy millions of lives as a Wall Street executive and still get invited for photo ops at the White House; a land where the Everyman icon — Joe Six-pack — is named for his love of shotgunning two quarts of beer at holiday gatherings; a “shining city on a hill” where presidential candidates’ previous abuse of alcohol and cocaine is portrayed as positive proof of grittiness and character. And yet, somehow, Phelps is the evildoer of the hour because he went to a party and took a hit off someone’s bong.

As with most explosions of fake outrage, the Phelps affair asks us to feign anger at something we know is commonplace. A nation of tabloid readers is apoplectic that Brad and Jen divorced, even though one out of every two American marriages ends the same way. A country fetishizing “family values” goes ballistic over the immorality of Paris Hilton’s sex tape … and then keeps spending billions on pornography. And now we’re expected to be indignant about a 23-year-old kid smoking weed, even though studies show that roughly half of us have done the same thing; most of us think pot should be legal in some form; and many of us regularly devour far more toxic substances than marijuana (nicotine, alcohol, reality TV, etc.).
So, in the interest of a little taboo candor, I’m just going to throw editorial caution to the wind and write what lots of us thought — but were afraid to say — when we heard about Phelps. Ready? Here goes:

America’s drug policy is idiotic.

Doctors can hand out morphine to anyone for anything beyond a headache, but they can’t prescribe marijuana to terminal cancer patients. Madison Avenue encourages a population plagued by heart disease to choke down as many artery-clogging Big Macs and Dunkin’ Donuts as it can, but it’s illegal to consume cannabis, “a weed that has been known to kill approximately no one,” as even the archconservative Colorado Springs Gazette admitted in its editorial slamming Phelps. Indeed, it would be perfectly acceptable — even artistically admirable in some quarters — if I told you that I drank myself into a blind stupor while writing this column, but it would be considered “outrageous” if I told you I was instead smoking a joint (FYI — I wasn’t doing either).

That said, what’s even more inane than our irrational reefer madness is our addiction to the same high that every pothead craves: the high of escapism. Nerves fried from orange terror warnings, Drudge Report sirens and disaster capitalism’s roller-coaster economics, our narcotic of choice is fake outrage — and it packs a punch. It gets us to turn on the television, tune in to the latest manufactured drama, and drop out of the real battle for the republic’s future.

Technorati Tags: Big Macs, Colorado Springs Gazette, drugs, Madison Avenue, merica, Michael Phelps, narcotic

–- Paulo Coelho

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– Paulo Coelho

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But with a little help from you, your employees can be prepared for the holidays and have a healthy and happy season.

The key to staying healthy during the holiday season is getting plenty of exercise, eating right, and minimizing stress. As an employer, you can help your employees do this by:

Promoting the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Many times, employees are feeling pressure and stress from work and home, but aren’t aware of the services available to them through the EAP. The free and confidential services through the EAP may be just what your employees need to lower stress during the holiday season.

Offering an onsite diet support group. Whether it’s Weight Watchers®, Jenny Craig®, or some other local program, diet support groups provide motivation for dieters to stay on plan – even during the difficult holiday season. However, during this busy season, many employees don’t have time to attend meetings outside of work. So, an onsite meeting during lunch may be just the answer.

Providing healthy alternatives. If you are planning a holiday party, be sure to include a variety of healthy alternatives to the typical high-calorie, high-fat holiday foods. Also consider filling your vending machines with healthy snacks such as nuts, whole wheat crackers, trail mix, and granola bars.

Being flexible. During the holidays, the factor that leads to the most stress is time – and not having enough of it. When possible, offer employees flexible alternatives for getting their work done – whether it’s flex time, telecommuting, or allowing them to use their personal time in smaller increments than normal (i.e., in 1-hour increments, rather than 1-day increments).

Implementing a walking program. Organize walks around the office (or outside, if weather permits) during lunch breaks. Not only does this provide much needed physical activity, it will also help give your employees a mental break that can help reduce stress.

Technorati Tags: Being flexible, EAP, holiday, holiday stress

Crunch expected as President-elect Barack Obama is committed to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq within 16 months (Reuters).

According to a report from a Congressional hearing on mental health problems confronting soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, about 20% of the 1.5 million soldiers deployed to those war fronts will return from battle suffering from mental health problems.

The reports projects that about 20% or 300,000 (the size of a large city) will return suffering with clinical anxiety, depression, sleeplessness or post-traumatic stress disorder. A more recent survey found that in fact half of the National Guard troops returning from battle report mental health problems.

These illnesses not only affect the returning soldiers, but they have a cascading effect on the families including the approximately 700,000 children in the United States with at least one parent returning from battle. The expected hundreds of thousands of cases will overflow from the VA and the Department of Defense into and burden the civilian health care system. Bettina Rasmussen, CEO of BachFlower.com says that Bach Flower has a remedy for that.

Ms. Rasmussen (BFRP) is a Bach Centre licensed practitioner and an author on natural remedies. She recently sent a letter to the Department of Defense asking them to explore the cost-effective benefits of all-natural remedies for reducing the symptoms associated with PTSD as part of the recovery regime.

The first wave of 15,000 returning soldiers landed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; and military health officials at the Department of Defense are bracing for the surge in mental health cases wondering if there are sufficient resources to handle it. The next large wave is expected to arrive in February. Col. Richard Thomas, the Fort Campbell director of health services, has roughly doubled his staff of psychologists and behavioral specialists and is searching for more.
A report by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team released in 2007 found that 28 percent of soldiers who had been in high-intensity combat were experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, or acute stress.

It also found that the percentage of soldiers with severe stress, emotional, alcohol or family problems had risen more than 85 percent since the invasion of Iraq five years ago.
General Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army is monitoring how Fort Campbell handles their caseload in order to develop a plan on how other bases around the nation will handle the surge in PTSD cases.

Not all will be rosy when the soldiers come home. Soldiers are faced with adjustment to new realities, some of them quite unpleasant. Many are greeted by marital problems, financial difficulties, disintegrating relationships and family unity.

According to Fort Campbell military health officials, more than 3,000 of the initial 15,000 troops returning home will experience headaches, sleep disorders, irritability, memory loss, bouts of violence, sense of hopelessness, relationship strains or other symptoms linked to stress disorder.
The base officials say that about 85 percent of those soldiers with stress disorder symptoms will recover with the help of treatment or medication; but the other 15 percent will require more intensive help.

A year later has not seen any improvements. According to an Army study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in July of 2007, one in 8 soldiers returning from war suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Symptoms of PTSD include having flashbacks, nightmares, feeling detached, irritable, resorting to violence, having trouble concentrating or sleeping.

Some veterans suffering from stress are finding their own solution, suicide
Over 120 vets are committing suicide every week, a rate double the general population.

On the war theater, suicide inching up to 1/3 of all deaths
Meanwhile, on the war zone, over 2000 active soldiers have taken their own life this year a number that has been increasing steadily; the highest in 25 years. The number in 2002 was 500. In an article published in the U.S. Army.mil News it states that in the early part of 2007 suicide was the third largest cause of death of active soldiers accounting for almost 30%.
One age group among active soldiers stands out, the 20 to 24 year olds; their rate of suicide is four times that of the general population. In those cases reported in 2007 about 70% of suicides were related to relationship problems back home. In today’s military 2/3 of the soldiers are married.

Coming home involves letting go of the battlefield adaptation and reintegration to civilian life. Couples and families must reset their expectations and renegotiate their roles. Open communications is very important at this stage. Returning soldiers decompressing from combat stress are often irritable, guarded and want to be alone. Attempts are claiming old roles and hierarchy of authority may result in relationship or marital arguments.

Adding to the stress, at the end of duty, the soldier and his family may be move to a new station upon returning from deployment. Back to back deployment can be stressful for the whole family. Some soldiers may turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the emotional pain they experience, but chose cover up.

There is mounting evidence that the Army is not prepared for the return of soldiers with mental health issues. A National Public Radio (NPR) investigative report exposed how supervisors at Fort Carson, Colorado were punishing soldiers who returned from war with serious mental health problems. The soldiers were prevented from getting needed attention. NPR spoke with a half-dozen sergeants who expressed contempt for soldiers with PTSD. They said such soldiers were “weak,” called them “s-bags,” and said they didn’t belong in the Army. The story sparked a Senate investigation.

Early this year, commanders at Fort Carson responded by launching a program requiring every leader, from sergeants up to generals, to attend a training course on how to spot and help soldiers who potentially have post-traumatic stress disorder. More than 2,200 leaders have taken the course so far.

To see the impact the PTSD training had, NPR made a follow-up visit to Fort Carson’s base commander Gen. Robert Mixon. Gen. Mixon stated that he would take disciplinary action against leaders who fail to follow the training guidelines. News of any disciplinary actions was denied by Gen. Mixon’s right hand man, who stated that there had been a few verbal warnings and no more. Down the command line, Command Sgt. Maj. Terrance McWilliams insisted that he will punish soldiers who “misbehave” with PTSD symptoms even if the Army doctors have diagnosed the soldiers with PTSD. PTSD remains controversial at Fort Carson and perhaps is simply indicative of what our returning soldiers can expect no matter where their tour of duty ends.
The United States Department of Veteran Affairs has setup the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. Soldiers and their families are advice to check the website as well as websites from a number of other government and civilian organizations dedicated to giving our veterans the help they need. The families should be prepared to apply public relations and political pressure as needed, as resources for the expected volume of cases is not likely going to be sufficient.

Prolonged emotional imbalances whether they are those associated with PTSD or a range of others symptoms such as fear, panic, jealousy, separation anxiety, clinical anxiety, excessive worry, uncontrollable anger; and so on, depress the immune system and lead to decease or delayed healing.

It is evident that the fundamental philosophy behind keeping a standing army ready full time and in full force is incompatible with recognizing that emotional and psychological imbalances can render some soldiers temporarily incapable.

Healthcare professionals, social workers and caring individuals look at the problem from a different perspective. Bach Flower Remedies practitioners, such as Bettina Rasmussen (BFRP), are among those who understand the impact of emotions on our health and quality of life.
Ms. Rasmussen points out that a body of research, especially over the last 20 years, has produced innumerable tomes relative to the interrelationship between psychology, sociology and the immune and endocrine systems. For example, “Human Psychoneuroimmunology”, “Understanding the Interaction between Psychosocial stress and Immune-related Deceases”, “The Effects of Acute Psychological Stress on Circulating Inflammatory Factors in Human” and a host of others.

The University of Illinois hosts the Integrative Immunology and Behavior Program which spearheads research in immunophysiology.

75 years ahead of this time, Dr. Edward Bach discovered a series of flower herbal remedies that have since been used and recommended around the world. The Bach Flower Remedies treat emotional states which Dr. Bach believed, and volumes of studies support, greatly impact on our health, healing and quality of life.

Dr Edward Bach studied medicine at the University College Hospital, London, and was a House Surgeon there. Dr. Bach was a bacteriologist and later a pathologist. He worked for a number of years on vaccines and a set of homoeopathic nosodes still known as the seven Bach nosodes.
Dr. Bach won international acclaim for his work on vaccines at the University College Hospital during the First World War when his responsibilities, ironically enough, included a huge war casualty ward. 40 million Europeans died in WWI between 1914 and 1918 and millions more were injured physically and emotionally.

Dr. Bach earned further distinctions by developing experimental vaccines that saved thousands of lives during the Influenza epidemic of 1918, caused by a devastating virus that killed 18 million Europeans.

Soon following WWI and the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 he read the germinal work of the German, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, “The Organon of the Healing Art”. Dr. Hahnemann is the founder of homeopathy. It was Dr. Hahnemann’s influence that caused him to re-think the treatment of decease. From that time forward he would treat the person, including his emotions, and not just the decease.

So, despite the success of his work with orthodox medicine Dr. Bach felt dissatisfied with the way doctors were expected to concentrate on diseases and ignore the people who were suffering them. In 1930 he gave up his lucrative Harley Street practice and left London, determined to devote the rest of his life to the new system of medicine that he was sure could be found in nature.

Dr. Bach discovered 38 individual Bach Flower Remedies and made one blend that he called Rescue Remedy. The Remedies are all-natural, non-habit forming, have no known side effects or counter-indications in 75 years of use. The remedies, based on a homeopathy heritage, are gentle and safe for children and expectant mothers. Each remedy, which come in drops, spray, cream and pastilles run between $10-15 each. In the case of drops, only 2 to 4 drops will do and a bottle will lasts a long time. Cost is not a barrier to its use.

A good place to start for PTSD is the Rescue Remedy. Rescue Remedy contains five of the Bach Flower Remedies which are especially beneficial when we find ourselves in traumatic and stressful situations. The Remedies quickly get us back to our normal emotional balance so that we can calmly deal with the situation at hand.

The five remedies in Rescue Remedy are:

- Impatiens: For those who act and think quickly, and have no patience for what they see as the slowness of others. For those who often prefer to work alone. It gives empathy and understanding and enable us to be patient with others. It is fast-acting in alleviating an impatient attitude and lowering stress.

- Star of Bethlehem: For trauma and shock, whether experienced recently or in the past. Gives the ability to recover from traumas and to integrate their adaptation into the present life.

- Cherry Plum: For those who fear losing control of their thoughts and actions and doing things they know are bad for them or which they consider wrong. Gives trust in one’s spontaneous wisdom and the courage to follow one’s path.

- Rock Rose: For situations in which one experiences panic or terror.

- Clematis: For those who find their lives unhappy and withdraw into fantasy worlds. They are ungrounded and indifferent to the details of everyday life. Helps to establish a bridge between the physical world and the world of ideas; may foster great creativity. Is also used to bring clarity and alertness to the present moment.

The Remedies are easy for anyone to understand, obtain and use. Optionally, there are licensed Bach Flower practitioners (BFRP) who will be able to help find the correct combination for your emotional situation. More information can be found at www.BachFlower.com.

“Men find it hard to talk about their health concerns, and resist seeking help”, says Ms. Rasmussen. It is for this reason that she recommends the works of Stefan Ball, Bach Flower for Men. “This book can make the first step to recovery easier – seeking help”.

Soldiers suffering from PTSD often complain about not being able to sleep. The bulk of sleep disorder studies discourage dependency on sleep pharmaceutical medications; they make matters worse. Sleeping medications, including sedative/hypnotic medications, like Ambien, are recommended for short-term use, but lots of people take them frequently and become dependent upon them to fall asleep. Sleep-inducing medications, especially when taken over long periods of time, stay in the bloodstream, giving a hangover the next day and beyond. Studies charge pharmaceutical sleep medication with impairing memory and performance on the job and at home.

All medications interact with other medications to one degree or another, sometimes with harmful effects. Finding a natural product or modifying our patterns of behavior to get a good night sleep is a good first approach with little or no harmful consequences.

There are questions about the effectiveness of sleeping pills. A study by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School found that a change in sleep habits and attitudes was more effective in treating chronic insomnia, over the short- and long-term, than sleeping pills (specifically Ambien). Ambien is the most prescribed pharmaceutical product to induce sleep, chemically. Earlier this month, it was reported that some Ambien users are susceptible to amnesia and walking in their sleep. Some even ate in the middle of the night without realizing it.

If the soldier or family member has trouble sleeping, the all-natural Rescue Sleep blend would be the recommended remedy. It contains the same five remedies as Rescue Remedy plus White Chestnut, which is effective against restless mind and unwanted thoughts.

Rescue Remedy clinical trial
On July 2, 2007, the Medical News Today reported the results of a study on the effectiveness of the best selling Bach Flower preparation called Rescue Remedy. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Miami School of Nursing. Using a sample of 111 individuals aged 18 to 49, the study was a double-blind clinical trial comparing a standard dose of Rescue Remedy against a placebo of identical appearance. A standard test to evaluate anxiety was administered before and after the dosage.

The result was that Rescue Remedy was found to be “an effective over-the-counter stress reliever with a comparable effect to traditional pharmaceutical drugs yet without any of the known adverse side effects, including addiction.”

Technorati Tags: Healing well, Mental Health, Soldiers, US military

Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbours, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of separation, elevating the mood of that person’s husband, wife, brother, sister, friend or next-door neighbour.

“You would think that your emotional state would depend on your own choices and actions and experience,” said Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University who helped conduct the study published online today by BMJ, a British medical journal. “But it also depends on the choices and actions and experiences of other people, including people to whom you are not directly connected. Happiness is contagious.”

One person’s happiness can affect another’s for as much as a year, the researchers found, and while unhappiness can also spread from person to person, the “infectiousness” of that emotion appears to be far weaker.

Previous studies have documented the common experience that one person’s emotions can influence another’s — laughter can trigger guffaws in others; seeing someone smile can momentarily lift one’s spirits. But the new study is the first to find that happiness can spread across groups for an extended period.

When one person in the network became happy, the chances that a friend, sibling, spouse or next-door neighbour would become happy increased between 8 percent and 34 percent, the researchers found. The effect continued through three degrees of separation, although it dropped progressively from about 15 percent to 10 percent to about 6 percent before disappearing.

The research follows previous work by Christakis and co-author James H. Fowler that found that obesity also appears to spread from person to person, as does the likelihood of quitting smoking. The researchers have been using detailed records originally collected by the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running project that has explored a host of health issues, to construct and analyze detailed maps of social networks.

The findings, Christakis and others said, provide striking new evidence of the power of social networks, which could have implications for public policy. Happy people tend to be better off in myriad ways, being more creative, productive and healthier.

“For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product,” said Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego who co-authored the study. “But our work shows that whether a friend’s friend is happy has more influence than a $5,000 raise. So at a time when we’re facing such economic difficulties, the message could be, ‘Hang in there. You still have your friends and family, and these are the people to rely on to be happy.’ “

Other experts praised the study as a landmark in the growing body of evidence documenting the influence of personal connections and the importance of positive emotions.

“It’s a path finding article,” said Martin E.P. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. “It’s totally original, and the findings are striking.”

Stanley Wasserman, who studies social networks at Indiana University, said: “We’ve known that one’s network ties are important, but we’ve never looked at anything on this scale. The implications are you can’t look at individuals as little entities devoid of their social context.”

Others, however, questioned the findings, noting that it is difficult to account for every variable that might affect the outcomes of such studies.

“Researchers should be cautious in attributing correlations in health outcomes of close friends in social network effects,” wrote Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason M. Fletcher of Yale University in an accompanying study. Their research used data from a large federal survey to show that acne, headaches and even height could appear to spread through social networks if not analyzed properly. “The methods of detecting ’social network effects’ of health outcomes commonly found in the recent medical literature might produce effects where none exists.”

But Christakis said his analysis took other possible explanations into consideration.

Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the findings could explain why people in some countries tend to be happier than others. “This is an extremely exciting study — interesting, provocative and important,” Diener said.

While obesity appeared to spread even among people who lived far apart, happiness appears to be transmitted only among people who live within a mile of one another. The influence was also greatest among people who considered themselves mutual friends.

Because the researchers did not find the effect for people living on the same block beyond a next-door neighbour, they were confident that the positive mood was not the result of living in the same good neighbourhood. Because people tended to get happier if someone they knew became happy, the researchers could rule out the alternative explanation that happy people tend to be drawn to each other.

“We know it’s not a ‘birds of a feather flock together’ effect,” Christakis said.

Surprisingly, happiness had no such effect at work. The researchers speculated that work relationships may have different dynamics. One worker might become happy because he or she got a raise or a promotion at the expense of another, for example.

Unhappiness also appeared to be catching, but not as strongly: An unhappy connection increased the chances of being unhappy by about 7 percent on average, while a happy connection increased the chances of being happy by about 9 percent. While having more friends is important for a person’s happiness, the benefit of having more friends appears to be cancelled out if they are unhappy, the researchers found.

The researchers and others speculated that the emotion may be important on an evolutionary level by helping people cooperate. Seligman likened happiness to an orchestra tuning up.

“Laughter and singing and smiling tune the group emotionally,” Seligman said. “They get them on the same wavelength so they can work together more effectively as group.”

TIME FOR A GOOD HEALTH : RELAXATION CLINIC : LUNCH, PLAY, RELAX, FEEL GOOD

Technorati Tags: community, Green HR, Happiness, Human capital, Sustainable HR