Have a Healthier Relationship With Your Phone Looking for ways to help you put your phone down and regain all that lost time? Here are some dos and don’ts. By Siti Rohani GETTY IMAGES If you find yourself checking your phone several dozen times a day, don’t worry, it’s not quite your fault.Lots of apps and programs, especially social media apps, have been designed to capture your attention and make it difficult for you to put your phone down.Unfortunately, though, there’s a down side to all this connectivity.A study released last year showed that people with a longer average screen time, and those who used their phones close to bedtime, had poorer sleep quality. Another recent study, released in the journal The Lancet, revealed that the use of your phone in the wee hours of the morning, could increase the chances of developing psychological issues such as depression, bipolar disorder and neuroticism.While the phone is undoubtedly important in our daily lives, we can all agree that we shouldn’t have to pay such a steep price for it in terms of compromising our health. It’s time to take some steps to cultivate a healthier relationship with our phones. Here are a few dos and don’ts: DO - Turn off app notifications 1. Turn off app notifications Every time a notification goes off, it serves as a trigger for us to immediately pick up our phones.Turning off notifications will ensure that we don’t constantly feel pressured to check what’s going on.If you must, just leave notifications on for chat functions so you don’t miss important messages. 2. Go grayscale Setting your phone to grayscale can help you reduce the number of times you check it.This piece of advice comes from Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google who co-founded The Center for Humane Technology.The reason behind this is that certain colours used by the apps, such as red and bright blue, subconsciously excite us and entice us to check our phones.By going grayscale, you lose such triggers. 3. Leave your phone behind Spend some time physically apart from your phone.Start small by first leaving your phone in your bag when you work out at the gym, and work towards leaving your phone at home when you have a jog around the neighbourhood.After a while, you may get more comfortable with the idea of spending more time apart. DON'T - Charge your device in the bedroom Alternatively, make sure your phone is out of reach or placed at the other end of the room.This makes sure that you don’t check it first thing in the morning before even getting out of bed. 2. Place your favourite app shortcuts on your home screen With such quick access to these apps, you’ll be tempted to constantly check in.Instead, keep only important tools on your home screen and relegate the other apps to the back pages.This way, you have to type the app name and do a search whenever you want to launch it, which just might be enough to discourage you from using it. Friends influence middle schoolers' attitudes toward peers of different ethnicities, races The United States is increasingly diverse ethnically and racially. Studies have shown that for young people, simply being around peers from different ethnic and racial backgrounds may not be enough to improve attitudes toward and relationships with other groups. Instead, children and adolescents also need to value spending time and forming relationships with peers from diverse groups. A new study examined how friends in middle school affect each other's attitudes about interacting with peers of different ethnicities and races, finding that they influence each other's racial and ethnic views significantly. The study was done by researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of CaliforniaIrvine. It appears in Child Development, a journal of the Society for Research in Child Development. "Success in engaging and forming friendships with people from diverse ethnic and racial groups is an important kind of social competence, and one that is especially relevant given today's pervasive racial tensions," explains Deborah Rivas-Drake, associate professor of psychology and education at the University of Michigan, who led the study. "Our results point to a system in which adolescents prefer to befriend more open-minded peers and, in turn, influence one another on intergroup relations. Taken together, our research suggests that such attitudes may be contagious." The study collected information from 524 ethnically diverse students in grades 6, 7, and 8 who attended a middle school in the midwestern United States. The students filled out surveys asking them about their friends in school and their attitudes toward diversity -- how they felt about interacting with peers from different ethnic and racial groups. The researchers found that students who had more positive attitudes about interacting with peers from other ethnic and racial groups were most likely to be friends with students who shared the same attitudes. Students with more positive attitudes were less likely to select friends of the same race and ethnicity than those with less positive attitudes. And students' attitudes became more similar to their friends' over time. The study also found that students who expressed positive beliefs about interacting with peers from other ethnic and racial groups reaped benefits: They were more sought after as friends than those with less positive attitudes toward diversity and they reported more friends from groups other than their own. "Many schools, like the one we studied, are encouraging not just awareness of difference but also empathy and the ability to take others' perspectives," notes Robert Jagers, former associate professor of education and psychology at the University of Michigan and incoming vice president for research at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), who coauthored the study. "Our research highlights the importance of peers in this process and their role in helping shape students' beliefs about diversity." Since the study was carried out in a school that was ethnically and racially heterogeneous, the authors caution that their findings may not be replicable in schools that are less diverse. In addition, the study did not ask students about where they lived or their socioeconomic status, which could play a role in students' decisions to associate with peers who are similar to themselves. Six Steps Out of Disappointment Author david murray.jpg?ts=1452019496&ixlib=rails 2.1 Article by David Murray Professor, Puritan Reformed Seminary Your girlfriend drops you. Your family is at war. Your spouse commits adultery. Your best friend betrays you. Your fiancé breaks your engagement. The coach cuts you. A faction in the congregation wants your ministry to end. You suffer agonizing injustice. The church rejected you. Your wife left you and won’t let you see your children. Your womb is still empty. Many different emotions are provoked by these painful experiences. But disappointment is the common denominator in all of them. Our hopes are dashed. Our dreams are shattered. Our expectations are unfulfilled. External events and the decisions of others produce the agony of disappointment. It is the opposite of hope and the forward-looking joy it brings. Instead, it looks backward with anger, bitterness, resentment, depression, and despair. You simply cannot escape disappointment in this broken world (see the book of Ecclesiastes). No matter how many overly optimistic commencement addresses raise the hopes of wide-eyed students every spring, sooner or later all of them will end up disappointed. Friends will let them down. Family will let them down. Employers will let them down. Their nations will let them down. At times they will feel God has let them down. If disappointment is so inevitable, how do we recover from it? Prepare First, prepare for it without becoming a nihilistic Eeyore. If we adopt a realistic attitude towards this world, then we will expect a measure of disappointment and not be shaken or swept away when it happens. That’s not defeatism or pessimism; it’s realism. It involves expecting and rejoicing in the goodness and kindness of God and others. But we don’t get carried away into over-confidence and complacency. In this way, we brace ourselves for the body blow that is sure to come without losing the benefit of delighting in God when things are going well (see Psalm 104 and Psalm 136). Share Share your disappointment. Tell the Lord about what you are experiencing. Be completely honest and transparent. Describe how you are feeling. Or if you can’t find words, bring him your tears and groans (Psalm 56:8) and ask him to interpret and treasure them. Alternatively, use the words provided in the Psalms of Lament (for example Psalms 44, 60, 74, 77, 79, 88). These songs contain a lot of God-centered therapy for the disappointed. Note that the psalmist doesn’t attempt to hide his disappointment from God. He knows that covering and denying is never going to lead to healing. But don’t just share it with the Lord; share it with his people as well. We need all the help we can get when we are down. Therefore, while we cast our burdens on the Lord, knowing that he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7), we also ask our fellow believers to share the weight of our disappointment with us (Galatians 6:2). Remember Remember that the Lord Jesus knew deep disappointment from his days on this earth. His disciples let him down continually. All forsook him, one denied him, and one even betrayed him. He knows the pain and frustration you are experiencing. He can sympathize with you and support you as you reel from the blows (Hebrews 4:15). He is the friend who sticks closer than any brother (Proverbs 18:24). He will not leave you nor forsake you. Submit Humble submission and acceptance rather than arrogant fighting is the way through this dark valley and into the light. Nothing can be gained by taking vengeance on our disappointers, or by angrily shaking our fist in God’s face. No, we must confess, “Lord, I don’t understand how they could do this or you could allow this. But I’m going to bow before your sovereignty and believe you know best and that this is for my best.” This is not to say that justice must never be pursued when we are wronged; but it is to hand over the administration of justice to God and those he has appointed to this task. Grow Use disappointment to grow in sanctification and service. In terms of sanctification, use the pain you feel to make you resolve never to inflict this on other people if you can help it. Or maybe look back on your life and think of times you disappointed people and see if you can put it right in a godly way. You can also use disappointment to serve others by ministering to the disappointed all around you with the comfort with which you have been comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:4). Hope Finally, rekindle eternal hope. While earthly hopes may have been dashed, at least for a time, the Christian still has a heavenly hope that no amount of earthly disappointment can take away. Indeed, earthly disappointment can help us to redirect our hopes towards that which is spiritual and eternal. There is a day, an eternal day in the not-to-distant future, when all disappointment will be taken away and when all things will not only be new but will remain new. Every possible source of disappointment will be removed, and all our hopes will be fulfilled (Revelation 21:1–8). Depression and Anxiety Among College Students By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Depression and anxiety are prevalent problems in colleges across the country. “There is no question that all of the national surveys we have at our fingertips show a distinct rise in the number of mental health problems,” said Jerald Kay, M.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Wright State University School of Medicine. Indeed, in the past 15 years, depression has doubled and suicide tripled, he said. According to a survey from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), universities and colleges also have seen an increase in students seeking services for anxiety disorders. The average age of onset for many mental health conditions is the typical college age range of 18 to 24 years old, said Courtney Knowles, executive director of The JED Foundation, a charitable organization that aims to reduce suicide and improve mental health for college students. In fact, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, 75 percent of all individuals with an anxiety disorder will experience symptoms before age 22, as cited in the ADAA Report. Other students, who might not have clinical anxiety or depression, still suffer. According to the 2006 American College Health Association Survey, 45 percent of women and 36 percent of men felt so depressed that it was difficult to function. Contributing Factors During college, “students deal with a unique amount of stressors,” said Knowles. Specifically, college calls for a significant transition, where “students experience many firsts, including new lifestyle, friends, roommates, exposure to new cultures and alternate ways of thinking,” said Hilary Silver, M.S.W., a licensed clinical social worker and mental health expert for Campus Calm. When students can’t manage these firsts, they’re more likely to struggle. “If students do not feel adequate or prepared to cope with the new environment of a college campus, they could easily become susceptible to depression and anxiety,” said Harrison Davis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Counseling and Coordinator of the Community Counseling master’s program at North Georgia College & State University. Feelings of inadequacy can stem from academic stressors. In college, competition is much more significant, said Dr. Kay. So, there is the palpable pressure to do well, whether the demands come from parents or the student, said Silver. Adjusting to college also influences identity — a phenomenon Silver has termed Identity Disorientation. “When students head off to college, the familiar people are no longer there to reinforce the identity these students have created for themselves.” This can make students “disoriented and feel a loss of their sense of self,” contributing to symptoms of depression and anxiety. A shaky identity and lack of confidence can lead college students “to make poor choices about drinking and drugs,” said Silver. In fact, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) report, Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities, 45 percent of college students binge drink and nearly 21 percent abuse prescription or illegal drugs. For some students, college isn’t the first time they encounter depression and anxiety. Because of advancements in psychotherapy and medication, “we’re seeing students matriculate into college who have had a previous psychological disorder,” said Dr. Kay. And though these students “can handle college in an effective fashion,” he said, it puts a great strain on counseling centers to accommodate the larger numbers. When evaluating universities, parents and students should make sure schools have the necessary mental health resources. It’s important they approach investigating these services just as diligently as they do looking for a school that has a great biology program if that’s what their child wants to study, said Knowles. Explore what each counseling center offers; review the school’s leave of absence policy; and work with the counseling center on the appropriate accommodations, he said. DRUGS COULD DESTROY SUPER-STRONG BACTERIAL ARMOR Scientists have previously overlooked the astonishing physical strength of the thin outer membrane that clings to E. coli‘s stout cell wall, according to a new study. For over a century, scientists have studied E. coli, one of the bacteria that cause food poisoning, as a model for fighting infections. Such research has led to a variety of antibiotics that penetrate the protective cell walls of bacteria to kill them. The new research, however, reveals that E. coli has managed to keep a big secret about its defenses. Scientists had long known that many bacteria have outer membranes. But until now researchers thought of it like a layer of shrink wrap that simply made it tougher to get antibiotics into cells. But as the new study shows, the outer membrane physically protects the cell and could be a good target for a new class of antibacterial drugs. “We’ve discovered that the outer membrane can act as a suit of armor that is actually stronger than the cell wall,” says K. C. Huang, an associate professor of bioengineering and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University. “It’s humbling to think that this function had been hiding in plain sight for all these years.” Huang says the findings suggest new infection-fighting strategies for the roughly half of all bacterial species that, like E. coli, have outer membranes. “If we can attack the outer membrane, infectious bacteria will be pre-weakened for targeting with antibiotic treatments that disrupt cells in other ways,” he says. BEHIND THE SHIELD All bacteria have a cell wall that surrounds and protects the cell’s inner workings. Many decades ago, scientists discovered that E. coli and many other bacteria have an additional layer, called an outer membrane, that surrounds their cell walls. Since its discovery, this outer membrane has been used as a way to classify bacteria into those that do and do not react to a common staining technique, called a Gram stain. Bacteria with outer membranes do not react to the chemical stain are called Gram-negative. Bacteria with naked cell walls react to the stain and are classified as Gram-positive. Both kinds of bacteria can become infectious and, when this occurs, the presence or absence of an outer membrane can also help determine how responsive they will be to antibiotics. Gram-negative bacteria—which have outer membranes—tend to be more resistant to antibiotics. “Scientists knew that outer membranes were chemical shields,” Huang says. “Thus, it was easy to relegate this third layer to an annoyance when dosing the cell with antibiotics.” TESTS OF STRENGTH In recent years, however, researchers have had clues that the outer membrane is more important than they’d thought. In one study, Huang’s lab removed E. coli‘s cell wall but left its outer membrane intact. Unsurprisingly, the bacteria lost their cucumber shape and became blobs. But a large fraction of these blobs survived, multiplied and ultimately regenerated new cucumber-shaped E. coli. “…A STRONG OUTER MEMBRANE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH…” Enrique Rojas, a former postdoctoral scholar in Huang’s lab and first author of the new paper, says that study was a clue that the outer membrane must play important structural and protective roles. “We just listened to the data. Science is about data, not dogma,” says Rojas, now an assistant professor of biology at New York University. over the last four years, the group members tested the outer membrane’s structural powers.They suddenly collapsed the pressure inside the bacteria, but instead of causing the cell wall to massively shrink, as prevailing assumptions would have predicted, they found that the outer membrane was strong enough to almost entirely maintain E. coli‘s cucumber shape. In other experiments, they put E. coli cells through two hours of rapid increases and decreases in pressure. E. coli cells normally shrug off these repeated insults and grow as if no changes at all had occurred. However, when the researchers weakened the outer membrane, cells died quickly. “The presence or absence of a strong outer membrane is the difference between life and death,” Huang says. The experiments identified a handful of components that give the outer membrane its surprising strength. Drugs that destabilize the deceptively thin outer layer could help destroy infectious bacteria, Huang says. NEW INSIGHTS Huang adds that the findings are part of an emerging field of study called mechanobiology. Whereas scientists once viewed cells as sacks of chemicals to study by chemical means, today a confluence of tools reveal the infinitely complex structural properties that make cells and organs tick. “It’s a very exciting time to be studying biology,” Huang says. “We are approaching the point at which our tools and techniques are becoming precise enough to discern, sometimes at almost the atomic level, the physical rules that give rise to life.” The research appears in Nature. Additional coauthors are from Stanford; the University of California, San Francisco; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Funding for the research came from the National Institutes of Health; the National Science Foundation; the Stanford Systems Biology Center and Simbios Center for Physics-Based Computation at Stanford; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the Swiss National Science Foundation; and the Allen Discovery Center program through the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group.
