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Study sheds light on the impact of racism on black men’s suicides

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Black males, Suicide


According to a brand new study from the University of Georgia, one in three black men living in rural Georgia has considered death or suicide in the past two weeks. Their experiences with racism as children may play a key role in the pattern.

As stated, studies enlighten growing up in an environment with limited resources and experiencing racism while growing up makes it difficult to construct deep and satisfying relationships with others. Feelings of distrust and being very wary of relationships can result in feelings of isolation, which ends up in thoughts of death and suicide.

As Michael Curtis, one of the study’s co-authors, told the website: “When we take into consideration suicidal thoughts, I believe we frequently don’t concentrate to where the differences are and who’s most in danger. We just realize it’s flawed, especially amongst young black men.”

Curtis continued: “Historically, research has not spent much time and effort examining what are the unique cultural contexts that make some men more vulnerable to suicidal ideation than others.”

The number of black men dying by suicide is increasing at an alarming rate.

In their 2023 book, authors Courtney B. Vance and Dr. Robin L. Smith detailed their beliefs identified the need for changes a conversation about black men’s mental health. Smith told NPR: “(Among) black boys and black men, suicide rates are on the rise. The pace is accelerating faster than any other group in the country, in the United States. So we have to ask ourselves why.”

Smith also contextualized the compilation of internalized anti-blackness, saying, “How is it that black boys are sometimes viewed as scary and dangerous, even after they are 6, 7, or 10 years old? The experience the white world has with them is skin color and gender, which taken together creates a level of fear. So the person I’m describing, who’s pathological and demonized, can swallow it as if these lies are true, after which never reveal it and be treated for what it has cost her to be black and male in America.

In reference to the study, Curtis said childhood experiences became increasingly essential as the Black men they interviewed entered maturity.

“We found that Black men exposed to childhood adversity could develop an internal understanding of the world as a place where they were devalued, where they could not trust others and could not engage their communities in a supportive way,” Curtis said. “Engaging in social support is critical for young Black men who face many challenges on the path to success.”

Steven Kogan, lead writer of the study and a professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia, said one technique to combat suicidal thoughts and other negative reactions to anti-Black racism is to instill self-love in Black children.

“More research is needed, but one finding is clear: Loving yourself as a black person is fundamental,” Kogan said. “Teaching children and adolescents to be proud of being black counteracts their potential to internalize the negative messages about blackness that permeate U.S. society.”


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Health and Wellness

John Legend Criticizes Trump’s Lies About Haitian Immigrants in His Ohio Hometown: ‘How About We Love Each Other?’ – Essence

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John Legend has taken to social media to counter former President Donald Trump’s recent provocative and false remarks about Haitian immigrants in Legend’s hometown of Springfield, Ohio. During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Trump made racist claims, suggesting that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were “eating dogs” and “eating cats” to local residents. His claims come just days after his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, made the identical outrageous claims on social media.

Despite repeated fact-checks by ABC News debate moderators, who identified that city officials in the Ohio town had denied any evidence that immigrants actually eat pets, Trump doubled down, saying that “people on TV” were saying that. When pressed, Trump simply said, “We’ll find out.”

In his videoLegend addressed his supporters, saying, “You may have heard about Springfield, Ohio this week. In fact, if you watched the debate, our presidential candidates were talking about us, including a very unique, interesting man named Donald J. Trump.” He then gave some historical context in regards to the city, explaining, “Our city has been shrinking for decades. We didn’t have enough jobs, we didn’t have enough opportunity. So people were leaving and going somewhere else.”

Legend detailed how Springfield’s population “has declined from 75,000 to about 60,000 in recent years. However, with the emergence of new job opportunities under the Biden administration, including manufacturing jobs, the city has seen an influx of Haitian immigrants who have been granted visas for these positions.” He continued, saying, “At the same time, there was upheaval and unrest in Haiti, and the federal government granted visas and immigration status to a certain number of Haitian immigrants so they could legally come to our country.”

The singer said Springfield has added “about 15,000 immigrants” to its population of 60,000. “You can say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of people.’ For a town that used to have only 60,000, that’s a 25 percent increase. That’s true.”

The singer also acknowledged that integrating a brand new population has its challenges, noting, “You can imagine that integrating a new population, a new language, a new culture, new dietary preferences, has its challenges. There are a lot of reasons why there might be growing pains — making sure there are enough services to accommodate a new, larger population that may need to be bilingual.”

Regardless, Legend said, “Bottom line, these people came to Springfield because there was work for them, they wanted to work and they wanted to fulfill the American dream.”

He compared the stories of those in Springfield to “your German ancestors, your Irish ancestors, your Italian ancestors, your Jewish ancestors, your Jamaican ancestors, your Polish ancestors. All of these ancestors were brought to this country, maybe not speaking the language that everyone else spoke, maybe not eating the same food, maybe having to adapt.” He continued, “But they all came because they saw an opportunity for themselves and their families in the American dream, and they came here to do it.”

Legend then spoke about welcoming immigrants into all communities. “Some facts about immigrants: They tend to do very well here. They’re hardworking, ambitious. They commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, and over time they assimilate and integrate. But it takes time, so I think we all need to have the same kind of grace that we wish our ancestors had.” He added, “I was raised in a Christian tradition. We said to love your neighbor as yourself and treat strangers as if they could be Christ. How about taking that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving into our communities and not spreading hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them?”

Legend vehemently rejected Trump’s xenophobic and racist rhetoric, declaring at the top of the video, “Nobody eats cats, nobody eats dogs. We all just want to live, thrive, and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment. How about we love each other?”


This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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Health and Wellness

Dangers of sleep deprivation

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Most of us are all too acquainted with that dull, drained feeling after an evening of no sleep. But some social media users have taken their tiredness to the acute by collaborating in something they call the “no sleep challenge.”

A 19-year-old YouTuber, Norme, live-streamed his try and break the world record for probably the most consecutive days without sleep. After 250 hours, viewers he expressed concerns about Norme’s health and well-being, but he ultimately managed to realize a “sleep-free” time of 264 hours and 24 minutes.

Norme’s attempt earned him bans from social media platforms YouTube and Kick. However, despite his claims of breaking the world record, his experience was not enough to beat the last Guinness record holder, Robert McDonald, who amassed 453 hours – almost 19 days! – in 1986.

In 1997, Guinness World Records stopped tracking the record for longest time without sleep for safety reasons—and so they were right. Going without sleep for long periods of time may be incredibly dangerous.

Adults should strive for greater than seven hours of sleep a day frequently. Chronic inability to get enough sleep is related to an increased risk many conditions akin to depression, diabetes, obesity, heart attack, hypertension and stroke.

Sleep is a vital part of our each day routine. It allows many of our body systems to rest and give attention to repair and recovery.

During the primary three stages of sleep parasympathetic nervous system – which regulates rest and digestion – takes over. This reduces lowers heart rate and blood pressure.

In the last stage, the rapid eye movement phase (REM), the center activity increases and the eyes move – this stage is crucial for such cognitive functions as creativity, learning and memory. Alcohol Or caffeine Consuming before bed may disrupt sleep cycles.

Sleep deprivation may be acute or chronic. Acute deprivation may occur inside one or two days.

Although it could appear to be a brief period of time, 24 hours of sleep deprivation may cause a greater degree functional impairment than exceeding the alcohol limit. Symptoms of severe sleep deprivation can include puffy eyes or dark circles under the eyes, irritability, cognitive decline, brain fog AND food cravings.

On the second day without sleep, symptoms grow to be more severe, behavioral changes occur, and cognitive function continues to say no. The body’s need for sleep becomes stronger, causing “micro-sleep” – involuntary naps lasting about 30 seconds.

The body’s need for food increases, as do physiological responses akin to: systemic inflammation AND impaired immune responsewhich makes us more prone to disease.

The third 24-hour period may trigger a desperate need for sleep, increasing the likelihood of longer microsleeps, depersonalization – feelings of detachment from reality – and hallucinations. After the fourth day of insomnia, all symptoms grow to be much worse and progress to a state psychosis because of lack of sleep where you might be unable to interpret reality and feel a painful have to sleep.

Recovery from sleep deprivation varies from individual to individual; some people only need a solid night’s sleep to get well. For others, it could take days or even weeks.

However, studies have shown that restorative sleep often doesn’t reverse the metabolic changes that could cause weight gain and decreased insulin sensitivity, even for relatively short periods of sleep deprivation.

Shift employees may be chronically sleep deprived. Shift employees typically work a median of one to 4 hours less sleep per day than people whose working hours fall on daytime hours – which can increase their risk of premature death.

In fact, many studies have shown that too little sleep is related to increased risk of death. However, an excessive amount of sleep can also be related to increased risk of death.

It is subsequently best on your health to avoid social media challenges and as an alternative go for good sleep hygiene to get seven to nine hours of quality sleep. Your body will thanks for it.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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Health and Wellness

new health campaign highlights common source of anxiety

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For most individuals, the every day or near-daily ritual of having a bowel movement isn’t something we give much thought to. However, for some people, the necessity to do a double in a public restroom or at work might be fraught with significant stress and anxiety.

In response to the discomfort people may feel when passing stools at work, the Queensland Department of Health recently launched a social media campaign called ‘It’s OK to poo at work’.

The campaign gained significant popularity Instagram AND Facebook. This was praised by health and marketing experts for his or her witty tackle a taboo topic.

The colourful Instagram post comes with a caption warning of the health risks of “holding on,” including hemorrhoids and other gastrointestinal issues. The caption also includes the next note:

If you might have great difficulty relieving yourself within the presence of other people, it’s possible you’ll be affected by parkinsonism.

What is parkerosis?

Parcopresis, sometimes called “shame bowel”, occurs when people have difficulty or are unable to pass stool in public toilets as a consequence of fear of perceived control from others.

People affected by parkinsonism may have difficulty to make use of the bathroom in public places resembling shopping malls, restaurants, at work or school, and even at home when friends or family are around.

They may fear judgment from others about unpleasant odors or sounds during bowel movements, or how long it takes them to have a bowel movement.

Living with a digestive disease (no less than 4 in ten Australians c) may contribute to parcopresis as a consequence of fear of having to make use of the bathroom steadily and perceived evaluation from others when doing so. Other aspects, resembling past negative experiences or accessibility issues, can also play a task.

Some people may feel uncomfortable using the bathroom at work.
Motortion Films/Shutterstock

People with this condition may experience anxiety through rapid heartbeat, rapid respiratory, sweating, muscle tension, blushing, nausea, tremors, or a mix of these symptoms. They may feel constant anxiety about situations by which they might need to make use of a public restroom.

Living with parcopresis can affect many areas of life and overall quality of life. For example, victims could have difficulties with employment, relationships and social life. They may avoid traveling or attending certain events because of their symptoms.

How common is parkinsonism?

We don’t really know the way common parcopresis is, partly since it’s difficult to evaluate. It’s not necessarily easy or accurate to trace people to see in the event that they’re using or avoiding public restrooms (and why). Furthermore, observing individual bathroom activities can change an individual’s behavior.

AND conducted a study to higher understand how common parcopresis is. The study involved 714 university students. I asked participants to answer a series of vignettes, or scenarios.

In each vignette, participants were informed that they were in a neighborhood shopping center and needed to alleviate themselves. In the vignettes, the bathrooms (which had been recently cleaned) had configurations of two or three toilet stalls. Each vignette varied within the configuration of the available stalls.

Several scenes showing different toilet configurations.
In my research, various methods were used to evaluate parkinsonism.
First published in Current Psychology, Volume 42, Pages 1762–1772, 2023, by Springer Nature

The overall avoidance rate was just over 14%. However, participants were more more likely to avoid using the bathroom when other stalls were occupied.

About 10% avoided walking when all toilets were available. This percentage increased to about 25% when only the center of three toilets was available. Men were significantly less more likely to avoid walking than women in all vignettes.

Many of those that avoided using the bathroom said they might either go home to alleviate themselves, use an accessible disabled toilet, or return when the lavatory was empty.

Parcopresis at work

In the work environment, anxiety levels related to using shared bathrooms could also be higher for several reasons.

For example, people may feel more embarrassed about their bodily functions being heard or observed by peers than they might be by strangers in a public restroom.

People can also feel guilt, shame, and fear of being judged by colleagues or superiors in the event that they should make long or frequent trips to the lavatory. This could also be particularly true for individuals with gastrointestinal disease.

Reducing anxiety related to using the bathroom

Using a public toilet can understandably cause some anxiety or be unpleasant. However, for a small minority of people it could possibly be an actual problem, causing serious anxiety and affecting their ability to perform on a regular basis activities.

If pooping in the lavatory at work or in one other public place makes you anxious, be kind to yourself. Just a few strategies might help:

  • discover and query negative thoughts about using public toilets and remind yourself that using the lavatory is normal and that the majority people don’t concentrate to others in toilets

  • try to administer stress with rest techniques resembling deep respiratory and progressive muscle restwhich involves tensing and relaxing various muscles within the body

  • getting involved in gradual exposure it could possibly be helpful, which suggests visiting public toilets at different times and places, so you may gain confidence in using them

  • use grounding or distraction techniques when using the bathroom. These may include listening to musicwatching something in your phone or specializing in your respiratory.

If you are feeling like you might have parcopressive symptoms, significant impact in your life, seek advice from your loved ones doctor or psychologist who might help determine appropriate treatment approaches. This may include cognitive behavioral therapy.


This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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