June 22nd, 2009
The Observer reported yesterday that antidepressant use has soared during the recession, with 36m prescriptions made in 2008. ‘The increase in the number of people being prescribed antidepressants is deeply disturbing,’ said the Lib Dem’s health spokesman, Norman Lamb, who obtained the figures. ‘England has become a true Prozac nation.’
It’s hardly surprising that financial anxiety and job insecurity have adversely affected our mental wellbeing (not to mention the sensationalist, anxiety-provoking media coverage of the crunch). Mental health charity Rethink says its helplines are deluged by people struggling with financial difficulties.
But it’s worrying that so many doctors see antidepressants as a solution. Research last year from the University of Hull found that antidepressants like Prozac or Seroxat had little clinical benefit for most patients and are often no better than a placebo (read the BBC’s report on this here). Even the Royal College of Psychiatrists admits on its website that ‘antidepressants are helpful but, like many other medicines, some of the benefit is due to the placebo effect.’
People suffering from stress, anxiety and depression should tackle it with a combination of lifestyle factors – stress-reducing activities like meditation, yoga, swimming, cycling or running, a healthy diet and minimal alcohol intake – and therapy. Unfortunately, the therapy currently in vogue is CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) which, although useful for some people/mental health issues, is not the best option for all. Anyone with a long-term mental health condition like depression is far better off with psychodynamic therapy, which the Government won’t finance because it’s more expensive and longer-term than quick-fix CBT.
It’s a complex issue, but one thing’s clear – if you are struggling because of the recession, popping ineffective pills really isn’t the answer.
Dan
Tags: antidepressants, anxiety, CBT, Credit crunch, depression, placebo, Prozac, psychodynamic therapy, recession, Seroxat, stress
Posted in Health, Psychology | No Comments »
June 19th, 2009
I’m currently researching a piece on workaholism, which sprang from the observation that I, and most of my peers and acquaintances, find it incredibly hard to switch off and work all hours god sends. It’s commonplace now for people – especially in the creative industries – to work normal office hours, plus evenings, plus a few hours, minimum, on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve checked my anecdotal evidence with the TUC and experts on workaholism, and it seems clear that many of us are working far more hours than we used or often want to, and some of us are finding that home broadband, Blackberries, email, etc facilitate work bleeding into our leisure time (a phenomenon described as ‘weisure’ by American sociologist Dalton Conley – interesting column on this by Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian).
If you, or anyone you know, is a workaholic, I’d really like to hear from you – leave a comment or email me at dan.roberts8@btinternet.com
I’m especially interested in these questions:
•What is the difference (often hard to discern) between willingly investing time and energy in work you love and an unhealthy, addictive relationship with work?
•As so many of us are under severe economic pressure and fearful of redundancy, are we being forced to work ever harder, or are we putting ourselves under pressure to do that because of a perceived threat to our economic livelihood?
•What damage does excessive work/workaholism do (it has been linked with a host of problems, from alcoholism and drug abuse to raised blood pressure and coronary heart disease, stroke, depression, anxiety disorders and burnout).
•We know that workaholism is almost a prerequisite for junior doctors, barristers, solicitors, bankers, entrepreneurs and the self-employed, but what other industries encourage it (I’m sure we can add journalism, for one).
Drop me a line if you’d like to contribute.
Thanks,
Dan
Tags: anxiety, burnout, Credit crunch, depression, long-hours culture, recession, redundancy, stress, TUC, work-life balance, workaholic, workaholism
Posted in Health, Psychology, journalism | 1 Comment »
June 17th, 2009
Mr Justice Coleridge
The Daily Mail, unsurprisingly, has welcomed a speech by Mr Justice Coleridge, a family division judge, who has called on the Government to promote marriage to help end the ’social anarchy’ of family breakdown. The judge accuses mothers and fathers who fail to commit to each other of engaging in a game of ‘pass the partner’ that he claims has left millions of children scarred for life.
He also called for a change of attitude that would attach a stigma to those who divorce and said a National Commission should be established to devise solutions for the ‘epidemic’ of broken homes. (The Mail’s headline? ONLY MARRIAGE CAN MEND BROKEN BRITAIN).
I could go on, but you get the idea. First, his sensible points. I quite agree that we live in a selfish, me me me society in which fulfilling our own needs has primacy over all other obligations, often including our children’s. I also agree that many of us engage in a fruitless, never-ending search for some romantic ideal that simply doesn’t exist.
But the idea that stigmatising divorce will keep people together is reactionary and downright silly. Remember that, just a few decades ago, divorce did carry a stigma – but this didn’t stop people separating, it just made them feel awful about it. Face it: people will always separate if a relationship becomes untenable, so it’s far better to help them do so as cleanly as possible than to castigate them for it.
And the idea that miserable married parents are better than happy separated ones is nonsense. This old wive’s tale was disproved just this week by the research from Cornell University that was the subject of my last post.
I find it sad and somewhat pathetic that our judiciary is still riddled with men like this, whose views are totally outmoded, unhelpful and downright damaging for the milions of single parents doing their utmost to raise healthy, happy, well-balanced kids.
Dan
Tags: Daily Mail, divorce, family law, Mr Justice Coleridge, separation, single parents
Posted in Fatherhood, Health, Psychology, divorce/separation, parenting | No Comments »
June 15th, 2009
That’s the question posed by researchers from Cornell University, who claim that parents who stay together for the sake of their children could be doing more harm than good. As reported in yesterday’s Observer, the research found that children whose mothers and fathers remained married but argued frequently did worse at school, were more likely to use drugs and have mental health problems/behavioural issues than those from secure, lone-parent families.
This is good news for me, as I have spent the last decade agonising over whether Ben’s mother and I should have stayed together, despite our differences, for his sake. Instinctively I always felt that healthy co-parenting like ours (we have both worked very hard to put our differences aside for Ben’s sake) was a better option, but like any parent in this position, I was wracked with guilt.
Thankfully, this research backs up the anecdotal evidence: Ben is a happy, well-adjusted boy who is thriving at school. He is loved and cared for by both parents, plus his family on both sides. And I know plenty of parents who did cling on to unhappy, acrimonious marriages ‘for the children’, when those children were clearly suffering.
Clearly, happy parents together represents the best option for kids – but happy parents working together, separately, is obviously a better option than miserable ones hanging grimly on.
Dan
Tags: co-parenting, Cornell University, divorce, Kelly Musick, lone parents, marriage, separation
Posted in Fatherhood, Psychology, divorce/separation, parenting | 1 Comment »
June 12th, 2009
This morning, I was asked to give some tips on how to be a great dad to the Roy Basnett show on City Talk. Having thought about it long and hard, I realised the most important gift we can give our kids is time. Forget Playstations, mobile phones, iPods and the rest – what kids need is plenty of love and as much undivided attention as we can give them.
As I was talking, it struck me how distracted I am most of the time. As a self-employed writer, I’m always working – reading, writing, thinking of stories, answering emails. Even when I’m hanging out with Ben, that little red light on my Blackberry is always flashing seductively, clamouring for my attention.
Enough already. This weekend, I’m going to turn the Crackberry off and devote myself to the boy. I suggest you do the same – as the old saying goes, no-one lies on their death bed wishing they’d spent more time working…
Dan
Tags: Blackberry, City Talk, dads, Fatherhood, fathers, giving kids attention, Roy Basnett
Posted in Broadcasting, Fatherhood, Psychology, parenting | No Comments »
June 11th, 2009
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, a perfect example of how sloppy journalism can scare the hell out of people when it comes to health issues. In this morning’s Radio 4 news bulletin, the newsreader reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) was meeting to discuss whether to declare the first flu pandemic in 40 years. So far, so accurate.
At the end of the piece, she then tossed out the fact that the last pandemic, the 1968 outbreak of Hong Kong flu, killed a million people worldwide. A million! That’s a scary figure – does it mean that a million people will die this time? Should we be worried? Will healthy people die, or just the very young or old, or those with health complications (the only people who usually die of flu, whether swine or otherwise). And will this be just like another bird flu or Sars scare (which killed just 774 people worldwide), with mass media hysteria petering out as the disease is contained and causes far fewer fatalities than predicted?
The simple answer is that we don’t yet know. It’s still too early to predict how bad it might be (the story is also reported on the BBC site, with a bit more detail). So blithely reporting that a million people died last time, without any context or explanation, is not only poor journalism, it’s downright irresponsible.
And Radio 4! You think they’d know better.
Dan
Tags: BBC, bird flu, pandemic, Radio 4, Sars, swine flu
Posted in Health, journalism | No Comments »
June 10th, 2009
After all the media hysteria, it’s hard not to be. And older children will have picked up on all the headlines and hype (Ben keeps asking me about it, so I talk him through the facts, rather than the ill-informed, fear-inducing nonsense found in most newspapers, to reassure him).
If you want the facts about swine flu, check out the NHS Choices site - which offers reliable, informed, up-to-the-minute information, unlike the vast majority of websites and newspapers. Also check out this BBC interview with Joe, a British boy who caught swine flu while on holiday in Mexico - and is now fine and playing football with his dad.
Dan
Tags: BBC, NHS Choices, swine flu
Posted in Health, parenting | No Comments »
June 9th, 2009
Fibi Ward is your average 14-year-old: thinking about parties, sleepovers, boys and hanging our with her friends. She also happens to have type-1 diabetes, which means life is complicated and often hard. Fibi has to monitor her blood sugar level constantly to avoid becoming hyper (too much sugar) or hypo (too little) and inject herself with insulin four times a day.
Unlike your average 14-year-old she had the gumption to write a book about her experiences – No Added Sugar: Growing Up with Type 1 Diabetes. It describes her initial struggle to accept the diagnosis and her rollercoaster first year of carb-checking and insulin-injecting, with all the attendant emotional turbulence of being told you have a life-threatening condition (if untreated, diabetes can cause stroke, heart disease and even blindness).
My father was a diabetic, so I know from personal experience how devastating diabetes can be, and found Fibi’s story even more moving. I recently interviewed her and strongly recommend her book. It’s available via Hammersmith Press.
Dan
Tags: diabetes, Fibi Ward, No Added Sugar, type 1 diabetes
Posted in Health, parenting, writing | No Comments »
June 8th, 2009
Reluctant father Michael Lewis
Thorny one this. Yesterday’s Observer reports that a new wave of confessional literature is being written by ‘men who are willing to admit feeling indifferent towards their young children - or even positively disliking them.’ Men like Michael Lewis, author of Home Game, An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood. Lewis admits to feeling boredom and even hatred for his daughter during the first six weeks of her life.
He also talks of a ‘conspiracy of silence’ among men pretending to love being a father, when actually they find it tiresome and annoying. Lewis goes on to say that maternal love is instinctive, but paternal love is learned - we have to work at our love, letting it develop as we eventually bond with our babies.
He has a point. Looking after babies can be monotonous and annoying - who enjoys changing nappies or comforting a screaming infant at 3am? And men certainly come into their own when kids are older (the parenting writer Steve Biddulph, talking about raising boys, says that 0-6 is the mother’s time, when kids need lots of cuddling and nurturing, and 6 onwards is dads’ time, when boys want to climb trees, kick balls around and learn how to be a man).
But I think the idea that men don’t love babies is misguided (and isn’t borne out by the many fathers I know who dote on their kids from the moment they’re born), but we do learn to love them more as they grow older. And, I think, that’s how it should be - mothers and fathers fulfil slightly different, but equally important roles, so a little detachment in dads is normal and healthy. Hating your kids is an entirely different matter - and perhaps not something Lewis should crow about.
Dan
Tags: Dad, father, Home Game, Michael Lewis, Steve Biddulph
Posted in Fatherhood, Psychology, parenting | No Comments »
June 4th, 2009
Welcome news in the Guardian today: a former chairman of the British Medical Association wants vaccinations like the MMR to be compulsory. Sir Sandy Macara says kids should only be offered a place at state school if they’ve had the jab.
Hear, hear. Following up an earlier post on the fallacy of shunning the MMR, despite the fact that research linking it with autism has been comprehensively disproved and discredited, I very much hope the Government takes his advice. There is no reason whatsoever not to get the MMR, and the powerful argument in favour of the jab is to protect your child - and those they come into contact with at nursery or school - from rubella, mumps and especially measles, a nasty, potentially lethal virus that’s made an unwelcome return recently due to low vaccination levels.
The words ‘no’ and ‘brainer’ spring to mind.
Dan
Tags: autism, BMA, measles, MMR, mumps, rubella, Sir Sandy Macara, vaccination
Posted in Fatherhood, Health, parenting | No Comments »
