Archive for General Axiom News’ Category

23

Jan
2014

Fiji Human Resource Institute Annual Convention

Ian Kilpatrick was the keynote speaker at the 2013 Fiji Human Resource Institute Annual Convention. His presentation covered the topic of “Is It Square Pegs into Round Holes or Round Pegs into Square Holes? The use of psychometric testing and personality profiling in industry”

The presentation was received well by all and Ian looks forward to being involve with the Fiji Human Resource Institute again in the future.

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1

Sep
2010

Lack of sleep linked to mental illness

Amy Corderoy – Sydney Morning Herald, September 1, 2010

Young people who get very little sleep are much more likely to become mentally ill, Australian research shows. Lack of sleep might help explain the puzzling increase in mental illness among young people over the past decades, said the research leader, Nicholas Glozier.

He suggested late-night internet use might be one reason young people were sleeping less. The study of about 20,000 people aged between 17 and 24 found those who slept less than five hours a night were three times more likely than normal sleepers to become psychologically distressed in the next year. Each hour of sleep lost was linked to a 14 per cent increased risk of distress.

“Sleep disturbance and in particular insomnia is a predictor of later development of depression and possibly anxiety,” said Professor Glozier. Less sleep was also associated with longer-term mental health problems. “A lot of mental ill-health comes and goes,” he said. “It’s the ones that don’t get better that we are particularly interested in.” Professor Glozier, who researches in psychiatry and sleep medicine at the University of Sydney, believed lack of sleep could contribute to increasing rates of depression.

“Older people and people in middle age have been sleeping longer but young people have not,” he said. “Large numbers of my patients are on Facebook or the internet or massive multiplayer games until one or two in the morning but are having to get up at 7am.” Sleep problems and mental illness could exacerbate each other.

“Many of these kids could have sleep problems as a result of previous disturbances,” he said. “But what we are seeing [are] young adults who tend to start off with anxiety and body clock problems [and] move on to problems like bipolar or major depression.” Along with researchers from the Woolcock Institute and the Brain and Mind Research Institute, Professor Glozier is pioneering methods to change the body clocks of sleep-deprived people. “Their body clocks are naturally out of kilter with the rest of society and [some] of them this really impacts on,” he said. Patients are treated with light therapy in the mornings as well as hormones such as melatonin to help them sleep earlier, which may help their distress. The study used data collected by the George Institute for Global Health, and was published today in the journal Sleep.

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29

Jul
2010

Make friends and live longer

Nicky Phillips SCIENCE – Sydney Morning Herald, July 29, 2010

THE adage that friends can save your life turns out be true. Strong relationships with friends, family and colleagues can lower your risk of death by up to 50 per cent, a study has found. In comparison, low social interaction was just as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or being an alcoholic, and twice as harmful as being obese.

An analysis of 148 studies, which combined studied the social relationships of more than 300,000 people, found the health benefits of relationships were consistent across age groups and both genders. “Relationships provide a level of protection across all ages,” said a study author, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, an associate professor of psychology at Brigham Young University in Utah. There were many ways friends and family could influence health for the better, including regulating stress and encouraging healthy behaviours, she said.

Relationships provide a sense of meaning and purpose in people’s lives, which in turn encouraged better self-care and less risk taking, she said. ”[They] also have a direct influence on physiological processes linked to health including blood pressure and immune functioning,” said Professor Holt-Lunstad, whose study is published in the journal PLoS Medicine. While there was no magic number of relationships which could improve a person’s health, people fared better when they had a number of close friends, strong family relationships, and good interactions in the community. However, the review did not assess the quality of relationships, which meant the overall effect relationships had on health may be understated in the study, the authors said.

How people perceived the quality of their relationships was more important than the absolute number of friends or relationships they had, said Frances Quirk, a health psychologist and associate professor at James Cook University.

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25

Apr
2010

Huntington’s Chorea

HD is a tragic condition both for the sufferer and his/her family. There are very few resources for HD families on the Central Coast. In association with a family we are trying to create better community awareness and hopefully develop better resources on the Central Coast. There is going to be a Dinner/dance at Mingara on 18 September. If you know of anyone who has HD please get in touch with us.

“Funny Bone”

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