Good News, Coffe Lovers!

It's no secret that one of my biggest weaknesses in life is coffee, so it's no surprise that I love finding studies that show the many benefits of caffiene.

Today's research comes from the Archives of Internal Medicine, and shows a correlation between drinking coffee and lower rates of depression among women.

Here's where the psychology enthusiast in me would like to make a quick interruption: please, please take research the media reports with a grain of salt. Journalists tend not to accurately report the implications of results because of the way they are written. There is a very big difference between cause-and-effect relationships and correlational relationships. Cause-and-effect relationships are so very rare, but there are often strong links. End rant.

I'm sure you can imagine the internal happiness dance I did while reading the article by BBC News this morning. It appears that women who drank one cup of coffee a day showed a "15% decreased risk of developing depression."  Granted, other factors may be at work here, such as getting more sleep (caffiene is a stimulant, so consuming it may prevent quality sleep),  but it's an interesting result nonetheless.  It's hard to control for other variables here, such as amount of sleep, family crises, emergencies, economic concerns, etc., which could contribute to depression rates. However, I'll take this added reason to keep drinking my cup or two (sometimes three...) a day.


Combine that with other studies which have shown among coffee drinkers  lower suicide rates, lower incidence of high blood pressure, diabetes, and being overweight, and I'm ready to brew a pot (by the way, my favorite is hazelnut coffee...and yes, I go with Free Trade coffee. Paired with a bit of Divine dark chocolate, it's a delicious Free Trade party!)

Today is a day to rejoice, my dear fellow Coffee Lovers, now quit reading this and grab a good cup o' Joe!

Pack Rat?

This afternoon I watched an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC. At times, I have been accused of being a pack rat, but I'll tell you one thing: that show made me grab the nearest box of notes and books from school and start purging. When it was all said and done, I saved the textbooks (for good reason, fyi: my sister is taking psychology classes) and a couple notes that may be helpful, but I threw out the majority of the contents of that box.

I once experienced first-hand what it was like to walk into the home of a hoarder. It was easily one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life. The man who owned the home, let's call him Walter, was a nice enough man, albeit a little anti-social. Walter had most likely been collecting things for as long as I have been alive. In every direction, there were stacks of yellowed newspapers, magazines, stickers, paper, mail, trinkets of all shapes and sizes, really everything you can think of, Walter had it, and he had more than one.

The thing that really got me, though, was the spider webs. I'm arachnophobic (which means I have an irrational fear of spiders), and it's getting worse and worse. I went to school for psychology, and I learned all about phobias and how to deal with them, but man it's hard. I can feel myself getting anxious just writing about the little creepy-crawlies now, for example. Walter's house was covered in spider webs. Brown ones. That means they have been there for a while, just collecting things, dirty things.  Ewwww!!

Part of all those psychology classes was learning about hoarding. I think that one thing the show should touch on more is the fact that it is actually an illness. Simple as that. It's a mental illness that needs attention, just like any other anxiety disorder (hoarding is one of them), eating disorder, or depression. Some psychologists look at it as a disease, just like any other mental illness.  If you get a chance to watch the show, take not of how many of those cases have some emotionally traumatizing event that sets it off. Maybe a death in the family makes them hold on to everything, maybe abuse, maybe poverty as a kid, who knows.

As for Walter, my guess is it was the death of his mother, which he never specifically mentioned, but he referred to her a few times and that the house had been hers. I'd wager he was afraid to get rid of anything that reminded him of her, and it spiraled out of control. I hope he eventually gets the help he needs, because living in those conditions is simply not safe. If you know anyone who is a hoarder, don't take it upon yourself to get rid of their "junk," to them, it's much more than that. Instead, get them professional help, preferably someone who has a lot of experience with anxiety disorders.

I'll be here being terrified of the spiders in that memory and throwing out anything I can find.