How subliminal words affect anti-obesity campaigns

The human brain is a complex biological machine that can sometimes act in ways unexpected in response to certain types of stimuli. Researchers have discovered, for example, that subliminal words (words that appeal to the subconscious) can trigger reactions opposite to what is actually desired.

Researchers from the University of Illinois investigated people’s subconscious responses to weight loss campaigns. It seems that when people read posters with messages that promote physical activity (e.g. take a walk, work out, etc.), the triggered reaction is - to eat more!

Study participants exposed to exercise messages ate about 20% more compared to peers exposed to other types of messages which have nothing to do with physical activity.

According to lead researcher Professor Dolores Albarracín

Those designing public health campaigns are in the habit of trying to change one behavior at a time…They should be aware that “whatever they communicate is likely to influence not only the behavior they had in mind but other behaviors that might be somewhat remotely linked,”

These findings are indeed very relevant in creating advertisements campaigns and public service announcement. The current strategy in fighting childhood obesity is curbing on advertisements of unhealthy food stuffs, which are to be replaced by messages encouraging healthy lifestyles that include good nutrition and physical exercise. It would be interesting to know whether the power of subliminal words have been taken into account in these messages.

In addition, it would also be important to know how other public campaign messages affect the target group’s behaviour. Some of the posters (aside from those against obesity) that I often see here in Europe are

• campaigning for safe sex to fight AIDS
• campaigning against drug addiction
• campaigning against racism
• campaigning against violence, child abuse
• campaigning for the environment (e.g. global warming, overfishing, pollution, animal cruelty)
• campaigning against world hunger

I really wonder whether these posters are getting their messages across.

So what goes in your mind when you see posters about weight loss and physical activity? Have you noticed how they affect your behavior?

Photo credit: stock.xchng

               

Drug Addiction and The Effects On Loved Ones

By Sandee Foxten

We were high school sweethearts. Reunited after nearly 20 years, he was the one my heart had always belonged to. Love at first site is real. That is how we fell in love. The first time we saw each other, our eyes met and from that moment on, my life has never been the same. My first marriage ended in divorce and my second marriage left me as a young widowed mother of two. About a year after my husband’s death, I got a very shocking email. He was looking for me! My high school sweetie was trying to find me and I just broke down and cried in disbelief. At the time, I thought it was fate. I was on top of the world thinking that I would finally be with that one special person I never seemed to be able to put out of my mind. After talking for awhile and getting up to date on each others lives, I learned that his life was far from joyous. At the time, he was in a place in another state that helps drug addicts. He had a job and seemed pretty stable. He told me he had been clean for two years. Not knowing anything about drugs myself, I thought that all he needed was me. I thought that as long as he had my love and knew it was true, he would never feel the need for drugs again. My entire world was fixing to be turned upside down.

After driving to another state to be reunited with my old flame, we decided that he would move to my city so we could be together. He found a job really quick, but couldn’t find a decent place to stay. So I allowed him to stay with me. That is a move that didn’t take me long to regret. Once he stayed and I was in his arms, I didn’t want to let go of him again. So my home became his home. It didn’t take long to learn that he hadn’t given up cocaine. He started staying out all night. The first time, it wasn’t just all night, he was gone for several days. The truth started becoming reality not long after that. We had went out to a bar with some friends and after a few drinks, he wanted me to take him to buy drugs. I refused and told him we were going home. On the way home, we got into a heated argument and he tried to hit me. I was driving and I pulled over on the side of the at 4am and told him to get out. I wasn’t sure who this man was, but it wasn’t somebody I loved. I felt bad and went back to pick him up. We agreed that he would leave that night. He was going to pack his clothes and I would take him to the bus station. But when we got home, he took off in one of my vehicles. After we cooled down and he got his drugs out of his system, we agreed to work it out. But things only got worse. On payday, he wouldn’t bother coming home. He was gone for the weekend, getting high. Eventually, he started stealing from me. He stole items from my home to trade for drugs or money to get drugs. He stole my credit cards and drained my bank accounts. I had to take leave from my job because the situation was so stressful.

“Baby Blue” as I call him, was honestly a good man when he was sober. Very caring, very loving and gentle. But once he started drinking and doing cocaine, he became very abusive and destructive. The situation progressively worsened. While on drugs, he would make up stuff and see things that I didn’t see. I knew it was the drugs. But he would accuse me of trying to hide things. Such as he thought I was cheating on him and that is the last thing I would do. Eventually, he took a trip back to his home state and never returned. The bad part, he stole one of my vehicles in the process. I had to drive to another state and hunt him down only to find he didn’t have my vehicle. He said he let someone drive it to the store and they never returned it. I will never forget the pain of that night. He was so strung out on drugs and I had him in my hotel room planning on having him arrested for the theft of my vehicle. It was this night that I found out what no woman would ever want to here. Never in a million years did I think one man could hurt me so much. He told me what he had been doing there those past few days and it was like someone shot a bullet right into my heart. He had been running around with a prostitute and had also been selling himself to other men for drugs. This man that I loved so much was sleeping with other men. I just wanted to die at that moment. I could not believe this was happening. What more could I do? What I did next was the hardest thing I had ever been through next to the death of my husband.

He wanted more drugs. He wanted me to take him. At first, I refused. Then after a few moments, I agreed. My intention was to find out where the drug dealer lived. I was from out of state, but I am very good at directions. I remembered the name of the road and number on the house. After returning to the hotel, he went in the bathroom and did his drug thing. That was the one that finally made him tired enough to sleep. I rubbed his back for him to ensure he would go to sleep. It was already after daybreak, so I made my move. I called the police. Within an hour, there were three police cars outside the hotel room door. I talked to them outside. They entered the room and woke him up. After asking a few questions, they decided to arrest him. He started fighting with them and I thought they were going to break his neck when they through him down on the bed. I was standing beside the wall and I just fell down on my knees begging him not to fight. As they took him away, the cops came back in to comfort me and told me to go home and to never come back. That boy was no good for me and I needed to stay away from him.

I cried all the way home, a four hour drive. I never returned to my job because the stress caused a back injury to worsen. “Baby Blue” spent four months in a detention center for theft of my vehicle. Today, he is back out on the streets and still doing drugs. I do not know what I could have done to save him. I think he is content doing what he does. As for me, my kids were far more important than having a man to love and run after. No man will ever come before my kids. My experiences have lead me to start a blog about drug and alcohol abuse. I have received great reviews for my work on this blog.

Please take time to visit at livedrugfree.blogspot.com

Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sandee_Foxten

               

The Effects of Stress

Though some of the effects of stress are still hotly debated within the medical and psychological communities, there are some that are broadly agreed on. Rapid heartbeat, raised blood pressure, a rise in blood sugar level and a lower digestive rate are just a few of the physiological effects of stress.

The psychological effects, though sometimes more subtle, are important too. Increased stress, especially when it lasts over time, often leads to irritability. A person will be more quick-tempered and easy to anger. He or she will be more impatient, and more inclined to fear the future while feeling less able to cope with the present. People who are stressed tend to find it harder to concentrate and have greater difficulty making decisions.

These two realms are not unrelated. The hypothalamus and the pituitary gland are two brain components that lead the charge during stressful events. They release a substance called ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) that stimulates the adrenal gland, near the kidney, to release cortisol. Natural levels of cortisol rise and fall during the day, but an excess can contribute to the “flight or fight” response that we experience during stress.

That can lead to neck muscle tension, stomach and bowel upset and a host of other effects. There are studies that suggest that if the stressful state persists it can lead to weakening of the immune system. That contributes to more frequent colds and other bad health effects.

High stress can cause a shortened attention span, less efficient memory recall, lowered objectivity and other cognitive problems. As dire thoughts race around the mind, there is less focus on solving life’s daily challenges in rational way. Moodiness, unreasonable anger, unwarranted feelings of injustice and other emotional consequences often follow.

The results of this are too often depression, apathy, crying in the absence of a specific cause, increased fear of failure and an overall sense of doom. But those are extremes and they are by no means inevitable.

There is sometimes a vicious cycle set up. The conflict between “I must” and “I can’t,” which is an essential element in stress, can lead to greater likelihood that, indeed, one can’t. That loss of confidence in one’s efficacy in dealing with life’s challenges can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that too is not inevitable.

By focusing on the factors that led to stress, evaluating them realistically and keeping a sense of perspective about their consequences, stress can be reduced and even eliminated before it becomes a chronic problem. That, in turn, helps reduce the occasions when a minor problem leads to major stress, even in the short term.

               

Multiple Sclerosis Drug Combined with Lipitor May Stop or Reverse Disease - Dosages Cut in Half with Fewer Negative Side Effects

March 16th 2006

Combining treatments may improve outcomes for patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), according to research done on mice and published online by the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Scott S. Zamvil and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco found that mice treated with a combination of Glatiramer acetate (GA) and atorvastatin (Lipitor) demonstrated “a significant prevention and reversal of clinical MS severity” of MS symptoms.

Lipitor is a cholesterol lowering drug that has previously been shown to improve MS symptoms. Glatiramer acetate (Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s Copaxone) is a drug currently approved for MS treatment. The researchers found that treating MS with combinations of immune modulating drugs can greatly reduce MS disease.

According to the researchers, treating EAE (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis) mice with the combination therapy caused the animals to lose less myelin, prevented CNS inflammation, and MS disease incidence.

The researchers then treated isolated inflammatory cells called macrophages with these drugs and found that the combination therapy mediated its effects by promoting the secretion of the anti-inflammatory molecule IL-10 and suppressed production of the proinflammatory molecules IL-12 and TNF-alpha.

The researchers believe that the combined delivery of drugs, which act through different mechanisms, may enhance the therapeutic efficacy of MS and reduce the negative side effects. Also the drug dosages were less than the dosages used in regular single drug treatments.

Copaxone has been shown to be 30 to 35 percent effective alone. According to Bloomberg News, all MS drugs have to be injected, and have “severe side effects”. None of the MS drugs are very potent.

Lipitor on the other hand can be taken orally and is considered relatively safe. Lipitor, the best selling drug in the world, appears to block production of immune system agents, called cytokines, involved in the disease process. Currently the University of California, San Francisco is looking for 152 patients at 14 hospitals to participate in clinical trials. These trials will investigate the effect Lipitor alone has on MS. Contact the office of Scott Zamvil, associate professor of neurology at University of California, San Francisco, for more information.

There are 400,000 MS sufferers in the US. The illness causes neurological symptoms that include loss of motor control, blindness and temporary recurring paralysis. The condition occur when the body’s natural defenses are over stimulated and begin stripping the protective insulation, called myelin, from nerve fibers in the central nervous system, which includes the brain, optic nerves and spinal cord.

Dan Wilson
Best Syndication

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Copyright 2005 Best Syndication
Last Updated Thursday, March 16, 2006 06:07 PM