Mental health – be vigilant this Christmas
AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, urged all Australians to keep an eye out for neighbours and relatives for signs of stress, distress, depression or loneliness over the Christmas period.
Dr Hambleton said that the Christmas season is a time of joy, celebration and family for most people but it can also be a time of sadness and isolation for others.
“The Christmas period can heighten loneliness, social isolation, financial stress, and other stressors, and this is associated with a higher use of crisis and support services such as Lifeline.
“Support services report that suicide and self-harm rates are typically high over the Christmas period.
“At the same time, there is increased demand on mental health services and support when they are not running at full capacity.
“It is also a busy time for public hospitals.
“Rural areas in particular feel the impact of reduced mental health support at holiday times.
“It is important that family and friends look out for any signs of mental illness and offer comfort to people and refer them to appropriate help where it is available,” Dr Hambleton said.
AMA Queensland (AMAQ) launched a campaign earlier in the year outlining signs of mental illness to look out for, which include:
AMAQ also recently launched the Suicide Watch initiative to urge anyone having trouble seeing a way forward to see or phone a GP for urgent help.
A Jon Huntsman surge could help the health care debate
Republican primary voters could help trigger a substantive health care policy debate in this country by giving Jon Huntsman a turn among the frontrunners. Weve seen a surge of multiple anybody-but-Romney candidates that have failed to address health care in any kind of serious or sophisticated way. Even Newt Gingrich, an idea guy with a variety of provocative views, hasnt been much help in advancing the debate. Thats because in reality his views are fairly close to Romney and even President Obama.
As a result, Romney hasnt been pushed to lay out his real views on health care. Hes been able to get away with just throwing darts at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Call for Proposals: Great Cities Faculty Scholar Competition, 2012-2013
The Great Cities Institute is inviting proposals for its seventeenth annual Faculty Scholar competition.
Competition Theme: Envisioning Equality
For the 2012-2013 competition all proposals must address the theme of Envisioning Equality. The Institute encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and synergies among the cohort of individual faculty scholars and research teams. Proposals addressing issues of equality and inequality in society may come from a broad array of disciplines reaching across the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, and professional fields.
Applicants are urged to be creative in thinking about how their research area intersects with the topic; please treat the above description as mainly illustrative.
Proposals from individual researchers and research teams will be accepted.
Weight losing exercises
Exercises are the quickest way of getting slim if you are suffering from the problem of the weight loss. It helps to stay healthy and strong. You can stay fit and after losing the weight, you can come into a perfect shape. There are so many weight loss exercises that are very much helpful for losing weight quickly. A few excises are mention below:
· Walking
Simply have a gentle walk for a long time at the morning. It helps dramatically to reduce the weight. A regular walk at the dawn for 40 minutes would be a great help. If you do not get the time for the regular walk, then you can also buy a treadmill at home and walk for a long time. Read full post…
Milk, Water and Alcohol — Diet Drinks that Work
Are you dieting, about to diet or striving to maintain your current weight? Whatever your circumstance, consider what you drink, as well as what you eat.
Anyone who wants to lose weight knows the process is simple in theory: take in fewer calories than you use, and youll shed the pounds. Although statistics vary, you can be sure of one thing, most overweight people either fail to take off the pounds or fail to maintain their weight loss.
But what if you could drink your way to a healthy weight and maintain it?