September: World Alzheimer’s Month

September: World Alzheimer’s Month

This month is the 7th annual World Alzheimer’s Month. Alzheimer’s Disease International launched the campaign in 2012 to raise awareness and challenge the stigma involving dementia. World Alzheimer’s Month provides an opportunity for businesses, communities, caregivers, and those living with Alzheimer’s to come together and raise money for Alzheimer’s research, spread information about it, and petition the government for improved help and care.

Many of us have parents, grandparents, and loved ones who have or at risk for Alzheimer’s Disease. Let’s take a moment to learn about it and find out how to get involved in World Alzheimer’s Month.

What is Alzheimer’s Disease?

“Dementia” is an umbrella term describing several conditions that affect the areas of the brain that control thought, memory, and language, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Alzheimer’s Disease, the most common type of dementia, is characterized by trouble with memory, cognition, and behavior. Usually, symptoms develop slowly over time and eventually interfere with daily activities. The most commonly reported early-stage symptom involves a person’s experiencing difficulty remembering information learned recently. Other symptoms include increased “disorientation; mood and behavior changes; confusion about events, time and place; unfounded suspicions about family, friends, and professional caregivers; and difficulty speaking, swallowing, and walking,” according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The advanced version of the disease sometimes renders a person unable to hold a conversation or respond to their environment.

Currently, no cure is available for Alzheimer’s Disease. Some treatments are available to slow the development of the disease and improve quality of life.

Who is Affected by Alzheimer’s?

More than 35.6 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s Disease. In the United States, about 5.7 million people are living with the disease, and that number is projected to increase to almost 14 million in 2050. It’s the sixth-leading cause of death in the nation. Most people who have or develop the disease are older than 65, though younger people have a chance of developing Alzheimer’s, too. Currently, about 200,000 Americans younger than 65have early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Let’s not forget about the many individuals and families who care for those who have Alzheimer’s. Currently, 16.1 million Americans give unpaid care to someone who has dementia. These caregivers—just in 2o17—provided approximately 18.4 billion hours of care.

How Can I Get Involved in World Alzheimer’s Month?

Those wishing to observe World Alzheimer’s Month are encouraged to participate in a variety of ways.

Participate in an Alzheimer’s WalkThe Alzheimer’s Association spearheads the Walk to End Alzheimer’s for which people gather in more than 600 communities nationwide to participate in a walk designed to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimer’s research, care, and support. Find a walk that hasn’t happened yet or donate to a friend or organization’s walk.

Learn more about Alzheimer’s DiseaseMany people do not know what Alzheimer’s is or how to recognize it. Learn about its signs and symptoms so you can recognize them if necessary and get loved ones the care they need.

Make a donation to the Alzheimer’s Association or another related foundation: Alzheimer’s Disease is increasing in prevalence and is massively underfunded. Every donation helps! You can donate to the Alzheimer’s Association here or choose your own foundation.

Help raise awareness: To help raise awareness about Alzheimer’s Disease and World Alzheimer’s Month, share the Alzheimer’s Disease International campaign video or the Alzheimer’s Association 2018 Disease Facts and Figures video on social media and use the campaign hashtags #Every3seconds and #WorldAlzMonth.

Offer a helping hand: If you know someone who provides care to a loved one who has Alzheimer’s Disease, ask how you can help. Taking care of another person is a privilege, but it can also be stressful and overwhelming. Offer to cook a meal for the family, pay a visit, or just be a listening ear.

While You Weren’t Sleeping: 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep Deprivation

While You Weren’t Sleeping: 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep Deprivation

As we get older, we learn new methods to improve our health. We eat expert-recommended diets to improve our energy level. We take special medications to regulate our hormones and anxiety levels. We sign up for special workout programs to maintain our ideal weight. However, sometimes, improving our health is as simple as doing more of something we’ve known how to do since we were infants: sleeping.

“Getting enough sleep improves your health, strengthens your immune system, improves your mood, and boosts productivity,” said Kristen Knutson, National Sleep Foundation Poll Fellow. “Improving sleep in various demographics could make a positive impact on public health.”

Your mom probably told you, “You need your sleep!” And she was right. Here are seven science-backed things you probably didn’t know about sleep deprivation.

1. YOU might be sleep deprived

Nearly half of Americans report that they’re not getting enough sleep—or their sleep quality is poor—and it’s affecting the quality of life, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Only one-third of adults sleep eight hours per night per the World Health Organization recommendation. Feeling tired? Put down that coffee! You might just need a few more hours of shut-eye per night.

2. Men and women have different sleep disorder risk factors

Men are more likely to report snoring and get diagnosed with sleep apnea. Women, however, are more likely to report difficulty falling and staying asleep and get diagnosed with insomnia, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

3. Your brain makes decisions while you’re asleep

OK, it’s not like your brain is applying for graduate programs while you’re asleep. But while you might not remember much about the hours you spend asleep, your brain is actually quite active during this time. A study published in the journal Current Biology indicates that “complex stimuli can not only be processed while we sleep but [also] that this information can be used to make decisions, similarly as when we’re awake,” Thomas Andrillon and Sid Kouider write. Maybe there’s a good reason that people say they’re going to “sleep on” big decisions before they make them.

4. For some, needing sleep has been stigmatized

Leading neuroscientist Matthew Walker, a sleep scientist, says some people seem to view sleeping as lazy. People want to seem busy and productive, so either they sleep less, or they try to make is sound like they sleep less. “Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason,” Walker said.

5. Sleep deprivation can make you gain weight

While it might sound counterintuitive, sleeping more might help you maintain a healthy weight. Restricting your sleep not only increases appetite and stress hormones but also decreases your body’s ability to metabolize sugar. Next time you notice your pants are getting a little snug, don’t just start researching gym memberships—pay attention to how much sleep you’re getting, too.

6. Lack of sleep increases instances of car accidents

Driver fatigue has caused nearly 1.35 million car accidents in the United States in the past five years, according to the Harvard Business Review. If you’re awake for more than 18 hours in a row—say, from 6 a.m. to midnight—”your reaction speed, short-term and long-term memory, ability to focus, decision-making capacity, math processing, cognitive speed, and spatial orientation all start to suffer,” Bronwyn Fryer writes. We’ve probably all claimed at some point that we “don’t have time to sleep more,” but is it really worth the risk?

7. Alcohol consumption negatively impacts sleep

A lot of people drink a glass of wine before bed to fall asleep, but while you might fall asleep faster, in the long-run, this habit actually decreases sleep quality. Consuming alcohol before bed can interrupt your circadian rhythm, prevent the most restorative type of sleep, increase breathing problems, and lead to nighttime trips to the bathroom, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

Prescribing and prioritizing sleep

Walker believes that sleep loss is linked to Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and poor mental health. “No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation,” he says. “. . . When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritized, even incentivized.”

What can you do to prioritize sleep for yourself and your family?

5 Principles for Effective Family Communication

5 Principles for Effective Family Communication

“I never said she stole my money.” If you say that sentence aloud, it means something different depending on which word you emphasize. For example, “I never said SHE stole my money” means something completely different from “I never said she stole MY money.” Communication is tricky. Even with the best intentions, we can fall flat on our faces when trying to effectively communicate with parents, spouses, children, and other family members. Here are five principles of family communication.

The 5% Rule

When we communicate during a disagreement, most people pick apart the other person’s argument, seeking comments and statements to disagree with. Then the other person usually responds in kind, creating a verbal ping-pong match of negativity featuring no common ground. The 5% Rule challenges the listener to instead identify 5% of what the other person is saying and agree with it. After you’ve chosen a small piece of what the person is saying to agree with, point it out and affirm it. Wait for the point to settle, and be sure to genuinely discuss the point of agreement before trying to assert your own opinion. Saying the equivalent of “Yes, but…” will just seem disingenuous. If you wield the 5% Rule effectively, the person you’re dialoguing with should feel heard and be more open to also hear what you have to say.

The love and respect conundrum

This principle applies specifically to husbands and wives. Men and women communicate differently and have different needs. In his book Love and Respect,Dr. Emerson Eggerichs posits that men, in general, need respect, and women, in general, need love. Of course, men need love, too, and women need respect, too. But Eggerichs research indicates that when 7,000 respondents answered the question “When you are in conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved or disrespected?” 83% of men said they felt disrespected, and 72% of women said they felt unloved. In light of this information, “to effectively communicate a wife must learn how to communicate her feelings of being unloved in way that sounds respectful to her husband, and a husband must learn how to communicate his feelings of being disrespected in a way that sounds loving to his wife,” Eggerichs writes.

Practice precision and avoid exaggeration.

We can’t change how people understand what we say, but we can try to be as clear as possible. Before you say something important, think about how to phrase it so that it is as clear and precise as possible. Don’t leave important words or details out, even if they are difficult to discuss. Your family, especially your children, is simply not going to understand what you are not saying. Another common mistake is to say things that you do not really mean; in particular, avoid exaggerating. Usually, sentences that begin with “You always…!” or “You never…!” are good examples of exaggeration. Say what you actually mean, or you will upset and confuse the listener. Eventually, your family and other listeners will begin to distrust you if you keep saying things that are not really what you mean and what is true.

The Principle of Mirroring.

Imagine that someone handed you a book written in Icelandic and asked you to form an opposing argument. Unless you’re in the very small percentage of the population that speaks Icelandic, you’re probably not going to be able to understand the book well enough to create a counterargument. When we disagree with members of our family, we may not actually be speaking different languages, but we might as well be if we do not understand each other. Mirroring can help us ensure we understand what the person is trying to communicate. Practice saying, “What do you mean by that?” to clarify a statement and ensure that you understand. When people feel like you’re trying to understand them, they generally become less hostile anyway. Also, you can try repeating back what the other person has said using different words. That way they can correct you if you have misrepresented what they said.

Understand first; be understood second.

“If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” Steven Covey wrote. Most people fail to listen to the other person, only hear parts of what is said, or hear it but see it through only their own frame of reference instead of from the other person’s perspective. In short, most people listen so that they can reply, not so that they can understand. Do not do this. Instead, seek first to understand what your child is saying to you, what your spouse is saying to you, what your mother is saying to you. That way, you can formulate a response that demonstrates understanding and clearly gets your point across.

The Role of Listening in Your Family

The Role of Listening in Your Family

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say,” wrote Bryant McGill, thought leader and international bestselling author.

How true this is. Listening plays a crucial role in building and maintaining healthy relationships, especially in families, which often include multiple kinds of relationships. For example, one person in a family might maintain relationships with parents, grandparents, siblings, children, step-children, and extended family.

When we think of communication, we probably first think of speaking. But listening plays an equally—if not more important—role in our efforts to communicate well with others.

Listening: The Under-appreciated Aspect of Communication

At its most basic, communication simply involves a sender, a message, a channel, and a receiver.

  • Sender: This is the speaker, the person who is delivering the message.
  • Message: This is what is being said.
  • Channel: This is the medium through which the message is being delivered. For example, the message could be spoken, texted, emailed, telephoned, etc.
  • Receiver: This is the person who is listening to the message.

Sometimes you are the sender, and sometimes you are the receiver. In other words, sometimes you’re talking, and sometimes you’re listening. We spend years teaching our children how to talk, and then they go to school and learn how to write and deliver speeches. When was the last time you heard of someone taking a class on listening? We spend just as much time listening as we spend talking—or, at least, this should be how it is, so why don’t we spend more time learning how to do it right?

The Benefits of Listening

Listening is so important that it is even in the Bible. James 1:19 mentions both aspects of communication: the sender and the receiver. It says, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” What if we all sought to listen first and speak second? Wouldn’t that be a more peaceful world to live in?

Before we talk about how to listen better, let’s talk about some of the benefits of focusing on the listening aspect of communication in your family.

  1. Listening builds trust. When people feel that you really care about their needs, they’re more likely to trust you. Trust is another foundational aspect in healthy families. When children feel heard, they have the time they need to sort through their thoughts and feelings. When they don’t have this space and trust to process their needs, they might act out or lose their tempers because they’re inexperienced in dealing with emotions.
  2. Listening shows interest and respect. Like the McGill quote at the beginning of this post suggests, listening to people makes them feel respected. How do you show your spouse that you respect him or her? Maybe you support their professional goals, put up with difficult in-laws, or tell them what about them impresses you. But have you ever thought about listening as a form of respect? Showing genuine interest in someone by really listening to what they have to say with the intention of understanding him or her can sometimes communicate respect and honor better than any words you could say.
  3. Listening reduces the opportunity for conflict. Most arguments and conflicts begin as simple miscommunications and escalate from there. Listening with a genuine intent to understand reduces the chances of these unfortunate miscommunications from happening.
  4. Listening helps resolve conflicts. If a conflict or argument has already started, most people’s first reaction is to try to get their own point across. Instead of seeking first to be understood, try seeking first to listen and understand the other person. Your family member is much more likely to listen to your point of view if he or she feels heard by you. And once you understand where he or she is coming from, you will be much more equipped to explain your own point of view in a way that will make sense.
  5. Listening sets an example. “My children don’t listen to me.” Have you ever said this or heard someone say this? Think about this for a moment: as the most important influence in your child’s life, he or she learns the most from you. How you listen to your children teaches them how to listen to others. In other words, if you don’t listen to them, they won’t know how to listen to you. Ouch!

Types of Listening

If you do a simple Internet search, you’re going to find thousands of articles describing the difference between passive and active listening. There is actually another even more advanced form of listening that most people do not know about. However, let’s start by defining passive and active listening just in case you’re among the few who haven’t read about them.

  • Passive listening is basically just hearing. A passive listener probably realizes someone is trying to communicate with him or her and may hear the words. However, this type of listener may not pay attention or remember what is being said, and he certainly doesn’t understand all the meaning the speaker is trying to convey. Therefore, he will probably not be able to properly convey interest, respect, and empathy in his or her response.
  • Active listening involves genuine effort to understand what the speaker is saying. This means maintaining eye contact, nodding, not interrupting, repeating part of what is said to show understanding, ignoring distractions, and deferring judgment. An active listener‘s response will probably convey respect and understanding to the speaker.

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey calls active listening “attentive listening.” Most people believe active or attentive listening is the highest form of listening, but he describes another level: empathetic listening.

Empathetic listening involves listening with the intent to understand both the message being conveyed and the emotion behind it. “Empathetic (from empathy) listening gets instead another person’s frame of reference,” Covey writes in his book. “You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.”

How to Implement Empathetic Listening into Your Family

Covey writes that there are three levels of empathetic listening. He uses a conversation between a father and a son to demonstrate the three levels. The dialogues below are taken from his book.

1. The first level of empathetic listening is mimicking, which essentially involves repeating full or partial phrases back to the listener to indicate he or she is being heard and at least partially understood.

Son: “Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds.”

Father: “You’ve had it. School is for the birds.”

2. The second level of empathetic listening is rephrasing. This means repeating the information back using different words. This indicates understanding of the message.

Son: “Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds.”

Dad: “You don’t want to go to school anymore.”

3. The third level of empathetic listening is reflecting feeling. This involves rephrasing the content and reflecting the feeling.

Son: “Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds.”

Dad: “You’re feeling really frustrated with school.”

In summary, empathetic listeners show that they not only understand what that the speaker means but also understand how he feels. This is a very simple example, but the concept of empathetic listening can be applied in more complex situations and conversations. When your children, spouse, sibling, or parent speaks to you, try listening with the intent to understand the meaning and of the words and the feeling behind them. Then watch how your relationships grow.

Massage Minute: How to Help Your Family Relax

Kindred Touch Founder Sharon Davenport, LMT, shows you how to help your family relax with the power of massage. When massaging a family member, always remember to check with them to make sure the amount of massage pressure you’re using works for them! Watch more on Kindred Touch’s YouTube channel.
 
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