Last week was very intense for me. Nothing really specifically bad or wrong, just that the world was "too much with me." A lot of people around me are in great need of one thing or another: money, hope, peace... I've been holding space for them and my arms started aching from that heaviness.
Friday afternoon I found myself as depressed as I ever remember being. The depression lifted after several hours, but boy was it awful while it lasted. I remember what it was like to live that way 24x7, so I was able to be grateful that it's no longer that way for me. I may visit depression once in a while, but I no longer live there. Yay!
I had read that this full moon Sunday would be a perfect time to set intentions so I applied myself this morning to writing what I call a "Manifestation." I wrote a journal entry dated March 20, 2011 and described what my life was like on that day. In performing that exercise, I realized that I have been so caught up in being in the moment (actually, so caught up in getting through each day) that I had somehow lost a larger vision of what is possible. As I wrote out my "druthers" for my life, I felt my vibration recalibrate upwards. Those few minutes of focus on what can be made what is more bearable and shifted things back into a more positive perspective for me overall. I ended my Manifestation as I always do: For this or more, I give thanks.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Keyboard vs. Pen
In response to my November newsletter column on handwriting and the brain, I received this message from a very dear friend of the family. She writes, "This one on handwriting took me back to my school years, when we wrote, wrote wrote. I don't doubt the truth of
handwriting being a benefit to brain function.
We are so totally dependent now on the computer because
it is so much faster for communication, and then one cannot
ignore the ease of instantly correcting one's mistakes at the keyboard.
Truthfully, we get lazy as we age, for one more excuse."
Well, B., as with everything else in life, computer vs. handwriting seems to be a matter of balance. We have unleashed the beast (technology) and now we must make sure it doesn't devour us!
I really have to watch myself from becoming obsessive about checking email, using my cell phone in the car to check voicemail (when I could easily wait a little bit) ...
handwriting being a benefit to brain function.
We are so totally dependent now on the computer because
it is so much faster for communication, and then one cannot
ignore the ease of instantly correcting one's mistakes at the keyboard.
Truthfully, we get lazy as we age, for one more excuse."
Well, B., as with everything else in life, computer vs. handwriting seems to be a matter of balance. We have unleashed the beast (technology) and now we must make sure it doesn't devour us!
I really have to watch myself from becoming obsessive about checking email, using my cell phone in the car to check voicemail (when I could easily wait a little bit) ...
Friday, November 5, 2010
Well, look at that!
I have trouble with the standing-leg postures in my Bikram Yoga practice. I don't know, maybe it's a Libra thing that balance doesn't come easily to me. I also have trouble making a balanced Vimala "Ss," which is the letter of balance. Added to the mix is the fact that the left side of my body is markedly weaker than my right. (Hmm ... left side ... female energy ... too much giving? Hey, I'm working on that, too!)
Anyway. Balance, yes. I decided to run a little experiment. As part of my daily handwriting practice, I occasionally do some writing with my non-dominant, left hand. I started paying attention to how poorly or (relatively) well I got through the standing-leg postures in correlation to the left-handed writing.
There's no doubt that when I consistently spend even a few minutes writing with my left hand, my body balances better in yoga.
Anyone else out there with balance problems? Try the non-dominant-hand writing suggestion and let me know what happens.
Anyway. Balance, yes. I decided to run a little experiment. As part of my daily handwriting practice, I occasionally do some writing with my non-dominant, left hand. I started paying attention to how poorly or (relatively) well I got through the standing-leg postures in correlation to the left-handed writing.
There's no doubt that when I consistently spend even a few minutes writing with my left hand, my body balances better in yoga.
Anyone else out there with balance problems? Try the non-dominant-hand writing suggestion and let me know what happens.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Pen Pals
I received this sweet response to my November newsletter column:
I wanted to say Hello and also tell you, as usual, something in your monthly newsletter is particularly meaningful to me This time, your article made me think of my 6-year-old niece. She already loves journaling and I asked her to be my old-fashioned pen pal. We exchange cards in the US Mail each week. I am delighted by how she is sounding out words for herself and writing them in her own hand. No computers. No help from Mom or Dad. And to know this is helping both of us become smarter is an added benefit!
Yes, yes, yes! This little girl is forging a wonderful bond with her wise aunt, as well as growing her brain.
What a simple pleasure it is to find a real handwritten note in one's mailbox. Please consider adding your personal, handwritten note to your pre-printed holiday greetings this year. It's really like sharing a piece of yourself with your friends and family.
I wanted to say Hello and also tell you, as usual, something in your monthly newsletter is particularly meaningful to me This time, your article made me think of my 6-year-old niece. She already loves journaling and I asked her to be my old-fashioned pen pal. We exchange cards in the US Mail each week. I am delighted by how she is sounding out words for herself and writing them in her own hand. No computers. No help from Mom or Dad. And to know this is helping both of us become smarter is an added benefit!
Yes, yes, yes! This little girl is forging a wonderful bond with her wise aunt, as well as growing her brain.
What a simple pleasure it is to find a real handwritten note in one's mailbox. Please consider adding your personal, handwritten note to your pre-printed holiday greetings this year. It's really like sharing a piece of yourself with your friends and family.
Disease as a Marketing Tool
My wonderful colleague in Tacoma, Del Morrill, sent the following article to me. I think it's worth passing around.
How to brand a disease -- and sell a cure
By Carl Elliott
Editor's note: Dr. Carl Elliott, an M.D. and Ph.D., is the author of "White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine"(Beacon Press, 2010).
If you want to understand the way prescription drugs are marketed today, have a look at the 1928 book, "Propaganda," by Edward Bernays, the father of public relations in America. For Bernays, the public relations business was less about selling things than about creating the conditions for things to sell themselves. When Bernays was working as a salesman for Mozart pianos, for example, he did not simply place advertisements for pianos in newspapers. That would have been too obvious. Instead, Bernays persuaded reporters to write about a new trend: Sophisticated people were putting aside a special room in the home for playing music. Once a person had a music room, Bernays believed, he would naturally think of buying a piano. As Bernays wrote, "It will come to him as his own idea."
Just as Bernays sold pianos by selling the music room, pharmaceutical marketers now sell drugs by selling the diseases that they treat. The buzzword is "disease branding." To brand a disease is to shape its public perception in order to make it more palatable to potential patients. Panic disorder, reflux disease, erectile dysfunction, restless legs syndrome, bipolar disorder, overactive bladder, ADHD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, even clinical depression: All these conditions were once regarded as rare until a marketing campaign transformed the brand. Once a branded disease has achieved a degree of cultural legitimacy, there is no need to convince anyone that a drug to treat it is necessary. It will come to him as his own idea.
Disease branding works especially well for two kinds of conditions. The first is the shameful condition that can be destigmatized. For instance, when Pharmacia launched Detrol in the late 1990s, the condition the drug treated was known to doctors as "urge incontinence." Patients called it "accidentally peeing in my pants" and were embarrassed to bring it up with their physicians. Pharmacia fixed the problem by rebranding the condition as "overactive bladder." Whereas "incontinence" suggested weakness and was associated mainly with elderly women, the phrase "overactive bladder" evoked a supercharged organ frantically working overtime. To qualify for a diagnosis of "overactive bladder," patients did not actually have to lose bladder control." They simply needed to go to the bathroom a lot. The vice president of Pharmacia, Neil Wolf, explained the branding strategy in a 2002 presentation called "Positioning Detrol: Creating a Disease." By creating the disease of "overactive bladder," Wolf claimed, Pharmacia created a market of 21 million potential patients.
Another good candidate for branding is a condition that can be plausibly portrayed as under-diagnosed. Branding such a condition assures potential patients that they are part of a large and credible community of sufferers. For example, in 1999, the FDA approved the antidepressant Paxil for the treatment of "social anxiety disorder," a condition previously known as "shyness."
In order to convince shy people they had social anxiety disorder, GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, hired a PR firm called Cohn and Wolfe. Cohn and Wolfe put together a public awareness campaign called "Imagine being allergic to people," which was allegedly sponsored by a group called the "Social Anxiety Disorders Coalition." GlaxoSmithKline also recruited celebrities like Ricky Williams, the NFL running back, and paid them to give interviews to the press about their own social anxiety disorder. Finally, they hired academic psychiatrists working on social anxiety disorder and sent them out on the lecture circuit in the top 25 media markets.
The results were remarkable. In the two years before Paxil was approved for social anxiety, there were only about 50 references to social anxiety disorder in the press. But in 1999, during the PR campaign, there were over a billion references. Within two years Paxil had become the seventh most profitable drug in America, and Cohn and Wolfe had picked up an award for the best PR campaign of 1999. Today, social anxiety disorder, far from being rare, is often described as the third most common mental illness in the world.
It is hard to brand a disease without the help of physicians, of course. So drug companies typically recruit academic "thought leaders" to write and speak about any new conditions they are trying to introduce. It also helps if the physicians believe the branded condition is dangerous.
When AstraZeneca introduced Prilosec (and later Nexium) for heartburn, for example, it famously repositioned heartburn as "gastroesophageal reflux disease," or GERD. But it also commissioned research to demonstrate the devastating consequences of failing to treat it.
If all drugs were harmless, disease branding would be relatively harmless, too. But no drug is completely benign. For example, Detrol can make elderly people delirious and may cause memory problems. Paxil is associated with sexual dysfunction and dependence. It also carries a black-box warning for suicide in children and adolescents. Side effects like these are a part of every drug. But they are never part of the brand.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Carl Elliott.
See more CNN.com opinion articles
How to brand a disease -- and sell a cure
By Carl Elliott
Editor's note: Dr. Carl Elliott, an M.D. and Ph.D., is the author of "White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine"
If you want to understand the way prescription drugs are marketed today, have a look at the 1928 book, "Propaganda," by Edward Bernays, the father of public relations in America. For Bernays, the public relations business was less about selling things than about creating the conditions for things to sell themselves. When Bernays was working as a salesman for Mozart pianos, for example, he did not simply place advertisements for pianos in newspapers. That would have been too obvious. Instead, Bernays persuaded reporters to write about a new trend: Sophisticated people were putting aside a special room in the home for playing music. Once a person had a music room, Bernays believed, he would naturally think of buying a piano. As Bernays wrote, "It will come to him as his own idea."
Just as Bernays sold pianos by selling the music room, pharmaceutical marketers now sell drugs by selling the diseases that they treat. The buzzword is "disease branding." To brand a disease is to shape its public perception in order to make it more palatable to potential patients. Panic disorder, reflux disease, erectile dysfunction, restless legs syndrome, bipolar disorder, overactive bladder, ADHD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, even clinical depression: All these conditions were once regarded as rare until a marketing campaign transformed the brand. Once a branded disease has achieved a degree of cultural legitimacy, there is no need to convince anyone that a drug to treat it is necessary. It will come to him as his own idea.
Disease branding works especially well for two kinds of conditions. The first is the shameful condition that can be destigmatized. For instance, when Pharmacia launched Detrol in the late 1990s, the condition the drug treated was known to doctors as "urge incontinence." Patients called it "accidentally peeing in my pants" and were embarrassed to bring it up with their physicians. Pharmacia fixed the problem by rebranding the condition as "overactive bladder." Whereas "incontinence" suggested weakness and was associated mainly with elderly women, the phrase "overactive bladder" evoked a supercharged organ frantically working overtime. To qualify for a diagnosis of "overactive bladder," patients did not actually have to lose bladder control." They simply needed to go to the bathroom a lot. The vice president of Pharmacia, Neil Wolf, explained the branding strategy in a 2002 presentation called "Positioning Detrol: Creating a Disease." By creating the disease of "overactive bladder," Wolf claimed, Pharmacia created a market of 21 million potential patients.
Another good candidate for branding is a condition that can be plausibly portrayed as under-diagnosed. Branding such a condition assures potential patients that they are part of a large and credible community of sufferers. For example, in 1999, the FDA approved the antidepressant Paxil for the treatment of "social anxiety disorder," a condition previously known as "shyness."
In order to convince shy people they had social anxiety disorder, GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, hired a PR firm called Cohn and Wolfe. Cohn and Wolfe put together a public awareness campaign called "Imagine being allergic to people," which was allegedly sponsored by a group called the "Social Anxiety Disorders Coalition." GlaxoSmithKline also recruited celebrities like Ricky Williams, the NFL running back, and paid them to give interviews to the press about their own social anxiety disorder. Finally, they hired academic psychiatrists working on social anxiety disorder and sent them out on the lecture circuit in the top 25 media markets.
The results were remarkable. In the two years before Paxil was approved for social anxiety, there were only about 50 references to social anxiety disorder in the press. But in 1999, during the PR campaign, there were over a billion references. Within two years Paxil had become the seventh most profitable drug in America, and Cohn and Wolfe had picked up an award for the best PR campaign of 1999. Today, social anxiety disorder, far from being rare, is often described as the third most common mental illness in the world.
It is hard to brand a disease without the help of physicians, of course. So drug companies typically recruit academic "thought leaders" to write and speak about any new conditions they are trying to introduce. It also helps if the physicians believe the branded condition is dangerous.
When AstraZeneca introduced Prilosec (and later Nexium) for heartburn, for example, it famously repositioned heartburn as "gastroesophageal reflux disease," or GERD. But it also commissioned research to demonstrate the devastating consequences of failing to treat it.
If all drugs were harmless, disease branding would be relatively harmless, too. But no drug is completely benign. For example, Detrol can make elderly people delirious and may cause memory problems. Paxil is associated with sexual dysfunction and dependence. It also carries a black-box warning for suicide in children and adolescents. Side effects like these are a part of every drug. But they are never part of the brand.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Carl Elliott.
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