Some People Born to It Always Negative Thinking

Motivating someone to be more optimistic in life is sometimes very difficult. Not because a less reliable motivator, because some people are genetically born to be always so negative and pessimistic.
People who always have a negative view of life is usually prone to depression and other psychiatric disorders. Such people can not appreciate what they have and tend to feel his life was never happy.
A study at the University of Michigan revealed that individuals with a pessimistic personality are genetically different than the average person. The difference lies in the protein component, called neuropeptide Y (NPY).
NPY is a protein which is one of the constituent components deoxyribonucleid chain (DNA). In a pessimistic person, NPY levels lower than the average person.
Research conducted by Dr. Brian Mickey was conducted with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Scanning with this technology is to observe the activity of the prefrontal cortex, part of the brain which controls emotion and psychiatric status.
When listening to the words that describe a negative situation such as 'murder', volunteers with low NPY levels have increased activity of the prefrontal cortex. This increase indicates that the person concerned to be more anxious and upset than other volunteers.
In subsequent experiments, researchers injected saline solution to evoke pain of moderate intensity. Compared with normal participants, participants with low NPY carrying more complaining about feeling uncomfortable due to the injection.
"We hope this research can be developed to detect individual risk of depression and anxiety-related disorders," said Dr. Mickey as quoted by the Telegraph, Tuesday (08/01/2011).
Results were published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Benefits of Play for Children

Benefits of Play for Children - The kids would love to play. They enjoy play time so that they often forget to eat, forget to learn are not even willing to do other activities if they’re playing. Parents often have to pull higher tension in advance to stop playing and do the homework or learning. This often causes the parents assume that their children are lazy to learn and just want to play. In this article will discuss why playing is considered important by some development experts and to the extent where the play is beneficial for the development of children.

According to Papalia, an expert on human development in his book Human Development, child develops a way to play. The world is the world's children play. With the play of children using body muscles, stimulate the senses of his body, exploring the surrounding world, discover what kind of environment that he lived in and discover what kind themselves. By playing, children discover and learn things or new skills and learn when to use such skills, as well as satisfy what is the need. Through play, children will be trained physical, cognitive ability and the ability to interact with others will flourish.

Playing is of course different things to learn and work. According to Hughes (1999), an expert in child development, said there should be 5 (five) elements in an activity called play. The five elements are

• The purpose of playing is the game itself and the perpetrators get satisfaction by doing so (without target), not for example get the money.
• Selected freely. Selected game itself, carried out on their own will and no one ordered or forced.
• Fun and enjoyment.
• There imagination element in its activities.
• Conducted actively and consciously.

Outside the opinion of Hughes, there are experts who define play as any activity that is felt by her children fun and enjoyable (pleasurable and enjoyable). Playing to use the tools (toys) or not. Just running around in the room, if the activity is felt by the child's fun, then the activity can already called a play that too.

Benefits of Play

Based on above it is important to provide a sufficient time for children to play, parents may think the things mentioned above can be found children with learning (study). There should be pointed to the play time as learning time, learn during playing. In fact, the smart child can learn himself, but some if just left to play without guidance they should not easy to learn. These opinions have a point, especially if intelligence is only related to academic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic. But in everyday life, intelligence is not just reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as academic ability is not the only thing that is important and needed. There are other things that are important and necessary, such as the ability to communicate, understand the perspective of others and negotiate with people. These things can not be obtained only by learning. Feeling happy, enjoying, free to choose and free from all charges because they do not have a target, also cannot be obtained from the learning activities.

When playing, children spend their imagination and ideas that are stored within him. Children express knowledge that he possesses about the world and then also at the same time can gain new knowledge, and all done by encouraging him. Not only knowledge of the world have in mind is expressed through the child's play, but also things that he feels, fears and joy. Parents will be able to getting to know children by watching their children while playing. Even the passing game (especially hide and seek or ole-playing) parents can also find the impressions and expectations of children against their parents and family. Playing pretend to describe his understanding of the world where it is located.

Creativity of children is also growing through the game, because original ideas that came out of the minds of children, although sometimes feels abstract for parents. Not only parents will get stressed, children are too. Stress in children can be caused by the burden of school lessons and daily bored routines. Play can help children to escape from the stress of everyday life.

What Should Parents Do? Does child need to play? Of course the obvious answer is that children need to play. Perhaps the parents are worried that too many children to play and did not want to learn. Back to the initial illustration, which need to be ascertained is whether children still have time to play, after an intensive learning activities. If it is true that children have time to play, then goes on to not want to learn, then the problem is how we motivate children to learn.

Some things should be done by parents to guide children in play so it was really useful for these children, are as follows:

• Make sure the kids busy schedule every day, there are still enough free time for children to play.
• Every now and then come into play with the children, understand themselves, joys, fears and needs. Who knows after that is no longer a parent that is too ambitious.
• Supports creativity game of children, as far as what is done to children in the game is not a brazen act, no harm, and not endangers themselves and others.
• Guiding and supervising the children in play, but not over-protective. Children may not know if what he did in the game is doing is wrong; therefore they need to be guided. But do not be over-protective to inhibit freedom. For example, if children play running and has been dropped is fair, so no need to forbid children to play running for fear of children falling. But if a child when playing a bicycle race, of course, need to be banned because of dangerous.

Even if the world is the world playing of children, but children need parental role to be in a world that is safe and comfortable. With a play, not only the children feel excited and happy when it did; but with proper guidance from parents, potential child can also develop, children can become smart by means of game. Children love and parents happy.

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Stress and Your Health

Dangers of Stress

Stress is a constant part of most people's lives. And although it is quite common, it still needs to be addressed given its impact on an individual's health condition. When you experience stress, your body produces chemical changes in your brain that could also affect your health.

While some sources of stress are temporal, there are those that are produced over a long period of time so that it builds up. Before you know it, it becomes so serious that it affects your health in various levels. Even if you do not have any existing health condition, it can actually enhance your risk of developing them.

You can exhibit the following symptoms of stress, which eventually contributes to the health problems associated with stress:

• sleeping troubles
• lack of energy
• tension
• headaches
• depression
• anxiety
• high blood pressure
• pain in the back or neck
• weight loss or gain, etc

Stress Related Illnesses and Conditions

Continued research is being done to show more of the impact that stress has on one's overall health. But despite of this, there has been several scientific claims linking stress to several health conditions from backaches, to insomnia, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

When a person experiences stress, it produces chemical changes in the body that consequently alters some biological processes. For instance, some women who had to deal with stress in their lives suffer abnormalities in their menstrual cycle. Others miss their menstruation, while some suffer from abnormal bleeding. Aside from that, stress could also result to hormonal imbalances that cause symptoms for fibroid tumors and endometriosis to exhibit.

Heart disease is another common illness associated with stress. It intervenes with your cardiovascular condition such that people with stress can suffer from conditions like heart attacks, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and stroke. Other common illnesses suffered by highly stressed individuals include fatigue, emotional disorders, headaches, ulcers, IBS, infections, colds, and lowered immunity system responses.

Taking Care of Your Body

Having known the impact that stress has on one's body, it is then important to take all the necessary steps to not only combat stress but also keep yourself free from any type of illness. Some people are too consumed with stress that they fail to pay attention to their body. Be more sensitive to your body and health needs.

The following are helpful tips on how you can handle stress and improve your health:

• Take time off work to relax. Give your body a chance to recuperate.
• Get enough amount of sleep, especially if you are going to work excessively during the day.
• Eat well. Include enough amount of fruits and vegetables in your diet, as well as proteins.
• Engage in a physical activity during your free time. Working out releases endorphins in your system, which is why it improves your mood.
• Never resort to unhealthy methods of dealing with stress, such as drugs, smoking, or alcohol.

Seeking Professional Help

When stress begins to concern your health, it is important to seek professional guidance on the matter. The case is more important when stress has affected your health to a large extent. Indeed, there are professionals that can help you deal with the situation and overcome stress so your health can recover as well.

But a person can be too consumed with their stressful situation that they fail to recognize when help is necessary. The following are symptoms of too much stress and requires immediate professional attention:

• sleeping problems due to anxiety
• suicidal thoughts
• loss of appetite often leading to weight loss
• feeling of isolation or desire to be isolated from other people
• high irritability

Stress, Stress, Stress !!!

Why does life have to be full of stress? It was so stressful learning about his cheating and trying to find out who the other woman was, but now, after it is all over and done, I still find that I am dealing with even more stress. For one, learning how to be a single mother, having to take care of a teen to dealing with even more issues of my ex not wanting to come and see her has knocked my stress factor way over the top. For another issue, I now have to learn how to pay bills on one paycheck and child support, instead of two incomes. A good friend of mine recommended that I set aside a few minutes for myself, ever so often, to take a relaxing bath, or go out and buy myself something special, but honestly, who really has time to do these things when you are working and raising kids? I just have to re-learn how to stop and smell the roses from time to time.