http://www.papermag.com/model-stripped-naked-times-square-krit-mcclean-1964565511.html

Got this message from WordPress.com yesterday! It was TWO years ago that I started my blog, bipolar1blog.com ! Quite amazing! Writing it has been cathartic, therapeutic, a learning experience, and a growing experience. I am also, now, blogging on HuffPost and IBPF, which has been a huge thrill and very rewarding. My best blog post to date is this little post called “Extended release vs. Immediate release” at: https://bipolar1blog.com/2014/12/31/extended-release-vs-immediate-release/  I have 712 posts, and more than 12% of views have been of the above post! When I wrote it, it had never occurred to me that this would be my most popular post! Sometimes, things have a life of their own and you cannot predict outcomes.

Anyway, I am so grateful for the thunderbolt that struck my brain which caused me to start my blog. I plan on continuing to write, my experiences, as well as science and information posts.

So happy to be a part of the blogosphere! 🙂

 Was on vacation in Nantucket last week, perhaps you saw the photos. Had a lovely time, but on the way back, had a meltdown. Sobbed all the way home, at the airports. I was afraid if security saw me, they would detain me from flying, so tried to cry very quietly. My crying had nothing to do with any world/political issues (though IS and Trump do reduce me to tears), it was, once again, fear for my son. It was massive anxiety, bordering on panic, about my son’s future. Will he be able to have a happy, healthy, loved life, will he find a job, be successful, be happy, clean his apartment, (haha)? And the emotions with all those questions and the awful fears that accompanied them almost had me screaming and pulling out my hair. Thank goodness, almost, because I was at the airport. Mostly I just sat there crying, huge amounts of anxiety surging in my chest, and not talking to my husband, or being angry at him for various reasons. At the time, I did not have the insight to completely convince myself that this was an anxiety, bordering on panic, attack. It did occur to me at moments, but I was not completely convinced. Got home, took my medication and went to bed. The next morning woke up, had all the anxious thoughts running through my head again. Punched the mattress, literally, to try to clear my head. Made myself get up, made coffee, drank it. Felt better. Then all of a sudden, like a light bulb turning on, all the darkness disappeared. And I was left asking myself “What the hell was that?” I also answered myself: anxiety and panic. Of course some anxiety and fears about my son’s future are natural but not to this degree. The bottom had fallen out again, and yes, it was bipolar to blame. I called my husband at work to apologize for the emotional storm, no answer. Called him twice more, no answer. Finally wrote him an email apologizing for some of the things I’d said to him and for falling apart, seemingly for no reason. Finally talked to him, he understood, he understands my illness, we have lived together for more than 30 years! It occurred to me that no one else has to apologize for symptoms of their illness like people with mental illness do. But then, our symptoms are behavioral and come with verbal volleys and they are hurtful to the people we direct them against, so we apologize. I mean if you get a fever, you don’t hurt someone else’s feelings, but if you scream at them out of anxiety or an activated fight or flight response, you very well may hurt someone’s feelings… so apologies must follow some attacks of mental illness.

Anyway, thankfully, I am fine now. Keep thanking my lucky stars and taking deep breaths. Last night I even read the newest Bridget Jones book, which is funny and annoyingly chaotic. But still fun. Today I went to the grocery store to replenish our food stores as we’d been on vacation for a while, and before that I was in Buffalo for three weeks. Cooking dinner tonight. Actually have decided I don’t like cooking much anymore, it makes a big mess and you only get one fresh meal out of it. Ok, till next time, gotta go make dinner. Also, I am doing a post with a friend called “Physical and Mental Illnesses: Two Stories” I’ll post that soon, we’re actually going to make videos of the same questions we both answer, he about his physical illness, and I about my mental illness. TTFN.

PS

I try really hard NOT to go to “Why me?” land? I don’t ask “What have I done to deserve this infernal illness that steals my joy and peace of mind?” There is no point in wallowing in self pity, you go through it, you pick yourself up and you go on. That’s all there is to do!

PPS

So happy to be back, posting again. Had a long dry spell. Thankfully it’s over, and I am writing again 🙂 I’ll be catching up on all my reading of blogposts as well. XXXOOO

My son just left to take the Bar exam! How do I describe how I am feeling right now? Like laughing, like crying, like jumping up and down, and proud, so very proud! A little amazed, is this really happening, my little boy, all grown up and taking the Bar exam? Yes indeed, it is happening. I made him lunch, they get an hour to eat, got him water bottles, 2 pencils and an eraser, snacks, everything out of its packaging, in ziplock bags, no paper allowed. He is driving to the convention center now, which is where the exam is being held, all my good wishes, pride and love go with him. It was a brutal two months of extensive studying for this exam. The amount of material is dizzying. My son has an incredible, photographic memory, so I am hoping it will serve him well.

I don’t know what to do with myself, maybe take a nap, since I got no sleep last night, Leo, his Maine Coon cat, decided to meow and run around all night, including on the mattress in the living room that was my bed… Yes a nap sounds good, then wait for my son to return and tell me how well he did! 🙂

The findings, if they hold up, are pretty spectacular!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-training-cuts-dementia-risk-a-decade-later/# For the first time ever, researchers have managed to reduce people’s risk for dementia — not through a medicine, special diet, or exercise, but by having healthy older adults play a computer-based brain-training game.

The training nearly halved the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and other devastating forms of cognitive and memory loss in older adults a decade after they completed it, scientists reported on Sunday. If the surprising finding holds up, the intervention would be the first of any kind — including drugs, diet, and exercise — to do that.

“I think these results are highly, highly promising,” said George Rebok of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an expert on cognitive aging who was not involved in the study. “It’s exciting that this intervention pays dividends so far down the line.”

The results, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Toronto, come from the government-funded ACTIVE (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly) study. Starting in 1998, ACTIVE’s 2,832 healthy older adults (average age at the start: 74) received one of three forms of cognitive training, or none, and were evaluated periodically in the years after.

In actual numbers, 14 percent of ACTIVE participants who received no training had dementia 10 years later, said psychologist Jerri Edwards of the University of South Florida, who led the study. Among those who completed up to 10 60-to-75-minute sessions of computer-based training in speed-of-processing — basically, how quickly and accurately they can pay attention to, process, and remember brief images on a computer screen — 12.1 percent developed dementia. Of those who completed all 10 initial training sessions plus four booster sessions a few years later, 8.2 percent developed dementia.

Such a “dose-response effect” — more intervention, more chance of avoiding dementia — is often a clue that the intervention is, indeed, making a difference.

Nevertheless, the finding of a significant benefit from such a modest intervention long ago had dementia experts scratching their heads.

“It’s hard to understand how such a brief intervention could have a long-lasting impact,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, which supports pharmaceutical research on the disease. “But you have to respect the data.”

Because the results have not been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, however, they are considered tentative.

ACTIVE is a well-respected study that, until now, had found only modest effects from cognitive training which, in addition to speed-of-processing, included classroom training in memory or reasoning strategies. Each participant was randomly assigned to receive one of the three or none. The randomization reduced the chances that the different outcomes were the result of, say, more cognitively-spry people choosing to undergo computerized brain training.

There is growing evidence that remaining intellectually engaged (“lifelong learning”) and certain forms of cognitive training can reduce the risk of plain old cognitive decline. But the new ACTIVE findings “are evidence that [that] may hold true for dementia, as well,” said Maria Carrillo, chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“Brain training” has been likened to snake oil. Federal regulators accused the makers of Lumosity, for instance, of fraud for suggesting its games could prevent memory loss and dementia; the company paid $2 million this year to settle the charges.

The ACTIVE trial had been somewhat disappointing until now. Participants who trained on one skill did better on that skill right after, as well as five years later, compared to those who had different training or none at all. But training in one skill did not improve the others, suggesting that overall brain function wasn’t getting better. And five years after training, there was no effect on their risk of dementia.

Even then, however, there were hints that speed-of-processing might be different, Rebok said, targeting underlying brain activity and physiology rather than skills, as a 2006 study suggested. In 2013, researchers found that speed-of-processing training might improve such “executive functions” as planning and reasoning. A study published last month reported that it improved brain connectivity and cognitive ability in a way that might slow the descent into dementia.

Improving processing speed “changes fundamental processes in the brain,” said Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science Corporation. “It’s not that one particular link in the brain gets improved, but that the whole brain is rejuvenated,” he said.

The company licensed ACTIVE’s speed-of-processing module as the “Double Decision” exercise in its BrainIQ.com product ($96 a year).

A key question is, if speed-of-processing training can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, can more be better? The ACTIVE participants got, at most, 14 hours of it nearly 20 years ago. But “given that 10 to 14 sessions had these benefits, just think what we could do with more,” Edwards said. “We should be thrilled about this.”

Scientists not associated with Posit or the new study said they would be more persuaded if it were clear how speed-of-processing training works its magic.

One possibility is a bootstrapping effect. Maybe people who received speed-of-processing training “did something different over the years,” said Laurie Ryan, who oversees Alzheimer’s research at the National Institute on Aging. “Maybe they changed their lifestyle in some way,” with the training giving them a little cognitive boost that they parlayed into more reading, more travel, more social engagement, and more of other activities that boost “cognitive reserve,” the brain’s cushion against dementia.

In fact, some ACTIVE participants told scientists that the cognitive boost they felt from the training inspired them to enroll in classes at a local college or keep driving, said Rebok, both of which can keep people socially and intellectually engaged.

Other studies presented at the Alzheimer’s meeting on Sunday provided more evidence for the power of cognitive reserve:

*A traditional “Western” diet of red meat, processed foods, white bread, sugar, and saturated fat has long been associated with cognitive decline, though only in observational studies. But older adults eating that way who had more education, mentally stimulating work, and social engagement did not suffer as much decline, scientists reported. The study followed participants for only three years, however, leaving open the possibility that unhealthy habits eventually catch up with the brain.

*Healthy older adults whose jobs required them to work with people rather than “data or things” also seemed to be protected. They were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s even when they had brain lesions called white matter hyperintensities, which have been linked to the disease.