Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Anxious? Depressed? Try Some Acetaminophen (Tylenol)

The areas of your brain that manage physical and social pain overlap. So is it any surprise that a common pain killer might alleviate social/psychological as well as social distress? Here's an excerpt from an article at PyschCentral:

In the first experiment, 62 healthy volunteers took 1,000 milligrams daily of either acetaminophen or a placebo. Each evening, participants reported how much they experienced social pain using a version of the “Hurt Feelings Scale” – a measurement tool widely accepted by psychologists as a valid measure of social pain.

Hurt feelings and social pain decreased over time in those taking acetaminophen, while no change was observed in subjects taking the placebo. Levels of positive emotions remained stable, with no significant changes observed in either group. These results indicate that acetaminophen use may decrease self-reported social pain over time, by impacting emotions linked to hurt feelings.

Continuing...

Defeat Procrastination to Reduce Depression, Anxiety

Read Nancy Schimelpfening's excellent column at About.com on how depression/anxiety can feed into procrastination. The combination can get your head into a nasty spin cycle. Been there, done that. She has some good advice here, and it might be useful to you as you write your New Year's resolutions--or whatever you do on the last day of the old year. 

Got an Anxious Kid? Here's Help

You may have read about this study. Granted, they tried only one drug--sertraline, aka Zoloft. But the big picture is the important part: Lots of kids suffer from anxiety, and help is readily available from both medications and therapy. Read about the findings in The Philadelphia Inquirer. This article also includes a checklist of childhood anxiety symptoms. The therapy portion of the program is called Coping Cat, because kids learn how to deal with the symptoms rather than eradicate them. The Promising Practices web site has a page describing the Coping Cat program. Here's an excerpt:

"The Coping Cat program is a cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention that helps children recognize and analyze anxious feelings and develop strategies to cope with anxiety-provoking situations. The program focuses on four related components: (1) recognizing anxious feelings and physical reactions to anxiety; (2) clarifying feelings in anxiety-provoking situations; (3) developing a coping plan (for example, modifying anxious self-talk into coping self-talk, or determining what coping actions might be effective); and (4) evaluating performance and administering self-reinforcement. By incorporating adaptive skills to prevent or reduce feelings of anxiety, the Coping Cat therapist uses a workbook to guide the child through consideration of previous behavior in situations in which the child felt anxious, as well as the development of expectations for future behavior in anxious situations. The Coping Cat workbook is used for children aged 8 to 13 years and the C.A.T. Project workbook is used for children aged 14 to 17 years. The C.A.T. Project differs from Coping Cat only in the use of developmentally appropriate pictures and examples for older ages."

Got an anxious kid? Ask your doctor about these treatments. Please.