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1. Do you agree with the idea that stress and depression chip away at the body's natural ability to fight off disease? Have you ever been physically sick because of psychological reasons?
2. Some people say that fall is a season of men. Do you agree with that? Why?
3. Are you a kind of person who is sensitive to seasons changes?
4. Do you have any advice for those who are going through a sentimental and sagging autumn?
Power of Positive Thinking May Have a Health Benefit, Study Says
Most people accept the idea that stress and depression chip away at the body's natural ability to fight off disease. But many medical scientists have remained skeptical that the mind can exert such a direct influence over the immune system.
In recent years, however, evidence has accumulated that psychology can indeed affect biology. Studies have found, for example, that people who suffer from depression are at higher risk for heart disease and other illnesses. Other research has shown that wounds take longer to heal in women who care for patients with Alzheimer's disease than in other women who are not similarly stressed. And people under stress have been found to be more susceptible to colds and flu, and to have more severe symptoms after they fall ill.
Now a new study adds another piece to the puzzle. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin are reporting today that the activation of brain regions associated with negative emotions appears to weaken people's immune response to a flu vaccine.
During a task that required experiencing negative emotions, greater electrical activity in the brain's right prefrontal cortex predicted a weaker immune response six months later, as measured by the subjects' level of antibodies to the flu shot, the researchers found. Greater activation in the left prefrontal cortex was associated with a stronger immune response.
In the study, 52 women, ages 57 to 60, were asked to think and write about extremely positive and extremely negative events in their lives. The women were participants in a continuing long-term study of high school graduates from the class of 1957.
In the positive emotion condition, the women were instructed to spend one minute recalling an experience of "intense happiness or joy, specifically the best time or experience in their life," and then to spend five minutes writing about it. In the negative emotion condition, the subjects did the same for an event that inspired "intense sadness, fear or anger, the worst time or experience in their life."
Electrical activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex, an area known to be centrally involved in emotion, was recorded by electroencephalogram while the women were thinking about their experiences and after the writing ended. Then the participants were given a flu vaccine.
Six months later, the researchers found, the subjects who showed the most activity in the brain's right prefrontal cortex also had the lowest antibodies. Brain activation during the positive-emotions condition was not linked to differences in antibody levels.
Dr. Davidson said it was not clear what factors accounted for the differences in brain activation and immune response, but genetic and environmental influences might play a role.
Still, he added, the findings offered hints to how a person's mood might ultimately affect susceptibility to illness. The right prefrontal cortex, for example, communicates with certain types of immune cells, and stress appears to alter the functioning of a chemical messenger, dopamine, in the region. In addition, the right prefrontal cortex interacts with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a major player in the body's stress system, which in turn is linked to the immune system.
"The brain has the capacity to modulate peripheral physiology," Dr. Davidson said, "and it modulates it in ways that may be consequential for health."
But he also cautioned against overstating the power of mind over body in producing illness. There is no evidence, for example, that cancer is caused or affected by negative moods or attitudes, and many illnesses, Dr. Davidson said, may be unaffected by the neural changes set off by stress.
"This is one factor among a whole host of factors," he said, "and very likely it is not the most important one."
1. How much do you know about Halloween?
2. Tell us about Halloween story…
3. How do you think about 14th
day of every month , for instance-st. valentine day?
4. Is it holiday for us or commercial strategy of companies?
5. If you have any fairy tale to make holiday like Halloween, what is it, why?
6. talk about halloween~~
History and Customs of Halloween
Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic(켈트족사람) New year.
One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.
Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.
The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.
The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.
The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.
The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.
The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.