Calif Considers Making Abortion Pills Available At Public Colleges - College health centers do not perform abortions. But lawmakers are expected to pass a bill requiring health centers at all 34 state campuses to provide medication abortions. If passed, it'll be the 1st of its kind in the US.

submitted by /u/anutensil [link] [comments]

New video animation aims to raise AIDS awareness on Freddie Mercury's birthday

New video animation aims to raise AIDS awareness on Freddie Mercury's birthday
Reuters: Health
A new video animation featuring two white blood cells in love was released on Thursday to mark what would have been Freddie Mercury's 73rd birthday and help raise awareness of the continued global fight against AIDS.

Johns Hopkins opening a new psychedelic research center, studying use of 'magic mushrooms' and more

submitted by /u/trot-trot [link] [comments]

Facebook debuts new notifications to fight vaccine misinformation - The move comes exactly one week after Pinterest announced a similar initiative.

submitted by /u/mvea [link] [comments]

Emotional Brain-Training: What We Need When Stress Levels Get Too High

What can you do for yourself when you are feeling stressed? Often, the habits of a healthy lifestyle are also good for keeping stress at bay. They include exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, and eating in healthy ways. 

Sometimes, though, the usual ways of coping with stress are just not effective. They are especially likely to be inadequate when we are experiencing more than ordinarily levels of stress, sadness, or grief. What can we do then? 

Associate Professor Laurel Mellin of the University of California, San Francisco, addressed that question in the wake of the shootings at El Paso and Dayton that left so many people feeling unusually fearful. Based on research from neuroscience, Dr. Mellin believes that different brain circuits, more toxic ones, are activated under conditions of high stress than low stress; they require different coping strategies. “When you feel overwhelmed, lost, numb, depressed, or in a panic,” she said, “that is usually caused by the activation of one of these toxic stress circuits.”

Although specific events, such as sudden acts of violence, can activate faulty brain circuits, experiences we accrue over the course of our lives can exacerbate things, too. For example, if we have experienced periods of extreme stress at particular times in our lives, we may end up feeling stressed for prolonged periods of time even there are no real threats to our well-being. 

When you are feeling extra stressed, it may be tempting to try to distract yourself, but Dr. Mellin suggests that you do just the opposite. “Stop pretending you are not stressed,” she advises. Don’t tell yourself that you can’t do anything about your stress — you can. 

Have you heard that it is helpful to try to reinterpret your experience in a way that gives it meaning, or to focus on potentially positive aspects? It can be. But those kinds of cognitive strategies take more mental capacity and more effort than we can manage when we are feeling particularly stressed, research shows. 

Just talking about your experiences may be one of the best things you can do:

“Share your feelings with others who will not interrupt you or give you unasked-for advice. In other words, vent to a loving relative, friend or therapist. All the while, stay present to your own feelings.”

You don’t have to have another person around, though, to deal with high levels of stress effectively. Dr. Mellin also suggests that you “explore whether a deep emotional connection within, time for contemplation or meditation, can ease your stress.” 

Dr. Mellin has been treating people who have experienced trauma for many years. She has helped them to acknowledge their stress, rather than distracting themselves. She has guided them through the sharing of their feelings with others as well as the development of emotional connections from within. She believes that these brain-based stress tools represent “the next generation of coping techniques, or emotional brain training.” What she is training, she says, is resilience. That’s something we all need when life piles on the stressors. 

The mass shootings at El Paso and Dayton were also cause for concern for the American Psychological Association (APA). The organization commissioned a nationally-representative survey soon afterwards. The results attested to a widespread experience of stress among adults in the U.S. in the wake of those tragic events:

• Nearly 4 out of 5 adults report that they are experiencing stress because of worrying about the possibility of a mass shooting.
• 1 out of 3 report that because of their fear of mass shootings, they are avoiding specific kinds of places such as public events (53%), malls (50%), universities or schools (42%), or movie theaters (38%).
• Nearly 1 in 4 (24%) said that they are changing how they live their lives because of their fear of mass shootings.
• Only about 1 in 5 (21%) say they never experience stress as a result of any fear of mass shootings.

APA also offered tips for coping with the stress of mass shootings and other deeply troubling events. Some echo the advice from Laurel Mellin:

Talk about it

“Ask for support from people who care about you and who will listen to your concerns.”

Honor your feelings

“Remember that it is common to have a range of emotions after a traumatic incident. You may experience intense stress similar to the effects of a physical injury. For example, you may feel exhausted, sore or off balance.”

In addition, APA suggests a strategy that is focused on actions:

Help others or do something productive

“Locate resources in your community on ways that you can help people who have been affected by this incident, or have other needs. Helping someone else often has the benefit of making you feel better, too.”

6 Ways to Change Our Media Diet — and Change the World

Is the news driving you crazy? It’s not the news — it’s how the media reports the news, piling on calamity and suffering — because that’s what sells. We’re subjected to a media diet that damages our mental health and can trigger anxiety and depression. But we have the power to change our media diet, becoming more informed, engaged and empowered.

We can refuse to accept that negative news is the only narrative worth telling; refuse to accept that the news “is the way that it is” and instead decide it should be more balanced in its coverage. Restructuring the way we consume the news is a much simpler way to fix the problems we currently face than restructuring how the news is produced. Humans have great collective power to change for the better, in industries and societies. After all, it is not society or industry that changes, it is people that change.

Here are six steps to change our media diet:

1. Become a Conscious Consumer

Industries that have undergone their own consumer-driven evolution share one thing in common: they rely on a conscious consumer. The news media is no different. In the pursuit of profit, news organizations need audience engagement. It is up to us to be conscious about what we engage with.

A critical requirement of becoming conscious about our news consumption is education. As Nelson Mandela said, ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ Once we are educated about the helpful and harmful effects of the news, we can shift from being merely consumers to being conscious consumers. Then, we can embrace solutions-focused news as part of our balanced media diet. This change can improve our individual psychological well-being but can also, as a side effect, motivate the industry to meet this new demand.

2. Read/Watch Good-Quality Journalism

The conflict between good-quality journalism and profitability is not just a problem for the industry; it is our problem to solve too. We rely so heavily on the news to help us understand as well as help shape our society, and poor-quality information leads to poor-quality decisions. We cannot abdicate from this responsibility by believing that our actions don’t matter. Our actions do matter — human beings still have the capacity to create change. Let us be the ones to make quality news profitable and abundant once again. Traditional industry leaders in the media may fear change and experimentation as it is their livelihood on the line and they have their own vision. However, they can often be convinced by demonstration.

3. Burst Your Filter Bubble

The news was not founded on ideals of entertainment. Its goal was to educate, inform and empower us — by helping us understand the world beyond our personal experience of it. Can you imagine if schools, which also exist to educate a large audience, used the commercial case that by giving their pupils what they want, they are more likely to come back in the next day? We understand that school is about long-term objectives over immediate pleasure, and we need to look at the news the same way. News should not be about entertainment, as is the trend today, and we need to expect more of it.

4. Be Prepared to Pay for Content

We cannot have a free and independent press if we are not willing to pay for the content. If news organizations have to rely on advertising to be their main source of income, then corporations and their needs will take priority over our needs as consumers. Simply, we must be prepared to support news organizations to enable them to truly become independent, whether by buying the newspaper or magazine, subscribing either online or offline, or simply donating to news organizations that value good-quality journalism.

5. Read Beyond the News

Thomas Jefferson said, “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” I would have to agree. We cannot solely rely on news organizations to educate us on world issues. Today’s information-rich environment offers plenty of valuable sources.

Fiction helps us flex our emotional muscles, developing empathy and understanding. Nonfiction provides well-researched depth, insight and knowledge. Documentaries take a deep-dive into a specific issue happening in the world. Podcasts help us connect with and learn about the world and each other. Trusted organizations, such as TED, feature the world’s most inspired thinkers. Good sources provide good-quality information, enabling you to make good-quality decisions.

6. Read Solutions-Focused News

Whether you believe the news is too negative or not, the news does affect how you view and feel about the world, yourself and others. We should all understand the potential impact of the news on our mental health and become more deliberate about how we consume the news.

By including solutions in your media diet, you give yourself the necessary information needed, over time, to feel inspired. Seeing others progress and develop in the face of personal, local, national or global challenges ignites a sense of possibility. It creates a feeling of optimism, hope and empowerment — the emotional fuel we need to mobilize our own potential. We can a positive force in this world, not by ignoring problems but by feeding ourselves the information we need to feel motivated and able to tackle problems head-on.

With so much choice in our modern-day media environment, we do not need to wait for the industry to change. We can create this change ourselves. By deliberately creating a more balanced media diet that includes solutions as well as problems, we become aware that the world is filled with incredible people doing incredible things. It is up to us to find them, learn from them, be inspired by them. These stories inspire us to create change — changing not just the media, but also potentially changing the world.

Heart failure deaths highest in poorest US counties

Heart failure deaths highest in poorest US counties
Reuters: Health
(Reuters Health) - People living in U.S. counties with the highest rates of poverty are more likely to die from heart failure than those from more affluent areas, a new study suggests.