Writing Sheds Light on Mental Illness

"I have often analyzed how mental illness can be tracked, discovered, and understood through the written word. Let’s take a break from science and take a look at literature. The analysis of writings opens a door to explore alternative methods of understanding individuals suffering from manic-depressive disorder.

"Through a thorough examination of writings, we can look at specific mental states of individuals, which in turn may inform those looking for answers, or symptoms of bipolar minds, which often times get NOS (Not Otherwise Specified) as a diagnosis.  The medical field continues to evolve in their understanding of the intricate, often mysterious behaviors of manic-depressive individuals.  A look at reoccurring themes and stylistic techniques may reveal affected writers share a commonality in their writings.  An exploration of the works may help find a way for society to better understand individuals suffering from mental disease, and discover those not yet diagnosed with manic-depression.

"Throughout history there have been writers and poets that suffer from manic depression.  If we take a close look at the writings of these renowned writers we find a link to mental illness and the English language. An examination of their stylistic techniques, diction, metaphor, simile and expression manifest their mental illness which can help discover how mental illness can be learned outside of science, engineering, and neurology."

More: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/manic-depression/2013/07/17/the-groundbreaking-link-between-mental-illness-and-literature-emily-dickinson-william-wordsworth-and-samuel-taylor-coleridge/



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Reading and Healing

"Story-telling has long held a place of prominence in American culture, but only recently has come to be viewed as a having a role in the practice of American medicine ... anthropologists, artists, writers, psychologists, physicians and historians ... explore the role of stories in medicine and healing."

"Narrative is gaining recognition in medical schools".

"Being able to collect better stories from patients helps physicians become better practitioners ... Stories are how we get to know each other and how we make sense of our world. When patients read stories about others whose experiences are similar to their own, they know they are not alone."

From: http://phys.org/wire-news/127067570/conference-to-explore-role-of-stories-in-health-and-healing.html



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Books by Jack King:


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Books never sleep

"Books are the best teachers. They impart knowledge without laughing at our ignorance and stupidity. They never sleep nor do they need food. The onus is on parents and teachers to make youngsters aware of this."

"When taught to read at a young age, children tend to visualise, imagine and conceptualise better. Their ability to concentrate is heightened, along with their ability to write. All these abilities would definitely be affected if a child is not encouraged by the teacher or parent to take up a book and read."

"Constant exposure to television, visuals on cellphones and internet could also lead to neurological impairments and dyslexia amongst children..."

More: http://m.timesofindia.com/city/visakhapatnam/Time-to-get-back-to-reading-books/articleshow/19705094.cms



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Books by Jack King:


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Books, nutrition for the soul

"Books are nutrition for the soul.

When creative participation is required, imagination engaged, the experience reaches beyond dubious sustenance to gourmet richness.

Reading is fundamental. Fundamental to learning, yes; but also to thinking. To creativity and imagination, as applied in a very practical sense to life, to work, to growth.

According to the National Literacy Trust, regular book readers have not only better vocabularies, but also more confidence and greater understanding of other people, issues, and cultures. Reading also benefits society; book readers are also more likely to engage in their communities and be better decision makers."

More: http://m.cdapress.com/columns/sholeh_patrick/article_f75c53b8-2123-504d-9b34-504af35261b3.html



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


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Bibliotherapy

The "Center for Fiction—a nonprofit that holds readings and events, gives writers office space and promotes the general celebration of literature—called A Novel Approach, in which writers and editors involved with the center (“bibliotherapists”) will give you a 45-minute consultation dealing with the life crisis of your choice and prescribe a year’s worth of reading to help you get through it. ...

people who consider themselves serious readers believe that reading is “making their lives better, and that they are becoming better human beings through reading".

From: http://observer.com/2013/02/how-literature-saved-my-psyche-attending-a-book-themed-therapy-session-at-the-center-for-fiction/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


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Smart Meters. Cancer. Privacy.

Smart meters. They are installed by water companies, and electricity providers.

"Feeling anxious about the high energy microwaves beaming out constantly from these deadly devices? Having nightmares about DNA damage, and fascistic intrusion from 'your' power company? ... In many states, the power companies send the police along with the installers to force you to submit... In many reports, the home owners are intimidated, roughed up, threatened, abused, and arrested for standing up for their rights against the minions of GUS and 'big power'. ... So what i will do is to put a little 'cap' of folded aluminium foil over the broadcast bulb of the smart meter. ... it shuts off the microwaves as a source of health degrading energies in my local environment." Read more: http://www.halfpasthuman.com/smartmeters.html

Smart meters may be not only deadly, they are also intrusive:

"Depending on the functionality of the meter, the smart meter may be able to track how much electricity is used within each room of the home, as well as how much is used by the various new smart appliances in your house. Just as the smart meters can communicate wirelessly with devices such as TV sets or tablets to show you your electrical consumption, they also communicate this information with the power company, which keeps records about the volumes and patterns associated with your daily life. The implications for personal surveillance are staggering." Read more: http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/02/14/refusing-smart-meters-to-protect-your-health-and-privacy/

So, you want electricity but not cancer? You can wrap yourself, or the smart meter, in sheet metal. You can stop paying your bill, and maybe they will remove the meter. But, what then?

Some have found a solution:

Chick Lit bad for your health

"New research reveals that chick lit 'heroines' like Bridget Jones make women feel worse about themselves.

Most women assume that a dose of Bridget Jones can only make them feel better about themselves.But new research has revealed that spending time with self-scrutinising chick lit characters like 'our bridg' is actually more likely to have a negative effect on women's confidence and body image.

A study by Virginia Tech university has found that reading books in which the lead character worried about her weight made women uncomfortable about their own body image."

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2274368/Does-book-make-look-fat-Chick-lit-heroines-like-Bridget-Jones-bad-health.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

If Chick lit depresses you there are books that can help: http://spywriter.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/the-best-medication-is-a-book/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


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Reading fiction aloud is therapeutic

The "Liverpool-based charity The Reader Organisation ... seeks to bring about a "reading revolution" by encouraging people to read poetry and novels aloud to each other.

The Swiss linguist and thinker Ferdinand de Saussure describes language as a form of treasure that is shared with others when we speak. Treasure is also something that can be hoarded. If you keep all the good words – the rich, descriptive, wild long words – to yourself then you retain their high value. Share them with the masses and you end up ... with the linguistic means to create a society of equals, which is exactly what the hoarders of social and cultural capital don't want.

...the benefits of reading in company as described by one woman: "Doctors and stuff aren't always what you need. Other people can help too.

"The accumulated experience of peers and equals, all of whom have been in the same boat at one point or other, is shared to the benefit of everyone. It's hard to think of a more powerful, not to mention empowering, sentiment."

More: http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/01/reading-fiction-friends-therapeutic



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


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The best medication is a book

"People suffering from anxiety, depression or relationship problems will be offered self-help books on prescription from their" doctors, "it was announced today.

Those suffering mental health issues will be given written prescriptions to visit their local library...

The initiative ... will result in every public library having a designated list of texts for problems ranging from “anger” to “worry”.

Other areas of expertise include “relationship problems”, “sleep problems”, “social phobias”, “stress”, “binge eating” and “bulimia nervosa”.

Each book has been assessed as “effective” in helping combat mental health problems"...

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9839458/GPs-to-prescribe-library-books-to-combat-anxiety-depression-and-relationship-problems.html



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


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Read fiction to be a good person

Yet another study finds reading fiction makes us better persons:

"During the act of reading engaging fiction, we can lose all sense of time. By the final chapter of the right book, we feel changed in our own lives, even if what we've read is entirely made up.

Research says that’s because while you’re engaged in fiction — unlike nonfiction — you’re given a safe arena to experience emotions without the need for self-protection. Since the events you’re reading about do not follow you into your own life, you can feel strong emotions freely.

The Dutch study found that good fiction—the kind that sucks you in with characters you can identify with—can have a lasting effect on a person’s expression of empathy. Bad fiction, the kind you can’t really get into, has exactly the opposite effect."

More: http://www.healthline.com/health-blogs/healthline-connects/reading-fiction-increases-empathy-013013



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


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Depressed? Literature more effective than pills

"Reading books is more effective than pills or therapy when it comes to treating depression, according to a study published in Plos One. The research studied a sample of 281 patients in the UK with mild symptoms divided into two groups. The first group were given a self-help book that followed the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach, while the second group underwent a series of traditional therapies based on therapy sessions and antidepressants. After four months, the group that read the CBT guide showed greater signs of improvement. CBT concentrates the patient on the present, rather than analysing and re-living memories and childhood traumas. The therapy helps to identify and modify thought disorders and irrational mental patterns."

More:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0052735
http://www.west-info.eu/cbt-books-the-best-therapy-for-depression/

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Writing as therapy

With all possible therapies in vogue, we haven't bothered to focus on the very word- therapy. In fact, each city of this country should host a regular get- together of authors and poets and writers. Give it any name of your choice; after all what's in a name! ...

In fact, if diary - writing along the format of daily outpourings be made compulsory in hospitals, jails, wards cum asylums, refugee camps, night or day shelters, then those stress related symptoms would lessen. As writing along the offloading and unleashing format has that potential to heal. ...

...writing helped me to recover from a series of severe nervous breakdowns. ...'Each time my love affairs failed I suffered a nervous breakdown and the only 'thing' that helped me recover and brought about some relief was writing a novel... My meeting with Sigmund Freud just after the first nervous breakdown in 1927 helped me to some extent but its actually writing novels that helped me towards total recovery."

Other writers who were helped by writing:  http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=11202



SpyWriter Jack King || "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" || Author of Political Thrillers || www.SpyWriter.com

Meet Dr. Shakespeare

"Students may begin their medical school careers riding on a cloud of altruism and goodwill, but it’s not long before the grueling schedule, avalanche of new vocabulary and stubborn patients can take a toll.

To return the student brain to a state of balance, David Watts, MD, UCSF professor of clinical medicine, argues that a healthy dose of literature — poems and stories, specifically — be a core part of the student experience.

It may seem counter-intuitive: Adding more work to an already-loaded academic schedule seems like a recipe for disaster. But in an article titled “Cure for the Common Cold” published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine, Watts says that poems and stories — even just a few a week — can show students the richness of human relationships. In other words, imaginative literature can reignite the compassionate spark that spurred students toward the healing arts in the first place, according to Watts."

From: http://www.healthcanal.com/mental-health-behavior/33454-Treat-Emotional-Toll-Medical-School-Physician-Prescribes-Shakespeare.html

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6 minutes a day

"Getting stuck into a good novel appears to be beneficial to our mental health. As the old saying goes: ‘You’re never alone with a book.’

Reading not only staves off feelings of loneliness, it helps us to wind down, destress and forget our own problems for a while.

In 2009, researchers at the University of Sussex found that just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by more than two-thirds, more than listening to music or going out for a walk. It is thought that the concentration required to read distracts the mind, easing muscle tension and slowing the heart rate.

Reading may be good for physical health too, preventing brain ageing and disease.

A study, just published in the Archives of Neurology, from the University of California, Berkeley, found that engaging in brain-stimulating pursuits including reading on a daily basis – from a young age – could help prevent Alzheimer’s by inhibiting the formation of the amyloid (protein) plaques which are found in the brains of those with the disease.

Scientists scanned the brains of healthy adults aged 60 and over (average age was 76) with no signs of dementia and found those who had been doing daily brain-stimulating activities, such as reading, playing chess, and writing letters since they were six years old showed very low levels of amyloid plaques. But those who did not enjoy these activities had lots of plaques."

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2193496/Getting-lost-good-book-help-healthy.html?ito%3Dfeeds-newsxml



WikiJustice: WikiLeaks meets Jack London's The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. www.SPYWRITER.com

Leftist beliefs cause cancer (with a little help from the CIA)

"The gun fired a frozen liquid poison-tipped dart, the width of a human
hair and a quarter of an inch long, that could penetrate clothing, was
almost undetectable and left no trace in a victim’s body."

"It was a case destined for the X-Files and conspiracy theorists alike, when Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez speculated that the US might have developed a way to weaponise cancer, after several Latin American leaders were diagnosed with the disease. The list includes former Argentine president, Nestor Kirchner (colon cancer) Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff (lymphoma cancer), her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (throat cancer), Chavez (undisclosed), former Cuban president Fidel Castro (stomach cancer) Bolivian president, Evo Morales (nasal cancer) and Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo (lymphoma cancer). What do they have in common besides cancer? All of them are left-wing leaders. Coincidence? In his December 28, 2011 end-of-year address to the Venezuelan military, Chavez hinted that the US might have found a way to give Latin American leaders cancer.
 
“Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” Chavez asked. “It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It’s at the very least strange,” he said. Chavez said he received warning from Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro, who has survived hundreds of unsuccessful assassination attempts. “Fidel always told me, ‘Chavez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what’,” he said."

More: http://www.guardian.co.tt/lifestyle/2012-02-27/cancer-secret-weapon

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Re-reading books a healthy habit

"A recent study has shown many people benefit from rereading familiar stories as the encounter “reignites” their emotions and increases their knowledge.

In broad terms the research found that people were generally keen to return to a well-thumbed book or to listen again to a favourite piece of music so they could gain a “richer and deeper insight” of the experience and increase their understanding.

The study concluded: “Consumers gain richer and deeper insights into the reconsumption object itself but also an enhanced awareness of their own growth in understanding and appreciation through the lens of the reconsumption object. 

“Given the immense benefits for growth and self-reflexivity, re-consuming actually appears to offer many mental health benefits.” 

"Vladimir Nabokov maintained that you couldn’t say you had really read a novel till you have re-read it. On the first reading you may be gripped by the story, and so you read fast, eager to find out where it is leading you. In reading like this, you miss a lot. You have no time to “cherish the details” – a favourite phrase of Nabokov’s. You will fail to understand subtleties and nuances. You will skip hurriedly over beauties. It is unlikely that you will appreciate the structure.

The books to which one does return are either classics – sometimes classics one feels guilty about – or books which are like old friends, and therefore suitable for comfort reading. Familiarity with them breeds affection. One knows they will soothe and never disturb. You feel no obligation to read from beginning to end – though you may of course do so. You can dip in and out, and skip, and read the passages you love best. Sadly, however, the day may come when you know a particular book too well, and you can come to the end of it, just as you may find that you may reach the end of a friendship."

From:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100060749/comfort-books-the-sweet-sad-joys-of-re-reading/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9084394/Rereading-old-books-enhances-the-experience.html



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Literature will save your brain

Worried that your mind deteriorates as you age? Forget Sudoku. Literature will save your brain:

"A study ... scientifically demonstrates the suggestive powers of rhetorical figures of speech in stimulating cerebral activity...

research has demonstrated the success of the rhetorical level of literary figures of speech. The explanation for the effectiveness of these is their ability to attract the attention of the listener(s). “The front part of the brain is activated and more resources in the cerebral process for this expression are employed”, pointing to the result of the experiments having to do “with the activity that requires processing the abstraction of rhetorical figures of speech such as the oxymoron, which aim to communicate things that do not exist”.

And thus the more difficult the text, the harder your brain works, the better it is for you:

"Research results show that the less natural the expression the more resources are required for it to be processed in the left front side of the brain”.

More: http://www.basqueresearch.com/berria_irakurri.asp?Berri_Kod=3746&hizk=I

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The healing power of books

The "International Conference on Book Therapy seeks to highlight the therapeutic effect of books. Eminent speakers will discuss the global importance of literature as a tool for therapy, present details of successful projects and introduce techniques to calm traumatised minds."

"Book therapy is the art of healing through stories. Books can help readers de-stress, inculcate positive attitudes and inspire hope for the future. Children may suffer from fears, complexes and adjustment problems as a result of natural calamities, man-made disasters and psycho-social traumas both at schools and at home. When parents and teachers are unable to provide the attention that traumatised children require, suitable books can help them cope with their problems,”

More: http://m.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/article2844421.ece/



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Cancerous Weaponry

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted that the U.S. may be behind a “very strange” bout of cancer affecting several leaders aligned with him in South America.

Chavez, speaking a day after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, said the Central Intelligence Agency was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and that it’s possible that in years to come a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.

“It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech to the military. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”

“I’m just sharing my thoughts, but it’s very, very, very strange,” Chavez said. “Evo take care of yourself, Correa, be careful, we just don’t know,” he said, referring to Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, the leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador."

More: http://mobile.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-28/chavez-says-u-s-may-be-behind-south-america-leaders-cancer.html



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Shakespeare helps doctors

"Doctors should brush up on their Shakespeare to help improve their understanding of how the mind can affect the body, according to an unusual study.

[...] many doctors don't realise how many physical symptoms can be caused solely by psychological problems.

'Many doctors are reluctant to attribute physical symptoms to emotional disturbance, and this results in delayed diagnosis, over-investigation, and inappropriate treatment.

'They could learn to be better doctors by studying Shakespeare. This is important because the so-called functional symptoms are the leading cause of general practitioner visits and of referrals to specialists."

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2065646/Reading-Shakespeare-helps-doctors-understand-patients-mental-state.html?ITO=1490

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