Interesting Quotes
''The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.''
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.
Leo Tolstoy
Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.
Taylor Swift
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.
C.S. Lewis
Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg
”It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.''
MOLIÈRE
“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!”
THOMAS JEFFERSON
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
Abraham Lincoln
“More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them.”
HAROLD J. SMITH
How Untreated ADD/ADHD Can Cause or Worsen Depression
This article, from the Amen Clinic, discusses how untreated ADHD in children or adults, can increase their chances of becoming depressed. If you’re working with parents or with an adult who is reluctant to have treatment (or allow treatment for their child), this might encourage them to reconsider. Click here to read full article.
From InterestingFacts.com
“There’s cold, and then there’s the North Pole. Just 508 miles from that famed landmark is a military installation on Ellesmere Island named Alert, Nunavut, which is the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. With average temperatures ranging from -26 degrees Fahrenheit in January to a comparatively balmy 38.1 degrees in July, it has a permanent population just under 200 — one of whom is tasked with keeping polar bears away.”
The Statue of Liberty was originally brown but its color has changed over the years as the copper, bronze and brass have interacted with chemicals in the air. It’s latest color is the green that most of us have seen, and scientists believe that it will remain this color.
The design of the current 50-star flag was created by Robert Heft, a high school student in response to a class assignment to create something that represented U.S. history. Although he only received a B- on the assignment, two years later he received a call from President Eisenhower saying that his design had been chosen as the new design for the American flag. His teacher retroactively changed his grade from B- to A.
McDonald’s began as a hotdog stand in California during the Depression. It now has more than 36,000 locations in over 100 countries.
Oldest living animals: The oldest living animals on earth are Greenland sharks, some of whom are reported to be more than 400 years old.
Fastest supercomputer: A new type of supercomputer has just arrived, an exascale computer, called Frontier. It can perform more than a billion billion calculations per second. (For those who are interested, that is 1.1 quintillion operations per second.) It will be used in scientific experiments that require vastly complex calculations.
Source: Science News, July 2, 2022, p. 5.
Serving Others Is the Best Medicine
This book, by two physicians, and the article drawn from it, appear to have rediscovered Jesus’ teaching that serving others is the healthiest way to live. Click here to read full article.
Association of Low Muscle Mass With Cognitive Function During a 3-Year Follow-up Among Adults Aged 65 to 86 Years in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
This Canadian study that included over 8,000 people found that low muscle mass was correlated with faster cognitive decline in this older population over a three-year period. So it just reinforces the idea that strength training is wise for older people to engage in (after consulting with their doctors). Click here to read full article.
Knowing & Coping With the Stages of Grief
We all have clients who at various times in their lives must work through the stages of grief, whether it be the loss of a job or a loved one or something else. This is a good explanation of Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief, with some practical suggestions for helping that process to be completed. Click here to read full article.
To Take Notes or Not to Take Notes?
This is a question most every therapist has pondered. Here are answers from five therapists. I think between them you’ll find something you want to try, or it may simply confirm that you feel most comfortable doing what you’re presently doing. Click here to read full article.
The Worst Things You Can Say to Someone with Bipolar
When people get frustrated, they sometimes say things about people with bipolar disorder that are very hurtful. Click here to read full article.
32 Life-Changing Lessons to Learn From the Inspiring Abraham Lincoln
Even though one prominent college in the U.S. recently removed the bust of Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg address because one student complained, probably for most of us, Abraham Lincoln remains a hero. Here are 32 quotes that I think will inspire most of us to admire him even more. Click here to read full article.
How having health care workers handle nonviolent police calls may impact crime
A pilot program for the last two years in Denver and several other cities has found that sending an unarmed mental health clinician and a paramedic to respond to certain non-violent 911 calls rather than police allowed them to defuse many situations, led to a substantial decrease in reports of minor crimes, and did not result in increases in violent crime. Click here to read full article.
The Dementia Diet Dilemma
One of the things that many people worry about as they become older is developing Alzheimer’s or one of the other dementias. Scientists often have believed that diet probably has something to do with this, but this article points out the many difficulties that arise in trying to do a randomly controlled study, one of which is that it would take two, three or four decades to construct and carry out such a study. So if you read articles that tell you that if you consume a certain diet you can prevent dementia, realize that these “investigations,” if there was an investigation, are correlational studies only, which do not prove causation.
There are twelve modifiable risk factors that can reduce the risk of developing dementia, so if you are interested they include: minimize diabetes, treat hypertension, prevent head injury, stop smoking, reduce air pollution, reduce midlife obesity, maintain frequent exercise, reduce depression, avoid excessive alcohol, treat hearing impairment, maintain frequent social contact, and attain high level of education.
If you would like to understand all the complexities involved in designing a study that would help understand the relationship between diet and dementia, see the July 2, 2022 edition of Science News, pp. 24ff. Unfortunately, the magazine does not provide a weblink for this article. Click here to read full article.
Bipolar in Families: Learning from Past Generations
This family can trace bipolar disorder through four generations, and it probably goes back further than that. One hopeful sign is that treatments and societal attitudes have changed over those four generations, and those changes are encouraging to see. Click here to read full article.
Beyond the Cover—Children’s Books as Tools for Positive Social Identity Formation
This article is written by a pediatrician, but I think it’s an interesting idea to ponder. For those of you who work with children and understand the emotional struggles they face, I would encourage you to pray about and consider writing one or more books that would help them form more positive social identities. Click here to read full article.
How to Sharpen Executive Functions: Activities to Hone Brain Skills
Executive functions, such as inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, are important for all human beings to be successful, but especially important for children with ADHD. Here is an extended article about activities that parents could use during the summer to help their children improve their executive functioning. Click here to read full article.
Evolutionists Admit Their Field’s Failures
If you read most high school biology texts, you will get the impression that evolution thoroughly explains the development of all life and the complex organs such as the eye found in almost all animals. Therefore there is no need for God or an intelligent designer. If there were any questions about the ability of evolution to explain life, those questions were only whispered in technical journals that few people ever read. But now a major article in the Guardian, a British left-leaning daily paper, admitted that evolutionists themselves are using phrases like “absurdly crude and misleading,” or “a classic idea that has so far fallen flat” to refer to present theories of evolution. Click here to read full article.
Brain Changes Diverge Between Men and Women
White matter hyperintensities (brain lesions associated with the probability of stroke and cognitive decline), increase in both men and women with age, but they increase more in women following menopause. The authors of this study encouraged physicians to give more attention to encouraging postmenopausal women to exercise and maintain good vascular health and blood pressure. Click here to read full article.
The Course of General Cognitive Ability in Individuals With Psychotic Disorders
How does having schizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder affect one’s cognitive abilities? This study of more than 400 people who had multiple scores of their cognitive abilities found that cognitive abilities started to decline 14 years before the first psychotic episode, declined more rapidly in those with schizophrenia than in those with other psychotic disorders until about 22 years before psychotic onset, after which both groups cognitive abilities declined at about the same rate. Click here to read full article.
Gender Roles of Husband and Wife in the Home Based on 1880s Gentleman’s Etiquette Manual
I found this excerpt from an 1880s Gentleman’s etiquette manual quite interesting. See what you think. Click here to read full article.
Some OCD Patients Who Attain “Wellness” After Exposure Therapy May Safely Taper Off Their SRI Medicines, Study Suggests
The typical psychiatric treatment for patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are the SRIs, but many clients treated with only medication are still hampered by residual symptoms. The typical psychological treatment is Exposure/Response Prevention (EX/RP). This research study, which was five years in duration, had Edna Foa, a leading expert in treating OCD, as a co-investigator. If you work with clients with OCD, this study is worth reading. Click here to read full article.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Henry Virkler