Last week the BBC chose to present a programme called An Almanac for Anxiety. There were five episodes: Fire; Wood: Water: Air; Earth.
If you have not registered with the BBC then you will need to do so before the link below works.
The details of each episode were presented on the BBC website:
Anxiety is the most common form of mental illness in the UK, with nearly a fifth of people experiencing it over the course of a year. Although it is often treated through medication, there are many alternative ways which are proving to be very effective in reducing anxiety amongst some people. In this series, we explore how connecting with the elemental forces of nature helps people with a range of mental illnesses to feel better. We also learn about the current academic research behind these methods.
In Episode 1 – Fire – we visit an overnight camp on the banks of the River Spey near Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands run by the charity Fire and Peace. According to the participants, – who have a range of mental ill health and addiction issues – the experience of spending time around the fire in nature is transformative when it comes to promoting feelings of connection and wellbeing. We also hear new research which shows how being around a campfire can be calming.
BBC Radio 4
I am going to share the link to the BBC each day this week with a new episode each day. The programmes are 15 minutes long and in my opinion well worth listening to.
Now above we were told: ‘Anxiety is the most common form of mental illness in the UK’ but of course we all know that anxiety affects many millions across the world. That is why I intend to share with you all five programmes.
A while ago I was contacted by email from Anushka Mishra about her writing a guest post. This is what I received:
Greetings,
This is Anushka Mishra, Content Strategist at Jaldee Vets. We hope this email finds you well. We are writing to propose a guest blogging opportunity for your esteemed pet care blog. Our platform, Jaldee Vets specializes in pet care with a significant emphasis towards strays. In the spirit of becoming the voice for the voiceless, we provide free consultancy to stray animals. Through our blog posts we want to convey the message of carrying out social responsibility of protecting stray and providing care to animals.
We will be providing an SEO optimized blog of 500-600 words. With our high-quality guest blog, you will benefit from fresh and engaging content that can captivate your readers. We can offer our expertise in pet care to cover topics such as nutrition, health, training, and grooming, providing valuable insights to your audience.
In return, we would gain exposure to your dedicated readership and the opportunity to showcase our #StrayLivesMatter initiative of providing free consultancy to strays. It would be an excellent platform for us to establish ourselves as a reliable resource and expand our reach within the pet care community.
We look forward to discussing the specifics and exploring potential topics. We eagerly await your positive response.
Warm regards,
Anushka Mishra
As is normal in these situations I took a look at the organisation that Anushka represented and replied:
Anushka,
Good day to you and thank you for your email and the offer.
Unfortunately, I only take guest posts from those who have no business connection because otherwise I would have the challenge of determining what businesses I would support and what businesses I would not support.
The bigger picture of looking at the whole world is that around 200 million strays embrace the streets, finding love and joy in slight caresses and mini treats. Every nation has strays flaunting their roads. However, what differentiates one is the condition in each of these countries. In some countries, the situation of street animals is alarming, with the perpetual enmity of brutal and inhumane behaviour towards them. The indifference towards these creatures has led to a massive shoot in their population. They are usually left to cater for themselves and are more prone to fall prey to some diseases.
On the contrary, some countries look after their strays with utmost concern. They have working policies for neutering and spraying strays and adequate amenities to provide suitable shelter care. Along with the direct accommodations, there is always a persistent attempt at propagating vigilance and educating people. As a living entity endowed with the privilege to stand up for ourselves and speak our concerns out loud, it is our responsibility to tend to those devoid of such benefits. The implementation and execution of official policies and reforms are outside our hands. However, it’s well within our powers to do small bits and pieces to make life easier for these hustling babies.
Helping stray animals
Adopt
The best way to help the button-eyed sweethearts is by welcoming them into the comfort of your abode. Bringing home a new member can add a hint of sparkling confetti to the lives of all the family members. On the other hand, it would always bestow the four-legged friend with a healthier living ribboned in kindness and surrounded by loved ones. If you have doubts about becoming a full-time parent, there’s always an option of fostering. This allows you a trial run for a life as a pet parent and gives the pet adequate living temporarily until they find a permanent residence.
Volunteer
Various animal welfare organizations work towards rescuing and sheltering stray animals. These organizations are always open towards a helping hand who can assist with multiple works. Volunteering involves but isn’t limited to helping in the rescuing process. The job extends to several back-end works such as photography, content writing, bringing sponsors on board, etc. Volunteering in such initiatives is a noble method of helping stray animals and would also give you some quality time with these endearing pets.
Generating awareness
Little drops accumulate together to make an entire ocean; thus, every drop counts. Just like that, every small step towards raising awareness and educating people on the cause of animal safety can eventually make a profound difference. No one alone can end all the mistreatment and cruelty happening to animals. However, we can do our best by educating our friends, family and acquaintances on the subject. You can participate in events promoting such values or engage with online campaigns to help add more voice to the cause.
Feed and Care
All it takes to help a stray is a strong will and good food. The easiest way to bring joy to these lovely friends is by feeding them and providing them warm clothes if winter is around the corner. Good food would ensure a healthy and sound living for stray animals, which they direly require.
When Injury strikes?
Unless you are a professional or vet, you can do only so much. On some grim day, you may stumble across an injured animal. The immediate response to such a situation should always be to consult a vet. Jaldee Vets, with its online consulting platform, is thriving to make lives more manageable for stray animals. Through our site, one can avail of free online consultancy for strays who may require the same. If you encounter an animal injured or have met with an accident and can’t find a clinic nearby, you can hop on to the site and get immediate help for the furry pal. The consultancy is online and completely free.
Strays are a social responsibility. To help them isn’t just a noble cause but a necessary one. So, wait no further and take these small and practical steps to shower some ounces of comfort and kindness into the lives of many animals.
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The only way to close this is by adding a couple of pictures from Unsplash of stray dogs.
These pictures make my heart ache and I hope you support Jaldee Vets. Finally are you in favour of me publishing guest posts from Anushka? Please give me feedback.
I was struggling with the post for tomorrow and then saw this article on The Conversation. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but nevertheless I find it sufficiently interesting to publish it.
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Psychedelics plus psychotherapy can trigger rapid changes in the brain − new research at the level of neurons is untangling how
The human brain can change – but usually only slowly and with great effort, such as when learning a new sport or foreign language, or recovering from a stroke. Learning new skills correlates with changes in the brain, as evidenced by neuroscience research with animals and functional brain scans in people. Presumably, if you master Calculus 1, something is now different in your brain. Furthermore, motor neurons in the brain expand and contract depending on how often they are exercised – a neuronal reflection of “use it or lose it.”
People may wish their brains could change faster – not just when learning new skills, but also when overcoming problems like anxiety, depression and addictions.
Clinicians and scientists know there are times the brain can make rapid, enduring changes. Most often, these occur in the context of traumatic experiences, leaving an indelible imprint on the brain.
A transformative experience can be like a fork in the road, changing the path you are on. Westend61 via Getty Images
Social scientists call events like these psychologically transformative experiences or pivotal mental states. For the rest of us, they’re forks in the road. Presumably, these positive experiences quickly change some “wiring” in the brain.
How do these rapid, positive transformations happen? It seems the brain has a way to facilitate accelerated change. And here’s where it gets really interesting: Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy appears to tap into this natural neural mechanism.
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
Those who’ve had a psychedelic experience usually describe it as a mental journey that’s impossible to put into words. However, it can be conceptualized as an altered state of consciousness with distortions of perception, modified sense of self and rapidly changing emotions. Presumably there is a relaxation of the higher brain control, which allows deeper brain thoughts and feelings to emerge into conscious awareness.
Research suggests that new skills, memories and attitudes are encoded in the brain by new connections between neurons – sort of like branches of trees growing toward each other. Neuroscientists even call the pattern of growth arborization.
Researchers using a technique called two-photon microscopy can observe this process in living cells by following the formation and regression of spines on the neurons. The spines are one half of the synapses that allow for communication between one neuron and another.
Scientists have thought that enduring spine formation could be established only with focused, repetitive mental energy. However, a lab at Yale recently documented rapid spine formation in the frontal cortex of mice after one dose of psilocybin. Researchers found that mice given the mushroom-derived drug had about a 10% increase in spine formation. These changes had occurred when examined one day after treatment and endured for over a month.
Tiny spines along a neuron’s branches are a crucial part of how one neuron receives a message from another. Edmund S. Higgins
A mechanism for psychedelic-induced change
Psychoactive molecules primarily change brain function through the receptors on the neural cells. The serotonin receptor 5HT, the one famously tweaked by antidepressants, comes in a variety of subtypes. Psychedelics such as DMT, the active chemical in the plant-based psychedelic ayahuasca, stimulate a receptor cell type, called 5-HT2A. This receptor also appears to mediate the hyperplastic states when a brain is changing quickly.
These 5-HT2A receptors that DMT activates are not only on the neuron cell surface but also inside the neuron. It’s only the 5-HT2A receptor inside the cell that facilitates rapid change in neuronal structure. Serotonin can’t get through the cell membrane, which is why people don’t hallucinate when taking antidepressants like Prozac or Zoloft. The psychedelics, on the other hand, slip through the cell’s exterior and tweak the 5-HT2A receptor, stimulating dendritic growth and increased spine formation.
Here’s where this story all comes together. In addition to being the active ingredient in ayahuasca, DMT is an endogenous molecule synthesized naturally in mammalian brains. As such, human neurons are capable of producing their own “psychedelic” molecule, although likely in tiny quantities. It’s possible the brain uses its own endogenous DMT as a tool for change – as when forming dendritic spines on neurons – to encode pivotal mental states. And it’s possible psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy uses this naturally occurring neural mechanism to facilitate healing.
A word of caution
In her essay collection “These Precious Days,” author Ann Patchett describes taking mushrooms with a friend who was struggling with pancreatic cancer. The friend had a mystical experience and came away feeling deeper connections to her family and friends. Patchett, on the other hand, said she spent eight hours “hacking up snakes in some pitch-black cauldron of lava at the center of the Earth.” It felt like death to her.
Psychedelics are powerful, and none of the classic psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, are approved yet for treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 did approve ketamine, in conjunction with an antidepressant, to treat depression in adults. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with MDMA (often called ecstasy or molly) for PTSD and psilocybin for depression are in Phase 3 trials.
The OSIRIS-REx sample capsule, which contains pieces of the asteroid Bennu, landed safely in the Utah desert on 24 September. Credit: Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty
Dugway Proving Ground, Utah
A saucer-shaped capsule parachuted down gently in the Utah desert today, after a years-long journey through space. Its cargo is a precious collection of rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu — the first time NASA has ever brought pieces of this type of celestial object back to Earth.
Over the coming days, NASA will fly the bits of Bennu to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. There, curators will carefully disassemble the container and begin analysing the chemistry and mineralogy of the pristine samples — which might hold clues to the origins of the Solar System.
“I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve who is just too excited to go to sleep,” says Michelle Thompson, a planetary scientist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and a member of the ‘quick look’ team who will have the first chance to study the rocks.
Space hoover
The material comes from the US$1.2-billion OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) mission, which launched in 2016 and arrived at Bennu in 2018. It spent nearly two years studying the dark-coloured, diamond-shaped asteroid before extending its robotic arm to the rocky surface, blasting it with a puff of gas and collecting the dust and rocks it kicked up. That ‘fist bump’ hoovered up so much material that pieces of rock got jammed in the collection mechanism, allowing some of the smaller pebbles to escape. Watching some of those samples get away was “heart breaking”, says Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson who was the first principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission.
Still, the spacecraft managed to collect around 250 grams of rocks and dirt — a large cupful — including several chunks that are at least one centimetre long. It is by far the largest amount of material ever brought back from an asteroid. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had previously collected less than one milligram from the asteroid Itokawa in 2005, and 5.4 grams from the asteroid Ryugu in 2019.
Bringing planetary samples back to Earth allows researchers to use cutting-edge laboratory techniques to study what the rocks are made of. The NASA curation team planned to put the Bennu samples into an atmosphere of pure nitrogen soon after the capsule touched down, to reduce the potential for contamination. That will enable scientists to study the asteroid’s geology and chemistry, preserved all the way back to the formation of the Solar System, more than 4.5 billion years ago. The pristine material hasn’t been altered by passing through Earth’s atmosphere, as happens with meteorites. “The thing that will really be different about this sample is we’ll have that chain of custody of keeping it protected from Earth’s atmosphere,” says Nicole Lunning, the mission’s lead sample curator at the Johnson Space Center.
Precious cargo
Bennu is a carbon-rich asteroid, so the samples might resemble carbon-rich meteorites that have fallen to Earth, Thompson says. The bits collected by OSIRIS-REx probably contain organic compounds — carbon-based molecules found in many meteorites that are the building blocks of many exciting types of chemistry, including those conducive to life. “What I find most fascinating are the nucleobases, the components of the genetic code that make up all life from DNA and RNA,” says Daniel Glavin, the senior scientist for sample return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. These compounds have been found in meteorites before, but those rocks have not been as pristine as the Bennu samples are expected to be. “We can trust the results, because this stuff is clean,” he says.
NASA curators will work their way through unpacking and studying the dust and pebbles inside OSIRIS-REx’s storage container in the coming weeks. Using nitrogen-filled gloveboxes, technicians will analyse the samples with scanners and other instruments to discern how many rock types were collected, and they will record the samples’ colour, volume and porosity.
Mission specialists prepare the OSIRIS-REx sample capsule for transport to a clean room after its landing in the Utah desert on 24 September.Credit: Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty
The curators will collect up to 100 milligrams for the quick-look team to analyse over the first 72 hours. That initial sample will probably be made up of fine-grained material obtained from the outermost parts of the sample capsule, Thompson says. After that, the team will get a chance to study grains that were picked up by 24 stainless-steel contact pads on the outside of the sample container — which were the first things to actually come into contact with Bennu. It will probably be several weeks before the curators open the heart of the sample container and begin extracting the bulk of the material inside.
Early experiments could include looking at how material that was on the surface of Bennu compares with what came from deeper inside the asteroid, Thompson says. OSIRIS-REx’s robotic arm might have plunged as deep as 40 centimetres under Bennu’s rubbly surface when executing its fist bump.
Work interrupted?
NASA has scheduled a press conference on 11 October to unveil the first scientific results. But its work on the mission could be interrupted if the US government shuts down on 1 October. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been battling over priorities for funding the federal government in 2024.
After OSIRIS-REx fist-bumped the asteroid Bennu in 2020, it pulled the collected samples into the spacecraft (left) and stowed them inside its sample-return capsule (right).Credit: NASA/Goddard/Univ. Arizona/Lockheed Martin
If the situation remains in a stalemate by the time the US fiscal year ends on 30 September, then federal agencies, including NASA, might close until an agreement can be reached. If that were to happen while the Bennu sample is at NASA, then “certain steps leading to its highly anticipated analysis will possibly be delayed, but the sample will remain protected and safe”, says Lori Glaze, head of NASA’s planetary sciences division. “The sample waited for more than 4 billion years for humans to study it, and if it takes us a little longer, I think we’ll be okay.”
At least 70% of the Bennu material will be saved for scientists outside NASA and for future generations to study. Furthermore, 4% of the sample will go to the Canadian Space Agency, which helped to build a laser instrument aboard OSIRIS-REx, and 0.5% will go to JAXA in exchange for samples of Ryugu, so that researchers can compare the two asteroids.
Meanwhile, the rest of the OSIRIS spacecraft continues to fly through space after dropping off its sample-return capsule. It is headed to study Apophis, an asteroid with a different, ‘stony’, chemical composition that will whizz dramatically close past Earth in 2029.
A fascinating article about our unique body odour.
I was researching stories that I could republish and was concentrating at first on The Conversation. Then I saw the post for today and went no further. It is primarily about the odour that each of us has.
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Your unique body odor could identify who you are and provide insights into your health – all from the touch of a hand
From the aroma of fresh-cut grass to the smell of a loved one, you encounter scents in every part of your life. Not only are you constantly surrounded by odor, you’re also producing it. And it is so distinctive that it can be used to tell you apart from everyone around you.
Your scent is a complex product influenced by many factors, including your genetics. Researchers believe that a particular group of genes, the major histocompatibility complex, play a large role in scent production. These genes are involved in the body’s immune response and are believed to influence body odor by encoding the production of specific proteins and chemicals.
But your scent isn’t fixed once your body produces it. As sweat, oils and other secretions make it to the surface of your skin, microbes break down and transform these compounds, changing and adding to the odors that make up your scent. This scent medley emanates from your body and settles into the environments around you. And it can be used to track, locate or identify a particular person, as well as distinguish between healthy and unhealthy people.
We areresearchers whospecialize in studying human scent through the detection and characterization of gaseous chemicals called volatile organic compounds. These gases can relay an abundance of information for both forensic researchers and health care providers.
Science of body odor
When you are near another person, you can feel their body heat without touching them. You may even be able to smell them without getting very close. The natural warmth of the human body creates a temperature differential with the air around it. You warm up the air nearest to you, while air that’s farther away remains cool, creating warm currents of air that surround your body.
Researchers believe that this plume of air helps disperse your scent by pushing the millions of skin cells you shed over the course of a day off your body and into the environment. These skin cells act as boats or rafts carrying glandular secretions and your resident microbes – a combination of ingredients that emit your scent – and depositing them in your surroundings.
Your scent is composed of the volatile organic compounds present in the gases emitted from your skin. These gases are the combination of sweat, oils and trace elements exuded from the glands in your skin. The primary components of your odor depend on internal factors such as your race, ethnicity, biological sex and other traits. Secondary components waver based on factors like stress, diet and illness. And tertiary components from external sources like perfumes and soaps build on top of your distinguishable odor profile.
Identity of scent
With so many factors influencing the scent of any given person, your body odor can be used as an identifying feature. Scent detection canines searching for a suspect can look past all the other odors they encounter to follow a scent trail left behind by the person they are pursuing. This practice relies on the assumption that each person’s scent is distinct enough that it can be distinguished from other people’s.
Researchers have been studying the discriminating potential of human scent for over three decades. A 1988 experiment demonstrated that a dog could distinguish identical twins living apart and exposed to different environmental conditions by their scent alone. This is a feat that could not be accomplished using DNA evidence, as identical twins share the same genetic code.
The field of human scent analysis has expanded over the years to further study the composition of human scent and how it can be used as a form of forensic evidence. Researchers have seen differences in human odor composition that can be classified based on sex, gender, race and ethnicity. Our research team’s 2017 study of 105 participants found that specific combinations of 15 volatile organic compounds collected from people’s hands could distinguish between race and ethnicity with an accuracy of 72% for whites, 82% for East Asians and 67% for Hispanics. Based on a combination of 13 compounds, participants could be distinguished as male or female with an overall 80% accuracy.
Researchers have trained dogs to sniff out COVID-19 infections.
Researchers are also producing models to predict the characteristics of a person based on their scent. From a sample pool of 30 women and 30 men, our team built a machine learning model that could predict a person’s biological sex with 96% accuracy based on hand odor.
Scent of health
Odor research continues to provide insights into illnesses. Well-known examples of using scent in medical assessments include seizure and diabetic alert canines. These dogs can give their handlers time to prepare for an impending seizure or notify them when they need to adjust their blood glucose levels.
While these canines often work with a single patient known to have a condition that requires close monitoring, medical detection dogs can also indicate whether someone is ill. For example, researchers have shown that dogs can be trained to detect cancer in people. Canines have also been trained to detect COVID-19 infections at a 90% accuracy rate.
Similarly, our research team found that a laboratory analysis of hand odor samples could discriminate between people who are COVID-19 positive or negative with 75% accuracy.
Forensics of scent
Human scent offers a noninvasive method to collect samples. While direct contact with a surface like touching a doorknob or wearing a sweater provides a clear route for your scent to transfer to that surface, simply standing still will also transfer your odor into the surrounding area.
Although human scent has the potential to be a critical form of forensic evidence, it is still a developing field. Imagine a law enforcement officer collecting a scent sample from a crime scene in hopes that it may match with a suspect.
Further research into human scent analysis can help fill the gaps in our understanding of the individuality of human scent and how to apply this information in forensic and biomedical labs.
Republishing a recent article published by The Conversation.
Before I go to this article I want to talk briefly about the book the Myth of Normal or as the subtitle explains TRAUMA, ILLNESS & HEALING IN A TOXIC CULTURE.
Let me pick this closing paragraph of Chapter 20, on page 296:
Disconnection in all its guises – alienation, loneliness, loss of meaning and dislocation – is becoming our culture’s most plentiful product. No wonder we are more addicted, chronically ill, and mentally disordered than ever before, enfeebled as we are by such malnourishment of mind, body, and soul.
the Myth of Normal, Dr Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté
It is a very powerful book albeit not the easiest read in the world but still highly recommended.
Plus there is a YouTube video of Dr. Maté being interviewed in July, 2023 by Tara Westover (also a long video!).
Now to the main purpose of today’s post.
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Keeping your cool in a warming world: 8 steps to help manage eco-anxiety
But amid doom-and-gloom predictions, there is hope. As a therapist and clinical social work professor, I have seen firsthand how paralyzing eco-anxiety can be, and I’m dedicated to finding solutions. Here are a few evidence-based tips to tackle your climate woes.
Caring about the world you live in does not make you a “crazy” alarmist. In fact, growing numbers of people across the globe feel the same way, with two-thirds of Americans reporting being at least somewhat worried about climate change in recent polls.
It makes sense that people would feel nervous when basic needs like safety and shelter are threatened. Give yourself grace, because beating yourself up for these very valid feelings will only make you feel worse.
Participate in the solution
It can be hard to feel empowered when environmental harms are taking a toll on your mental health, but the escalating global crisis still demands urgent attention. Instead of burying your head in the sand, use that mental discomfort as a catalyst for action.
Individual efforts to reduce your carbon footprint matter. Joining larger movements has the potential for even move significant impacts, as well as the potential to buffer anxiety, research shows. Volunteer your own unique passions, talents and skills to advocate for systemic changes that will benefit the planet and humanity.
When you feel anxious, use that energy as fuel for the fight. Harnessing eco-anxiety in this way can reduce your sense of powerlessness.
As a therapist, I often help clients identify and reframe unhelpful thinking patterns. For example, while it is true that there are many environmental problems to grapple with, there is also positive news, so don’t discount it. Recognize and celebrate victories big and small.
Trauma: Process it so you can heal
The climate crisis has been conceptualized as a collective trauma, and many individuals are struggling with eco-grief from climate impacts that have already happened. Processing past trauma from events like weather disasters is a crucial step in enhancing your ability to cope with new experiences.
Even people who have not yet experienced significant climate impacts directly may have signs of pre-traumatic stress, a clinical term for the distress experienced in anticipation of a high-stress situation. A licensed mental health professional can help you process these emotions.
Reduce isolation
It’s no secret that having a strong social support network is a key ingredient for happiness. Surrounding yourself with compassionate, like-minded friends is also key to sustained efforts in doing your part to make a difference.
Consider joining or starting a Climate Cafe or similar group to talk about climate concerns. Visit a 10-step climate grief meeting. Join a local environmental organization. Or simply call up a friend when you need a listening ear.
Go for a quiet walk in the woods and observe nature all around you – it’s a Japanese practice for relaxation known as forest bathing. Spend time gardening. Exercise outdoors or otherwise spend time outdoors in a place that is relaxing and restorative for you.
Self-care is paramount when it comes to managing the emotional toll of eco-anxiety.
Engaging in self-care practices, such as getting adequate sleep, eating healthy and having fun, helps us maintain a sense of balance in the face of overwhelming environmental concerns.
Remember what they teach you on airplanes – you should always put on your own oxygen mask before helping other passengers. Likewise, when we come from a place of wellness, we are better equipped to handle the stresses of eco-anxiety and make a difference in this area.
Mindfulness
Because eco-grief is focused on the past and eco-anxiety is future-oriented, reconnecting to the present moment is a powerful way to combat both.
By cultivating mindfulness – a nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment – people can become more attuned to their thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in response to eco-anxiety triggers. This heightened self-awareness helps people to acknowledge worries without becoming consumed by them.
In the face of eco-anxiety, these strategies can build resilience, reminding everyone that they have the power to shape a more sustainable and hopeful future.
There’s a powerful reminder that we have the power to stay in the present, or to put it another way by cultivating mindfulness. There are quite a few websites on Mindfulness including this description of what Mindfulness is on the Mayo Clinic website.
Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.
Mayo Clinic
Now that is something I should really focus on as I am terrible at being in the moment and nowhere else.
I would not have believed this had I not read it with my own eyes.
I have been an atheist all my life. My mother and father were all those years ago when being an atheist was not something one promoted.
But a recent article from The Conversation told a very surprising account: “These spiritual caregivers can be found working in hospitals, universities, prisons and many other secular settings, serving people of all faiths and those with no faith tradition at all.“
Here’s the full article.
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Religious leaders without religion: How humanist, atheist and spiritual-but-not-religious chaplains tend to patients’ needs
Chaplains talk with anyone, regardless of whether or not the patient has a religious affiliation – and some chaplains themselves are not religious. Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock via Getty Images Plus
In times of loss, change or other challenges, chaplains can listen, provide comfort and discuss spiritual needs. These spiritual caregivers can be found working in hospitals, universities, prisons and many other secular settings, serving people of all faiths and those with no faith tradition at all.
Yet a common assumption is that chaplains themselves must be grounded in a religious tradition. After all, how can you be a religious leader without religion?
Thirty percent of Americans are religiously unaffiliated. Research suggests that people who are atheists or otherwise nonreligious sometimes reject a chaplain out of wariness, or shut down a conversation if they feel judged for their beliefs. But this research has not accounted for a new, increasingly likely situation – that the chaplain might also be nonreligious.
No national survey has been done, so the number of nonreligious chaplains is unknown. But there is plenty of reason to think that as more Americans choose not to affiliate with any particular religion, so too do more chaplains.
Nonreligious chaplains have been a part of hospital systems and universities for years, but they came into the national spotlight in August 2021 when Harvard University’s organization of chaplains unanimously elected humanist and atheist Greg Epstein as president. Humanists believe in the potential and goodness of human beings without reference to the supernatural.
Other recent reporting on humanist chaplains has also focused on school campuses, but nonreligious chaplains are not limited to colleges and universities. Eighteen of the 21 nonreligious chaplains we spoke with in our study work in health care, including hospice. The Federal Bureau of Prisons allows nonreligious chaplains, but we were unable to find any of them to participate in the current study.
Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo, center, and his wife, Marty, right, mingle with students at the University of Southern California in 2015. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
The idea of a “call” from God is central to many religious vocations: a strong impulse toward religious leadership, which many people attribute to the divine.
Chaplains who are atheists, agnostics, humanists or who consider themselves spiritual but not religious also can feel called. But they do not believe that their calls come from a deity.
Joe, for example, an atheist and a humanist whom we interviewed, has worked as a chaplain in hospitals and hospices. He says that his “light bulb moment” came after a history professor told him that beliefs are the source of a community’s power. While atheists do not believe in God or gods, many do have strong beliefs about ethics and morality, and American atheists are more likely than American Christians to say they often feel a sense of wonder about the universe. Joe’s call was not “from a divine source,” but nonetheless, he says this experience “kind of filled me with a sense of control, and confidence, and presence” in his life that grounded his sense of a calling.
Sunil, another chaplain our team interviewed, was inspired by his college chaplain, whom he calls “a really influential presence.” The chaplain helped Sunil answer questions about identity and values without “necessarily having any religious or spiritual leanings to it,” and encouraged him to go to divinity school.
Today, Sunil tries to help others answer those same questions in his work as a health care chaplain – and to offer deeply thoughtful, meaningful spiritual care to people who aren’t religious.
Education and training
Most chaplaincy jobs require a theological degree. Along with coursework in sacred scriptures and religious leadership, chaplaincy training usually involves clinical pastoral education, where students learn about hands-on, care-oriented aspects of their profession. This involves learning to provide care to everyone, regardless of their religious background.
Although coursework is broadly the same for all students, religious or nonreligious, the actual experience of earning a degree is very different for nonreligious students. In the United States, Christian students are easily able to enroll in a seminary or divinity school that shares their faith identity and spend their years of study learning about their own tradition.
Chaplaincy programs that focus on non-Christian traditions are available, but scarcer, and our team does not know of an overtly nonreligious chaplaincy program. In recent years, more seminaries have welcomed nonreligious students, but nonetheless, nonreligious students often find themselves focusing their study on traditions to which they have no personal connection.
Yet there is a surprising bright side.
‘I am here to support you’
Being deeply immersed in traditions that are not one’s own is one of the reasons that nonreligious chaplains can be so effective.
Artwork posted by a chaplain in a break room in the trauma surgery ICU at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. David Ryder/Getty Images
For example, our team asked Kathy, a health care chaplain, how she approaches prayer with religious and nonreligious patients. “My goal is to try to meet that person where they are and pray in a way that’s helpful and comforting for them, or meets whatever the need is that’s arisen during the conversation that we’ve had,” she said. Like all chaplains, Kathy is there to accompany, not proselytize. While she herself prays to the “great mystery,” she is comfortable facilitating whatever prayer is needed.
Claire, a chaplaincy student, agreed with Kathy and described her own first experience meeting an evangelical Christian patient. It was easy, she said, because “you’re not trying to fix anything. You’re just trying to meet them where they are. So that’s it.”
Nonreligious chaplains are used to thinking outside the box. Having learned about major world religions, many of them can find overlapping values and beliefs with their patients, such as finding beauty and meaning in the natural world or finding strength in their conviction that human beings are inherently good.
Cynthia works in the palliative care department in a hospital and tells her patients, “I am here to support you in whatever is meaningful to you right now and whatever is most important in your life in this moment.” She asks patients: “What are you struggling with right now? What are your goals? What do you hope for? What are you afraid of?” – trying to “unpack that with a spiritual lens rather than a medical lens.”
Cynthia is an example of why spiritual care by nonreligious chaplains may be surprising, but is likely here to stay. Based on our research, nonreligious chaplains are as capable as religious chaplains of meeting a person in their darkest hour and taking them by the hand.
That last sentence may be opened up even more. In that the article speaks of chaplains, both religious and nonreligious. But as someone who was a counsellor with the Prince’s Youth Business Trust some years ago, now The Prince’s Trust, it is my opinion that anyone who is an active listener can undertake the role.
The article has many fine points including one that I had not considered before. “That American atheists are more likely than American Christians to say they often feel a sense of wonder about the universe.” I am certain that this isn’t confined to Americans.
I bought this book from Thriftbooks and was so fired up that I sat down and started reading it almost immediately. For as the back cover explains:
Climate change is profoundly altering our world in ways that pose major risks to human societies and natural systems. We have entered the Climate Casino and are rolling the global-warming dice, warns William Nordhaus. But there is still time to turn around and walk back out of the casino, and in this book the author explains how.
William Nordhaus
William Nordhaus is a brilliant economist as Fred Andrews describes above. Indeed he is the Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and he has his website here.
Now I am going straight to two videos.
The first is William Nordhaus receiving the Nobel Prize in 2018.
And the second is that lecture given at the same venue in 2018.
Three promising developments in Parkinson’s research.
As I am sure most of you know Jean was diagnosed in having Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in late 2015 and from that moment on I have taken more than a superficial interest in PD. Especially as my best friend in England, Richard M. was similarly diagnosed in late 2015 – “the fickle finger of fate“.
So a recent Neuro Talk from the Parkinson’s Foundation is my contribution for today.
ooOOoo
Three Promising Developments in Parkinson’s Research
Every year, the Parkinson’s Foundation funds the most exciting and promising research ideas in the Parkinson’s disease (PD) field.
In our latest Neuro Talk, Chief Scientific Officer James Beck, PhD, is joined by three researchers whose studies were funded by the Parkinson’s Foundation. Their projects, which range from investigating environmental factors to understanding cognition, explain how research is helping us further our understanding of Parkinson’s.
What is the Parkinson’s Foundation? The Parkinson’s Foundation makes life better for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) by improving care and advancing research toward a cure. In everything we do, we build on the energy, experience and passion of our global Parkinson’s community. Learn more on our website: https://www.parkinson.org/
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For those that wish to understand PD in a scientific manner, here is a quote from the PD:
What is Parkinson’s disease? Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative, progressive disorder that affects predominately dopamineproducing neurons in a specific area of the brain called substantia nigra
Learning from Dogs 
