Well, you may soon feel others’ pain, thanks to scientists who have discovered what they claim is a way to measure a person’s suffering. Using brain scans, a team at the Oxford University has carried out a series of studies which have shown distinct differences between the brains of people in pain and others who are not.
“Pain seems to increase the blood flow to certain parts of the brain roughly in proportion to the amount of pain felt, and we can measure that activation in a brain scan,” the team’s leader Prof Irene Tracey said.What the scientists have found is that the brain possesses what they call a “pain matrix”, with such feelings typically activating more than a dozen parts of the brain, ‘The Sunday Times’ reported. This is in contrast to other senses such as vision or hearing, where stimuli are generally fed to just one part of the brain for interpretation.
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Women often felt blameworth!
A higher proportion of women feel that they do not meet their own high standards with family and workplace commitments, say US researchers.According to a study of 288 adults, when it comes to feelings of inadequacy at home and at workplace, ladies suffer more than men.Authors of the study, which has been published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, claim that such perfectionism can have a negative effect on the work-life balance.
The study’s volunteers had to work at least 20 hours a week and have family commitments, reports The BBC.Most people were married and 80 percent had at least one child living at home.Statements included in the questionnaire included: “the time I spend with my families interferes with my work responsibilities”; and “when I get home from work I am usually too frazzled to participate in family activities”.
In the study, respondents were categorised into those who set themselves very high standards but felt they did not meet them, those who set high personal standards and were happy with their performance, and non-perfectionists.At work, 38 percent of women did not feel they met the high standards they set themselves, compared with 24 percent of men, the study found.
When it came to home and family life, 30 percent of women felt they were failing to meet the standards they wanted to compared with 17 percent of men.
Study author Dr Jacqueline Mitchelson, assistant professor in psychology at Auburn University in Alabama, said: “None of the research I’ve seen which splits perfectionism into groups has found a gender difference so it was completely unexpected.”I’m not sure where it comes from, and we need more research.”Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University, said women often felt blameworthy when juggling work and home commitments.
“They have what we call the double shift - trying to juggle working and competing at work and then carrying out duties at home with men only helping at the margins.”They then feel guilty that they’re not doing well at work because of home commitments and they’re not doing well at home because of work commitments.”He added: “Women suffer from perfectionism. They tend to be more conscientious, working to 100 percent.”
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Snoring linked with sleep apnoea!
While snoring has been linked to learning impairment, stroke and premature death, researchers at The University of New South Wales (UNSW) now say that snoring linked with sleep apnoea may impair brain function more than previously thought.
The research has shown that obstructive sleep apnoea sufferers experience similar changes in brain biochemistry to people who have had a severe stroke or who are dying.And the new study is the first to analyse-”in a second-by-second timeframe”-what is happening in the brains of sufferers as they sleep.Previous studies have focused on recreating oxygen impairment in awake patients.”It used to be thought that apnoeic snoring had absolutely no acute effects on brain function but this is plainly not true,” said New South Global Professor Caroline Rae, the lead author of the study.Severe form of Sleep apnoea is characterised by extended pauses in breathing, repetitive asphyxia, and sleep fragmentation.
Children with enlarged tonsils and adenoids are also affected, raising concerns of long-term cognitive damage.The researchers used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the brains of 13 men with severe, untreated, obstructive sleep apnoea.They found that even a moderate degree of oxygen desaturation during the patients” sleep had significant effects on the brain’’s bioenergetic status.
“The findings show that lack of oxygen while asleep may be far more detrimental than when awake, possibly because the normal compensatory mechanisms don’t work as well when you are asleep,” said Rae.She added: “This is happening in someone with sleep apnoea acutely and continually when they are asleep. It’s a completely different biochemical mechanism from anything we’ve seen before and is similar to what you see in somebody who has had a very severe stroke or is dying.”In her opinion, the findings suggested societal perceptions of snoring needed to change.
She said: “People look at people snoring and think it’s funny. That has to stop.”Rae said that they don’t known why the body responded to oxygen depletion in this way.”The brain could be basically resetting its bioenergetics to make itself more resistant to lack of oxygen. It may be a compensatory mechanism to keep you alive, we just don’t know, but even if it is it’s not likely to be doing you much good,” said Rae.
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Sleep disturbances increases with age!
Scientists from Lighting Research Centre (LRC) have developed a goggle-like device designed to deliver blue light directly to the eyes to improve sleep quality in older adults suffering from chronic sleep disturbances.Sleep disturbances increases with age. Researchers have long believed that the sleep disturbances common among the elderly often result from a disruption of the body’s circadian rhythms - biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours.It has been shown that blue light is the most effective at stimulating the circadian system when combined with the appropriate light intensity, spatial distribution, timing, and duration.
“Light and dark patterns are the major synchronizer of circadian rhythms to the 24-hour solar day,” said Dr Mariana Figueiro, Lighting Research Center Light and Health Program director and principal investigator on the project.”Light stimulus travels through the retina, the light-sensitive nerve tissue lining the back wall of the eye, to reach the master clock in the brain,” the expert said.”However, a combination of age-related changes in the eye and a more sedentary lifestyle may reduce the amount of light stimulus reaching an older person’s retina, therefore reducing the amount of light for the circadian system,” she added.
The light-treatment prototype was developed by Topbulb.com, LLC, based on prior LRC light and health research.It offers an alternative approach using specially designed goggles that deliver blue light spectrally tuned for optimum circadian response.During the study, the device was worn by eleven subjects between the ages of 51 and 80 years of age, who were exposed to two levels of blue light for 90 minutes on two separate nights.The researchers collected the blood and saliva samples and assessed levels of nocturnal melatonin, a hormone used as a marker for the circadian clock, with high levels at night when a person is in a dark environment and low levels during the day.
After only one hour of light exposure, the light-induced nocturnal melatonin suppression level was about 35 percent for the low light level and about 60 percent for the high light level.In addition, the higher level of blue light suppressed nocturnal melatonin more quickly, to a greater extent over the course of the 90-minute exposure period, and was maintained after 60 minutes.The researchers believe that the device could be subsequently used to increase sleep consolidation and efficiency in older subjects when worn for a prescribed duration at an appropriate time.”The study suggests that the light goggles might be a practical, comfortable, and effective way to deliver light treatment to those suffering from circadian sleep disorders,” said Figueiro.The study appears in Chronobiology International.
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Why do you say we should learn to enjoy adversity?
When something is inevitable, when its occurrence cannot be prevented, it is better to go along with it rather than to resist it. The word enjoy here means, make the best out of something. Let me illustrate with an example: A person is walking along a mountain ridge. He stumbles and falls. As he tumbles down the cliff, he sees the branch of a tree projecting from the cliff-face. He catches hold of that branch. As he is hanging there precariously, he sees his Guru standing on the top of the mountain. He asks the guru what he should do. There is no way the guru can help him physically. Instead, he tells him, The left side of the valley below you is dry and thorny. The right side is lush and green. Look to the right and try to fall there. Now that the fall is inevitable, and you may be plunging to your death, enjoy the scenery during your last leap. Your assessment of any situation should be realistic. You must muster all your resources in protecting your interests. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of your adversary and be prepared to put up the stiffest resistance you can. At the same time, if you find yourself overpowered, try to work out the best bargain. In corporate parlance, for example, try your best to fend off a hostile takeover bid against your company. But if you see that it is unavoidable, try to get the best terms of a takeover.At least some kinds of enjoyment involve a willingness to suffer some unpleasantness. You go for an Ayurvedic or any other kind of massage. Massage is good for health. Sometimes the masseurs use foot massage, using their body weight to apply different degrees of pressure on your body. It might be uncomfortable or even painful, but later, you feel refreshed and rejuvenated. You are bearing the unpleasantness in anticipation of the joy.
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You don’t see Him because…
Where and how do we search for God? Remember that God is within you, but you don’t see Him because the one place you will never look is inside yourself. You will search everywhere, but never within yourself. Paradoxically, you lose sight of God because He is in you.
Now look at what God has given us. Our intelligence, buddhi , is a precious gift. Yet, are we loving and grateful enough to God who has given us all these?Do we have even a little of the gratitude a dog has towards its master? No! That is why Dattatreya considers the dog as one of his gurus. Dattatreya draws four lessons from the dog. A dog doesn’t count its misfortunes or grieve over them. A dog doesn’t live in the past. It doesn’t make long-term plans either. It doesn’t live in the future. It lives instinctively, from moment to moment.
A dogs life is one unbroken straight line marked by love, devotion and gratitude to the one who sustains it. Devotion is its defining property. Can we, like the dog, be always grateful to our Creator and Sustainer? Can we give up being miserable about our past misfortunes and mistakes? These are disciplines we impose on ourselves. When we reach this stage, we will have achieved a mental state that looks with equal ease at happiness and sorrow, at misery and luxury; in short, we will have seen God in ourselves. This is the essence of the Sanskrit saying, Tat Tvam Asi, You are That. That is, you are the object of your search. A spiritual journey is a discipline for reaching this stage of supreme self-realisation.
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