The Joy of Sauna

Breathe deeply. The heat is almost too much to bear. Your lungs expand, oxygen runs through every part of you. You feel great.
The wooden boards are hot but not scolding, and you sit on them as long as you can stand it. Then out into the bracing air to hop in the cool water and chill out. Repeat.

I've been fighting off a bout of influenza the likes of which I haven't had to cope with in years. Fever, chills, gastro, sinus infection, chesty cough. The whole box and dice.

I was reading about cures one day, when I came across a reference to using a sauna. Apparently the virus can't live in the temperatures they keep a sauna at. So all the time you're breathing in that hot air, you're helping your body kill off the invaders. It's a bit like a manually induced fever, which the body uses for the same reason - heating you up to try to kill off the virus.

Well, that's the theory.

But I'm also just enjoying them too. Every day since then I've been down to the gym to use the sauna and spa, and I'm feeling much better for it.

Not sure if it's speeding up my recovery or not, but hey, I'm enjoying it, and it can't do any harm.

A big part of your wellness planning is regularly doing things that lift your mood. I've just found one more activity to add to my list.

photograph by comedy_nose

Madness Redefined

This is a fascinating discussion: (start at 12 minutes 55 seconds)
http://worldsciencefestival.com/webcasts/madness_redefined


Video streaming by Ustream

An interesting topic:

"The notion of a “tortured genius” or “mad scientist” may be more than a romantic aberration. Mounting studies have established that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia correlate with high creativity and intelligence. Join leading researchers as they examine the shifting spectrum between brilliance and madness."

And a fascinating group of people:

Elyn Saks
What a wonderful, positive person. Incredibly insightful, gifted and clear. You can see her struggle, and her brilliance in spite of it.

James Fallon
Absolutely high the whole time. A case study in mania. As someone who has experienced being manic it's almost painful to watch him speak. The contrast with his colleagues on the panel that are actually managing their bipolar or schizophrenia is staggering. He is a bipolar sufferer who doesn't really realise he's suffering and thinks everything's great because he's manic. The credibility of the other panellists slams his to the ground. Watching him really reinforces my decision to manage my condition with medication, despite the loss of the perceived fun of mania.

Kay Jamison
Very down to earth, and clearly driving an agenda. Albeit a great agenda with a well reasoned argument. That is to treat bipolar and schizophrenia as illnesses, and not to romanticize them with the possible links to creativity.

I absolutely loved this statement from Elyn:

"for me always though I've always had social judgement, so I've known what people would think was crazy and I didn't want to appear crazy so I didn't say it out-loud except to my therapist. So that way I was able to kind of make my way through a professional world having crazy beliefs but not antagonising or alienating the rest of my environment because I always knew what would be seen as crazy, even though I didn't think it was."
Elyn Saks - 1 hr, 32 mins in

And this is a nicely put illustration of the deleterious nature of manic episodes:

"If you don't get treated, these illnesses are really bad for your brain. If you look at brain scan on 1 mania and your brain scan on 8 manias, you want your brain on 1 mania. You want to be able to prevent those manias. So these are very damaging, potentially lethal illnesses."
Kay Jamison - 38 mins in

If you have the time to watch it, I highly recommend it. Some brilliant people with interesting minds and lives.

The Causes of Bipolar

Bipolar disorder has no known cause, and no known cure. It's a scary thing to have.
Here's what we do know:

• Bipolar disorder is genetically inherited.
• Identical twins have an 80% chance of concordance.
• Kids with one parent having bipolar have a 10% chance of developing it. Where both parents have it, the chances are 40%.
• Half of all bipolar sufferers have a family member with a mood disorder.
  
  To me that's pretty conclusive.
  
  What the genes are, how they work and what they trigger is still being researched.
• The genes alone don't manifest the disorder.
• Bipolar episodes are triggered by 'stressors'. These can include the death of a loved one, losing a job, moving house, post-natal depression, or things that appear more trivial too. No-one can define what exactly they will be, because everyone's level of stress in handling these kinds of events is different.
• Physical well-being is critical to maintaining a stable mood. Having enough sleep, good diet and exercise give a person a much better chance of fending off stresses that could otherwise trigger an episode.
• It seems that once the first bipolar episode has been triggered the disease can take on a life of it's own, not necessarily relying on another similar event to trigger further episodes.
• Seasons seem to influence the onset of episodes for some people, for example it could be more likely to have a hypomanic episode in spring.
• Neurochemistry plays a major part, although how it works is not yet known.

So if you've got the genes, you've got them. There's no test that can tell you conclusively. You find out when your doctor leans across to you and says: 

      "I believe that you have bipolar disorder, and you're having a manic episode right now."

Or you don't find out. Most people take a long time to get a correct diagnosis, if they're lucky. It can take a lot of personal struggle to accept it and then get the help that is available too.

I read stories about bipolar almost every day, most of them sad, some even heartbreaking. The many unknowns surrounding the causes of bipolar are the cause of so much real pain and suffering. But I'm always on the look out for the hopeful news, especially about the increasing amount of research and understanding of the disorder.

I have every faith in the teams of scientists all over the world looking for the causes, and therefore the cure for bipolar. 

Further reading:

http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/public/bipolardisorder/causes.cfm

http://bipolar.about.com/cs/bpbasics/a/what_causes_bp.htm

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/the-causes-of-bipolar-disorder-manic-depression/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bipolar-you/201103/spring-has-sprung-and-so-might-your-hypomania-0

photograph by Sbrools