Guide to Life for Graduates: WEAR SUNSCREEN

The Way I C It, this piece is worth preserving and sharing.

Hope you all enjoy and pass it on.

Mary Schmich
June 1, 1997

Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
 

 

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
 

Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC

TEEN RAGE: Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)

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I found this very interesting article on teen-age rage.

I do not take credit for it in any way, just sharing it because,
The Way I C It;
 It is important to share information which may help others.

Source
Added by Time Healthland on July 4, 2012.
Saved under Child & Family MH, Featured, Mental Illness, News, Research, Youth MH

With all those raging hormones, every teenager is bound to “lose it” at one time or another. But a recent study suggests that adolescents’ attacks of anger may indicate something more serious than your standard puberty-related mood swings: nearly two-thirds of youth report having had a bout of uncontrollable anger that involved threatening violence, destroying property or engaging in violence toward others, and nearly 8% — or close to 6 million teens — meet the criteria for intermittent explosive disorder (IED), which is characterized by persistent, out-of-control anger attacks that can’t be explained by a mental or medical disorder or substance use.

The findings, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, came from national surveys of nearly 6,500 American teens, aged 13 to 17, and their parents. The researchers found that IED was more common than thought, and that it is severe and persistent; kids usually start showing signs of IED in late childhood and the disorder persists through adolescence, the authors say. IED in teens is also linked with later problems, like depression and substance abuse in adulthood.

The study found, however, that many teens weren’t getting the help they needed. Among the study participants, 38% of those with IED received treatment for emotional problems in the year prior to the survey, but only 17% of these teens — or just 6.5% of all teens who had diagnosable IED — had received treatment specifically for anger.

If IED could be detected and treated early, however, clinicians could help prevent a substantial amount of future violence and related mental harms, said senior author Ronald Kessler, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School.

To meet the definition of IED, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a person must have three episodes of “impulsive aggressiveness grossly out of proportion to any precipitating psychosocial stressor,” at any time during their lives. In the current study, the researchers also used narrower definitions of IED that required attacks of anger within the previous 12 months and found that many teens met the standard. (The study excluded teens with other mental or emotional disorders like bipolar disorder, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.)

“It’s a problem because it really gets in the way of your life,” says Kessler. “There are lots of things people don’t get treatment for because it doesn’t really impact them. This does. The problem is an awful lot of people have it — more than I thought — it’s awfully chronic, and it’s impairing.”

The authors find that IED is not only underdiagnosed, but understudied as well. They write: “The number of PubMed research reports dealing with panic attacks is roughly 60 times the number dealing with anger attacks even though the lifetime prevalence of IED is considerably higher than the prevalence of panic disorder.”

Part of the problem may be that overly angry or aggressive people fail to acknowledge their own behavior. “I think one reason [IED] is understudied is that people who have these anger problems very often do not consider it a problem. They don’t go in for help. They may get arrested, but they don’t seek help on their own,” says Kessler. “Some things like this and other social disorders can fall through the cracks, and this is one of them.”

The authors say further research is needed to understand the risk factors for IED in teens and to improve diagnosis, screening and treatments.

The findings are published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Article source: http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/03/is-this-teen-angst-or-an-uncontrollable-anger-disorder/