(Note to readers: as with everything else, find what works for you! If something does not help you, find something else to help you heal. Always make sure that you are addressing your mind-body-spirit, no matter what you do.)
Mindfulness may have been over-hyped
BBC
Bruce Lieberman
May 7, 2018
A 2017 article that assessed evidence on meditation as a treatment for PTSD summed up the overall state of affairs: “This line of research is in its relative infancy.”
Mindfulness meditation has been practiced for millennia – and today is a billion-dollar business. But how much does the practice really change our health?
In combat veterans with PTSD, mindfulness-based group therapy increased healthy connections in parts of the brain that control ruminating (Credit: Getty Images)
In late 1971, US Navy veteran Stephen Islas returned from Vietnam, but the war continued to rage in his head. “I came very close to committing suicide when I came home, I was that emotionally and mentally damaged,” Islas remembers. At his college campus in Los Angeles, a friend suggested he check out a meditation class. He was sceptical, but he found that before long “there were moments that started shifting, where I was happy. I would experience these glimpses of calmness.”
Forty-six years later, Islas says that he has never completely freed himself from his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was formally diagnosed in 2000 at the Veterans Affairs (VA) West Los Angeles Medical Center. But he’s convinced that meditation has saved his life.
Various forms of meditation are now routinely offered to veterans with PTSD. It’s also touted as a therapeutic tool to help anyone suffering from conditions and disorders including stress, anxiety, depression, addiction and chronic pain. More broadly, meditation has come into vogue as a way to enhance human performance, finding its way into classrooms, businesses, sports locker rooms and people’s smartphones through Internet apps like Headspace and Calm.
“There is a common misperception in public and government domains that compelling clinical evidence exists for the broad and strong efficacy of mindfulness as a therapeutic intervention,” a group of 15 scholars wrote in a recent article entitled Mind the Hype. The reality is that mindfulness-based therapies have shown “a mixture of only moderate, low or no efficacy, depending on the disorder being treated,” the scholars wrote, citing a 2014 meta-analysis commissioned by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
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After Photo of Veteran Sitting in the Rain Goes Viral, Walmart Makes Amends
WNEP 16 News
BY ALLEN VICKERS
May 5, 2018
DICKSON CITY, Pa. -- Thousands on Facebook shared a picture of a veteran sitting by himself in the rain outside a Walmart in Dickson City.
In the post, the veteran's wife says he was made to sit out in the rain and not in the covered area of the store.
One day later, Manuel Griffin was in front of the store again--this time in the sun--collecting donations for service members.
The veteran wouldn't talk with Newswatch 16 on camera. He friend David Ragan knows why.
“He is going to do what he has to do for his VFW, and he wants to make sure he is representing them the same way we did when we wore the uniform,” Ragan said.
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Volunteers pitch in to help Indiana veteran who suffers multiple seizures a day
WTTV 4 News
BY MATT SMITH
MAY 5, 2018
RUSSIAVILLE, Ind. – Volunteers descended onto a farmhouse in Russiaville Saturday, helping a veteran and Hoosier who dedicated more than two decades with the Indiana National Guard.
Larry Sparks served numerous deployments including to Iraq, Afghanistan and to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. What has followed is a traumatic brain injury, daily seizures and PTSD.
“It’s been a process,” he said. “It’s been tough.”
Sparks reached out to the non-profit Wish 4 Our Heroes to help.
Saturday volunteers sanded walls, put my new siding and help renovate numerous rooms inside the home. More volunteers are needed to help paint next week.
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Local group donates motorcycle to Wisconsin veteran
WKOW 27 ABC News
By Scott Behrens
May 6, 2018
MADISON (WKOW) -- A local organization is coming together to support a Wisconsin veteran.
The Madison-area group Hogs for Heroes is donating a motorcycle to Army veteran Jon Vandeyacht, from Omro, as a thank you for serving our country.
"I escaped death five times," said Vandeyacht.
Vandeyacht served three tours in combat in Iraq.
"With the IED's at any given moment you could blow up and be dead," Vandeyacht told 27 News.
He's lost friends along the way.
Vandeyacht said, "I had a truck in front of me that got blown up and the blast rocked ours so bad that it knocked me into tomorrow, that's scary that's the hardest part."
Five years ago Vandeyacht had to retire after being seriously hurt.
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Crying keeps your engine cool!
PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
May 6, 2018
We have all heard the saying "men don't cry" but that must have originated from a man who couldn't do it. Think of what he was like. He must have been one nasty individual.
Imagine not being able to cope with strong emotions. Then again, imagine what it must have been like to not be able to release that negative power. His engine must have overheated all the time.
Radiators A radiator is an integral part of your car’s engine coolant system. Its primary task is to keep the engine cool — if the radiator were to malfunction, the pistons would seize up, destroying the engine. In effect, the radiator along with the rest of the cooling system is your personal insurance against a devastating repair bill.
If you have PTSD after doing your job, then there are things you need to know beyond what you imagine.
You may think that others like you do not need to cry. After all, you are so courageous that you were willing to die for the sake of someone else. Right? Why were you willing to do that? Is it because you did not care about any of them?
Would it help to know that one of the most courageous men to walk this earth cried?
He was feeling such empathy for someone else, he could not control his emotions and he wept.
I am sure by now you know where I am going with this. That man was Jesus. When He was in the garden, knowing His days on earth were coming to an end, He had such and inner struggle going on that when He did not weep, the emotional pressure was so great that his sweat came out as drops of blood.
42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22)
His engine overheated. Now, sure, you can dismiss all of this but then you'd have to dismiss the fact that Jesus knew all along who He was and what He was supposed to do. He also knew when it would happen.
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