Psychedelic drug may ease long-term distress in cancer patients

Psychedelic drug may ease long-term distress in cancer patients

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https://ift.tt/3aXvb8S February 01, 2020 at 09:21AM https://ift.tt/1R552o9

Warming temperatures could mean more heat-related illnesses and new diseases, experts warn

Warming temperatures could mean more heat-related illnesses and new diseases, experts warn

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https://ift.tt/2RMXY8t February 01, 2020 at 09:18AM https://ift.tt/1R552o9

Coronavirus Anxiety: 4 Ways to Cope with Fear

As the coronavirus spreads, more and more people are becoming anxious about what it means in their life. After all, entire cities have been quarantined in China. Travel restrictions have been put in place throughout the world.

It’s perfectly normal to feel anxiety about this emerging health crisis. The coronavirus can be a deadly disease, but we also know that it’s most likely to be deadly in people who already have a weakened immune system.

Here’s how to cope with the anxiety and fear surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.

1. Don’t Inflate the Risk

Our brains are used to taking something that is made to sound scary and unknown, and inflating the risk of it actually happening to us. It’s a part of our brain’s intrinsic, built-in fight-or-flight response. Big and scary gets attention. Ordinary but also potentially bad for our well-being gets less attention. We’re scared of getting mauled by a coyote, but think nothing of getting into an automobile and driving every day. This despite the chances of dying in an automobile crash being much higher.

So a new virus outbreak is scarier than an existing health epidemic. Many news outlets and other sources of information online and social media overemphasize the problem — and its accompanying risks.

The ordinary flu is so far responsible for 15 million infections, 140,000 hospitalizations, and 8,200 deaths in the United States just this season. In comparison, the coronavirus has only infected approximately 8,000 people around the world (the vast majority of them in China) with less than 200 deaths. It is believed the coronavirus’s death rate may be around 2 percent, according to Reuters.

In short, the flu is far more common and so kills far more people every year. While the coronavirus may be more deadly, it’s not clear that it will infect as many people as the flu does.

2. Take Normal, Healthy Precautions

Both flu and coronaviruses are spread through everyday contact, through touch, a cough, or a sneeze. If you’re sick, stay home and don’t go to work or out in the world. If you’re not sick, stay away from close contact with a person who is and engage in healthy habits when it comes to cleanliness.

That primarily means washing your hands regularly and thoroughly. Out running errands? Come home and wash your hands, saying the ABC song in your head as you do. Use warm-to-hot water, plenty of soap, and don’t stop washing until the song is done. Can’t get to a sink? Carry a small travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer with you (keep it in your car if you prefer), and use it regularly.

Keeping your immune system happy and healthy can help too, especially if you do get sick. A healthy immune system starts with a balanced diet and getting the amount of sleep you need to feel well-rested every night. Engaging in regular exercise is also important, even in the winter.

3. Avoid Overconsumption of Media

The longer you watch or read something, the more money a company makes, whether it’s online, on the TV, or on your phone. The coronavirus is a great opportunity for companies, as they work to scare you into believing that this outbreak is something you need to worry about constantly right this very minute.

It’s not. So instead of playing into their hands, limit your consumption of media and stories related to the outbreak. Scientists and public health officials are working overtime to better understand the virus and are looking at ways to limit its impact. Trust in their work and efforts.

If you need updates, check out a government resource for the best, most accurate information, such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

4. Use Your Past Coping Skills

No matter what the focus of one’s anxiety, using what’s worked in the past to help manage those feelings is usually a good bet. Maybe it’s engaging in self-talk, to undo the irrational thoughts coming into your head with rational, fact-based responses. Maybe it’s reaching out to a trusted friend or family member, just to talk through your anxiety. Or maybe it’s engaging in some mindfulness or meditation techniques — ones that you’ve learned and that have worked for you in the past.

Whatever works to help relieve your stress and reduce your anxiety, try to do more of that in times like this, when you feel like the stress of this virus outbreak is getting to you.

Remember, outbreaks like this do occur from time to time throughout the world. It’s normal. While they can be very scary — especially if you live in a highly-infected area — the actual chances of your becoming infected are very small if you take common-sense precautions.

Does Your Vocabulary Help or Hinder Your Self-Esteem?

The words you choose either give you power or take it away.

How familiar are you with your internal dialogue when it comes to building self-esteem?

The language you use can have a profound impact on your self-image, how you show up in the world, and how you live your life.

Words have the power to shape your beliefs and influence your decisions and can either empower you to love yourself more or to feel awful. The way you express yourself, your choice of words, and tone of voice creates energy that either gives you power or takes it away, so it makes sense that using empowering words does more for your everyday life than perpetuating negative thoughts.

Speech has the ability to change perception, so it’s important to stop negative thoughts before they wear you out.

Making the conscious choice to eliminate disempowering words from your vocabulary can be transformative.

The language you choose can be limiting. You can change your beliefs by being mindful of how you talk. People often use disempowering words such as can’t, have, need, should, never, always, try, and but.

Negative words are taken for granted as part of your everyday communication and narrows your mind in a way that cuts you off from other options and possibilities. Additionally, disempowering words have an effect on your feelings and behaviors.

They diminish your ability to be the master of your destiny, create discomfort, and decrease the amount of energy you have to move forward in a fulfilling way.

Why is it beneficial to set the intention of consciously choosing to use empowering vocabulary? Using positive language will shift your energy levels, elevate your power, and will help reduce resentment and drama in your life.

It will also enhance your ability to be a creator instead of a victim. You will become more open to options you didn’t see before. Implementing empowering language can enhance your strength and motivation you need to keep moving forward.

Here are 6 negative thoughts you can identify and reframe with empowering words:

1. Negative thought: can’t

When you say, “I can’t,” you set yourself up for failure because it means that you are giving up or that you lack the power. It implies a low self-image, helplessness, and a lack of self-control.

Using the word also increases your stress level, blocks creativity, and your ability to problem-solve.

Instead, use this empowering word: won’t.

When you say, “I won’t,” you assert confidence and self-control. It signifies preference and choice.

2. Negative thought: have to or has to

When you say, “I have to,” or “I need to,” you are relinquishing your ability to make your own choices and therefore become a victim. Using those words fosters the inner dialogue that creates conditions of powerlessness.

Instead, use these empowering words: choose to or want to.

Everything is a choice. You don’t “have to.” You “do” or “get to do.” Use choose to or want to instead.

When you say, “I choose to,” or “I want to,” you acknowledge that you have the right to choose your path.

3. Negative thought: should

When you say, “I should,” it implies there is a right or wrong way to do something. Thinking you might be wrong is not elevating. It sends a message that you are not in control or worthwhile and don’t want to do something.

The word “should” also signifies a lack of acceptance rather than encouragement.

Instead, use this empowering word: can.

This is why you can say “can or could.”

When you say, “I can, or I could” you are reinforcing your freedom and ability to take full ownership.

4. Negative thought: always or never/Sometimes or often

When you say, “always” or “never,” you’re trying to prove a point and become position based. Your goal becomes winning instead of understanding and positive resolution.

These words encourage awfulizing and catastrophizing thoughts which deplete your energy and cause anxiety.

Instead, use these empowering words: sometimes or often

When you say, “Sometimes, often, or seldom,” you don’t box yourself in and create an opportunity for openness and acceptance.

5. Negative thought: but

When you say, “but,” it causes everything that was said or thought before it to be negated. It often has the effect of changing a neutral statement into a negative one. The word closes off the conversation space or thought process.

Instead, use this empowering word: and.

However, when you say, “and,” it enables you and others to stay focused on your intentions and true to what you want to say or do. It allows you to remain more open and less defensive.

6. Negative thought: try

When you say, “I try” it means that you are unsure, indecisive, disengaged from the commitment, and it makes it OK to fail without a fight.

Instead, use this empowering word: commit.

When you say, “I commit,” though, you make a pledge that obligates you to a certain course of action. You work harder, you look for solutions when faced with obstacles, you don’t consider quitting as an option, and you don’t look back.

Commitments are empowering because they influence how you think, how you sound, and how you act.

Speaking a positive vernacular requires constant awareness.

Four strategies to help you succeed in using empowering words:

• Be present: When you catch yourself using disempowering words don’t shame yourself, just remember sooner next time. Consistently congratulate yourself when you use empowering words.
• Practice: Using positive words can become more habitual with practice. Some helpful activities include reciting positive affirmations in the morning or doing mirror exercises daily to reinforce the use of empowering words.
• Shift: Identify disempowering words you would like to omit from your vocabulary and focus on the empowering words that will help to reframe your perspective, feelings, or understanding of a situation.
• Focus on the benefits: Use self-talk to clarify how using empowering language allows you to feel healthier and more accepting.

Using these strategies habitually will enable you to replace disempowering words with a more helpful and productive dialogue.

Any word that creates the illusion that you don’t have a choice disempowers you. Removing negative words from your vocabulary takes time, patience, and practice. It is possible and comes with great rewards.

Consciously implementing empowering words makes any situation more tolerable, broadens and builds possibilities, and opens your mind to be able to speak from a place of choice and control. It helps reframe reality so that any situation can be more tolerable and enjoyable. The option is yours.

Challenge yourself to speak with power to bring out the best in yourself and others.

This guest article was originally published on YourTango.com: 6 Words You Use Everyday That Cripple Your Self Esteem (& the Empowering Words You Should Use Instead)

U.S. declares coronavirus health emergency, bars foreign nationals who visited China

U.S. declares coronavirus health emergency, bars foreign nationals who visited China
Reuters: Health
WASHINGTON Reuters) - The Trump administration, while insisting the risk to Americans from coronavirus is low, nevertheless declared a public health emergency on Friday and announced the extraordinary step of barring entry to the United States of foreign nationals who have recently visited China.

China coronavirus toll rises to 259, U.S. imposes border curbs

China coronavirus toll rises to 259, U.S. imposes border curbs
Reuters: Health
The number of deaths from a coronavirus epidemic in China rose by 46 to 259 on Friday, the country's health authority said on Saturday, as the United States announced new border curbs on foreign nationals who have been in China.

Inside the Company That’s Hot Wiring Vaccine Research in the Race to Combat the Coronavirus

Three months. That’s as long as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, is willing to wait to get a vaccine candidate against the latest coronavirus that he can start testing in people.

Since the virus was identified for the first time in people who fell ill with pneumonia-like symptoms in Wuhan, China, last December, the World Health Organization has declared this coronavirus outbreak, named 2019n-CoV, a public health emergency of international concern. In just over a month, more 11,000 people have tested positive for the virus in 18 countries, and more than 250 have died.

When it comes to infectious diseases like this one, vaccines are the strongest weapons that health officials have. Getting vaccinated can protect people from getting infected in the first place, and if viruses or bacteria have nowhere to go, they have no way to spread from person to person.

The problem is, vaccines take time to develop. Traditional methods, while extremely effective in controlling highly contagious diseases like measles, require growing large amounts of virus or bacteria, which takes months. Those microbes then become the key element in a vaccine — the so-called antigen that alerts the human immune system that some foreign interlopers have invaded the body and need to be evicted.

However, researchers at Moderna Therapeutics, Cambridge, Mass., have developed a potential shortcut to this laborious process that could shorten the time it takes to develop vaccines against ongoing outbreaks like the current coronavirus. They’re turning the human body into a living lab for churning out the viral red flags that activate the immune system.

Vaccines essentially give the immune system a crash course in recognizing and rallying defenses against disease-causing microbes like bacteria or viruses. They do this by priming the immune cells with a taste of what they’re supposed to recognize — in some cases vaccines contain killed or compromised bacteria or viruses that aren’t able to cause disease, but still set off alarms to the immune cells that they are foreign and unwelcome intruders. Once the body sees these microbes, they can make antibodies that mark them for destruction, and these antibodies remain as sentries for recognizing future invasions by the same microscopic marauders.

Other vaccines educate the immune system by simply exposing immune cells not to the microbes themselves, but only the proteins that the viruses or bacteria make; enough of these foreign proteins can also prime immune cells to recognize them as unwelcome.

Researchers at Moderna hot wired this process by packing their vaccine with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins. Moderna’s idea is to load its coronavirus vaccine with mRNA that codes for the right coronavirus proteins and then inject that into the body. Immune cells in the lymph can process that mRNA and start making the protein in just the right way for other immune cells to recognize and mark them for destruction. Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, explains that “mRNA is really like a software molecule in biology.” “So our vaccine is like the software program to the body, which then goes and makes the [viral] proteins that can generate an immune response.”

Because this method doesn’t involve live or dead viruses, it can be scaled up quickly — a necessity as new diseases emerge and work their way quickly through unprotected populations.

And there are health benefits to this strategy as well. “One of the things that we are able to do with an mRNA vaccine is more closely mimic what it means to get a viral infection,” says Hoge. “The way the body processes the viral protein can and often is very different from the way it processes the same protein made in a stainless steel tank. So one of the theoretical advantages of putting mRNA in a vaccine is that the body then makes the viral protein in the exact same way the virus would have instructed the host to do.”

The first step in developing this vaccine, which is being funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, was deciding which proteins made by the 2019-nCoV virus should be included in the vaccine. Chinese scientists publicly posted the genomic sequence of the newly identified coronavirus on Jan. 10, so from that, researchers at the NIH settled on a genetic snippet that coded for proteins they believed were most likely to alert and trigger alarms for the human immune system. When they sent the team at Moderna their picks, scientists at the company began writing the genetic ‘software’ for their vaccine — in the form of the mRNA instructions that the human body’s cells would need to make the coronavirus protein. To be safe, the team picked a leading viral protein to seed a vaccine, and six backup proteins as well.

That process is ongoing, as the team works to continuously debug the software, ensuring that the final mRNA product is as biological stable and reliable as possible. Within a few weeks, when a satisfactory mRNA is made, it will become the key component of the vaccine that’s developed to test in people. Then, says Hoge, “we will be more deliberate and careful in all of the manufacturing steps to make sure we’re doing it in a high-quality way because at the end of the day, this is going to go into humans.”

If the vaccine is effective in generating strong immune reactions against this coronavirus, it could serve as a template for other vaccines against as-yet unknown coronaviruses that might emerge in coming decades. That’s because once the scientists know the genetic makeup of a virus, they can pick out the specific proteins it uses to make people sick, and create the mRNA coding for that protein to put into a vaccine. “Fundamentally and conceptually, it would not be a big deal to do that, says Fauci. “We would be ahead of the game.”