Rewire Your OCD Brain – by Dr. Catherine Pittman & Dr. William Youngs

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OCD is just as misrepresented in popular media as many other disorders, and in this case, it’s typically not “being a neat freak” or needing to alphabetize things, so much as having uncontrollable obsessive intrusive thoughts, and often in response to those, unwanted compulsions. This can come from unchecked spiralling anxiety, and/or PTSD, for example.

What Drs. Pittman & Young offer is an applicable set of solutions, to literally rewire the brain (insofar as synapses can be considered neural wires). Leveraging neuroplasticity to work with us rather than against us, the authors talk us through picking apart the crossed wires, and putting them back in more helpful ways.

This is not, by the way, a book of CBT, though it does touch on that too.

Mostly, the book explains—clearly and simply and sometimes with illustrationswhat is going wrong for us neurologically, and how to neurologically change that.

Bottom line: whether you have OCD or suffer from anxiety or just need help dealing with obsessive thoughts, this book can help a lot in, as the title suggests, rewiring that.

Click here to check out Rewire Your OCD Brain, and banish obsessive thoughts!

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  • 5 Things You Can Change About Your Personality (But: Should You?)

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    There are many personality-typing systems that, with varying degrees of validity*, aim to describe a person’s personality.

    *and often pseudoscience:

    • sometimes obviously so like astrology
    • sometimes dressed up in clinical words like the Meyers-Briggs
    • sometimes openly, per “this is not science but you may find it useful to frame things this way”, like the Enneagram

    There is currently one kind of personality-typing system (with some minor variations) that is used in the actual field of clinical psychology, specifically under the umbrella of “trait theory”, and that is…

    The “Big Five” personality traits

    Also called the OCEAN or CANOE model, based on its 5 components:

    • openness to experience: inventive/curious rather than consistent/cautious
    • conscientiousness: efficient/organized rather than extravagant/careless
    • extroversion: outgoing/energetic rather than solitary/reserved
    • agreeableness: friendly/compassionate rather than critical/judgmental
    • neuroticism: sensitive/nervous rather than resilient/confident

    The latter (neuroticism) is not to be confused with neurosis, which is very different and beyond the scope of today’s article.

    Note that some of these seem more positive/negative than others at a glance, but really, any of these could be a virtue or a vice depending on specifics or extremity.

    For scientific reference, here’s an example paper:

    The Big Five Personality Factors and Personal Values

    Quick self-assessment

    There are of course many lengthy questionnaires for this, but in the interests of expediency:

    Take a moment to rate yourself as honestly as you can, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.

    For example, this writer gives herself: O7, C6, E3, A8, N2 (in other words I’d say I’m fairly open, moderately conscientious, on the reserved side, quite agreeable, and quite resilient)

    Now, put your rating aside (in your phone’s notes app is fine, if you hadn’t written it down already) and forget about it for the moment, because we want you to do the next exercise from scratch.

    Who would you be, at your best?

    Now imagine your perfect idealized self, the best you could ever be, with no constraints.

    Take a moment to rate your idealized self’s personality, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.

    For example, this writer picks: O9, C10, E5, A8, N1.

    Maybe this, or maybe your own idealized self’s personality, will surprise you. That some traits might already be perfect for you already; others might just be nudged a little here or there; maybe there’s some big change you’d like. Chances are you didn’t go for a string of 10s or 1s (though if you did, you do you; there are no wrong answers here as this one is about your preferences).

    We become who we practice being

    There are some aspects of personality that can naturally change with age. For example:

    • confidence/resilience will usually gradually increase with age due to life experience (politely overlook teenagers’ bravado; they are usually a bundle of nerves inside, resulting in the overcompensatory displays of confidence)
    • openness to experience may decrease with age, as we can get into a rut of thinking/acting a certain way, and/or simply consciously decide that our position on something is already complete and does not need revision.

    But, we can decide for ourselves how to nudge our “Big Five” traits, for example:

    1. We can make a point of seeking out new experiences, and considering new ideas, or develop strategies for reining ourselves in
    2. We can use systems to improve our organization, or go out of our way to introduce a little well-placed chaos
    3. We can “put ourselves out there” socially, or make the decision to decline more social invitations because we simply don’t want to
    4. We can make a habit of thinking kindly of others and ourselves, or we can consciously detach ourselves and look on the cynical side more
    5. We can build on our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, or lean into uncomfortable emotions

    Some of those may provoke a “why would anyone want to…?” response, but the truth is we are all different. An artist and a police officer may have very different goals for who they want to be as a person, for example.

    Interventions to change personality can and do work:

    A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention

    There are many ways to go about “being the change we want to see” in ourselves, and yes there can be a degree of “fake it until you make it” if that works for you, but it doesn’t have to be so. It can also simply be a matter of setting yourself reminders about the things that are most important to you.

    Writer’s example: pinned above my digital workspace I have a note from my late beloved, written just under a week before death. The final line reads, “keep being the good person that you are” (on a human level, the whole note is uplifting and soothing to me and makes me smile and remember the love we shared; or to put it in clinical terms, it promotes high agreeableness, low neuroticism).

    Other examples could be a daily practice of gratitude (promotes lower neuroticism), or going out of your way to speak to your neighbors (promotes higher extraversion), signing up for a new educational course (promotes higher openness) or downloading a budgeting app (promotes higher conscientiousness).

    In short: be the person you want to be, and be that person deliberately, because you can.

    Some resources that may help for each of the 5 traits:

    1. Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
    2. How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex
    3. How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
    4. Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!
    5. Building Psychological Resilience (Without Undue Hardship)

    Take care!

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  • Beet “Kvass” With Ginger

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    Kvass is a popular drink throughout Eastern Europe, with several countries claiming it, but the truth is, kvass is older than nations (as in: nations, in general, any of them; nation states are a newer concept than is often realized), and its first recorded appearance was in the city state of Kyiv.

    This one is definitely not a traditional recipe, as kvass is usually made from rye, but keeping true to its Eastern European roots with (regionally popular) beetroot, it’s nevertheless a great fermented drink, full of probiotic benefits, and this time, with antioxidants too.

    It’s a little saltier than most things we give recipes for here, so enjoy it on hot sunny days as a great way to replenish electrolytes!

    You will need (for 1 quart / 1 liter)

    • 2¾ cups filtered or spring water
    • 2 beets, roughly chopped
    • 1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
    • 2 tsp salt (do not omit or substitute)

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Sterilize a 1-quart jar with boiling water (carefully please)

    2) Put all the ingredients in the jar and stir until the salt dissolves

    3) Close the lid tightly and store in a cool dark place to ferment for 2 weeks

    4) Strain the beets and ginger (they are now pickled and can be enjoyed in a salad or as a kimchi-like snack), pouring the liquid into a clean jar/bottle. This can be kept in the fridge for up to a month. Next time you make it, if you use ¼ cup of this as a “starter” to replace an equal volume of water in the original recipe, the fermentation will take days instead of weeks.

    5) Serve! Best served chilled, but without ice, on a hot sunny day.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • What is childhood dementia? And how could new research help?

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    “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 Australian children and young people live with currently untreatable childhood dementia.

    Broadly speaking, childhood dementia is caused by any one of more than 100 rare genetic disorders. Although the causes differ from dementia acquired later in life, the progressive nature of the illness is the same.

    Half of infants and children diagnosed with childhood dementia will not reach their tenth birthday, and most will die before turning 18.

    Yet this devastating condition has lacked awareness, and importantly, the research attention needed to work towards treatments and a cure.

    More about the causes

    Most types of childhood dementia are caused by mutations (or mistakes) in our DNA. These mistakes lead to a range of rare genetic disorders, which in turn cause childhood dementia.

    Two-thirds of childhood dementia disorders are caused by “inborn errors of metabolism”. This means the metabolic pathways involved in the breakdown of carbohydrates, lipids, fatty acids and proteins in the body fail.

    As a result, nerve pathways fail to function, neurons (nerve cells that send messages around the body) die, and progressive cognitive decline occurs.

    A father with his son on his shoulders in a park.
    Childhood dementia is linked to rare genetic disorders. maxim ibragimov/Shutterstock

    What happens to children with childhood dementia?

    Most children initially appear unaffected. But after a period of apparently normal development, children with childhood dementia progressively lose all previously acquired skills and abilities, such as talking, walking, learning, remembering and reasoning.

    Childhood dementia also leads to significant changes in behaviour, such as aggression and hyperactivity. Severe sleep disturbance is common and vision and hearing can also be affected. Many children have seizures.

    The age when symptoms start can vary, depending partly on the particular genetic disorder causing the dementia, but the average is around two years old. The symptoms are caused by significant, progressive brain damage.

    Are there any treatments available?

    Childhood dementia treatments currently under evaluation or approved are for a very limited number of disorders, and are only available in some parts of the world. These include gene replacement, gene-modified cell therapy and protein or enzyme replacement therapy. Enzyme replacement therapy is available in Australia for one form of childhood dementia. These therapies attempt to “fix” the problems causing the disease, and have shown promising results.

    Other experimental therapies include ones that target faulty protein production or reduce inflammation in the brain.

    Research attention is lacking

    Death rates for Australian children with cancer nearly halved between 1997 and 2017 thanks to research that has enabled the development of multiple treatments. But over recent decades, nothing has changed for children with dementia.

    In 2017–2023, research for childhood cancer received over four times more funding per patient compared to funding for childhood dementia. This is despite childhood dementia causing a similar number of deaths each year as childhood cancer.

    The success for childhood cancer sufferers in recent decades demonstrates how adequately funding medical research can lead to improvements in patient outcomes.

    An old woman holds a young girl on her lap.
    Dementia is not just a disease of older people. Miljan Zivkovic/Shutterstock

    Another bottleneck for childhood dementia patients in Australia is the lack of access to clinical trials. An analysis published in March this year showed that in December 2023, only two clinical trials were recruiting patients with childhood dementia in Australia.

    Worldwide however, 54 trials were recruiting, meaning Australian patients and their families are left watching patients in other parts of the world receive potentially lifesaving treatments, with no recourse themselves.

    That said, we’ve seen a slowing in the establishment of clinical trials for childhood dementia across the world in recent years.

    In addition, we know from consultation with families that current care and support systems are not meeting the needs of children with dementia and their families.

    New research

    Recently, we were awarded new funding for our research on childhood dementia. This will help us continue and expand studies that seek to develop lifesaving treatments.

    More broadly, we need to see increased funding in Australia and around the world for research to develop and translate treatments for the broad spectrum of childhood dementia conditions.

    Dr Kristina Elvidge, head of research at the Childhood Dementia Initiative, and Megan Maack, director and CEO, contributed to this article.

    Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University; Nicholas Smith, Head, Paediatric Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group, University of Adelaide, and Siti Mubarokah, Research Associate, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related Posts

  • AC: The Power of Appetite Correction – by Dr. Bert Herring
  • Blind Spots – by Dr. Marty Makary

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    From the time the US recommended not giving peanuts to infants for the first three years of life “in order to avoid peanut allergies” (whereupon non-exposure to peanuts early in life led to, instead, an increase in peanut allergies and anaphylactic incidents), to the time the US recommended not taking HRT on the strength of the claim that “HRT causes breast cancer” (whereupon the reduced popularity of HRT led to, instead, an increase in breast cancer incidence and mortality), to many other such incidents of very bad public advice being given on the strength of a single badly-misrepresented study (for each respective thing), Dr. Makary puts the spotlight on what went wrong.

    This is important, because this is not just a book of outrage, exclaiming “how could this happen?!”, but rather instead, is a book of inquisition, asking “how did this happen?”, in such a way that we the reader can spot similar patterns going forwards.

    Oftentimes, this is a simple matter of having a basic understanding of statistics, and checking sources to see if the dataset really supports what the headlines are claiming—and indeed, whether sometimes it suggests rather the opposite.

    The style is a little on the sensationalist side, but it’s well-supported with sound arguments, good science, and clear mathematics.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your scientific literacy, this book is an excellent illustrative guide.

    Click here to check out Blind Spots, and eliminate yours!

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  • What happens when I stop taking a drug like Ozempic or Mounjaro?

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    Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are taking drugs like Ozempic to lose weight. But what do we actually know about them? This month, The Conversation’s experts explore their rise, impact and potential consequences.

    Drugs like Ozempic are very effective at helping most people who take them lose weight. Semaglutide (sold as Wegovy and Ozempic) and tirzepatide (sold as Zepbound and Mounjaro) are the most well known in the class of drugs that mimic hormones to reduce feelings of hunger.

    But does weight come back when you stop using it?

    The short answer is yes. Stopping tirzepatide and semaglutide will result in weight regain in most people.

    So are these medications simply another (expensive) form of yo-yo dieting? Let’s look at what the evidence shows so far.

    It’s a long-term treatment, not a short course

    If you have a bacterial infection, antibiotics will help your body fight off the germs causing your illness. You take the full course of medication, and the infection is gone.

    For obesity, taking tirzepatide or semaglutide can help your body get rid of fat. However it doesn’t fix the reasons you gained weight in the first place because obesity is a chronic, complex condition. When you stop the medications, the weight returns.

    Perhaps a more useful comparison is with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. Treatment for hypertension is lifelong. It’s the same with obesity. Medications work, but only while you are taking them. (Though obesity is more complicated than hypertension, as many different factors both cause and perpetuate it.)

    Wegovy injections
    Obesity drugs only work while you’re taking them. KK Stock/Shutterstock

    Therefore, several concurrent approaches are needed; taking medication can be an important part of effective management but on its own, it’s often insufficient. And in an unwanted knock-on effect, stopping medication can undermine other strategies to lose weight, like eating less.

    Why do people stop?

    Research trials show anywhere from 6% to 13.5% of participants stop taking these drugs, primarily because of side effects.

    But these studies don’t account for those forced to stop because of cost or widespread supply issues. We don’t know how many people have needed to stop this medication over the past few years for these reasons.

    Understanding what stopping does to the body is therefore important.

    So what happens when you stop?

    When you stop using tirzepatide or semaglutide, it takes several days (or even a couple of weeks) to move out of your system. As it does, a number of things happen:

    • you start feeling hungry again, because both your brain and your gut no longer have the medication working to make you feel full
    CAPTION.
    When you stop taking it, you feel hungry again. Stock-Asso/Shutterstock
    • blood sugars increase, because the medication is no longer acting on the pancreas to help control this. If you have diabetes as well as obesity you may need to take other medications to keep these in an acceptable range. Whether you have diabetes or not, you may need to eat foods with a low glycemic index to stabilise your blood sugars
    • over the longer term, most people experience a return to their previous blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as the weight comes back
    • weight regain will mostly be in the form of fat, because it will be gained faster than skeletal muscle.

    While you were on the medication, you will have lost proportionally less skeletal muscle than fat, muscle loss is inevitable when you lose weight, no matter whether you use medications or not. The problem is, when you stop the medication, your body preferentially puts on fat.

    Is stopping and starting the medications a problem?

    People whose weight fluctuates with tirzepatide or semaglutide may experience some of the downsides of yo-yo dieting.

    When you keep going on and off diets, it’s like a rollercoaster ride for your body. Each time you regain weight, your body has to deal with spikes in blood pressure, heart rate, and how your body handles sugars and fats. This can stress your heart and overall cardiovascular system, as it has to respond to greater fluctuations than usual.

    Interestingly, the risk to the body from weight fluctuations is greater for people who are not obese. This should be a caution to those who are not obese but still using tirzepatide or semaglutide to try to lose unwanted weight.

    How can you avoid gaining weight when you stop?

    Fear of regaining weight when stopping these medications is valid, and needs to be addressed directly. As obesity has many causes and perpetuating factors, many evidence-based approaches are needed to reduce weight regain. This might include:

    • getting quality sleep
    • exercising in a way that builds and maintains muscle. While on the medication, you will likely have lost muscle as well as fat, although this is not inevitable, especially if you exercise regularly while taking it
    Man walks on treadmill
    Prioritise building and maintaining muscle. EvMedvedeva/Shutterstock
    • addressing emotional and cultural aspects of life that contribute to over-eating and/or eating unhealthy foods, and how you view your body. Stigma and shame around body shape and size is not cured by taking this medication. Even if you have a healthy relationship with food, we live in a culture that is fat-phobic and discriminates against people in larger bodies
    • eating in a healthy way, hopefully continuing with habits that were formed while on the medication. Eating meals that have high nutrition and fibre, for example, and lower overall portion sizes.

    Many people will stop taking tirzepatide or semaglutide at some point, given it is expensive and in short supply. When you do, it is important to understand what will happen and what you can do to help avoid the consequences. Regular reviews with your GP are also important.

    Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Ozempic series here.

    Natasha Yates, General Practitioner, PhD Candidate, Bond University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • The High-Protein, High-Fiber Superfood Salad You’ll Want To Enjoy Daily

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    This salad from Nisha Vora at Rainbow Plant Life has 30g protein and takes minutes to prepare, while being tasty enough to look forward to eating each day:

    Easy preparation

    Prepare the toppings first; you can do a week’s in advance at once:

    • Roasted chickpeas:
      • Drain, rinse, and dry two cans of chickpeas.
      • Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
      • Roast at 425°F for 30–35 minutes.
    • Roasted walnuts:
      • Chop and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
      • Roast at 350°F for 12 minutes after chickpeas finish.

    As for the salad base:

    • Kale:
      • Remove tough stems, slice thinly.
      • Wash and massage with lemon juice and salt to soften.
    • Cabbage:
      • Slice thinly with a knife or mandolin.
      • Store in a sealed bag in the fridge for up to a week.

    Red wine vinaigrette dressing:

    • Key ingredients: red wine vinegar, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, garlic, olive oil.
    • Can be stored in the fridge for up to 10 days.

    Putting it all together:

    1. Toss kale and cabbage with vinaigrette by hand.
    2. Add roasted chickpeas and walnuts for crunch.
    3. Include a protein source like tofu (store-bought curry tofu recommended).
    4. Mix in fresh vegetables like grated carrots, sliced bell peppers, or beets.
    5. Add extras like sauerkraut, avocado, pickled onions, and such.
    6. Top with fresh herbs (she recommends parsley, basil, or dill).

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    Want to learn more?

    You might also like:

    21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them

    Take care!

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