By Janice Wood

A new study has found that awakening several times throughout the night is more detrimental to people’s positive moods than getting the same shortened amount of sleep without interruption.

For the study, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine recruited 62 healthy men and women and randomly subjected them to three experimental sleep conditions in an inpatient clinical research suite: Three consecutive nights of either forced awakenings, delayed bedtimes, or uninterrupted sleep.

The volunteers subjected to eight forced awakenings and those with delayed bedtimes showed similar low positive mood and high negative mood after the first night, as measured by a standard mood assessment questionnaire administered before bedtimes. The questionnaire asked the volunteers to rate how strongly they felt a variety of positive and negative emotions, such as cheerfulness or anger.

Those similarities ended after the second night, according to the researchers.

The forced awakening group had a reduction of 31 percent in positive mood, while the delayed bedtime group had a decline of 12 percent compared to the first day.

Researchers add they did not find significant differences in negative mood between the two groups on any of the three days, which suggests that sleep fragmentation is especially detrimental to positive mood.

“When your sleep is disrupted throughout the night, you don’t have the opportunity to progress through the sleep stages to get the amount of slow-wave sleep that is key to the feeling of restoration,” explained lead author Patrick Finan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Frequent awakenings throughout the night are common among new parents and on-call health care workers, he says. It is also one of the most common symptoms among people with insomnia, who make up an estimated 10 percent of the U.S. adult population.

“Many individuals with insomnia achieve sleep in fits and starts throughout the night, and they don’t have the experience of restorative sleep,” Finan said.

Depressed mood is a common symptom of insomnia, but the biological reasons for this are poorly understood, according to Finan.

To investigate the link, he and his team used a test called polysomnography to monitor certain brain and body functions while volunteers were sleeping to assess sleep stages.

Compared with the delayed bedtime group, the forced awakening group had shorter periods of deep, slow-wave sleep. The lack of sufficient slow-wave sleep had a statistically significant association with the volunteers’ reduction in positive mood, the researchers said.

They also found that interrupted sleep affected different domains of positive mood. For example, it not only reduced energy levels, but also feelings of sympathy and friendliness.

The study also suggests that the effects of interrupted sleep on positive mood can be cumulative, since the group differences emerged after the second night and continued the day after the third night of the study, according to Finan.

“You can imagine the hard time people with chronic sleep disorders have after repeatedly not reaching deep sleep,” he said.

He notes that further studies are needed to learn more about sleep stages in people with insomnia and the role played by a night of recovering sleep.

The study was published in the journal Sleep.

Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

By Rick Nauert PhD
Research looking at how the timing of sexual initiation in adolescence impacts adult romantic ties finds that having sex later may lead to better relationships.

In a new study, Dr. Paige Harden, a psychological scientist, investigated how the timing of sexual initiation in adolescence influences romantic outcomes — such as whether people get married or live with their partners, how many romantic partners they’ve had, and whether they’re satisfied with their relationship — later in adulthood.

To answer this question, Harden and colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin used data from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health to look at 1659 same-sex sibling pairs who were followed from adolescence (around 16) to young adulthood (around 29).

Each sibling was classified as having an Early (younger than 15), On-Time (age 15-19), or Late (older than 19) first experience with sexual intercourse.

Harden’s findings are reported in a new research article published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

As expected, later timing of first sexual experience was associated with higher educational attainment and higher household income in adulthood when compared with the Early and On-Time groups.

Individuals who had a later first sexual experience were also less likely to be married and they had fewer romantic partners in adulthood.

Among the participants who were married or living with a partner, later sexual initiation was associated with significantly lower levels of relationship dissatisfaction in adulthood.

Researchers found that these associations with a later sex experience were not changed when genetic and environmental factors were taken into account. Furthermore, the associations could not be explained by differences in adult educational attainment, income, or religiousness, or by adolescent differences in dating involvement, body mass index, or attractiveness.

Experts believe the results suggest that the timing of first experience with sexual intercourse predicts the quality and stability of romantic relationships in young adulthood.

Although investigators have often focused on the consequences of early sexual activity, the Early and On-Time participants in this study were largely indistinguishable.

Researchers say the data suggests early initiation is not a “risk” factor so much as late initiation is a “protective” factor in shaping romantic outcomes.

According to Harden, there are several possible mechanisms that might explain this relationship.

It’s possible, for example, that people who have their first sexual encounter later also have certain characteristics (e.g., secure attachment style) that have downstream effects on both sexual delay and on relationship quality.

They could be pickier in choosing romantic and sexual partners, resulting in a reluctance to enter into intimate relationships unless they are very satisfying.

It’s also possible, however, that people who have their first sexual encounter later have different experiences, avoiding early encounters with relational aggression or victimization that would otherwise have detrimental effects on later romantic outcomes.

Finally, Harden said that it’s possible that “individuals who first navigate intimate relationships in young adulthood, after they have accrued cognitive and emotional maturity, may learn more effective relationship skills than individuals who first learn scripts for intimate relationships while they are still teenagers.”

Experts say that additional research is needed to help to tease apart which of these mechanisms may actually be at work in driving the association between timing of first sexual intercourse and later romantic outcomes.

Prior studies by Harden and her colleagues have provided evidence that earlier sexual intercourse isn’t always associated with negative outcomes.

For example, using the same sample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, she found that teenagers who experienced their first sexual intercourse earlier, particularly those who had sex in a romantic dating relationship, had lower levels of delinquent behavior problems.

She said, “We are just beginning to understand how adolescents’ sexual experiences influence their future development and relationships.”

Source: Association for Psychological Science

By Rick Nauert PhD
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The first study to examine the relationship between childhood adversity, mindfulness, and health suggests adults who are mindful in the moment have better health.

The finding is important as adults who were abused or neglected as children are known to have poorer health.

Researchers discovered adults who tend to focus on and accept their reactions to the present moment — or are mindful — report having better health, regardless of their childhood adversity.

In a study to be published in the journal Preventive Medicine, Robert Whitaker, M.D., M.P.H., and colleagues surveyed 2,160 adults working in Head Start, the nation’s largest federally-funded early childhood education program.

Survey respondents, who worked in 66 Pennsylvania Head Start programs, were asked if they experienced any of eight types of childhood adversity, such as being abused or having a parent with alcoholism or drug addiction.

In addition, respondents were asked questions about their current health, as well their mindfulness, meaning their tendency in daily life to pay attention to what is happening in the moment and to be aware of and accepting of their thoughts and feelings.

Nearly one-fourth of those surveyed reported three or more types of adverse childhood experiences, and almost 30 percent reported having three or more stress-related health conditions like depression, headache, or back pain, noted the researchers.

However, the risk of having multiple health conditions was nearly 50 percent lower among those with the highest level of mindfulness compared to those with the lowest. This was true even for those who had multiple types of childhood adversity.

“Regardless of the amount of childhood adversity, those who were more mindful also reported significantly better health behaviors, like getting enough sleep, and better functioning, such as having fewer days per month when they felt poorly — either mentally or physically,” said Whitaker, professor of public health and pediatrics at Temple University.

“Our results suggest that mindfulness may provide some resilience against the poor adult health outcomes that often result from childhood trauma,” he said.

“Mindfulness training may help adults, including those with a history of childhood trauma, to improve their own well-being and be more effective with children.”

“Many smaller studies have shown that learning mindfulness practices like meditation can improve psychological and physical symptoms such as depression and pain. But more research is needed to see if interventions to increase mindfulness can improve the health and functioning of those who have had adverse childhood experiences,” Whitaker said.

With nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults reporting one or more types of adverse childhood experiences, Whitaker noted that “mindfulness practices could be a promising way to reduce the high costs to our society that result from the trauma adults experienced during childhood.”

The findings are a follow-up to the researchers’ previous study which found that women working in Head Start programs reported higher than expected levels of physical and mental health problems.

Source: Temple University

By Rick Nauert PhD

New research may help to explain how early life stressors can so dramatically affect mental health in adulthood.

The discovery is important because stress during the formative years, including abuse or emotional neglect, increases the risk for adult depression by nearly two-fold.

Scientific research into this link has revealed that the increased risk following such childhood adversity is associated with sensitization of the brain circuits involved with processing threat and driving the stress response.

Emerging findings are now demonstrating that in addition to the stress sensitization, there may also be diminished processing of reward in the brain. This deficit may diminish a person’s ability to experience positive emotions.

In the new study, researchers at Duke University and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio looked specifically at this second phenomenon in a longitudinal neuroimaging study of adolescents. Their intent was to gain a better understanding of how early life stress contributes to depression.

They recruited 106 adolescents, between the ages of 11-15, who underwent an initial magnetic resonance imaging scan, along with measurements of mood and neglect. The study participants then had a second brain scan two years later.

The researchers focused on the ventral striatum, a deep brain region that is important for processing rewarding experiences as well as generating positive emotions, both of which are deficient in depression.

They discovered that over a two-year window during early to mid-adolescence, there was an abnormal decrease in the response of the ventral striatum to reward only in adolescents who had been exposed to emotional neglect.

Emotional neglect is a relatively common form of childhood adversity where parents are persistently emotionally unresponsive and unavailable to their children, explains first author Dr. Jamie Hanson.

“Importantly, we further showed that this decrease in ventral striatum activity predicted the emergence of depressive symptoms during this key developmental period,” he added.

“Our work is consistent with other recent studies finding deficient reward processing in depression, and further underscores the importance of considering such developmental pathways in efforts to protect individuals exposed to childhood adversity from later depression.”

This study suggests that, in some people, early life stress compromises the capacity to experience enthusiasm or pleasure. In addition, the effect of early life stress may grow over time so that people who initially appear resilient may develop problems later in life.

“This insight is important because it suggests a neural pathway through which early life stress may contribute to depression,” said Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

“This pathway might be targeted by neural stimulation treatments. Further, it suggests that survivors of early life trauma and their families may benefit from learning about the possibility of consequences that might appear later in life. This preparation could help lead to early intervention.”

By Rick Nauert PhD

New research suggests the practice of using benzodiazepines to treat psychiatric conditions should be abandoned as evidence suggests the drugs heighten the risk for dementia and death.

Benzodiazepines include branded prescription drugs like Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, and Xanax. This class of drug received FDA approval in the 1960s and was believed to be a safer alternative to barbiturates.

Despite new psychiatric protocols, some physicians continue to prescribe benzodiazepines as a primary treatment for insomnia, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other ailments.

“Current research is extremely clear and physicians need to partner with their patients to move them into therapies, like antidepressants, that are proven to be safer and more effective,” said Helene Alphonso, DO, a board-certified psychiatrist and Director of Osteopathic Medical Education at North Texas University Health Science Center.

“Due to a shortage of mental health professionals in rural and underserved areas, we see primary care physicians using this class of drugs to give relief to their patients with psychiatric symptoms. While compassionate, it’s important to understand that a better long-term strategy is needed.”

Alphonso will review current treatment protocols, outpatient benzodiazepine detox strategies, and alternative anxiety treatments at OMED 15, to be held October 17-21 in Orlando. OMED is the annual medical education conference of the American Osteopathic Association.

A Canadian review of 9,000 patients found those who had taken a benzodiazepine for three months or less had about the same dementia risk as those who had never taken one. Taking the drug for three to six months raised the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by 32 percent, and taking it for more than six months boosted the risk by 84 percent. Similar results were found by French researchers studying more than 1,000 elderly patients.

Experts say the case for limiting the use of benzodiazepines is particularly compelling for patients 65 and older, who are more susceptible to falls, injuries, accidental overdose, and death when taking the drugs. The American Geriatric Society in 2012 labeled the drugs “inappropriate” for treating insomnia, agitation, or delirium because of those risks.

“It’s imperative to transition older patients because we’re seeing a very strong correlation between use of benzodiazepines and development of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. While correlation certainly isn’t causation, there’s ample reason to avoid this class of drugs as a first-line therapy,” Alphonso said.

Source: American Osteopathic Association/EurekAlert

BY REBECCA EANES

1. Talk about feelings.

Describe how sadness, happiness, anger, and other emotions feel in the body. Teach your child to recognize and name emotions as she feels them. You can do this beginning when she is very young by saying, “You look angry. Your face is red, and your body is tense.” As she grows older, talk to her about how to handle her emotions. Teach her ways to move through sadness, deal with disappointment, calm anger, maintain happiness, and so on. She will benefit from this lifelong.

2. Accept and validate all feelings.

As parents, we often only like to see positive emotions in our children. Anger tends to trigger our own anger. Sadness makes us worry, and so we want to wipe it away quickly. We may dismiss disappointment or anxiety in hopes that these feelings will just go away in our children. We want to see them happy all the time, but human beings aren’t happy all the time, and it’s important for your child to learn that all emotions are normal and okay to feel. He needs to know, of course, that all behavior isn’t acceptable (for example, he can’t throw things because he’s mad), but it’s perfectly okay to feel mad. Don’t dismiss feelings that make you uncomfortable, but sit with your child through them. Often, they just need you to listen and show understanding.

3. Play games that build emotional intelligence.

We have a long list of many emotions that we act out in our homeschool day. Yes, emotional intelligence is part of our curriculum. Acting out emotions with your bodies or with puppets or toys is a great way to build emotional intelligence. Look through magazines or books and talk about what emotions are shown on people’s faces or give your child blank faces and various eyes, noses, and mouths to create their own faces. There are even some really neat toys that build emotional intelligence, such as Meebie and Kimochis.

4. Use conflicts to teach problem-solving skills.

Rather than sending your child to time out when she goes head to head with a sibling, teach her to look for a solution. “I understand that you are upset because your brother wants the same toy you are playing with. I won’t let you hit. How can we solve this?” If your child doesn’t offer up solutions, give her a few to choose from. “You can take turns with the toy. How does that work for you both?”

5. Set a good example.

Handle your own emotions well, especially in front of your children. Rather than yelling or using a harsh tone, be direct and kind. “It upsets me when you throw your food” is preferable over “all you do is make messes and drive me crazy!” Be honest about your feelings without exaggerating or dismissing them. “I’m feeling sad right now. Sadness is okay, it passes,” and of course, if you’re happy and you know it, let them know!

*Editor’s Note: Purchase Emotion Coaching: The Heart of Parenting video program and other resources for parents at the Gottman Store This article originally appeared on creativechild.com and has been reprinted with the author’s permission.

By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

Lots of people walk through life trying to hide their depression. Some people with hidden depression can conceal their depression like pros, masking their symptoms and putting on a “happy face” for most others.

People with concealed depression or hidden depression often don’t want to acknowledge the severity of their depressive feelings. They believe that if they just continue living their life, the depression will just go away on its own. In a few cases, this may work. But for most folks, it just drags out the feelings of sadness and loneliness.

Dealing with the black dog of depression through concealing one’s true feelings is the way many of us were brought up — we don’t talk about our feelings and we don’t burden others with our troubles. But if a friend or family member is going through something like this — trying to hide or mask their depression — these signs might help you discover what they’re trying to keep concealed.

6 Signs of Concealed Depression

1. They have unusual sleep, eating or drinking habits that differ from their normal ones.

When a person seems to have changed the way they sleep or eat in significant ways, that’s often a sign that something is wrong. Sleep is the foundation of both good health and mental health. When a person can’t sleep (or sleeps for far too long) every day, that may be a sign of hidden depression.

Others turn to food or alcohol to try and quash their feelings. Overeating can help someone who is depressed feel full, which in turn helps them feel less emotionally empty inside. Drinking may be used to help cover up the feelings of sadness and loneliness that often accompany depression. Sometimes a person will go in the other direction too — losing all interest in food or drinking, because they see no point in it, or it brings them no joy.

2. They wear a forced “happy face” and are always making excuses.

We’ve all seen someone who seems like they are trying to force happiness. It’s a mask we all wear from time to time. But in most cases, the mask wears thin the longer you spend time with the person who’s wearing it. That’s why lots of people with hidden depression try not to spend any more time with others than they absolutely have to. They seem to always have a quick and ready excuse for not being able to hang out, go to dinner, or see you.

It’s hard to see behind the mask of happiness that people with hidden depression wear. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of it in a moment of honesty, or when there’s a conversation lull.

3. They may talk more philosophically than normal.

When you do finally catch up with a person with masked depression, you may find the conversation turning to philosophical topics they don’t normally talk much about. These might include the meaning of life, or what their life has amounted to so far. They may even open up enough to acknowledge occasional thoughts of wanting to hurt themselves or even thoughts of death. They may talk about finding happiness or a better path in the journey of life.

These kinds of topics may be a sign that a person is struggling internally with darker thoughts that they dare not share.

4. They may put out a cry for help, only to take it back.

People with hidden depression struggle fiercely with keeping it hidden. Sometimes, they give up the struggle to conceal their true feelings and so they tell someone about it. They may even take the first step and make an appointment with a doctor or therapist, and a handful will even will make it to the first session.

But then they wake up the next day and realize they’ve gone too far. Seeking out help for their depression would be admitting they truly are depressed. That is an acknowledgment that many people with concealed depression struggle with and cannot make. Nobody else is allowed to see their weakness.

5. They feel things more intensely than normal.

A person with masked depression often feels emotions more intensely than others. This might come across as someone who doesn’t normally cry while watching a TV show or movie suddenly breaks out in tears during a poignant scene. Or someone who doesn’t normally get angry about anything suddenly gets very mad at a driver who cut them off in traffic. Or someone who doesn’t usually express terms of endearment suddenly is telling you that they love you.

It’s like by keeping their depressive feelings all boxed up, other feelings leak out around the edges more easily.

6. They may look at things with a less optimistic point of view than usual.

Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as depressive realism, and there’s some research evidence to suggest that it’s true. When a person suffers from depression, they may actually have a more realistic picture of the world around them and their impact on it. People who aren’t depressed, on the other hand, tend to be more optimistic and have expectations that aren’t as grounded in their actual circumstances. Non-depressed people believed they performed better on laboratory tasks than they actually did, compared to people with depression (Moore & Fresco, 2012).

It’s sometimes harder to cover-up this depressive realism, because the difference in attitude may be very small and not come across as something “depressing.” Instead of saying, “I really think I’ll get that promotion this time!” after having been passed over it four previous times, they may say, “Well, I’m up for that promotion again, but I doubt I’ll get it.”

By Janice Wood

The music we listen to reveals a lot about our mental health, according to new research.

A new brain imaging study has found that our neural responses to different types of music affect our emotion regulation.

Emotion regulation is an essential component to mental health, according to scientists. Poor emotion regulation is associated with psychiatric mood disorders, such as depression.

Clinical music therapists know the power music can have over emotions, and are able to use music to help their clients to better mood states and even to help relieve symptoms of psychiatric mood disorders, like depression.

But many people also listen to music on their own as a means of regulating emotions, and not much is known about how this affects mental health.

That led researchers at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Music Research at the universities of Jyväskylä and Aalto in Finland and Aarhus University in Denmark to investigate the relationship between mental health, music listening habits, and neural responses to music by looking at a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging data.

“Some ways of coping with negative emotion, such as rumination, which means continually thinking over negative things, are linked to poor mental health. We wanted to learn whether there could be similar negative effects of some styles of music listening,” said University of Jyväskylä graduate student Emily Carlson, a music therapist and main author of the study.

Volunteers were assessed on several markers of mental health, including depression, anxiety, and neuroticism. They also reported the ways they most often listened to music to regulate their emotions.

Analysis showed that anxiety and neuroticism were higher in people who tended to listen to sad or aggressive music to express negative feelings, particularly in men.

“This style of listening results in the feeling of expression of negative feelings, not necessarily improving the negative mood,” says Dr. Suvi Saarikallio, co-author of the study and developer of the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) test.

To investigate the brain’s unconscious emotion regulation processes, the researchers recorded the participants’ neural activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they listened to snippets of happy, sad, and fearful-sounding music.

What the study revealed is that men who tended to listen to music to express negative feelings had less activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). In females who tended to listen to music to distract from negative feelings, however, there was increased activity in the mPFC.

“The mPFC is active during emotion regulation,” said Dr. Elvira Brattico, the senior author of the study. “These results show a link between music listening styles and mPFC activation, which could mean that certain listening styles have long-term effects on the brain.”

“We hope our research encourages music therapists to talk with their clients about their music use outside the session and encourages everyone to think about the how the different ways they use music might help or harm their own well-being,” concluded Carlson.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

By Rick Nauert PhD

New research suggests an explanation for the relationship difficulties experienced by people with borderline personality disorder.

Investigators from the University of Georgia used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to discover that those with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have lowered brain activity in regions important for empathy. BPD is a mental illness marked by unstable moods.

“Our results showed that people with BPD traits had reduced activity in brain regions that support empathy,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Brian Haas, an assistant professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences psychology department.

“This reduced activation may suggest that people with more BPD traits have a more difficult time understanding and/or predicting how others feel, at least compared to individuals with fewer BPD traits.”

The findings appear in the journal Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.

For the study, Haas recruited over 80 participants and asked them to take a questionnaire, called the Five Factor Borderline Inventory, to determine the degree to which they had various traits associated with borderline personality disorder.

The researchers then used imaging to measure brain activity in each of the participants. During the fMRI, participants were asked to do an empathetic processing task, which tapped into their ability to think about the emotional states of other people, while the fMRI measured their simultaneous brain activity.

In the empathetic processing task, participants would match the emotion of faces to a situation’s context. As a control, Haas and study co-author Dr. Joshua Miller also included shapes, like squares and circles, that participants would have to match from emotion of the faces to the situation.

“We found that for those with more BPD traits, these empathetic processes aren’t as easily activated,” said Miller, a psychology professor and director of the Clinical Training Program.

Haas chose to look at those who scored high on the Five Factor Borderline Inventory, instead of simply working with those previously diagnosed with the disorder. By using the inventory, Haas was able to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between empathic processing, BPD traits, and high levels of neuroticism and openness, as well as lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness.

“Oftentimes, borderline personality disorder is considered a binary phenomenon. Either you have it or you don’t,” said Haas, who runs the Gene-Brain-Social Behavioral Lab.

“But for our study, we conceptualized and measured it in a more continuous way such that individuals can vary along a continuum of no traits to very many BPD traits.”

Haas found a link between those with high borderline personality traits and a decreased use of neural activity in two parts of the brain: the temporoparietal junction and the superior temporal sulcus, two brain regions implicated to be critically important during empathic processing.

The research provides new insight into individuals susceptible to experiencing the disorder and how they process emotions.

“Borderline personality disorder is considered one of the most severe and troubling personality disorders,” Miller said. “BPD can make it difficult to have successful friendships and romantic relationships. These findings could help explain why that is.”

In the future, Haas would like to study BPD traits in a more naturalistic setting.

“In this study, we looked at participants who had a relatively high amount of BPD traits. I think it’d be great to study this situation in a real life scenario, such as having people with BPD traits read the emotional states of their partners,” he said.

When someone is told they have dementia, it means they have significant memory problems as well as other cognitive difficulties. Most of the time dementia is caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

In many parts of the world the words Alzheimer’s and dementia are used interchangeably.

While dementia is an all encompassing term, Alzheimer’s disease relates to a specific type of dementia.

Contrary to what some people may think, dementia is not a less severe problem, with Alzheimer’s disease being a more severe problem.

There is great confusion about the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia.

In a nutshell, dementia is a syndrome, and Alzheimer’s is the cause of the symptom.

When someone is told they have dementia, it means that they have significant memory problems as well as other cognitive difficulties, and that these problems are severe enough to get in the way of daily living.

Too often, patients and their family members are told by their doctors that the patient has been diagnosed with “a little bit of dementia.” They leave the doctor’s visit with a feeling of relief that at least they don’t have Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

The confusion is felt on the part of patients, family members, the media, and even health care providers. This article provides information to reduce the confusion by defining and describing these two common and often poorly understood terms.

What’s the difference between Alzheimer’s disease and dementia?
“Dementia” is a term that has replaced a more out-of-date word, “senility,” to refer to cognitive changes with advanced age.
Dementia includes a group of symptoms, the most prominent of which is memory difficulty with additional problems in at least one other area of cognitive functioning, including language, attention, problem solving, spatial skills, judgment, planning, or organization.
These cognitive problems are a noticeable change compared to the person’s cognitive functioning earlier in life and are severe enough to get in the way of normal daily living, such as social and occupational activities.

A good analogy to the term dementia is “fever.” Fever refers to an elevated temperature, indicating that a person is sick. But it does not give any information about what is causing the sickness.

In the same way, dementia means that there is something wrong with a person’s brain, but it does not provide any information about what is causing the memory or cognitive difficulties.

Dementia is not a disease; it is the clinical presentation or symptoms of a disease. There are many possible causes of dementia. Some causes are reversible, such as certain thyroid conditions or vitamin deficiencies. If these underlying problems are identified and treated, then the dementia reverses and the person can return to normal functioning.

However, most causes of dementia are not reversible. Rather, they are degenerative diseases of the brain that get worse over time. The most common cause of dementia is AD, accounting for as many as 70-80% of all cases of dementia.

Approximately 5.3 million Americans currently live with Alzheimer’s Disease.
As people get older, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease increases, with approximately 50% of people age 85 and older having the disease.
It is important to note, however, that although Alzheimer’s is extremely common in later years of life, it is not part of normal aging. For that matter, dementia is not part of normal aging.
If someone has dementia (due to whatever underlying cause), it represents an important problem in need of appropriate diagnosis and treatment by a well-trained health care provider who specializes in degenerative diseases.
In a nutshell, dementia is a symptom, and Alzheimer’s Disease is the cause of the symptom.

When someone is told they have dementia, it means that they have significant memory problems as well as other cognitive difficulties, and that these problems are severe enough to get in the way of daily living.

Most of the time, dementia is caused by the specific brain disease, AD. However, some uncommon degenerative causes of dementia include vascular dementia (also referred to as multi-infarct dementia), frontotemporal dementia, Lewy Body disease, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Contrary to what some people may think, dementia is not a less severe problem, with AD being a more severe problem.

How to Test Your Memory for Alzheimer’s

There is not a continuum with dementia on one side and AD at the extreme. Rather, there can be early or mild stages of AD, which then progress to moderate and severe stages of the disease.
One reason for the confusion about dementia and AD is that it is not possible to diagnose AD with 100% accuracy while someone is alive. Rather, AD can only truly be diagnosed after death, upon autopsy when the brain tissue is carefully examined by a specialized doctor referred to as a neuropathologist.
During life, a patient can be diagnosed with “probable AD.” This term is used by doctors and researchers to indicate that, based on the person’s symptoms, the course of the symptoms, and the results of various tests, it is very likely that the person will show pathological features of AD when the brain tissue is examined following death.
In specialty memory clinics and research programs, such as the BU ADC, the accuracy of a probable AD diagnosis can be excellent. And with the results of exciting new research, such as that being conducted at the BU ADC, the accuracy of AD diagnosis during life is getting better and better. This contribution was made by Dr. Robert Stern, Director of the BU ADC Clinical Core.

SAGE: A Test to Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s and Dementia
Catch memory problems early, take the SAGE test.

The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments. It evaluates your thinking abilities and helps physicians to know how well your brain is working.

Take the SAGE Test

You do not need special equipment to take SAGE – just pen and paper. There are four forms of the SAGE test. You only need to take one. It doesn’t matter which one you take; they are all interchangeable.

Click on the link below to download the test. Print it out and answer the questions in ink without the assistance of others. Don’t look at the clock or calendar while taking the test, and if you have questions about an item, just do the best you can. The average time to complete this four-page test is 10 to 15 minutes, but there is no time limit.

Download Test: http://wexnermedical.osu.edu/~/media/Files/WexnerMedical/Patient-Care/Healthcare-Services/Brain-Spine-Neuro/Memory-Disorders/SAGE/Forms/sage-form-1-us.pdf?la=en

Why take the SAGE test?

You may want to take SAGE if you are concerned that you might have cognitive issues. Or you may wish to have your family or friends take the test if they are having memory or thinking problems. The difficulties listed can be early signs of cognitive and brain dysfunction. While dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can lead to these symptoms, there are many other treatable disorders that also may cause these signs.

It is normal to experience some memory loss and to take longer to recall events as you age. But if the changes you are experiencing are worrying you or others around you, SAGE can be a helpful tool to assess if further evaluation is necessary.

Unfortunately, many people do not seek help for these kinds of symptoms until they have experienced them for several years. There are many treatable causes of cognitive and thinking loss, and in some cases, medications or other treatments can be very effective-especially if provided when symptoms first begin.

Remember that SAGE does not diagnose any specific condition. The results of SAGE will not tell you if you have Alzheimer’s disease, mini-strokes or any number of other disorders. But the results can help your doctor know if further evaluation is necessary.

What do I do after I take the test?

After you complete the test, take it to your primary care physician. Your doctor will score it and interpret the results. If indicated, your doctor will order some tests to further evaluate your symptoms or refer you for further evaluation.

If your score does not indicate any need for further evaluation, your doctor can keep the test on file as a baseline for the future. That means, you can take the test again in the future, and the doctor can see if there are any changes over time.

There is no answer sheet provided here for you to score yourself because there are multiple correct answers to many of the questions on the test. SAGE should be scored by your physician.

If you do not have a primary care physician, you can find one through our list of providers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

by Dr. David Samadi

1. Feeling depressed: Changes in mood are also common with dementia. Loved ones often notice this. Depression, for instance, is typical in the early stages of dementia. Along with mood changes, personality changes also occur. A typical sign is a shift from being shy to outgoing from judgement being affected through the disease.

2. Carrying Extra Weight: A significant study released in May 2011 published in the journal, Neurology, linked a high body mass index to an increased risk for dementia.

3. Can’t sleep: If you have trouble sleeping, it could be an early sign of dementia. Published in the journal Annals of Neurology in December 2011 39% of 1300 women who were participants in the study had developed some mild cognitive impairment by the end of the 5-year period.

4. Walking Slow: Declining motor skills is a common sign of dementia. As the condition progresses, difficulty with motor functions and coordination will arise. Patients will lose the ability to do small daily tasks like going to the bathroom or getting dressed.

5. Memory Loss—Obviously this is the major one. You or your loved ones may notice memory loss affects the daily routine the most. Patients may experience subtle short-term memory changes:

Ability to focus and pay attention
Reasoning and judgment
Visual perception
Cognitive changes should be expected such as difficulty with:

Following storylines
Finding the right wording
Communicating or finding words
Complex tasks
Planning and organizing
Coordination and motor functions
Problems with disorientation, such as getting lost

By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

How Bad Is Your FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)?Have you ever wondered how bad your fear of missing out (FOMO) really is?

As a reminder, the fear of missing out is the psychological phenomenon where a person has extreme anxiety whenever they’re doing something — watching TV or a movie, eating dinner out, hanging out with friends — that there may be something better they’re not doing. It was brought on by the always-on access to social networks like Facebook, where a person is encouraged to constantly update their status.

And update we do! Our “news feeds” on Facebook and other social networks are full of what others in our life are doing. So is it any surprise that all of that apparent activity is causing some of us to be stressed out and anxious?

The Fear of Missing Out Revisited

We first talked about the fear of missing out, or FOMO addiction four years ago, way back in 2011:

Teens and adults text while driving, because the possibility of a social connection is more important than their own lives (and the lives of others). […] They check their Twitter stream while on a date, because something more interesting or entertaining just might be happening.

It’s not “interruption,” it’s connection. But wait a minute… it’s not really “connection” either. It’s the potential for simply a different connection. It may be better, it may be worse — we just don’t know until we check.

We are so connected with one another through our Twitter streams and check-ins, through our Facebook and LinkedIn updates, that we can’t just be alone anymore. The fear of missing out (FOMO) — on something more fun, on a social date that might just happen on the spur of the moment — is so intense, even when we’ve decided to disconnect, we still connect just once more, just to make sure.

But as research has shown, a person’s Facebook profile and status updates provide a one-sided view of a person’s life — the very best of it. So yeah, chances are, your life may not always measure up to other people’s idealized, perfect lives that they curate and seamlessly present to the world. Because none of it is real.1

There’s an App for That

Well in this case, there’s not an app for that (or who knows, there may be!), but there is a quiz for it.

Because we know FOMO is a real concern among some of our readers, we’ve developed a FOMO quiz:

Take the FOMO quiz:

http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/fomo-quiz.htm

By John Amodeo, PhD

Attachment Theory suggests that we’re wired to seek love and acceptance. So the fear of rejection is understandable. But might there be a corresponding fear that is less visible — a fear of being accepted?

Much has been written about the fear of rejection, but not much about the fear of acceptance. The fear of rejection makes obvious sense. If we’ve had a steady diet of being shamed, blamed, and criticized, we learned that the world is not a safe place. Something within us mobilizes to protect our tender heart from further stings and insults.

This protective mechanism doesn’t make subtle discriminations. Our defensive structure not only safeguards us from possible rejection, but also from the prospect of being accepted and welcomed. Our vigilantly scanning antenna that protects us from danger might also give false readings.

Being Accepted Can Be Frightening

There can be scary implications for being accepted. You meet someone at a social event who likes you. This person asks for your phone number. What now? You may be flooded by fear. What if this person begins to see who you are? What might they see? What if they don’t like you? And what if they really seem to like you?

Being accepted and liked might be scary if:

We have blocks to receiving.
You may not know what to do with compliments or positive attention. You might shut down so that you don’t have to let down your defenses and allow yourself to be seen. And what if they no longer accept you at some point? That might really hurt! So you play it safe by distancing as a preemptive defense against possible future pain.
We cling to core negative beliefs.
When someone likes or accepts us, then negative core beliefs might be up for review. If we believe that we’re unlovable or that relationships always fail, we might not know how to respond when evidence contradicts our core belief.
We have an avoidant or ambivalent attachment style.
The fear of acceptance may be operating if we tend to avoid relationships. In addition to fearing rejection, we might keep distant because we don’t trust that any incipient connection or acceptance will last. If we’re ambivalent about relationships — some part of us wants connection and another part is frightened by it — we might succumb to our fear and pull away at the first sign of discord.

Overcoming the fear of acceptance may mean exploring blocks to receiving and examining core beliefs that keep us stuck. This might involve a radical change in our self-image. Viewing ourselves more positively, and our potential to love and be loved more hopefully, means that our life might change. Change can be scary.

Accepting Ourselves

It also can be scary to accept ourselves. Practicing radical acceptance — embracing ourselves just as we are –means not judging ourselves but rather honoring the full range of our feelings and desires. It can be scary to open to our human hurts and sorrows and accept that this is simply a part of who we are. Or shame may block us from seeing and honoring our true feelings.

Shame creates an inner contraction that prevents us from accepting ourselves as we are. We may strive to be perfect in order to avoid being shamed. We may think we have to project an image of being strong, intelligent, humorous, or unruffled in order to avoid being rejected or humiliated. These shame-driven behaviors disconnect us from ourselves and isolate us.

We move toward a courageous self-acceptance as we realize that we are a vulnerable human being — just like everyone else.

When you are with someone whose demeanor or smile or kind words suggest that they respect or accept you, how do you feel inside? Do you notice some inner squirming or discomfort? Can you allow those feelings to be there and be gentle with them? Perhaps take a breath and let in how it feels to be accepted. You might learn to like it.

“She isn’t attracted to me anymore. She never acts as excited to see me when I come home. Why can’t it just be like it was in the beginning?” My friend has just entered into the first of two common phases of relationship insecurity: rhetorical questioning. The internal investigation continues with, “She takes forever to answer my texts. Doesn’t she miss me when I’m gone? She used to always laugh at my jokes. Do you think she’s interested in someone else?”
Then comes phase two: turning on himself, “It’s because I’m losing my looks. I’m away too often. She doesn’t think I’m fun anymore. I can’t make her happy. There’s something wrong with me. She wants someone better.”
We’ve all most likely been at one or the other ends of this scenario; we’ve either been the worrier or been with the worrier. Chances are, we’ve actually experienced both. Insecurity, as most of us know firsthand, can be toxic to our closest relationships. And while it can bounce back and forth from partner to partner, both the cause of our insecurity and its cure reside in us alone.
Unsurprisingly, studies have found that people with low self-esteem have more relationship insecurities, which can prevent them from experiencing the benefits of a loving relationship. People with low self-esteem not only want their partner to see them in a better light than they see themselves, but in moments of self-doubt, they have trouble even recognizing their partner’s affirmations. Moreover, the very acting out of our insecurities can push our partner away, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because this struggle is so internal and most of the time even independent of circumstances, it’s important to deal with our insecurities without distorting or dragging our partner into them. We can do this by taking two steps 1. Uncovering the real roots of our insecurity and 2. Challenging the inner critic that sabotages our relationship.
1. Where does our insecurity come from?
Nothing awakens distant hurts like a close relationship. Our relationships stir up old feelings from our past more than anything else. Our brains are even flooded with the same neurochemical in both situations.
We all have working models for relationships that were formed in our early attachments to influential caretakers. Whatever our early pattern was shapes our adult relationships, a subject I address in more detail in the blog “How Your Attachment Style Impacts Your Relationship.” Our style of attachment influences which partners we choose and the dynamics that play out in our relationships. A secure attachment pattern helps a person to be more confident and self-possessed. However, when someone has an anxious or preoccupied attachment style, they may be more likely to feel insecure toward their partner.
Knowing our attachment style is beneficial, because it can help us to realize ways we may be recreating a dynamic from our past. It can help us to choose better partners and form healthier relationships, which can actually, in turn, change our attachment style. Finally, it can make us more aware of how our feelings of insecurity may be misplaced, based on something old as opposed to our current situation.
Our insecurities can further stem from a “critical inner voice” that we’ve internalized based on negative programming from our past. If we had a parent who hated themselves, for example, or who directed critical attitudes toward us, we tend to internalize this point of view and carry it with us like a cruel coach inside our heads. This inner critic tends to be very vocal about the things that really matter to us, like our relationships. Take the example of my friend, mentioned above. First the critical inner voice fueled doubts about his girlfriend’s interest in him, then it turned on him. The second he perceived the situation through the filter of his critical inner voice, which told him his girlfriend was pulling away, his mind flooded with terrible thoughts toward himself. One minute, he was just fine. The next minute, he was listening to an inner voice telling him all the ways he couldn’t measure up, that he was being rejected.
Relationships shake us up. They challenge core feelings we have about ourselves and evict us from long-lived-in comfort zones. They tend to turn up the volume of our inner voice and reopen unresolved wounds from our past. If we felt abandoned as a child, the aloof behavior of a romantic partner won’t just feel like a current frustration. It has the potential to send us back into the emotional state of a terrified child, who needed our parent for survival. As hard as it may feel to connect our contemporary reactions with beliefs, attitudes and experiences from our early lives, it is an invaluable tool for getting to know ourselves, and ultimately, for challenging behaviors that don’t serve us or even fit with our real, adult life.
2. How to Deal With Relationship Insecurity
In order to challenge our insecurity, we have to first get to know our critical inner voice. We should try to catch it each and every time is creeps into our minds. Sometimes, it may be easy. We’re getting dressed to go out on a date, and it screeches, “You look awful! You’re so fat. Just cover yourself up. He’ll never be attracted to you.” Other times, it’ll be more sneaky, even soothing sounding, “Just keep to yourself. Don’t invest or show her how you feel, and you won’t get hurt.” This voice can even turn on our partner in ways that make us feel more insecure, “You can’t trust him. He’s probably cheating on you!” Identifying this critical inner voice is the first step to challenging it. Here you can learn specific steps you can take to conquer this inner critic and keep it from infiltrating your love life.
As we start to challenge these negative attitudes toward ourselves, we must also make an effort to take actions that go against the directives of our critical inner voice. In terms of a relationship, that means not acting out based on unwarranted insecurities or acting in any ways we don’t respect. Here are some helpful steps to take:
Maintain your independence. It’s crucial to keep a sense of ourselves separate from our partner. As Dr. Daniel Siegel has said, the goal for a relationship should be to make a fruit salad and not a smoothie. In other words, we shouldn’t forego essential parts of who we are in order to become merged into a couple. Instead, each of us should work to maintain the unique aspects of ourselves that attracted us to each other in the first place, even as we move closer. In this way, each of us can hold strong, knowing that we are a whole person in and of ourselves.
Don’t act out no matter how anxious you are. Of course, this is easier said then done, but we all know our insecurities can precipitate some pretty destructive behavior. Acts of jealousy or possessiveness can hurt our partner, not to mention us. Snooping through their text messages, calling every few minutes to see where they are, getting mad every time they look at another attractive person – these are all acts that we can avoid no matter how anxious it makes us, and in the end, we will feel much stronger and more trusting. Even more importantly, we will be trustworthy.
Because we can only change our half of the dynamic, it’s always valuable to think about if there are any actions we take that push our partner away. If we’re acting in a way we respect, and we still don’t feel like we’re getting what we want, we can make a conscious decision to talk about it with our partner or change the situation, but we never have to feel victimized or allow ourselves to act in ways that we don’t respect.
Don’t seek reassurance. Looking to our partner to reassure us when we feel insecure only leads to more insecurities. Remember, these attitudes come from inside us, and unless we can overcome them within ourselves, it won’t matter how smart, sexy, worthy or attractive our partner tells us we are. No matter what, we must strive to feel okay within ourselves. This means really and fully accepting the love and affection our partner directs toward us. However, it doesn’t mean looking to our partner at every turn for reassurance to prove we are okay, a burden that weighs on our partner and detracts from ourselves.
Stop measuring. It’s important not to constantly evaluate or assess our partner’s every move. We have to accept that our partner is a separate person with a sovereign mind. We won’t always see things the same way or express our love in the same way. This doesn’t mean we should settle for someone who doesn’t offer us what we want in a relationship, but when we do find someone who we value and love, we should try not to enter into a tit-for-tat mentality in which we continuously measure who owes who what and when.
A relationship should be equal in terms of maturity and kindnesses exchanged. If things feel off, we can communicate clearly what we want, but we shouldn’t expect our partner to read our minds or know exactly what to do all the time. As soon as we get into the blame game, it’s a hard cycle from which to break free .
Go all in. We all have anxiety, but we can increase our tolerance for the many ambiguities that every relationship inevitably presents by being true to ourselves. We can invest in a person even when we know they have the power to hurt us. Keeping one foot out the door only keeps the relationship from becoming as close as it can and may even undermine it altogether. When we allow ourselves to be loved and to feel loving, we are bound to also feel anxious, but sticking it out has more rewards than we may imagine. When we take a chance without letting our insecurities dictate our behavior, the best case scenario is that the relationship blossoms, and the worst case is that we grow within ourselves. No time is wasted that taught us something about ourselves or that helped nourish our capacity to love and be vulnerable.

http://www.psychalive.org/getting-over-relationship-insecurity/

Most parents who look into the eyes of their brand new baby see whatever lies ahead as a clean slate. Nothing turns our focus more toward the future than having a child. Yet, attachment research tells us that the biggest predictor of how we will be as parents is how much we’ve been able to make sense out of our own past. So, while the last place we may be looking when we become parents is at our own childhood, that’s exactly what we should be doing if we want to be better present-day parents to our children.
Even though what happened to us in childhood shows up in our parenting, this doesn’t mean we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents. In fact, no matter what distress or even trauma we endured in early life, what matters most is how much we’ve been able to feel the full pain of our childhood and create a coherent narrative of our experience. By processing what happened to us, we are better able to relate to our own kids and provide the nurturance they need. We can come to recognize that are our “instinctive” reactions are not always representative of how we want to parent. We can start to understand why our kids trigger us the way they do.
This process isn’t about blaming our parents. Our parents were people, and all people are flawed, with positive traits we aim to emulate and negative traits we’d like to emancipate from. Yet, recognizing the ways our parents or other influential caretakers affected us is part of growing up and becoming our own person. With this in mind, we can start to notice the ways our history is infiltrating our parenting, distorting our behavior and hurting both ourselves and our children. A good way to catch on to this is look at seven ways our childhood can affect how we parent:
1. Imitating – It’s no great mystery that, particularly when we become parents ourselves, we start to notice negative traits we have that are similar to our parents. Our kid spills somethings, and we shout “Now look what you’ve done!” It’s an expression we’ve never even used but often heard in our old household. We may have plenty of good things we got from our parents, but what hurts our children is when we fail to recognize the maladaptive ways our parents treated us that we are now repeating. An extreme example of this is physical punishment. Many parents justify hitting their child simply because that’s the way their parents disciplined them, dismissing that there are countless proven studies that say corporal punishment only has detrimental effects. We shouldn’t justify harmful actions, big or small, because we learned them from our parents. Instead, we should aim be the generation that breaks the chain.
2. Overreacting – On the flip side of imitating our parents’ behavior, we may react to a destructive early environment by trying to compensate for or rebel against our parents’ way of treating us. We may be well-intended when we try to do it differently, but we often inadvertently go overboard. For example, if our parents were overbearing, we may react by being too hands-off with our kids. While we felt intruded on growing up, our children may not feel cared about. When we swing too far the other way, we are still distorting our behavior based on our history. Rather than deciding on the qualities that matter to us, we are still reacting to things that happened to us.
3. Projecting – Much of the reason we overcompensate for our parents’ mistakes is that we project ourselves or how we felt as kids onto our children. We may see them as our parents saw us, as “wild” or “incapable.” We may typecast them as the “bad kid” or the “baby.” We may feel sorry for them, projecting that they hurt in the same ways we hurt or are angry in the same ways we were angry. We may see our kids as an extension of ourselves, and then put pressure on them to either be like us or excel in ways we weren’t able to. We may expect them to carry on our own dreams or pursue our interests rather than finding their own. When we project ourselves onto our kids, we fail to see them as the separate individuals they truly are. We may miss the mark – meeting the “needs” we think they have rather than providing an attuned response to them – and behaving as if we are parenting our child selves.
4. Recreating – For many of us, it can be hard to trace the ways we recreate our early emotional environment in our adult lives. However, even if our early circumstances were unfavorable, we developed certain psychological defenses that may cause us to seek out these same circumstances when we start our own family. For example, we may subconsciously choose a partner who replicates a dynamic from our past. We may find ourselves seeking rejection, the same way we felt rejected as kids. These situations may not be pleasant, but they have a familiarity that we may be unconsciously drawn to. As kids, disagreeing with or fearing a parent can feel life-threatening. As a result, we may internalize our parent’s point of view or create a familiar family environment for ourselves in adulthood. This replication ultimately exposes our children to the negative atmosphere of our own childhood.
5. Being defended – The adaptations we make to get through tough times we experienced as kids can become psychological defenses that affect us throughout our lives. These early adaptations may have served us well when we were little, but they can hurt us as adults, particularly as parents. For example, if we had a parent who was rejecting or frightening, we may have kept to ourselves as kids, feeling self-sufficient and not really wanting much from anyone. This may have helped us get our needs met in our early years when we were dependent on our parents for survival, but as an adult, this attitude can limit our relationships. We may have trouble opening up and being nurturing toward our own children. We may have trouble accepting love from them. Part of growing up, means knowing our defenses and finding ways to live free of these early overlays on our personality, discovering who we really are and what we really want. How do we want to be with our own children? What example do we want to create for them?
6. Getting triggered – No matter how good our intentions, we are bound to feel triggered by our kids at moments of frustration. We are often stirred up or provoked by current day situations that remind us of pain from our past, even if we are not conscious of what is creating the distressing feelings. Often in these moments we feel transported back into the old, painful situation. We may act out in ways that are either parental or childish, but we aren’t really being ourselves. For instance, when a child doesn’t behave, we may “lose it” the same way our parent was enraged toward us, or we may feel terrified the way we felt as kids when we were punished by our parents. When we have intense or seemingly exaggerated reactions to our children, it’s important to look back at what about our own experience could inform the current situation.
7. Listening to a critical inner voice – Our insecurities and self-attacks tend to be cranked up when we become parents, because having our own kids reminds us of when and where we developed these self-perceptions in the first place. Our “critical inner voice” starts to take shape very early in our development when we internalize negative attitudes our parents had toward us and themselves. Perhaps as children, we felt unwanted or powerless. Then, as an adult, we continue to see ourselves as undesirable and weak. When trying to be strong with our own kids, we may feel bombarded with critical inner voice attacks that make it difficult to think clearly or act rationally, thoughts like, “You can’t control him” or “She hates you. You’re such a terrible mother!” Or if we had a father who felt ill-equipped to deal with us when we were born, we may find ourselves having voices like “How are you going to take care of this baby? You don’t know how to be a father.” These critical inner voices are the dialogue of a sadistic coach we all have internalized to some degree. The more we can challenge this inner enemy, the freer we will be to decide how we really want to act, and the less likely we will be to pass this line of thinking on to our children.
Knowing ourselves and making sense of our experiences helps us to differentiate, to shed destructive layers from our past that limit us in our lives and become who we really seek to be. This process is essential for parents, and it’s one I will be teaching both a free Webinar this August and an online course on this fall titled “Compassionate Parenting: A Holistic Approach to Raising Emotionally Healthy Children.” For all parents, looking for answers on how to be the best parent they can be, the key is often to venture into yourself and to do so with strength, curiosity and compassion.

http://www.psychalive.org/7-ways-your-childhood-affects-how-you-parent/