I didn’t see Silver Linings Playbook when it came out. I’m a month older than Jennifer Lawrence, and Bradley Cooper is pushing 40. Watching the two in a romantic comedy wasn’t my idea of entertainment.
But then it got nominated for a bunch of Oscars. I’m a sucker. Now I’ve got to see the bipolar-boy-meets-sex-addict-girl love story.
If not for the romance, at least I’d better watch it for the commentary on mental health. Because when Hollywood is willing to associate a famous and good-looking cast with serious topics of neurosis and depression, it’s probably worth a watch.
McMaster’s Student Wellness Centre ran Stop Out the Stigma events last fall. They sought to acknowledge how common problems of student mental illness were on campus.
Along with Silver Linings Playbook, it asserted that helping people first means making it okay to admit that they’re in need of support.
Other efforts, particularly out of the MSU, have tried to help students going through a tough time.
The Student Health Education Centre (more than free condoms) launched a campaign this week to promote their peer-to-peer counselling services. The student-run MSU service asks, “Want to talk? We want to listen.”
Also running is the new, and only somewhat redundant, Peer Support Line, whose members are also “here to talk” to students.
Meanwhile, the Student Wellness Centre is offering counselling services and online resources to students.
But there’s an important piece missing. Someone can talk to their peers or try to self-help all they want. But, for a lot of people, recovery won’t start until they get one very meaningful thing: a diagnosis.
And it’s not just about treatment. It’s about attitude.
Maybe your girlfriend/boyfriend broke up with you. Maybe school’s a lot of work. Maybe you’re homesick. Or maybe life’s fine, but for some reason, you’re not happy in it.
Getting anxious or depressed as a result doesn’t mean you’re weak. But it might mean that you’re sick. That’s a meaningful distinction to give someone.
Yet professional, medical approaches to student mental health are lacking on campus. Wait times are too long at the Student Wellness Centre, and the office doesn’t have the resources to do much other than refer students to other doctors when the going really gets tough.
The will to help is obviously present at McMaster. And SHEC and the Peer Support Line are offering necessary services.
But for every service that’s “here to talk,” there needs to be one that’s “here to treat.” Someone needs to be able to respond quickly and completely when a student’s mental state turns to illness. Students aren’t going to be the first ones to admit, or even realize, that what they’re going through requires more than a talk from a peer.
Anyway, I hear Silver Linings Playbook is still playing at Westdale Theatre. Anyone want to go?
By: Theresa Tingey
As busy students, stress is a huge part of daily life. Many of us turn to music as one of the easiest and best ways to relieve stress after a particularly difficult midterm or exam. Which types of music are especially effective for mediating stress and how exactly music interacts with the brain are active areas of research. Specifically, many scientists have tested the effects of various types of music on college-aged students, after inducing stress, by examining levels of blood hormones and self-perceived emotional scales. The results of these studies can inform students on how to best reduce anxiety through music listening.
One study performed by Smith and Joyce published in the Journal of Music Therapy in 2004 had 63 college students set aside 28 minutes each day for three days to listen to either Mozart, new age music or read a selection of popular magazines. The students then filled out questionnaires each day to measure their stress, worry and negative emotions. By the third day, the group assigned to listen to Mozart experienced the greatest relaxation and least stress, while the group listening to New Age music showed only a slight reduction in stress and the magazine readers had the least improvement in anxiety levels.
Another study performed in 2001 by Knight and Rickard asked students to prepare for a stressful oral presentation while either listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, or in silence. The heart rate, subjective anxiety, blood pressure and cortisol levels were measured for each participant before and after the presentations to gauge their stress responses. Students who listened to the classical music while preparing for their presentation showed a greater reduction in stress compared to the group who prepared in silence.
Calming music has also been shown to enhance immune responses and reduce pain perception. In 2003, Eri Hirokawa of the Tokai Women’s University observed that music identified as ‘highly uplifting’ by participants boosted the function of important immune cells, such as T cells and natural killer cells, when listened to for twenty minutes after a stressful cognitive test compared to those who sat in silence. In addition, in their study published in the Journal of Music Therapy in 2006, Mitchell and MacDonald saw that students were able to tolerate a painful stimulus of holding their hands in cold water for longer when listening to music selections that they had chosen, compared to white noise or music deemed ‘relaxing’ by the experimenters.
This last study brings to question whether or not the music we choose to listen to is better for relaxation than classical or new age music. According to a review published by Krout in a 2007 publication of The Arts and Psychotherapy, music selected as relaxing by researchers generally has a greater relaxing effect than the music preferred by the listener, possibly because the listener can become distracted and emotionally aroused by the music they’re used to. However, Krout also noted that the more a person is exposed to a certain type of music, the greater its stress-reducing effect. Further, he suggests that listening to music of a slow and stable tempo, low volume, and simple harmonic cord progressions, such as those often found in classical music, for 20 to 30 minutes at a time is most beneficial for inducing relaxation through activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Another tip Krout gives is to listen to music that comes with guided meditation or breathing methods, as a combination of music and whole-body relaxation techniques have been found most effective for reducing stress.
In any case, whether you want to come home to the soothing sounds of Mozart or dance away your stress to your favourite upbeat tunes, music can provide a fun and effective way to melt away the stress of the day.
By: Palika Kohli
I recently had the opportunity to speak to McMaster’s own Dr. Day about the relevance and problems associated with labelling and diagnosing people with mental disorders. Dr. Day teaches Abnormal Psychology (amongst other psychology courses), and discussed the effect labelling has on students in particular.
Dr. Day introduces his Abnormal Psychology course every year with a precursor on the concept of diagnosing symptoms vs. diagnosing using an umbrella label. He discusses the problems associated with comorbidity (being diagnosed with more than one mental disorder) and professional specialization. He points to the impact medical school training has had regarding this issue.
“There is a biomedical bias from the start, which means [professionals are] looking for underlying reasons for symptomology, which of course may not exist at all. And they’re wedded to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) more than they ought to be… It’s like you have something, it’s a thing, like a diseased liver or kidney - which it’s not. It’s a set of symptoms. And I think that the whole problem of comorbidity in particular is that you can’t categorize that symptom. It is a whole person. It’s a real issue with the way we currently conceptualize mental illness.”
But there are some people that really need to know what, if anything, is wrong with them.
“There is a – or can be a – positive side to labelling. I’ve known a number of people or students who were relieved to hear the label being placed on their symptoms. Because now it seems like ‘Now I know what the problem is,’ instead of just a vague ‘I have a whole bunch of symptoms.’ Of course, it’s a two-edged sword. It does have some drawbacks, both for the professional treatment of the illness and for the everyday interaction the individual has with others who might know about the diagnostic label. But the label also helps them to give a name to their faceless adversary.”
What about celebrities? We learn all the time about different celebrities who suffer from different mental illness. Does it make it more acceptable for ‘regular people’ to be diagnosed with a mental disorder? And on the flip side, many celebrities use their diagnosis to explain away inappropriate behaviours, which perpetuates this same stereotype and increases the stigma associated with labelling.
“Yes, on the one hand, when people you know and admire and can even identify with (entertainment figures and so on) reveal that they have issues with this, it can make someone who has the same problems feel less isolated: ‘I’m not the only one.’ In fact, some very successful people have had to deal with these issues and apparently have dealt with them with some success, at least. But again, when you label it, you buy into the stereotype, too. ‘This is what bipolar disorder is like. This is what depression is like.’ But I will say in general, because there is has been much more attention paid in the media to various disorders, I think there is a growing acceptance on the part of many people, of mental disorder as something less than all-encompassing. And there is a greater willingness to seek professional help for these things.”
But there still is huge stigma associated with mental illness.
“There is great stigma associated with schizophrenia. People have a very dramatically distorted of what schizophrenia is and how it affects the individual. They think that’s a ‘real crazy’ person who is living in another world and doesn’t see people the way they are, and is dangerous… and nothing could be farther from the truth. But that’s the impression people have, because most people never come into contact with anyone (that they know of) that has more experience with schizophrenia.”
Why do you think stigma exists?
“I think the main reason is ignorance. People just don’t have enough contact or experience people who have these issues. We don’t really see them as people.”
By: Yashoda Valliere
“Try new things; expand your horizons!”
Sound familiar?
As university students, we are often bombarded with suggestions and opportunities to mould ourselves into new and improved versions of ourselves. This is especially true at the start of a new year, with waves of students determined to shake themselves out of their ruts and routines (or at least into better ones). In the midst of the frenzy, I was drawn to stop and ask the question: why do we feel such a strong urge to change in the first place? What do we truly gain from it – and is it always worth the accompanying risks of unfamiliar territory?
Funnily enough, I found my answer in coursework. Those of you who have taken Psychology 2B03 (Personality) are familiar with the humanistic theories of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. If you have never heard of either of these men, it’s likely that you’ve heard their terminology borrowed by pop culture – especially the phrase “self-actualization.”
Maslow proposed that all of our actions are based in two types of motives. “Deficiency motives” drive us to meet our basic needs, such as food, water, safety, and social belonging, to survive and feel whole. “Being motives,” on the other hand, are growth-oriented rather than deficiency-oriented. Maslow described the tendency toward self-actualization, a Being motive, as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” Self-actualized individuals are not fearful or defensive and, as such, are able to view themselves and the world around them without denial and to comfortably accept the way they are. They are playful, creative, and continually appreciate small details in everyday life; they trust their own instincts; they do not view situations as black-and-white dichotomies and they are not social chameleons, conforming to cultural norms.
A similar description applies to Carl Rogers’ theory of the “fully-functioning person.” This goal was so important to Rogers that he scrapped the Deficiency motives altogether and proposed that every action, from birth to death, is subconsciously motivated only by the “actualizing tendency” to grow into our true selves. That is, to unlearn the false personalities conditioned into us by society.
So what does all of this have to do with new year’s resolutions? Perhaps one of Maslow’s most inspiring ideas is the concept of “growth choices” as a path to self-actualization. As he put it, “life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defence) and risk for the sake of progress and growth.” The exact same decision, when framed as a choice between growth and stagnation or as a choice between fear and comfort, can have a surprisingly different outcome. To complement his eight-fold path to self-actualization Maslow also listed several barriers, including lack or fear of self-knowledge and conformity to social and cultural norms. To turn your everyday choices into growth choices is to recognize the mental defences you have fearfully erected and to break them down.
This is why I challenge myself to make choices that are truly outside my comfort zone, and not just for the occasion of a new year, but to bring myself one step closer to what Maslow and Rogers would describe as realising my full potential. We can all try something that we are afraid to do, beyond the tired stereotypes of going to the gym (in January, at least) or improving our GPAs. You could sign up for a crash course in public speaking, or read a book on a political philosophy you disagree with or even just get that one item on the menu you’ve always avoided. I recently applied for a job I knew was probably beyond me; the interview process still expanded my knowledge of my own strengths and weaknesses and was a useful growth opportunity.
It’s important to remember that the value of growth choices is in the process, not the product. Maslow and Rogers described the path to self-actualization not as a simple “on/off” switch, but as a series of small successes in areas such as honesty, self-awareness, and trust in one’s own judgment, all of which are realistically accompanied by setbacks and sometimes no externally visible success (case in point: I didn’t get the job). Don’t beat yourself up if your leap of faith turns out to be a flop, because the most important outcome from a psychological point of view is the fact that you consciously chose to develop yourself and overcome your traditional patterns of thinking. With that in mind, you can congratulate yourself on getting one step closer to self-actualization.
By: Palika Kohli
I’m the kind of person who gives second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances to the people I care for. I firmly believe that if I know the reasoning behind someone’s mistake, then I can figure out a way to genuinely forgive them.
But sometimes there comes a point when you realize the mistakes a person makes aren’t actually mistakes at all. They’re purposeful decisions that reflect an integral part of their personalities.
But, being the all-forgiving soul you are, you ignore this fact and continue making excuses for their behaviour. You repress your response to their abrasive characteristics. You focus on the good memories you have of them and remind yourself that they haven’t always been this way. You hold on to an idea of the person, no matter who they are becoming or have already turned into.
You begin to believe that if you find it in yourself to forgive them, you are becoming a better, more mature person; that it will help you deal with ‘all kinds of characters’ in the future.
Then, suddenly, the invisible line that you have been pushing farther and farther out into unknown territories gets crossed. And that’s it.
Sometimes we need to do more than just clean out our closets to get a fresh perspective on ourselves. So here’s a list of indicators if a relationship in your life – romantic or otherwise – is unhealthy.
Verbally abusive: This doesn’t have to mean what you think it does – their snide remarks can be the basis for a realization that this person isn’t adding to your quality of life.
Uses gossip to get close to you: On this same line – if you realize that all you discuss with this person are other people, your relationship probably isn’t going anywhere.
Feeling a lack of privacy: They’re constantly in your room, reading your phone, or consistently referencing details of your social networking profiles.
Inconsiderate of your situation: They can make unreasonable demands, expecting things from you that maybe you can’t afford to give – be it time or money – and then they don’t appreciate what you do give, because it isn’t a tangible object.
Passive-aggressiveness: They won’t say anything aloud if it’s bothering them, but will show it in other ways – or will hold it against you in the future.
Gratefulness: You should never be feeling grateful that a person is suddenly making time for you, that they returned your call or that they showed up – this indicates imbalance.
Justification in assertion: You should never feel uncertain asserting your opinion or be scared of arguing when you don’t agree with them.
Finally, it can often be cathartic to actually tell a person why you don’t want them in your life. It means that you have to think carefully, and drain out your anger and bitterness before confronting them. You will have the opportunity to sit down and have a civil conversation over past issues, thoughts or feelings – maybe you will even prevent them from making the same mistakes in the future. But at the very least, it will be off your chest.
By: Yashoda Valliere
During the winter, we spend much more time in close contact with each other – crammed into HSR buses, cafés, or libraries – and to add to our woes, our immune systems are compromised by the stress of exams. As a result, a university at this time of the year can be a veritable breeding ground for the flu.
The flu shot is free in Ontario and is a vaccine for this year’s flu viruses. A vaccine contains inactive (“dead”) viruses, which are injected into your body so your immune system can learn to recognize their unique “ID tags” and form antibodies specifically targeted to them. Due to the high mutation rate of the flu virus, new strains emerge each year, and the flu shot changes accordingly.
Every February, the World Health Organization releases what they deem to be the three most common and dangerous strains for the year, and the new vaccines are made specifically for those three. Since there are only three strains of flu virus in your vaccine, it does not protect against every strain of the virus and there is still a chance that you could get the flu.
So why should you consider getting the flu shot? After all, you might be thinking, “I’ve never gotten it and yet I’ve rarely had the flu, so obviously the vaccine is unnecessary.” To understand how vaccination programs really work, you need to look at the bigger picture, beyond yourself. Vaccines protect a large population through a principle called “herd immunity.”
For example, imagine you have five people in a row, and none of them have immune protection against the flu. If one person gets the flu, like a row of dominoes, a “chain of infection” is born. However, if one of them has been vaccinated, the chain of infection is broken by that person.
Herd immunity operates on this principle at a larger scale. If enough people in the population are vaccinated, then the chains of infection are broken at a relatively early stage, preventing massive epidemics. If a high proportion of the population is vaccinated, then even those who are unvaccinated are indirectly protected – you can mentally picture them as being isolated in a “bubble” of vaccinated people around them. If you’ve never been vaccinated against the flu and yet you haven’t gotten sick, you were in one of these protected bubbles, thanks to the vaccinated community around you.
In order for this indirect protection to be conferred upon vulnerable members, a certain proportion of the population must be vaccinated – this is called the “herd immunity threshold.” If the proportion of vaccinated people falls below the threshold, the “bubbles” might come in contact with each other – an infectious person could meet a susceptible person, and thus a new chain of infection would form. The herd immunity threshold for influenza is estimated to be greater than 60 per cent. If we all continue thinking that we don’t need to get the shot, we won’t meet the threshold, and the vulnerable members of our community, such as infants and the elderly, will not be protected.
This being said, the flu shot isn’t perfect. It’s known to have side effects such as aches, fever, chills, cough and nausea. This happens because your immune system thinks that you have the flu, and it’s fighting against it. It’s understandable that you don’t really want to be dealing with all the side effects on top of November crunch season. Or, you could be preventing a more serious bout of the actual flu from hitting you later in the winter. The cost-benefit analysis is up to you.
Another reason you might not want to get vaccinated are the horror stories of severe reactions. If you have an egg allergy you should avoid the shot, as the vaccine viruses are grown in chicken eggs. Rare adverse reactions do exist, but it’s important to remember that the media, in pursuit of sensationalist headlines, tends to give these cases a disproportional amount of coverage. Research has shown that the risk-benefit ratio for the general population is overwhelmingly in favour of vaccination.
At the end of the day, vaccination and anything else that affects your body is 100 per cent your personal choice. No matter what you decide, it’s good to have the facts to make an informed decision.
One last note: After the vaccination, your immune system takes about two weeks to build up enough antibodies to be effective – so if you decide to go for it, the sooner the better!
By: Yashoda Valliere
A quick Google search of “how to get over a breakup” will yield thousands of articles written in a well-meaning but slightly condescending tone, by authors who may not have been through a breakup themselves recently and thus have a bit of an “outsider’s” perspective. I do not want to contribute to this collection. Currently spinning off the tail end of a two and a half year relationship, I’ve been giving close attention to my mental gymnastics of the past week, as well as the coping strategies that I have found work well for me. I figure I might as well share some of these insights, in the hopes that they can help at least one Sil reader through a difficult time.
Let go of the pain, but don’t let go of the valuable lessons that can be learned. If you treat this like a growth opportunity, it will be one.
Compiled by Aissa Boodhoo-Leegsma and Julia Redmond
McMaster holds annual Remembrance Day ceremony on campus
University officials look on as a piper plays at the Nov. 11 ceremony.
On Nov. 11 students, staff and alumni filed into Convocation Hall to participate in a service to remember the fallen and current veterans. President Patrick Deane read roll-call and Chancellor Wilson delivered a commemorative speech. The service had musical accompaniment by organist Rev. Philip Gardner, bugler George A. Murga-Martinez and piper David Waterhouse.
As part of a McMaster tradition, President Deane read the Honour Roll which bears the names of the 35 McMaster graduates and undergraduates who died in World War II. Chancellor Wilson’s speech noted how soldiers in the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry suffered inordinate losses at Dieppe, but how the failures of WWII contributed largely to later Canadian successes in Holland and Vimy Ridge. He concluded on a note of gratitude and honour towards all veterans and service men and women.
Hamilton hosts an Anti-Poverty Caucus
Three of the panelists listen attentively during the first portion of the event, which featured speakers from Mac.
On Nov. 9 the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction sponsored an All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus at the Hamilton Convention Centre. Approximately 80 members of the community attended the event.
Four McMaster students first spoke about the impact of poverty on women and the intersection with class-based issues. Another McMaster speaker, Dr. Tim O’Shea, who is well-known as the doctor who disrupted Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq’s funding announcement at McMaster, spoke second.
The event advertised four panelists MP Chris Charlton, Conservative MP Michael Chong, Liberal Senator Art Eggleton and Conservative Senator Don Meredith, who were meant to contribute to a broad discussion of poverty in Canada.
Provincial mental health report released
The report, based on the Focus of Mental Health Conference that was held in Toronto in May 2012, highlighted the insights into the subject areas including student experience, healthy workplaces, and stigma elimination that were addressed at the event.
The conference welcomed over 270 delegates, and was organized by Colleges Ontario, Council of Ontario Universities, the College Student Alliance, and the Ontario Undergraduate Alliance.
Mental health remains an area of focus at McMaster. In particular, services on campus are wary of the time of year; students are under additional pressure with the weight of end-of-term work and exams.
The Student Health Education Center (SHEC) is one of many organizations that offer support to students. Meagan McEwen, SHEC Outreach Coordinator, feels that there is a “need to address Mental Health during our most stressful time of the year – exams.”
Collaborating with different groups on and off campus, SHEC will host a number of “stress-buster” events, including providing dogs for stressed students to interact with, and serving hot chocolate and coffee with the support of OPIRG McMaster.
McEwen believes that, “there seem to be [fewer] opportunities for students to take a break and relax during these exam periods, while making them aware of all the different support networks students have on campus.”
By: Matthew Greenacre
So you finally went to the clinic after weeks of peeing what feels like boiling water, or maybe you are just seeing someone new and want to get yourself checked, or maybe it was just part of your yearly check-up. But regardless, as you leave the clinic with that piece of paper and your positive test results, you can at least console yourself with the knowledge that you were responsible or, alternately, found out before you passed the STI on to others, caused lasting damage such as infertility, or made your genitals look like a rare tropical fungus.
And now, depending on the STI you have contracted, the biggest worry that is running through your head is that you must notify your future, current and previous sexual partners. Since you only need to worry about taking a couple of antibiotic pills to clear bacterial STI’s, such as the very common and contagious Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, shame or the fear of losing your partner are likely bigger concerns than the actual disease - especially if the STI brings infidelity to light.
On the other hand, viral infections such as hepatitis, herpes, HPV (genital warts), or HIV/AIDS will either be destroyed by your immune system just like the ‘flu, or are permanent and can only be suppressed, but not cured. The knowledge that you must not only live with the disease itself, but that it can be a barrier to future developing relationships can be crushing.
Once you are tested either the Health Department will anonymously inform your previous partners for you, or your doctor may assist you in the process. Having a public health professional tell them is a valid option, since the health professionals can provide your ex with all the information he or she needs about the STI and how to get checked.
However, if you have a permanent viral infection such as HPV or herpes, it is your responsibility to tell your next partner before your relationship becomes physical. This daunting task can be made quite manageable if you keep the following in mind:
Finding out that you have contracted an STI is almost always traumatic and because it can be stigmatizing, many students do not know whom they can talk about it with. Simply discussing their infection can defuse your stress and help you think about how to move forward. SHEC’s peer counsellors would love to talk with you about your challenges, and can provide resources so you can make informed, healthy decisions.
By: Matthew Greenacre
Maybe you met that person in one of your classes, or at a house party, or you might even have met them at TwelvEighty. Regardless, now they are at the back of your mind jumping up and down as you try to read your French literature or solve Maxwell’s equations. But why? What happened in your brain that caused your usually fervent focus on your GPA, the OUA finals, or your band’s next gig, to be replaced with rosy coloured thoughts of someone who is still a relative stranger (albeit a ridiculously good looking one)?
When they first walked up to you and asked to buy you a drink, you said yes partially because a free drink is a free drink, but mostly because within about 200 milliseconds your brain decided that it liked what it saw, heard and/or smelt (though still controversial, research from Heinrich Heine University of Dusseldorf and Duquesne University has suggested that humans may use a cocktail of pheromones to communicate on a subconscious level). Norepinephrine, the trigger to the fight or flight response is released, and you feel your palms become sweaty, your heart begins to race, your pupils dilate. At the same time your reward system is activated, dopamine is released, and you begin to feel a rush of euphoria. Parts of the cerebral cortex that you use to be logical are deactivated. You are suddenly likely to do something very stupid…
Of course, we are more than our animal instincts, and it might have been the tone of their voice that you found sexy or the wit and charm of their conversation compelling. Regardless, your brain has begun to make a connection between this person and the reward system of the brain. Whenever you are intimate with someone, your brain is flooded with either oxytocin if you are female, or vasopressin if you are male. This hormone rewires your brain’s reward system so that, according to the research of Helen Fisher at Rutgers University, the ventral tegmental area of your brain now makes and releases dopamine whenever you are around your crush or merely even think about them. Now you are really up a creek because this is essentially the same flood of dopamine, producing the same type of feelings, as if you were taking cocaine. You’re hooked.
But being in love is great. Hand-in-hand you can happily skip through fields of posies in giddy dopamine soaked bliss because the hormone cortisol that makes you stressed is lowered and suppressed by oxytocin/vasopressin so even the thought of that midterm the next day barely bothers you at all. You can stub your toe and barely feel a thing because reward centres being in overdrive affects the parts of the brain that control pain. At the same time the amount of a neurotransmitter called serotonin drops. Low serotonin is common in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and this is why you can’t stop thinking about him or her. Your brain chemistry has primed you to obsess over things in general, and you get instant rewards for thinking about your special someone.
Just like your relationship, your brain chemistry can have different outcomes. If not enough oxytocin/vasopressin is released, your partner will not be wired to your reward system, being with him or her will release less and less dopamine and the passion you once felt will fizzle out. If enough oxytocin/vasopressin was released in your brain then I sincerely hope enough was released in his or hers.
Heart-break is the very real perception of pain that a person gets once they are cut off from their loved one. Stress inducing hormones called cortisol releasing factors (CRF’s) build up in the brain during the relationship. Once the break-up happens and oxytocin/vasopressin is no longer being released, CRF is free to produce a wave of cortisol. You become hugely stressed. High levels of cortisol are linked to depression. Your obsession does disappear, but amplifies as you try and figure out how to win your beloved back. The high cortisol and low serotonin levels give you insomnia, leaving you to lie awake, churning over your loss. You are suffering from withdrawal, trying to figure out how you can get your fix again.
With time your brain chemistry will return to its normal levels, and sooner or later he or she will just be somebody you used to know. But in the mean time we know that it is a hell of a lot of cortisol to cope with and SHEC would love to help you out if you want to drop by.
