A small Norwegian city might hold the answer to beating the winter blues

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(Credit: AP)

Many dread the approaching winter — the darkness, frigid weather and lower energy levels that blow in along with cold fronts and snowstorms.

As headlines warn of “bomb cyclones” and cold snaps, most will begrudgingly grit out the winter months, grinding through dreary doldrums of January and February and counting down the days until spring. Some even succumb to seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression that tends to occur at higher rates in colder regions and is hypothesized to be related to the lack of daylight in those regions.

But what about people who live in the coldest parts of the world, where the winters are longest and the summers fleeting? Do they similarly dread the winter? Or could they offer clues about how to avoid the wintertime blues?

In August 2014 I moved to Tromsø, Norway, an island of 70,000 people located over 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Tromsø’s location is so extreme that they experience two months of “polar night” each year — when the sun does not rise above the horizon.

Yet despite the extreme winter conditions, studies have shown that residents of Tromsø do not experience as much seasonal depression and wintertime mental distress as you might expect.

To try to figure out why, I spent 10 months studying how people in Tromsø cope with — and even thrive during — the long, dark winters.

My research led me to a surprising conclusion: perhaps the psychological concept of mindset is the reason for their winter well-being.

After arriving in Tromsø, I was terrified at the thought of the impending winter. Months of friends and family telling me how they could “never move some place so cold and dark” because the winter makes them “so depressed” or “so tired” had me bracing for the worst-case scenario.

But it didn’t take long for me to realize that most residents of Tromsø weren’t viewing the upcoming winter with a sense of doom. In fact, to many locals, the original question I’d planned to ask — “Why aren’t people in Tromsø more depressed during the winter?” — didn’t make sense. Most people I spoke to in Tromsø were actually looking forward to the winter. They spoke enthusiastically about the ski season. They loved the opportunities for coziness provided by the winter months.

As I experienced firsthand Tromsø residents’ unique relationship to winter, a serendipitous conversation with Alia Crum, assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, inspired me to consider mindset as a factor that might influence Tromsø residents’ sunny perspective of the sunless winter. Crum defines mindsets as the “lenses through which information is perceived, organized and interpreted.” Mindsets serve as an overarching framework for our everyday experiences — and they can profoundly influence how we react in a variety of situations.

Crum’s work has shown that mindsets significantly influence both our physical and mental health in areas as diverse as exercise, stress and diet. For example, according to Crum’s research, individuals can hold the mindset that stress is either debilitating (bad for your health and performance) or enhancing (motivating and performance-boosting). The truth is that stress is both; it can cause athletes to crumble under pressure and lead CEOs to have heart attacks, but it can also sharpen focus and critical thinking, giving athletes, CEOs and the rest of us the attention and adrenaline to succeed in high-pressure situations. According to Crum’s work, instead of the mere presence of stress, it is our mindset about stress — whether or not we perceive it as a help or a hindrance — that contributes most to health, performance and psychological outcomes.

After speaking with Professor Crum, I began to wonder: could it be that residents of Tromsø possess a positive wintertime mindset, which allows them to not only persevere but also thrive during the polar night?

Along with my advisor at the University of Tromsø, Joar Vittersø, I developed a preliminary “Wintertime Mindset Scale” to measure how residents of Tromsø view the winter. The Wintertime Mindset Scale asked our survey participants to agree or disagree with items such as “There are many things to enjoy about the winter,” and “I find the winter months dark and depressing.”

The results of our study in Norway found that having a positive wintertime mindset was associated with greater life satisfaction, willingness to pursue the challenges that lead to personal growth, and positive emotions.

This preliminary study has raised many new questions about the role mindset might play in seasonal wellness. Research indicates that 6% of the US population suffers from seasonal affective disorder, a form of major depression with a recurring seasonal pattern, which most often occurs during the winter months. Another 14% suffer from a lesser pattern of seasonal mood changes known as the “winter blues.”

These statistics are certainly troubling and raise questions about preventing and curing winter depression. But what about the other 80% of the US population? Even excluding residents of sunny regions like Florida and California, the vast majority of Americans who live through the winter every year don’t get seasonal depression.

Our pilot data suggest that the concept of wintertime mindset could add a positive component to the discussion of seasonal well-being, and that mindset may be an important addition to the theoretical and practical discussion of seasonal wellness. However, more research is needed to both refine the Wintertime Mindset Scale and further validate these initial findings.

Back on the US East Coast for the holidays, the chill in the air and the early nightfall already had some of my friends and family grumbling. But I was able to convince at least some of them to find what they love about winter and lean into it; looking at winter as an opportunity rather than a burden can help people enjoy all that the season has to offer.

I pointed out that Norwegians embrace the idea of koselig, or “coziness” — that making the conscious effort to light candles and fires, drink warm beverages and snuggle under blankets can be enjoyable and relaxing.

And taking the time to bundle up and get outside even in the worst weather can help you feel like winter isn’t limiting your opportunities for recreation. Norwegians have a saying that “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing,” which typifies their ingrained belief that being active is part of a happy life — and, especially, a happy winter.

Kari Leibowitz, Ph.D. candidate in Psychology, Stanford University

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Golden Globes And ‘Sickening Hypocrisy’ Of Celebrity A-Listers Who All Knew About The Hollywood Culture Of Sexual Abuse And Child Molesters

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The post Golden Globes And ‘Sickening Hypocrisy’ Of Celebrity A-Listers Who All Knew About The Hollywood Culture Of Sexual Abuse And Child Molesters appeared first on GOV'T SLAVES.

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Australia Must Rescue Assange From The Establishment Which Tortured Manning

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Private Manning was tortured. As sure as if they’d strapped her down and set upon her flesh with fire and steel, she was tortured.

United Nations special rapporteur on torture Juan E. Mendez stated unequivocally that Manning’s treatment at the hands of the US government during her imprisonment was “cruel, inhuman and degrading,” and 295 legal scholars signed a letter declaring that she was being “detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.”

Humans, like all primates, are evolutionarily programmed to be social animals, which is why solitary confinement causes our systems to become saturated in distress signals as real as pain or fear. Studies have shown that fifteen days of this draconian practice causes permanent psychological damage. Manning was in solitary confinement for nearly a year.

Manning attempted suicide in July of 2016. To punish her for her attempt to end her misery, they tortured her some more. She attempted suicide again three months later.

Julian Assange's stay in London embassy untenable, says Ecuador https://t.co/MwuXC9o2ni

 — @guardian

The same sadistic regime which inflicted these horrors upon Manning has during the current administration prioritized the arrest of WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, and the international arms of the US power establishment have been working to facilitate that aim. The Guardian reports that Ecuador’s foreign minister is now saying Assange’s continued stay in the nation’s London embassy has become “untenable” and is seeking international mediation, to which a spokesman for the UK government has responded that “The government of Ecuador knows that the way to resolve this issue is for Julian Assange to leave the embassy to face justice.”

Justice. A government whose international operations are uniformly indistinct from America’s wants Assange to leave political asylum and trust his life to an international power establishment that tortures whistleblowers in order to face “justice”.

Julian Assange isn’t hiding from justice, he’s hiding from injustice. What sane human being wouldn’t? Time after time after time we are shown that whistleblowers, leakers, and those who facilitate them are not shown anything remotely resembling justice by this depraved Orwellian establishment. Which is why Australia must intervene and protect him.

UK refuses Ecuadorian offer of mediation "The Government of Ecuador knows that the way to resolve this issue is for Julian Assange to leave the embassy to face justice." Background: https://t.co/hGuxp0Jos4 https://t.co/nHjp0JCQgT

 — @wikileaks

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen. He is being arbitrarily detained. He has committed no crimes. His arrest is being openly pursued by a government that tortures whistleblowers. The government of the embassy that he has stayed at for the last five and a half years is seeking international mediation. What more reason do you need?

At some point, my fellow Australians, we are going to sorely regret not insisting on our own national sovereignty. Being Washington’s basement gimp will only imperil us. Today it’s Assange, but tomorrow it will be you or someone you know. The next senseless war the Americans start (and you know it’s coming) will kill our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our husbands and wives, and fill our country with another generation of darkened souls and broken minds unless we cease participating in the global domination scheme of the US-centralized oligarchs.

We have everything we need here and our borders couldn’t be easier to defend. We don’t need to put up with Canberra’s endless sycophancy to Washington anymore. If we can’t protect our own citizen from injustice and torture after all he did was tell the truth, we are not a real country. Might as well ask America for statehood so at least we can get representation in their fake congress and votes in their fake elections.

Being a defense/intelligence asset to a foreign government which has never had our interests at heart isn’t serving us. We haven’t even pretended to be our own country since Whitlam, and it needs to change. It’s either follow the Americans off the cliff this trajectory inevitably leads over, or restore our national sovereignty to the point where at the very least we can protect our own citizens from arbitrary detention and torture.

Come on, Aussie.

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Google’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets Conservative Sites

http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/09/googles-new-fact-check-feature-almost-exclusively-targets-conservative-sites/

Decades Later, One of the Biggest Environmental Disasters In US History Continues Harm Generations

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In 1973, one of the biggest environmental disasters in US history occurred in St. Louis, Michigan. It continues to haunt many today, and ill-effects are being felt not only by those directly affected, but also by their children and grandchildren. Yet, most people haven’t heard of this environmental disaster, and many of the people who are affected by it—through ill-health of various types of cancer, birth defects, autoimmune diseases, etc.—don’t realize that their ill-health is due to this environmental disaster that happened more than 40 years ago.

The environmental disaster, which resulted in a human health disaster, that I’m referring to is the contamination of tons of animal feed with a fire-retardant chemical called PBB (polybrominated biphenyl). PBB is a highly toxic endocrine disrupting chemical, which dissolves in fat and persists in human and animal bodies for decades. It also persists in the environment, and continues to cause harm long after direct exposure has ceased.

In 1973, the Michigan Chemical Corporation (MCC) produced both Firemaster, a PBB flame-retardant, and Nutrimaster, a magnesium-based agricultural feed additive. Human error led to the two being mixed-up:

“MCC had a system where each product was safely packaged in color-coded sacks, so there were no chances of mistakes being made. The system worked well until early 1973, when an inventory supply problem led to a temporary shortage of color-coded sacks, and plain sacks had to be used instead. By coincidence, a new formulation of Firemaster was being trialed at the same time, and this new formulation was almost identical to Nutrimaster in appearance. Murphy’s law came into full effect, and a truckload of the reformulated Firemaster was inadvertently delivered to Michigan’s largest cattle and poultry feed manufacturer. By the time the mistake was discovered, poisoned animal feed had already been distributed to farmers statewide and had been fed to their livestock.” (source)

1.5 million chickens, 30,000 cattle, 5,900 pigs, and 1,470 sheep then consumed this feed, became contaminated with PBBs. Thousands of cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens died horrible, painful deaths, and many more were euthanized. This excerpt from the film, Cattlegate, shows the toll that the PBB mix-up had on animals and their human keepers:

Before the mix-up was discovered, hundreds of contaminated cattle and chickens were slaughtered, and their meat was used for human consumption. Milk from contaminated dairy-cows was also consumed by humans. When the PBBs got into the human food-chain, more than 8 million people, mainly in Michigan, consumed PBB-contaminated meat and dairy, and the mix-up transformed from an environmental disaster to a human-health disaster.

“Initial data gathered from the PBB cohort study revealed other health problems among the hundreds of families and thousands of individuals recruited. Like other infamous toxicants such as bisphenol A and dioxin, PBB is classified as an endocrine disruptor, meaning that it interferes with the body’s array of natural hormones. Growing concern about endocrine disruptors since the 1990s has spurred an avalanche of research linking these chemicals to thyroid problems, diabetes, obesity, fertility problems, changes in pubertal development, and hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast and prostate cancer.” (source) 

Many of the health problems caused by PBB exposure didn’t emerge immediately. The health issues listed in the quote above—thyroid problems, diabetes, obesity, fertility problems, changes in pubertal development, and hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast and prostate cancer—take time to develop. Just as worrisome as the time-bomb of diseases caused by direct PBB exposure, are the epigenetic consequences of PBB exposure. The children, and maybe future grandchildren, of people exposed to PBB appear to have worse health outcomes than the children of people who haven’t been exposed to PBB. (The extent of the health differences between the offspring of people exposed to PBB and people not exposed to PBB is still being studied.) There are harrowing stories from people who were exposed to PBB, and who had children who were exposed to PBB in-utero, including this comment:

“My first wife was pregnant with our second child at the time of the cover up. My wife, following doctor’s instructions, was on a fairly high fat diet including lots of milk, cheese and other dairy foods. Our child was a full term stillborn with massive deformities including spina bifida, sexual ambiguity, and a unformed skull bone that was open.” (source)

The people who lived in Northern Michigan in 1973, especially those in the agricultural communities near the MCC Plant, likely know whether or not they were directly exposed to PBB at the time, and many, like the commenter above, tell harrowing stories of the effects of PBBs on the health of their children. They should be believed, no matter how difficult it is to quantify the epigenetic effects of an environmental disaster that occurred more than 40 years ago. Additionally, anyone who suffers from the diseases associated with exposure to PBBs and other endocrine disrupting persistent organic pollutants, including but not limited to, thyroid problems, diabetes, obesity, fertility problems, changes in pubertal development, and hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast and prostate cancer, should question whether they, their parents, or even their grandparents, were exposed to PBB. PBBs got into the food-supply, and many people ate PBB-contaminated meat and dairy products without realizing that they had been exposed.

Another reason that people today should be concerned about the PBB disaster of 1973 is that PBBs are PERSISTENT organic pollutants, “a large class of compounds that includes chemicals like DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dioxins that resist being broken down in the body and the environment” (source). Persistent organic pollutants resist natural processes of decay and essentially never biodegrade. They move around the environment, in air and in water, and they move up and down the food-chain as they are consumed, the consuming animal dies, and they are consumed again. They tend to accumulate in the bodies of carnivores, and in the polar regions of the world, causing the most damage in the top predators, especially the top predators in the polar regions. Persistent organic pollutants can be contained, but inadequate measures to contain PBBs have been taken. Many of the euthanized animals that were directly harmed by PBBs were incinerated—sending PBB molecules into the air, and it is unknown where they landed. Other euthanized animals were buried, and though burial is one of the better ways of containing persistent organic pollutants, it is imperfect, as the animals’ bodies disintegrated and the PBBs seeped into the water table.

The harmful effects of persistent endocrine disrupting pollutants is described in the wonderful book, Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story, where it is noted that:

“Much of the concern about hormonally active synthetic chemicals arises from the persistence that many of them have in the environment. Many don’t readily degrade into benign components. A generation after industrial countries stopped the production of the most notorious of these persistent chemicals, their legacy endures in food and in human and animal bodies. Some will be in the environment for decades, and in a few cases even centuries.” 

Shortly after the uncovering of the disastrous mix-up at the MCC Plant, the use of PBBs was discontinued in America. However, their harmful legacy continues, and the children and grandchildren of those affected by the PBB disaster continue to experience ill-health related to their exposure. Because of the persistence of PBBs, the ill-effects they caused didn’t end when they stopped being manufactured. The release of tons of PBBs directly into the human food-supply in 1973 is still causing health problems for those exposed, and likely for many people who don’t realize that they have been exposed. The legacy of the PBB disaster is ongoing, and will likely continue for many decades, if not centuries. It is one of the most significant environmental and human health disasters of modern times, yet too few people know about it. When it comes to endocrine disrupting persistent organic pollutants, ignorance isn’t bliss, and though there’s not a lot that people can do to mitigate exposure, knowledge is empowering. The PBB disaster had far-reaching consequences—consequences that continue to haunt us today.

Sources

https://undark.org/article/pbb-michigan-epigenetics/

http://michiganradio.org/post/researchers-find-serious-health-effects-toxic-pbb-mix-michigan

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/velsicol_superfund_st_louis_pb.html

http://michiganradio.org/post/40-years-after-toxic-mix-researchers-continue-study-michiganders-poisoned-pbb

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