This Week...

To start out, this week was really nice because I had no reading. So hopefully by going over my notes now that I took over spring break I will better understand everything. I thought the most interesting thing this week was about hunger. Particulary why people that are obese have a very hard time keeping that weight off. I never realized that a big difference between someone obese and someone that isn't, is not just because the fat cells are larger but also because there are more fat cells in the body.
Yesterday we talked about sex...ya...
Today was about facial expressions. I knew that the eyes tend to give away whether or not the smile is genuine or not, but I wonder how many times people display fake smiles? I'm pretty sure that most of my smiles are real, but obviously there are some situations where I display a fake smile.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Before these past few days, I thought that depression described just about every personality disorder. When people are moody or cut themselves, I thought they were depressed. Now that I've read this article I know that this is definitely not the case. Borderline personality disorder (BPS) is the disorder that doctors fear most. 75% of the people diagnosed with BPS hurt themselves and 6% end up committing suicide. The elements that make BPS so scary to psychologists is the patient's inablity to calibrate their feelings and behavior. The polar opposites in behavior that someone with BPS shows is astounding. They may react to something with either no emotion or they may become so enraged that they hurt people.

The reason why psychologists are so afraid of people with BPS is because there are so many problems going on in the mind that he/she is not able to focus on just one particular thing to cure. So often times, people with BPS are overmedicated. Many times, these drugs create feelings that do not allow the person the many feelings. Meaning that they are so distraught that they have no emotions and are not able to feel any physical pain. So they are desperate, which causes them to hurt themselves in way or another. Overall, this article is about people with BPS and how many more people are affected by this disorder than many think. And the more society changes, the more people are going to feel left out. So many psychologists are coming up with ways that will help people suffering from BPS.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870491-2,00.html

Awakenings: Schizophrenia

This article is a huge eye-opener to all those that are not very knowledgable about schizophrenia, including myself. It starts out talking about how in New York, an organization was holding a prom; for anyone and everyone. Because for many people with schizophrenia, they were either not able or not willing to attend their own prom when they were in high school. It talks about how most people do not have any memories before the age of 20, because all they remember darkness and fear of some foreign object that only they can see, hear, or feel. However, within the past few years, researchers have discovered a new drug that has the potential to help those with this disorder. People that have taken this drug and have gotten better say that it is like they are re-born again because now they don't have something haunting them.

Over 1/4 of the nation's hospital beds are being occupied by those that have schizophrenia. Whether that be because of drug or alcohol abuse, they are still taking up a lot of beds. Schizophrenia is a disorder that causes the person to sometimes hear voices telling him/her to do something. Sometimes hit the parents, take drugs, run away, act like a new-born infant so that that the mother or father has to diaper him/her again, and many other things.

If the researchers would be able to produce a drug that cures schizophrenia, it would cause much less chaos in the world today. So hopefully, someday someone will because after reading this article I realized that schizophrenia harms a lot more people than one might realize.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975910-3,00.html

Superstitions vs. OCD

I've always wondered whether someone that is superstitious has some sort of psychological disorder, but after today I know the answer is no. People that are involved in sports, band, or some other activity tend to have one if not more superstitions. Most know that I have been pretty heavily involved in swimming for many years. Before each meet, I always listen to ACDC. If I don't, I feel like I'm not going to swim as well as I am able to. One of the meets this year my iPod froze and I immediately didn't think I would do well. Turns out I did. Also, before every one of my races I take one drink of Gatorade and then one drink of water. I don't know why I do this, but I must have done this one time and the end result was good.

Today, I figured out that to be superstitious does not mean that you have OCD. Someone that is OCD is not able to perform a particular action, while a person that is superstitious is still able to do something, they just don't think they will be able to perform as well. Superstition is solely mental that people are able to control, OCD is also mental but they're not able to control the way they think or act about something.

Spring Break Reading

So the thing that I love most is reading the wrong hundred pages over break. At least I'll have those chapters done when those are assigned. But still. I guess I'll just talk most about those chapters because I liked those more. It talked about motivation and why people do what they do. Most of it was pretty obvious. But I thought that learning about why people become obese and why it is so hard to keep the weight off was really interesting. When a person becomes obese, their fat cells multiply and grow. When that same person attempts to lose weight, the number of fat cells stay the same, but the size of them get smaller. So it is really hard to keep off the weight because there are still so many fat cells still there.

But going to Chapter 3 which we are reading now. All about sleep. So it was really hard to ready at 11:30 at night because all I want to do is sleep. I think that is is really neat how even when a person is unconcious, their mind is still functioning. Also, about dreams, what happens if I honestly cannot remember any of my dreams? How am I supposed to do these assignments with just a handful?

Spring Break

I think the coolest thing we read about this week was learning about the savant syndrome. Even though when people think of a savant, they think of people that have some form autism, I think that it is possible to be a savant even when you are not autistic. Everyone has one thing that they are good at, so wouldn't that mean that we all have some sort of savant ability? Maybe not to the extent of autistic people, but we all have something that makes us unique. One of my friends somehow knows every little useless fact about life and is able to quote every movie after seeing it only once. But this doesn't mean he is necessarily a savant. Still though, I think that the studies done with savants is really cool.