The Anxiety Report

Maybe They Weren’t as Drunk as You Thought

According to Psychology Today and their article “The Illusion of College Drinking,” they college kids aren’t as drunk as everyone has assumed. It seems stereotypes must have gotten in the way.

Researchers found that the image of a typical college student as a drunken frat boy is largely a myth. Moreover, when students find out that their classmates are relatively modest in their drinking habits, they cut back on their own drinking as well.

Well, DUH is all I can think of to say to that.

Researchers led by Robert Foss of the UNC Highway Safety Research Center used voluntary breathalyzer tests to measure the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of students returning at night to their living quarters. In an initial sample of over 2,000 students, the research team found that on ‘party nights,’ two out of three students hadn’t had a drop to drink. On Mondays through Wednesdays, fully 85 percent had no alcohol in their systems—findings at odds with the stereotype of beer-swilling ‘party schools.’

That should quiet some people down.

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Psychiatric Times.

Being a male, the menstrual cycles of women have largely been none of my business, all my life. Or at least that’s what I was told. IN the paper ‘The Complex Interrelationships of Menstrual Cyclicity and Anxiety Disorders: Premenstrual Exacerbation of Anxiety Disorders’ by Miki Peer, Claudio N. Soares, MD, PhD, and Meir Steiner, MD, PhD,

Premenstrual worsening is frequently reported by women with general anxiety disorder (GAD); one study reported a prevalence of 52%.3 The mechanisms by which some women experience premenstrual worsening of GAD, however, are not known. Limited evidence suggests that GAD is associated with decreased serum levels of pregnanolone sulfate,12 but changes in neurosteroid levels in women who experience premenstrual exacerbation of GAD have not, to our knowledge, been examined. Benzodiazepines are more likely to be prescribed for women with GAD than for men, and while these compounds demonstrate good efficacy in GAD treatment,1,28,29 a significant influence of the menstrual-cycle phase in treatment response has been observed.

It is a highly technical article, but it does fit in at the anxiety report.

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On a Literary Note

This comes from Alicia Sparks blog on mental health notes.  It talks about how Rowling kept her sanity by retreating into the characters of the novels.  I can understand that, writing blogs sometimes helps me retreat from the mundane world of taking meds, and disability.  Anyway, it’s always worth reading Alicia’s blog.

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From the Editor

From time to time I will write an editorial.  Hopefully,they will be readable.  The more research I read to put onto this site, the more convinced I become that I’m going to have to find someone who can help me translate into English what the heck they’re trying to say.  I’m doing my best, but I fear that’s not good enough.  At any rate, I’ll keep at it, you keep coming back to visit me.

Tags: Research //