Can an addiction to pessimism be detrimental to our health? Is a negative outlook holding us back from a happier, healthier state of being? Modern research tends to suggest that the way we view the world; ourselves, our future, work, family etc., can have a huge effect on how we experience it. So how can a pessimistic outlook affect us, and what can we do to turn that frown upside…
Eating too much or too little – bulimia and anorexia, two extreme pathologies in our relationship with food, affect primarily adolescent girls and young women. A combination of factors lies at the origin of eating disorders, and the psychological aspect is the most important of these. The example of anorexia illustrates the point. Like all illnesses of a psychological nature, anorexia is difficult to pin down or treat. However, since…
Irritability, stress, feeling jumpy … these are the most obvious consequences of lack of sleep, which everybody has experienced at some time. Sleep deprivation also forms part of the most effective tortures dreamt up by dictatorial regimes. In many ways, sleep is really restorative. “Did you sleep badly? Did you get out of bed on the wrong side?” Popular common sense often reminds us that lack of sleep affects our…
“Citius, altius, fortius” (“Faster, Higher, Stronger”) – the famous words spoken in 1894 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin on the creation of the International Olympic Committee. Today they’re more relevant than ever, but their meaning has been subverted. The desire to improve athletic performance is still a noble quest, but too often it leads athletes at the highest levels to overdo things, to lose their way and commit excesses including…
An intense love turns bad, a relationship which could potentially have worked falls apart, your partner decides to leave you …. whatever the reason for your broken heart, it’s never an easy thing. The expression is depressing enough in itself! You think you’re never going to get over it, and you get yourself into all sorts of states – depression, despair, isolation, flight, etc. People react in many different ways,…
Who wouldn’t want to be fit and well? It’s certainly a reasonable desire, but today’s society has made well-being, fitness and health into an obsession reinforced by media such as publicity, television and magazines. The number of people affected by hypochondria is increasing with every passing year, reinforced by new weight-loss programs, new dietary supplements, and new products to make you look younger. This obsession with having a perfectly healthy…
The relationship between sleep disorders (or “somnipathy”) and internet addiction is not really well known. However, because of the importance of both conditions, we feel that it is appropriate to assess their relationship. It is well known that becoming addicted to the screen can have a negative impact upon our health. What’s less well known is that every night millions of young people wake up to access the Internet. In…
The medical term bulimia was borrowed as recently as 1979 from an older French word meaning “an unstoppable desire to consume”, which is why in France, at least, people will sometimes say jokingly “Hey, you’re bulimic today!” or talk about “bulimia of reading”. However the medical problem of bulimia, characterised by eating huge amounts of food, is no joke. It would be a mistake not to take it seriously,…
Behind many instances of memory loss lie addictions, whether to psychoactive substances, or to technology, or a food-related addiction. All forms of dependence, whether physical or emotional, have an effect on our mental state. Each addiction has its own effect, and some are lot nastier than others… Addiction to psychoactive substances As we said in our article about psychoactive substances, drug addiction has undesirable effects and is particularly harmful to…
The trivialisation of cannabis – would you like a little joint? Of all the psychoactive substances, cannabis is one the most often tried by young people, with a first experience around the age of 14. Easily available, it has already attracted 17 million people in France, and it has become commonplace. Today, smoking a joint is almost an everyday act, but it carries certain risks. Most young people seem unaware…