May I know what is the reason that you want to sleep ONLY 4 hours a day?
Sleep around 8 hours is quite normal.
Mind to share your daily routines?
You can go for a psychotherapy, hypnotherapy or doing EEG biofeedback.


You can read stategoes for getting out of bed which created by Dr.Ellen Frank.
STRATEGIES FOR GETTING OUT OF BED
© Ellen Frank, PhD and Holly A. Swartz, MD, 2011


ALARMS/TIMERS

 Put alarm clock across the room; vary the location

 Practice physically getting up in response to the alarm going off

 Use multiple alarm clocks

 Use vibrating alarm clock

 Use cell phone alarm: use different ring tones and volumes

 Use appliance timer to turn ON:

Lamp

Radio

Cassette player

TV

Coffee maker

Microwave

 Use appliance timer to turn OFF: White noise machine



ENLIST FRIENDS/RELATIVES TO

 Call you on telephone

 Visit you in the morning for breakfast (or come live with you?)

 Meet you for coffee or breakfast or exercise or errands



ENVIRONMENT

 Raise/open blinds when you go to bed to allow morning light

 Get a rooster?



ON WAKING UP

 Place encouraging/coping thoughts card on bedside table; read immediately

 Practice mindfulness and note thoughts, emotions

 Place pros and cons list of getting out of bed on bedside table; read IMMEDIATELY

 Listen to tape you made reminding yourself of reasons to get up

 Place water on bedside table; splash on face or drink

 Place something with strong smell on table; inhale (e.g., cinnamon)

 Throw off the covers IMMEDIATELY

 Put feet on the floor IMMEDIATELY

 Get up and take a shower

 Get the newspaper IMMEDIATELY



HAVE A REASON TO GET UP

 Set appointment or make plan for doing something in morning (e.g., go to work, go

to volunteer job, go to exercise)

 Get a pet

This post has been edited by zeropoint9: May 22 2015, 04:30 PM

Tricks and Tips for a Better Night’s Sleep

In today’s world, snoozing can be difficult, particularly when all your screens (computers, TVs, cell phones, tablets) lure you into staying up just a little longer.

The basics are pretty simple:

Shut down your computer, cell phone, and TV at least an hour before you hit the sack.

Save your bedroom for sleep and sex. Think relaxation and release, rather than work or entertainment.

Create a bedtime ritual. It's not the time to tackle big issues. Instead, take a warm bath, meditate, or read.

Stick to a schedule, waking up and retiring at the same times every day, even on weekends.

Watch what and when you eat. Avoid eating heavy meals and alcohol close to bedtime, which may cause heartburn and make it hard to fall asleep. And steer clear of soda, tea, coffee, and chocolate after 2 p.m. Caffeine stays in your system for 5 to 6 hours.

Turn out the lights. Darkness cues your body to release the natural sleep hormone melatonin, while light suppresses it.


Source:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/sleep-and-weight-loss?page=2

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) problem? Let's hear what Mr.Jeff said

My major health concern is that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) problem. I was looking for ways to solve and through online searching, I found Hiro Koo, a Clinical Hypnotherapist in SOL healthcare centre. I had been through a lot of treatments and therapies outside, both Chinese and Western but there is still no help to my problem until I found SOL.

In confidence, Hiro Koo explained to me about my current health condition in a very detailed manner and the solution to it – Neuro-hypnotherapy. He taught me the way to self-hypnosis and it really works. Now, my IBS problem has improved and finally I gain my life back. IBS has caused problems to my normal life and working performance and through neuro-hypnotherapy with Hiro Koo, I am better now.

Apart from that, combining with the nutritional consultation with the naturopath, I learn to eat healthily and nutritionally. I’m really satisfied with the result and would definitely recommend my friends and family members and those who need natural therapies to visit SOL.


- Testimonial by Mr. Jeff Liau



Remark:
This is a testimonial from my client, I just hope to share with people who has suffered with IBS for many years this information.
As far as I know, people who suffered with IBS really need a solution.
Find a clinical hypnotherapist to deal with your IBS problem now.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)?
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common disorder that affects the large intestine (colon). Irritable bowel syndrome commonly causes cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea and constipation. IBS is a chronic condition that you will need to manage long term.
Only a small number of people with irritable bowel syndrome have severe signs and symptoms. Some people can control their symptoms by managing diet, lifestyle and stress. Others will need medication and counseling.
Treatment options for IBS:
1) Hypnotherapy-Participants enter an altered state of consciousness, either with a trained professional's help or on their own (after training). In this altered condition, visual suggestions are made to imagine pain or tension going away. Efficacy, tolerability, and safety of hypnosis in adult irritable bowel syndrome: systematic review and meta-analysis.
This meta-analysis demonstrated that hypnosis was safe and provided long-term adequate symptom relief in 54% of patients with irritable bowel syndrome refractory to conventional therapy. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24901382
2) EEG Biofeedback--This strategy uses an electrical device to help people recognize their body's response to stress. Participants are taught, with the machine's help, to achieve a more relaxed state. After a few sessions, people are able to calm themselves down on their own. The gut has it's own nervous system (part of the Autonomic Nervous System) which communicates with the brain. EEG biofeedback train the brain to calm and balance its own activity, this has body wide benefits.
3) Psychotherapy/Counseling/Coaching- A trained mental health professional helps patients work out conflicts and understand feelings. For example, CBT is a form of psychotherapy that teaches you to analyze negative, distorted thoughts, and replace them with more positive and realistic thoughts.
4) Medicines-Medicine can help relieve your symptoms enough to prevent them from interfering with your daily activities. It may not be possible to eliminate your symptoms. Few medicines have proved consistently helpful, and all medicines have side effects. So medicine should be used for specific symptoms that disrupt your normal daily activities.

This post has been edited by zeropoint9: May 29 2015, 06:36 PM

A few theories about the function of dreams

Dreaming is such a common activity that we take it for granted. But have you ever asked yourself: Why do we dream? And is there any meaning to these visions we see almost every night?

Ancient civilizations considered dreams as signs or revelations from the gods. Sigmund Freud – the father of dream research – stated that our dreams are a “royal way to unconsciousness”. Nowadays most modern dream theorists consider Freud’s ideas outdated. However, his work was so influential that it makes a good starting point to begin investigating the question “why do we dream?

FREUD AND JUNG ON DREAMS

Freud came up with the iceberg metaphor to explain how our minds are represented by 3 different levels. According to him, our conscious mind – through which we perceive the ‘real’ world – is like the visible tip of the iceberg. Underneath this lies the preconcious mind- which although not readily available to us can be brought to consciousness when required. But Freud’s view was that the vast majority of our pysche is made up of the unconscious – thoughts, feelings, memories and desires that are usually buried deep below the surface, just like the submerged iceberg.

Freud believed that dreams allowed our repressed needs and desires to be fulfilled without the conscious mind needing to be aware of it. He also believed that dreams acted as a ‘guardian’ whilst we slept, protecting our sleep from disruption from external stimuli.

Carl Jung, a former student of Freud, also believed that dreams were a way to gain knowledge into the subconcious mind. Jung came up with the idea of a shared, collective unconscious. This, Jung said, is common to all mankind and the source of all mythology. Jung also postulated the idea of archetypes – instinctive, ancient patterns of our psychological makeup – which reveal themselves in dreams through symbols such as The Shadow and the Great Mother.

DREAMING WIPES OUR MEMORIES

In 1983 Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchison developed a controversial theory about the source and the meaning of dreams. They claimed that “we dream to forget”. Their idea came from studying work done on advanced computer systems that imitated neural intelligence. They argued that the brain’s memory systems can be easily overloaded and the dream-state was a way to eliminate cognitive ‘debris’. They called their theory reverse learning and researchers have compared this process with defragmenting a hard disk drive.

DREAMS ARE OUR PERSONAL PSYCHOTHERAPISTS

The late Ernest Hartmann, a psychiatrist and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital spent decades studying dreams and their possible function. His research found that emotional arousal had a direct correlation with the intensity of dream imagery. Hartmann’s Contemporary Theory of Dreaming says that dreams, rather than being random and meaningless, act as a form of therapy, by “making of connections guided by emotion”. He suggests that by making these symbolic associations, it helps us to cope with worries and traumatic events by weaving them into our personal history.

DREAMS AS PROBLEM SOLVERS

It has long been known that sleep can play a large part in problem solving by the act of ‘off-line’ memory consolidation. Building on these studies, researcher, Harry Fiss found that dreams play a part in this process. His studies showed a “positive correlation between elements incorporated in dreams and recall performance for these elements”. In his studies he found that when participants incorporated learning tasks into their dream content, they showed enhanced memory following sleep.

There are countless more theories of dreaming, and of course, some people don’t believe they perform any useful function at all. The jury is still out, and there is still no definitive answer about why we dream, what purpose they serve or what their various meanings are. One thing is for sure however. As scientific knowledge increases we are coming closer and closer to discovering the real meanings of our nightly



Source:
http://sleepjunkies.com/dreaming/theories-dream/

Some Types of Physical Activity May Cause Poor Sleep

A new study finds that while activities such as walking, aerobics/calisthenics, biking, gardening, golfing, running, weight-lifting, and yoga/Pilates are associated with better sleep habits, some activities actually may harm sleep quality.

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) discovered activities such as household and childcare work are associated with increased cases of poor sleep habits.

The study will be presented at SLEEP 2015, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

The new study breaks down physical activity — normally associated with healthy sleep — and provides detail into activities that significantly help sleep and those that may cause people to lose sleep.

The new study, led by Michael Grandner, Ph.D., looked at data on sleep and physical activities of 429,110 adults from the 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. From this data set, the Penn researchers measured whether each of 10 types of activities was associated with a typical amount of sleep, relative to both no activity and to walking.

Survey respondents were asked what type of physical activity they spent the most time doing in the past month, and also asked how much sleep they got in a typical 24-hour period. Since previous studies showed that people who get less than seven hours are at greater risk for poor health and functioning, the study evaluated whether people who reported specific activities were more likely to also report sufficient sleep.

Compared to those who reported that they did not get physical activity in the past month, all types of activity except for household/childcare were associated with a lower likelihood of insufficient sleep.

To assess whether these effects are just a result of any activity, results were compared to those who reported walking as their main source of activity.

Compared to just walking, aerobics/calisthenics, biking, gardening, golf, running, weight-lifting, and yoga/Pilates were each associated with fewer cases of insufficient sleep, and household/childcare activity was associated with higher cases of insufficient sleep.

These results were adjusted for age, sex, education level, and body mass index.

“Although previous research has shown that lack of exercise is associated with poor sleep, the results of this study were surprising,” said Grandner.

“Not only does this study show that those who get exercise simply by walking are more likely to have better sleep habits, but these effects are even stronger for more purposeful activities, such as running and yoga, and even gardening and golf.

It was also interesting that people who receive most of their activity from housework and childcare were more likely to experience insufficient sleep — we know that home and work demands are some of the main reasons people lose sleep.”

“These results are consistent with the growing scientific literature on the role of sleep in human performance,” said Grandner.

“Lab studies show that lack of sleep is associated with poor physical and mental performance, and this study shows us that this is consistent with real-world data as well.

“Since these results are correlational, more studies are needed to help us understand whether certain kinds of physical activity can actually improve or worsen sleep, and how sleep habits help or hurt a person’s ability to engage in specific types of activity.”

Source: University of Pennsylvania
http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/06/05/so...medium=facebook

I am here and I care!

It is an honour to be invited to participate in National Cancer Survivors Day 2015 which organized by the National Cancer Society Malaysia. Managing mental health needs is a crucial part for cancer patients or survivors. My role today is to provide brain assessment, support and treatment advice if necessary.

There is a healthtalk on how the clinical hypnotherapy able to help cancer patients and cancer survivors. In fact, clinical hypnotherapy has proven to be extremely valuable in the treatment of cancer. Hypnosis has been shown to be effective for decreasing chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting in children with cancer.

Indeed, hypnotherapy is an effective supplement therapy in the management of terminally ill cancer patients in a hospice setting. It is useful in addressing:
(1) management of anxiety, depression, anger, and frustration;
(2) management of pain, fatigue, and insomnia;
(3) management of side-effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy;
(4) visualization to promote health improvement.
By successfully addressing these areas, studies have shown that hypnotherapy improves the individual quality of life and life expectancy. Further, there is a quantifiable cost savings to the hospital in terms of reduced medication and need for medical care.
One of the most well-known techniques involves the use of “positive mental images” of a strong army of white blood cells killing cancer cells. One 10-year follow-up study involving 86 women with cancer showed that a year of weekly “supportive/ expressive” group therapy significantly increased survival duration and time from recurrence to death. Postoperative complications and hospitalizations for the hypnotic intervention group are significantly shorter than the norm.

You can read this review:
"Hypnosis for Cancer Care: Over 200 Years Young" - The goal of this review was to summarize the empirical literature on hypnosis as an integrative cancer prevention and control technique. We have reviewed where hypnosis has strong support for its efficacy (surgery and other invasive procedures), where it holds promise (weight loss, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, metastatic disease), and where more work is needed.



Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3755455/
http://web.wellness-institute.org/blog/bid...Treating-Cancer

How to know myself is with ADHD? I found myself difficult to focus on my tasks and my cognitive function seems to be affected (Made careless mistake, memory loss).

I am in my early 30s.

You can meet with Psychiatrist or clinical psychologist if you want to be diagnosed.
However, adult client with ADHD symptoms may consider EEG biofeedback training if your concern is how to improve the symptoms instead of getting diagnosed.
EEG biofeedback or neurofeedback training is a non drug approach, no side effect, safe and painless procedure to improve ADHD problem.
In fact, in October, 2012 the American Academy of Pediatrics rated neurofeedback as a Level 1 “Best Support” Intervention for ADHD; this is the highest possible rating and at the same level as medication treatment. You can choose EEG biofeedback if you don't want to use medication to control your ADHD symptoms.
When diagnosing ADHD, clinicians now need to specify whether a person has mild, moderate or severe ADHD. This is based on how many symptoms a person has and how difficult those symptoms make daily life.

Inattentive presentation:
-Fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes.
-Has difficulty sustaining attention.
-Does not appear to listen.
-Struggles to follow through on instructions.
-Has difficulty with organization.
-Avoids or dislikes tasks requiring a lot of thinking.
-Loses things.
-Is easily distracted.
-Is forgetful in daily activities.

Hyperactive-impulsive presentation:
-Fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in chair.
-Has difficulty remaining seated.
-Runs about or climbs excessively in children; extreme restlessness in adults.
-Difficulty engaging in activities quietly.
-Acts as if driven by a motor; adults will often feel inside like they were driven by a
motor.
-Talks excessively.
-Blurts out answers before questions have been completed.
-Difficulty waiting or taking turns.
-Interrupts or intrudes upon others.

Combined inattentive & hyperactive-impulsive presentation:
-Has symptoms from both of the above presentations.





Reference: American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5), Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.

We have been invited to give a talk about alternative treatment for Autism.
Special thanks to Lembaga Penduduk dan Pembangunan Keluarga Negara (LPPKN) for the invitation.

Today psychologists know that autism is a problem in the way the brain works, not in how people are raised. That discovery has led them to develop medical, educational and behavioral approaches to treatment. Autism is a brain disorder that often makes it hard to communicate with and relate to others. With autism, the different areas of the brain fail to work together. Most people with autism will always have some trouble relating to others. But early diagnosis and treatment have helped more and more people who have autism to reach their full potential.

Yes, EEG Biofeedback is very useful for ASD.
Reports from caregivers of people with autism suggest people have witnessed improvements in a variety of areas including speech and irritability after EEG biofeedback training. A few scientific reports have highlighted that a demonstrated increase in social interaction may be seen in child with autism following treatment. One study suggested that parents who noticed an improvement continued to see the benefits for at least a year after EEG biofeedback. We know from other studies that the brainwaves of children with autism may well be different in many ways to the brainwaves of their non-autistic peers (www.psychologytoday.com).

Other kind of therapies include:
Occupational Therapy, Sensory Integration Therapy, Speech Therapy, Complementary and Alternative Treatments such as special diets, Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA), acupuncture, homeopathic medicine etc.

This post has been edited by zeropoint9: Jun 12 2015, 12:06 AM

Let me briefly explain about how alcohol affect sleep cycle.

Sleep Cycle:
During sleep, we usually pass through five phases of sleep: REM (rapid eye movement), stages 1, 2, 3, and 4.

REM Sleep: When people awaken during REM sleep, they often describe bizarre and illogical tales – dreams. REM sleep stimulates the brain regions used in learning and it affects learning of certain mental skills.
Stage 1: Light sleep, can be awakened easily.
Stage 2: sleep, our eye movements stop and our brain waves become slower, with occasional bursts of rapid waves called sleep spindles.
Stage 3: extremely slow brain waves called delta waves begin to appear,
Stage 4: the brain produces delta waves almost exclusively.

Deep sleep stage 3&4 coincides with the release of growth hormone, help people maintain optimal emotional and social functioning, encode memories and improve learning. Deep sleep is a time for your body to renew and repair itself.

How your habit affects your sleep cycle:
1) Heavy smokers often sleep very lightly and have reduced amounts of REM sleep. They also tend to wake up after 3 or 4 hours of sleep due to nicotine withdrawal.
2) Alcohol does help people fall into light sleep, however alcohol will also robs/destroys their REM and the stage 3&4 sleep. Instead, it keeps them in stage 1 or stage 2, the lighter stages of sleep, from which they can be awakened easily.
3) Sleeping pills lose their efficacy over time. Some sleeping pills can negatively affect sleep architecture, producing more of the lighter Stage 2 sleep, it might also robs/destroys their stage 3&4 sleep.


What Hypnotherapy/EEG biofeedback can help:
Hypnotherapy is the artificial activation of the REM state. It induces deep relaxation creates the same electrical patterns in the brain as occurs in REM sleep. Thus, client able to fall asleep easily without the help of alcohol or sleeping pill. And hypnosis won't destroy stage 3 & 4 deep sleep stage. As hypnosis is another way of creating the REM state, then it follows that it also performs the same updating and maintenance tasks as REM. Simply being in REM/hypnosis is enough to let an overloaded brain catch up on its housekeeping and switch off unresolved emotional arousals.
EEG biofeedback also can produce same type of brainwaves like hypnotherapy and sleep spindle but it will take longer time.

Poor sleep linked to toxic buildup of Alzheimer's protein, memory loss


Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found compelling evidence that poor sleep - particularly a deficit of the deep, restorative slumber needed to hit the save button on memories - is a channel through which the beta-amyloid protein believed to trigger Alzheimer's disease attacks the brain's long-term memory.
"Our findings reveal a new pathway through which Alzheimer's disease may cause memory decline later in life," said UC Berkeley neuroscience professor Matthew Walker, senior author of the study to be published Monday, June , in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Excessive deposits of beta-amyloid are key suspects in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease, a virulent form of dementia caused by the gradual death of brain cells. An unprecedented wave of aging baby boomers is expected to make Alzheimer's disease, which has been diagnosed in more than 40 million people, one of the world's fastest-growing and most debilitating public health concerns.
The good news about the findings, Walker said, is that poor sleep is potentially treatable and can be enhanced through exercise, behavioral therapy and even electrical stimulation that amplifies brain waves during sleep, a technology that has been used successfully in young adults to increase their overnight memory.
"This discovery offers hope," he said. "Sleep could be a novel therapeutic target for fighting back against memory impairment in older adults and even those with dementia."
The study was co-led by UC Berkeley neuroscientists Bryce Mander and William Jagust, a leading expert on Alzheimer's disease. The team has received a major National Institutes of Health grant to conduct a longitudinal study to test their hypothesis that sleep is an early warning sign or biomarker of Alzheimer's disease.
While most research in this area has depended on animal subjects, this latest study has the advantage of human subjects recruited by Jagust, a professor with joint appointments at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, the School of Public Health and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"Over the past few years, the links between sleep, beta-amyloid, memory, and Alzheimer's disease have been growing stronger," Jagust said. "Our study shows that this beta-amyloid deposition may lead to a vicious cycle in which sleep is further disturbed and memory impaired."
Using a powerful combination of brain imaging and other diagnostic tools on 26 older adults who have not been diagnosed with dementia, researchers looked for the link between bad sleep, poor memory and the toxic accumulation of beta-amyloid proteins.
"The data we've collected are very suggestive that there's a causal link," said Mander, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory directed by Walker. "If we intervene to improve sleep, perhaps we can break that causal chain."
A buildup of beta-amyloid has been found in Alzheimer's patients and, independently, in people reporting sleep disorders. Moreover, a 2013 University of Rochester study found that the brain cells of mice would shrink during non-rapid-eye-movement (non-REM) sleep to make space for cerebrospinal fluids to wash out toxic metabolites such as beta-amyloid.
"Sleep is helping wash away toxic proteins at night, preventing them from building up and from potentially destroying brain cells," Walker said. "It's providing a power cleanse for the brain."
Specifically, the researchers looked at how the quantity of beta-amyloid in the brain's medial frontal lobe impairs deep non-REM sleep, which we need to retain and consolidate fact-based memories.
In a previous study, Mander, Jagust and Walker found that the powerful brain waves generated during non-REM sleep play a key role in transferring memories from the hippocampus - which supports short-term storage for information - to longer-term storage in the frontal cortex. In elderly people, deterioration of this frontal region of the brain has been linked to poor-quality sleep.
For this latest study, researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure the accumulation of beta-amyloid in the brain; functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in the brain during memory tasks; an electroencephalographic (EEG) machine to measure brain waves during sleep; and statistical models to analyze all the data.
The research was performed on 26 older adults, between the ages of 65 and 81, who showed no existing evidence of dementia or other neurodegenerative, sleep or psychiatric disorders. First, they each received PET scans to measure levels of beta-amyloid in the brain, after which they were tasked with memorizing 120 word pairs, and then tested on how well they remembered a portion of them.
The study participants then slept for eight hours, during which EEG measured their brain waves. The following morning, their brains were scanned using fMRI as they recalled the remaining word pairs. At this point, researchers tracked activity in the hippocampus, where memories are temporarily stored before they are transferred to the prefrontal cortex.
"The more you remember following a good night of sleep, the less you depend on the hippocampus and the more you use the cortex," Walker said. "It's the equivalent of retrieving files from the safe storage site of your computer's hard drive, rather than the temporary storage of a USB stick."
Overall, the results showed that the study participants with the highest levels of beta-amyloid in the medial frontal cortex had the poorest quality of sleep and, consequently, performed worst on the memory test the following morning, with some forgetting more than half of the information they had memorized the previous day.
"The more beta-amyloid you have in certain parts of your brain, the less deep sleep you get and, consequently, the worse your memory," Walker said. "Additionally, the less deep sleep you have, the less effective you are at clearing out this bad protein. It's a vicious cycle.
"But we don't yet know which of these two factors - the bad sleep or the bad protein - initially begins this cycle. Which one is the finger that flicks the first domino, triggering the cascade?" Walker added.
And that's what the researchers will determine as they track a new set of older adults over the next five years.
"This is a new pathway linking Alzheimer's disease to memory loss, and it's an important one because we can do something about it," Mander said.


Source:
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-poor...-alzheimer.html

This post has been edited by zeropoint9: Jun 24 2015, 09:49 PM

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder (also known as “manic depression”) is a disorder that is often not recognized or misdiagnosed as simply depression by the patient, relatives, friends, and even physicians. An early sign of bipolar disorder may be hypomania — a state in which the person shows a high level of energy, excessive moodiness or irritability, and impulsive or reckless behavior for at least 4 days. Hypomania may feel good, thus, even when family and friends learn to recognize the mood swings, the individual often may deny that anything is wrong.

In its early stages, bipolar disorder may masquerade as a problem other than mental illness. For example, it may first appear as alcohol or drug abuse, or poor school or work performance.

If left untreated, bipolar disorder tends to worsen, and the person experiences episodes of full-fledged manic episodes and depressive episodes.

One of the usual differential diagnoses for bipolar disorder is that the symptoms (listed below) are not better accounted for by Schizoaffective Disorder and is not superimposed on Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional Disorder, or other Psychotic Spectrum Disorders

And as with nearly all mental disorder diagnoses, the symptoms of manic depression must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Symptoms also can not be the result of substance use or abuse (e.g., alcohol, drugs, medications) or caused by a general medical condition.



Source:
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/bipolar-disorder-symptoms/

Treating ADHD, Anxiety, Depression: Here are 6 Important Things Your Doctors Won't Tell You.

1. Your child is most likely suffering from a nutritional deficiency and/or a food sensitivity.
2. Genetically modified foods (GMOs), food preservatives & chemicals are contributing to many of your child's attention, focus, sleep issues and even psychiatric symptoms.
3. For every medication that benefits a person, there is a natural plant or remedy that can achieve the same result without the consequence of side-effects.
4. Our emotions are largely governed by the state of our intestinal system. There is more serotonin in our bowels then in our brain.
5. Research has shown that the brain has a tremendous amount of neuroplasticity. Brain training therapies such as Brain Balance, Integrative Reflex, Vision & EEG biofeedback can make a world of difference.
6. The body has a greater ability to heal than anyone has permitted you to believe and recovery is possible without the need for potentially dangerous medication.

Source: www.healingwithouthurting.com

You are what you believe, So stay think positive. You can't expect positive results from negative thinking.

Any serious illness, especially painful ones, can make you tired. But some quite minor illnesses can also leave you feeling washed out. Here are 10 health conditions that are known to cause fatigue.
1. Coeliac disease
This is a type of food intolerance, where your body reacts badly when you eat gluten – a substance found in bread, cakes and cereals. One in 100 people in the UK are affected, but research suggests that up to 90% of them don’t know they have the condition, according to patient group Coeliac UK. Other symptoms of coeliac disease, apart from tiredness, are diarrhoea, anaemia and weight loss. Your GP can check if you have coeliac disease through a blood test.

2. Anaemia
One of the most common medical reasons for feeling constantly run down is iron deficiency anaemia. It affects around one in 20 men and post-menopausal women, but may be even more common in women who are still having periods.
Typically, you’ll feel you can’t be bothered to do anything, your muscles will feel heavy and you’ll get tired very quickly. Women with heavy periods and pregnant women are especially prone to anaemia.

3. Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome (also called myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME) is a severe and disabling tiredness that goes on for at least six months. There are usually other symptoms, such as a sore throat, muscle or joint pain and headache.

4. Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a condition where your throat narrows or closes during sleep and repeatedly interrupts your breathing. This results in bad snoring and a drop in your blood's oxygen levels. The difficulty in breathing means that you wake up often in the night, and feel exhausted the next day.
It’s most common in overweight, middle-aged men. Drinking alcohol and smoking makes it worse.

5. Underactive thyroid
An underactive thyroid gland means that you have too little thyroid hormone (thyroxine) in your body. This makes you feel tired. You’re also likely to put on weight and have aching muscles. It’s most common in women, and it happens more often as you get older.
Your GP can diagnose an underactive thyroid by taking a blood test.

6. Diabetes
One of the main symptoms of diabetes, a long-term condition caused by too much sugar in the blood, is feeling very tired. The other key symptoms are feeling very thirsty, going to the toilet a lot and weight loss. Your GP can diagnose diabetes with a blood test.

7. Glandular fever
Glandular fever is a common viral infection that causes fatigue, along with fever, sore throat and swollen glands. Most cases happen in teenagers and young adults. Symptoms usually clear up within four to six weeks, but the fatigue can linger for several more months.

8. Depression
As well as making you feel very sad, depression can also make you feel drained of energy. It can stop you falling asleep or cause you to wake up early in the morning, which makes you feel more tired during the day.

9. Restless legs
This is when you get uncomfortable sensations in your legs, which keep you awake at night. You might have an overwhelming urge to keep moving your legs, a deep ache in your legs, or your legs might jerk spontaneously through the night. Whatever your symptoms, your sleep will be disrupted and of poor quality, so you’ll feel very tired throughout the day.

10. Anxiety
Feeling anxious is sometimes perfectly normal. However, some people have constant, uncontrollable feelings of anxiety, which are so strong they affect their daily life. Doctors call this generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). It affects around around one in 20 people in the UK. As well as feeling worried and irritable, people with GAD often feel tired.


Source；
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/tiredness-and-f...-tiredness.aspx

I see your point and indeed I do agree

Nice thread. Keep up the hardwork. Will definitely spend my time reading them.

hi guys and fellow medic professionals here, good day to u. i would like to ask a question.

what is the best way to approach a person if we suspect that person is having mental problem / psychiatric disorder?

lets say this person is a family member, and we dont want to hurt his feeling by asking him directly to seek medical help.

Dealing with such people is something which I have to admit
that I am at a total loss as well.

''Hurting his feelings'' is the easier part actually, if he has just
a straightforward condition like depression and anxiety.

If it's a more serious and complicated disorder(s), their usual reaction
would not be one that is not unexpected or surprising - they will retort
back that ''you're the one who is schizophrenic and needs help''.

I am living with one whom I am quite certain has multiple personality
disorders - schizoid, paranoid and worst of all, narcissistic.

That person is my younger brother.


If I had my way, I'd quickly run down to my usual pharmacy and
get him some low doses of one of the atypical antipsychotics -
risperidone, olanzapine, quetiapine, aripiprazole, amisulpride, etc.

But these psychotropic drugs obviously come with a host of debilitating
long-term side effects, even if you can get him to take them.


So after some discussion with a homeopathic doctor, I had thought
about spiking his water dispenser with a drop or two of the homeopathic
remedy, Arsenic 200 C to 1M, say once a week for a few weeks.

(Arsenic in homeopathic form is harmless and can't poison anyone.)

It is typically used in treating psychiatric disorders, and in this case, also
appears to match his schizophrenic-type constitution or ''remedy picture''.

But again, that's out of the question. His kids drink from the same
dispenser, so I can't risk the long-term effects it will have on them.

The higher the potency a homepathic remedy, the deeper and
longer acting, in this case on a psychological level.


Possibly you could take your relative to the Befrienders or Malaysian
Mental Health Association and ask them to talk to him about seeking
psychiatric help.


http://mmha.org.my/contact/

thank you very much for the detailed advice and information, truely appreciate that