From the monthly archives:
Continuing the theme that part of the problem with the anxiety after a trauma or heart attack is that it happens below the level of conscious awareness, that it is an automatic reaction that one’s life is in danger. This article assumes a visual input; with problems such as arrhythmias, the threat is coming from [...]
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From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, anxiety is an adaptive mechanism. If you are a zebra at a watering hole and the grass moves, you had better run like hell. Ninety-nine times out of hundred it will just be the wind; the one time it is a lion and you don’t run you will have [...]
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One of the themes in the past weeks is that depression can be an adaptive response. This article from Scientific American covers one of the benefits of depression — that rumination can help to solve problems. After a heart attack, for instance, it can be very important to ruminate on what is really important in [...]
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I have a good friend who recently learned that I had been experiencing substantial arrhythmias and had been rather thrown off by them. She suggested that they had made me “unhappy.” Nope. Unhappy is what how I feel when things don’t work out the way I hope. Perhaps a multiple choice question would help explain [...]
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Strong earthquake jolts Anchorage by Rachel D’Oro The Associated Press 9/20/10 ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An earthquake jolted Anchorage on Monday and was felt well beyond Alaska’s largest city. The 4.9 magnitude quake struck at 1:24 p.m. about 10 miles southwest of Anchorage, according to earthquake monitors. There were no reports of injury or damage, but [...]
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The Mystery of everything is life, which is water; for water dissolves the body into spirit… (C. G. Jung) The Red Sea is an ideal symbol… for the elixir or the tincture of transformation. Sea water… is regarded as the baptismal water, which purifies and cleanses, preparing the stage of albedo or whitening.Source Red Tears, [...]
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(Continuing on the theme that “The way out is through”, that depression after a heart attack is not something that can be easily denied or medicated away…) Dream of Ravens On the mythological level, nigredo signifies the difficulties man has to overcome on his journey through the underworld. Nigredo is sometimes called ‘blacker than the [...]
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The processes in alchemy are a projection of processes within the Psyche. There are different ways of systematizing the process of alchemy — there can be four stages, seven stages, twelve stages, etc. The “Nigredo” stage (yesterday’s post) is reached both through “Calcinatio” and “Putrefecatio”: The phase of Blackening which usually marked the beginning of [...]
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As mentioned in yesterday’s post about the adaptive strategy of depression, the Jungian metaphor for the journey is that of the “nigredo”, the first stage of alchemy. Although the excerpt below is primarily about the encounter with the psychological shadow that needs to be dealt with, it is also descriptive of the encounter with mortality, [...]
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Depression is a natural and adaptive consequence of a heart attack. Dick Cheney allegedly did jumping jacks the day after he had a stent placed to show that he was alright. Not such a good idea, Dick. Give your body a chance to rest and recover after it has been wounded. This is an excellent [...]
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Time Healthland September 14, 2010 Alice Park Stress is a major contributor to heart disease, so it’s no surprise that researchers have associated anxious Type A personalities with a greater risk of heart attack. Now they’ve connected another personality profile with heart problems: Type D. People who are Type D, says Johan Denollet, a professor [...]
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Time Magazine February 5, 1973 While Lyndon Johnson was speaking at the L.B.J. Library of the University of Texas at Austin last December, his voice was noticeably weak. At one point he seemed to rub his lips. Then his tone improved, and he finished his speech. What the audience—and later, television viewers—witnessed was a public [...]
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Eisenhower’s Heart Attack Brian Trumbore — When Dwight Eisenhower was inaugurated as our country’s 34th president on January 20, 1953, the Dow Jones industrial average stood at 288. By September 23, 1955, the key index had risen 69% to 487. The first thing Eisenhower did upon taking office was to seek an end to the [...]
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Edvard Munch Anxiety 1893 From the Havard Heart Letter (no date given) BOSTON, MA – Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) isn’t limited to soldiers or witnesses of a horrifying event. It can also appear after a heart attack, a stroke, or heart surgery. Not only does PTSD cause emotional and psychological distress, it may also slow [...]
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PTSD isn’t just something that happens to Veterans — physical trauma, such as the experience of a heart attack or bypass surgery — can also trigger PTSD. Medical Marijuana for PTSD Psychcentral Rick Naubert, Ph.D. November 5, 2009 Medical Marijuana for PTSD ?A new study carried out by Dr. Irit Akirav and research student Eti [...]
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Preventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with Beta Blockers August 26, 2009 Colin Gilbert Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that results from a person’s exposure to a terrifying event. Military combat, car accidents, or other near-death experiences are often at the root of the PTSD, which manifests itself in nightmares, cold detachment, or intense [...]
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Why should people dying of cancer have all the fun? Heart patients have anxiety and depression too… Here is an idea for research — give folks psilocybin after a heart attack and see if it reduces the trauma….. I would bet that would, actually…. Sign me up for after my next heart attack… By Thomas [...]
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Although this is interesting research with interesting implications, there is no way that watching a graphic video of a car crash is the same as having PTSD. Anyone going through a PTSD type experience is not going to have any interest in playing Tetris… And I really like Tetris.. I can see it now, when [...]
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This post continues with the theme of why it can be so difficult to get over a heart attack. Although research has suggested that about 15% of folks who go through a heart attack can be diagnosed with PTSD, I think that this is an under-estimate. Research with brain scans is showing structural changes after [...]
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George Stubbs Horse Frightened by a Lion (exhibited 1763) Amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and hippocampal function in PTSD. Shin LM, Rauch S Pitman RK. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2006 Jul;1071:67-79. One of the problems with treating PTSD is that it is a very-strongly conditioned fear response that becomes “hard-wired” into the system. Stimuli associated [...]
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309.81 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span) Three months after the heart attack, I went to Home Depot to buy something for the house. I walked inside, saw the plethora of nice things to make a nice [...]
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Edvard Munch The Scream 1893 As far as I can tell, there is no research or information on the Web (other than what has appeared in this blog) about using art therapy after a heart attack. None. Nada. What is the deal here? Vets with PTSD do art therapy. Kids with asthma benefit [...]
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As mentioned in previous posts, heart attacks are almost always traumatic (whether they meet the full criteria for PTSD or not). Art therapy is one way to approach the trauma in way without making it worse (which talking about the trauma can do.) The statement in the following article that “art therapy has been understudied [...]
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For me, one of the best metaphors for PTSD is the astronomical findings of “black holes” — they are so powerful that they suck up the light around them, so one can only infer their existence. For the most part, talk therapy is not effective with PTSD. The traumatized person much prefers to avoid talking [...]
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The previous post expressed concern about the ethics of doctors making money from selling their own products, that it potentially creates a conflict of interest and objectivity. In researching this on the Web, I came across this article: We have been led to believe that Dr. Weil does not profit from his sponsorships and his [...]
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Andrew Weil, M.D. appears to have one of the better websites about complementary medicine. He also pushes his own brand of merchandise. I have to wonder whether this is ethical and potentially a conflict of interest. For me, it diminishes the objectivity of his opinion and the taste of his sausages. I would note that [...]
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