Larger families with 3 or more kids have more sibling violence than smaller families. The bully is usually the oldest or older brothers and the victims are the younger siblings, with females being targeted. There are 3 forms of bullying: saying hurtful things causing psychological harm; hitting causing physical harm and isolating or lying about a sibling causing emotional harm. Kids can be both the bully and the victim. It’s known that family violence can cause loneliness, delinquency and mental health problems later in life for all involved. In big families, kids compete for resources and parents’ attention, so they turn to dominating their siblings to get what they want. Parents should manage this from the beginning by spending quality time with their older kids and involving them in caring for the younger kids. Sibling jealousy can undermine even the most stable family. This needs to be addressed very early. Claudia Join me on Facebook at Dr. Claudia McCulloch. Even without using language, our ancestors passed down information about where to find water and the location of the best hunting grounds. Then, we passed down the stories, legends and music of our people and how food and medicines were made. Through this passing down of information, we shaped our culture and came to value our heritage. We’re not the only ones who do this. Whales do the same thing. When whales and their close relatives were tracked, it was learned that they return to the area where they were born or grew up. Not only did they return, but so did their closest family members, sometimes 20 years apart! This information is critical to these marine mammals as they must adapt to the dramatically changing climate. But, they’ve done it before and they’ll do it again through the handing down of survival information from one generation to another. Nature always finds a way. Claudia Join me on Facebook at Dr. Claudia McCulloch. They’re more than a nuisance. Menstrual cramps change women’s brains. Cramps represent the contractions of the uterus during a woman’s period. They’re powerful enough to change the gray matter of her brain. Gray matter is critical because it’s involved in emotional balance, in registering pain and interpreting the senses. It is the case that those with chronic pain, over time, are more sensitive to it, making it worse. This distress occurs every month unless we’re pregnant and it only stops when we reach menopause. The average woman spends fully 10 years of her life having a period. That’s a great deal of time to be in pain and the perception of it, how it actually feels, worsens as she moves along in life. When we have our periods and are in pain, there are differences in the way our brains behave. This cyclical pain in women is serious. If you or your daughter suffer, get help. Claudia Join me on Facebook at Dr. Claudia McCulloch. Image by Yinan Chen from Pixabay Our body multi-purposes. When we’re in pain, it produces natural painkillers that are comparable to the opioid morphine. These same opioids also help to regulate the body’s energy balance. We’re talking about food. We know that natural opioids are released when we eat the food we like, but surprisingly, the brain releases even more when we eat food we don’t enjoy. Why? Because the brain likes a full stomach and it dumps more opioids to make up for the reduced pleasure so that you eat more. Eating triggers the opioid system whether or not we like what we’re eating. It’s Nature’s way of keeping weight on us. People who are obese release less opioids when they eat because they have fewer receptors in their brains. The brain doesn’t want them to eat much. When they lose the extra weight, their receptors recover. It’s all about balance between pain, feeding and pleasure. Claudia Join me on Facebook at Dr. Claudia McCulloch. |
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