Joaquin Phoenix attends the premiere of Joker in Los Angeles, Calif., September 28, 2019.(Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)The moralistic busybodies were wrong in the Eighties. Theyre wrong today.

When it comes to bad ideas, theres always room at the bottom.

Conservatives used to exasperatedly observe of gun-grabbing Democrats, Imagine how theyd complain if someone tried to treat the First Amendment the way they treat the Second Amendment!

Hold my cappuccino, says Andrew Marantz of The New Yorker. Writing in the New York Times under the headline Free Speech Is Killing Us and Marantz argues that is literally true he argues that the gun-control program should be taken as a template for a speech-control program. He has come to this conclusion, he writes, after having spent the past few years embedding as a reporter with the trolls and bigots and propagandists. Some reporters are embedded in Afghanistan, and some are embedded on Twitter, which is a great place to be embedded in that you can do it while you are literally embedded, at home, in bed. The thing to understand, I suppose, is that this is a war story.

Marantzs argument is drearily predictable. He writes that he does not want to repeal the First Amendment and then makes a case for gutting it, mired in vagueness (foreswearing the position of the free-speech absolutist but offering no controlling principle) with a great deal of not obviously plausible dot-connecting, and then moves on to what this is really about: an enemies list, in this case beginning with Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, a couple of attention-hungry entrepreneurial charlatans who always have been and always will be found at the margins of public life. He offers many infinitely plastic pretexts under which speech to which he objects might be suppressed, among them equality, safety, and robust democratic participation. He also proposes government subsidies for the kind of speech of which he approves, having discovered that the Constitution prevents the government from using sticks, but it says nothing about carrots, which surely would be news to the nations religiously affiliated schools, among others.

Marantz is the author of a book about online extremists, because the guy who proposes gutting the Bill of Rights is worried about extremism.

The x might plausibly encourage y argument against free speech has been with us for a very long time. It was the basis for the persecution of heretics in the Christian world, the censorship that John Milton criticized in the 17th century, the suppression of war protesters in the United States (the legal justification of which is the origin of the ubiquitous fire in a crowded theater trope), and the effort to censor and marginalize rap music in the 1980s, a project that brought to public prominence a woman called Tipper Gore, at the time Mrs. Al. Mrs. Gores name became, for a generation, the national shorthand for prudish blue-rinsed tight-assery allied to scheming political opportunism. She was a figure of fun, loathed by all right-thinking people.

But Tipper Goreism, like the poor, syphilis, and usury, we shall always have with us.

Director Todd Phillips has made a kind of superhero movie, Joker, which forgoes the usual tights-and-tights comic-book formula to tell a different kind of story, a psychologically realistic account of the interaction of loneliness, despair, poverty, and cruelty. Surprisingly for what is, at after, a species of Batman film, it was awarded the Leone dOro for best film at the Venice Film Festival,and Joaquin Phoenixs nomination for an Academy Award for his performance already is generally assumed.

But we live in philistine times, and the mob demands that art serve them. For that reason, film, television, literature, music, and much else is subjected to a standard of social utilitarianism, meaning that they are not judged on aesthetic criteria but for their value as propaganda, moral instruction, or therapy. Therapeutic notions are at the moment especially prevalent; that is why press criticism of Game of Thrones, to take one example, dealt with questions of demographic representation to the exclusion of almost everything else.

And so Joker is challenged on its fitness for the present political moment, as Sam Adams puts it in Slate. Is this really the time for a story about a frustrated, alienated white man who turns to violence? he asks. Of course it is, which is why there are at least five productions of Coriolanus under way, and the bestsellers lists are full of worked about frustrated, alienated white men who turn to violence strangely, no one criticizes Margaret Atwood on those grounds. (What, The Handmaids Tale and The Testaments arent about frustrated, violent white guys?) Joker is in fact now criticized on the grounds of empathy, or at least suspicion of empathy. Because our point of empathy in the film is Phoenixs troubled Arthur,Jokerbasically dodges the question of whether were supposed to read his acts of violence as redemptive or abhorrent, three (!) authors write in the Hollywood Reporter. The filmmakers, in this view, leave themselves open to such charges of irresponsibility. The New York Times complains:

Joker is also causing deep unease. Some people, including a few rank-and-file employees on the Warner Bros. lot, worry that the violent, hyper-realistic movie is potentially dangerous that rather than critiquing the societal failings that have given rise to Americas mass-shooter crisis, the film legitimizes such atrocities and could provoke more of them.

In much the same way that the left-wing cultural vanguard that once presented itself as the check on and alternative to corporate power immediately embraced corporate power upon getting its first real taste of it (the Left now is quite satisfied to deputize the HR departments of the Fortune 500 as guardians of political discipline), its members have grown friendlier to suppression of many kinds and more hostile to heterodoxy as their power has grown. Conservative critics of the National Endowment for the Arts once were treated to smug little homilies about how art is supposed to be transgressive, to challenge us, to make us uncomfortable, etc., and now we are treated to smug little sermonettes about the dangerous creation of films that cause deep unease among certain people who work at Warner Bros. or write for Slate or teach at Oberlin. (Arent those exactly the powerful people were supposed to want our art to make uncomfortable?) Reagan-era progressives scoffed when Tipper Gore and her allied church ladies panicked that the rise of rap music would turn Americas streets into a blood-drenched warzone (hip-hop cultures eventual triumphant occupation of the commanding heights of pop in fact coincided with a dramatic decline in violent crime in the United States) or that Ozzy Osbourne songs were turning sweet towheaded kids in the suburbs into dope fiends and satanic little cannibals, or that violent video games were going to leave the real world looking like Grand Theft Auto. (It was enjoyable to remember the video-game panic when watching Ralph Breaks the Internet, in which the GTA ethos is revealed as being so neutered and rehabilitated that it is embodied by Gal Gadot, whose lines might well have been cribbed from self-help manuals.) Power changes everything.

The moralistic busybodies were wrong in the Eighties. Theyre wrong today. They deserved the contempt they received then. They deserve it now. The difference is that free speech and heterodoxy used to have allies in such venues as The New Yorker and the New York Times, where both political and artistic freedom now have so many enemies. But I understand that retro-Eighties nostalgia is hot right now. If were going to bring back big hair and shoulder pads, we may as well resuscitate the public career of Tipper Gore, last seen skulking around Democratic fundraising circles at the junior-varsity level. Perhaps we could bring back Johnny Carson and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation while were at it.

And maybe we can find someone to speak for the cause of art that declines to be subordinated to anybodys political agenda, current social-improvement projects, the tender sensibilities of critics at the New York Times, or the increasingly baroque rules of etiquette that organizes the lives of New Yorker readers as they sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.

Nuclear annihilation remains the safer bet, but one may still dream.

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Everybody Is Tipper Gore Now - National Review

CultureTVThe BBC2 sitcom expertly deconstructs traditional representations of motherhood, only to lazily cast its characters as school-run Mean Girls

Saturday, 5th October 2019, 07:00 am

Child-rearing has long been irresistible to comedy writers who like to use vomit-stained clothing and curdled sex lives as shorthand for the daily grind. But lately we have seen comedy dramas setting aside gentle farce in favour of something grittier, with the focus shifting towards mothers.

The series gleefully washes its hands of the stereotypes peddled by ye olde sitcoms such as 2point4 Children and My Family, in which the mother is the fulcrum of the family, consigned to standing serenely over a cooker.

It takes a similarly dim view of the concept of having it all a fallacy dreamt up by self-help gurus and glossy magazines that serves to make women, and in particular working mothers, feel as if they are failing.

Instead, it follows the seat-of-the-pants existence of Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) as she juggles two children, a job in PR and events, and a largely absent partner. For Julia, being a parent is less the pinnacle of female achievement than a test of endurance, during which just getting through the day without anyone dying is a victory.

Thus, in the opening episode, we see Julia racing to buy school shoes on the last day of the holidays, only to find the shelves empty save for a pair of baby shoes and some kitten heels. At the school gate, Julia listens in to fellow parents summer holiday adventures, noting that she had to send her kids to seven different sports clubs, which they absolutely hated. But on a positive, theyre now county level at badminton.

'Motherlands masterstroke lies in skewering the myth of the saintly mother'

We also see her scowl at newcomer Meg (Tanya Moodie), who has just moved into the house opposite. With her brace of children, successful career and sunny disposition, Meg appears to have it all worked out. She cant be a high-flyer and have five kids, Julia carps. Ive got two children and a job I phone in and I already have incredibly low self-esteem. Who does she think she is? Nicola Horlick?

It is here, in addressing competitive middle-class parenting, that Motherland falls down slightly. While the series expertly captures the cycle of panic that balancing kids and work can entail, less edifying is the way it pits women against one another. If its not Julia taking potshots at strangers, its Lucy Punchs cartoonishly coiffed mega-mum looking down her nose at her less glamorous acolytes.

While its one thing to draw attention to the divisions at the school gates related to class and differing family set-ups (among the social outcasts is blunt-talking single mum Liz, played by Diane Morgan), its another to lazily cast them as school-run Mean Girls.

More heartening is that Horgan and co clearly feel no compulsion to make their protagonists likeable. While the popular girls versus scruffy outsider tropes are tiresome, all the characters scheme and manipulate to make their lives easier, or themselves look good.

Motherlands masterstroke lies in skewering the myth of the saintly mother and showing us that atrocious behaviour is by no means the preserve of children.

'Motherland' returns to BBC2 on Monday 7 October at 10pm

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Motherland brilliantly skewers the myth of the perfect parent but does it need to pit women against each other? - iNews

Its officially fall. And as a psychiatrist on a college campus, I find that Im only getting busier this time of year. It makes sense that fall brings up a lot of feelings like stress and anticipation of new beginnings for a lot of peoplewhether or not its their first year of college. Adjusting from summer back to the grind of college life can be hard, to say the least.

College, in general, can be a baffling emotional roller coaster, but these years also hold so much opportunity for exploring, accepting, and loving who you are and where youre headedeven when it doesnt feel like it. To help you through those moments, heres a list of seemingly small things you can do to feel a little better when youre in school. I recommend these tips often in my conversations with patients. I hope they help you just the same.

Heres something I see all the time: Someone comes into my office feeling anxious because they definitely failed the test they just took while everyone else looked like it was so easy. This is an example of what experts call a cognitive distortion, or basically jumping to a (usually negative) conclusion without sufficient evidence. A lot of people think theyre the only ones struggling while everyone else sails through life. This can make it feel like you need to pretend everything is perfect even when its not.

In my ideal world, everyone would admit when things are hard so it would be clear that we all struggle sometimes. But that doesnt help you right now, so Ill instead suggest that you challenge thoughts like I definitely failed that test and everyone else clearly aced it so easily. It may seem obvious, but stopping to really analyze a thought like this can help you believe it less.

First, write down whatever thought is stressing you out, like that you failed an exam while everyone else got an A. Then try to come up with a list of evidence supporting the thought (I skipped a bunch of questions, I didnt study that last chapter) and evidence against that thought (I did study for hours, though, I actually cant know how well anyone else did). Then ask yourself again how likely it is that your original thought holds water.

As an extra step, try being vulnerable enough to run these stressful thoughts past people you trust (friends, family, a significant other, your therapist). This will usually reinforce that your original thought isnt true, or even if it is, remind you that youll be okay.

Have you ever scrolled through your exs Instagram at 1 a.m. and felt...a lot of things that you couldnt quite name? Maybe a confusing mix of anger, sadness, grief, and even a little gratitude that you no longer have to workshop their hilarious punny captions?

Not having the words to name your emotions is more common than you might think. It can be particularly hard to figure this out in college when youre feeling a lot of things you might not have felt before thanks to your new, probably pretty stressful situation. This is why some therapists teach patients how to name their feelings using emotion wheels, which depict core feelings like happy and sad in the middle, then move outward into associated feelings like optimistic or fragile.

Whenever you feel like your emotions are out of control, look up an emotion wheel online (or grab the copy youll print out after youre done reading this, right?). Starting with the core feelings and then the associated feelings or vice versa, try to name your emotions. Honestly, this can feel a bit silly at first. But exploring your emotions this way allows you to acknowledge, better cope with, and maybe even understand the meaning behind how you feel.

You can also make a habit of journaling every time you use your emotion wheel. Not only can this help with processing your emotions and problem solving in the moment, but you may also begin to notice patterns you would have missed otherwise.

Just as your feelings are valid, they are also often temporary. This can be hard to believe when youre feeling the heat of an emotional firestorm because you didnt get into the one class you were most excited to take this semester, so now everything feels like its going to be awfulbut its true. Here are some concrete ways to remind yourself that this too shall pass:

I know, I know: Youve heard this one before. But I promise that things really can look and feel different after you sleep.

As someone who went to med school, I completely understand the temptation to pull all-nighters in college. Sometimes it feels like that's the only possible way to get everything done (and done perfectly, at that). That's especially true if you're the first in your family to go to college, you or your family have taken out a lot of loans to get you through school, you have anxiety, you did poorly on a previous paper or test, or anything else that might make you feel especially pressured to succeed.

Still, I can't tell you how many sleep-deprived patients I've seen who feel significantly better physically and mentally when they start getting healthy amounts of sleep. When you're sleep-deprived, you're more prone to physical and mental illnesses, and it's a lot harder to juggle school, your social life, and everything else on your plate. You might not even notice how much a lack of sleep is impacting you until you start sleeping well again. Given the choice between one more hour of studying and sleep, I would choose sleep every time. Of course, sometimes a medical issue like anxiety can prevent you from getting the sleep you need, so be sure to see a doctor if you think thats the case for you.

This is somewhat related to the sleeping advice above, but its important enough to deserve special attention.

I fully understand that it can feel like taking a study break is a waste of time that will derail your day and leave you scrambling to catch up. With that said, its actually really important to incorporate study breaks into your schedule. It might feel like those extra 15 minutes of reading will make or break your grade, but when youre burned out or have just been doing something for too long, youre not learning or working at your full capacity. Giving your brain a rest will allow you to focus and absorb material even better the next time you get back to it. If you dont think youll remember to stop and take a break, setting PUT DOWN THE FLASH CARDS FOR A SEC reminders on your phone might help.

It might seem as though you need to have your whole life path figured out the second you set foot on campus. Ive seen many people believe this and wind up two years into, say, an engineering major without ever stopping to question if they remotely like engineering.

This can be unhealthy for so many reasons. You can end up doing something unfulfilling because you already invested a lot of time and energy into studying it, or you can feel like doing poorly on one test means your entire life plan is now ruined. On the other hand, you might feel upset and aimless because it seems like everyone else knows exactly what they want to do in life while youre still unsure.

In reality, college is all about change and questioning whats right for you. You dont have to have it all figured out at the start of school (or at the end, either). Be open to experimentation. Take the ceramics class that has piqued your interest even if you were always into math. Check out every booth at the club fair even if youre pretty sure the college newspaper is calling your name.

If you happen to arrive at the same place you started (e.g., you came in pre-med and still want to go to med school), youll likely feel like that decision is even stronger for having tested it. If I didnt question my goal to be a psychiatrist multiple times at basically every stage of my education, I truly believe I wouldnt know that Im doing what I want to doand for the right reasons.

You might worry about burdening others with your problems, but supporting you is in your friends and familys job description. And if it ever feels like you need more help than a loved one can handle, thats okay too. Nothing is wrong with seeking out that extra support.

Most campuses have a student health center that has mental health providers. These centers often have some sort of screening process to figure out what the best resources are for you and, to some degree, assess your level of urgency. They might recommend that you see a therapist for talk therapy, see a psychiatrist like me for a medication evaluation, or give group therapy a try. If youre having thoughts of harming yourself or someone else, please skip the counseling center and go straight to the emergency room or call 911.

If the wait list to see someone on campus is long (which can happen due to limited resources, especially during busy times of the year like midterms or finals), you can ask the center if they have recommendations for community mental health resources. Most college counseling centers keep a list of off-campus providers that is often more up to date than what insurance companies have on file (though they can be helpful too). Psychology Today is also a great resource because you can search for mental health experts using filters like your insurance plan if you have one and any main issues you want to discuss, like depression. (Heres more information about finding mental health support in college.)

I know the stigma around talking to someone like me can be very real, especially when the cultural message is that college should be the best years of your life. I promise you that it can be utterly normal to find college overwhelming, difficult, and disorienting. Reach out to us. We want to help. You don't have to be having your worst week ever or be doing poorly in school or avoiding your social life to ask for help. Just like you would want to prevent the flu by getting a flu shot, mental health support can be preventive too. Don't just wait for a crisis to reach out.

Related:

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7 Little Ways to Deal With the Emotional Roller Coaster That Is College - Self

Deborah Sengupta Stith

SaturdayOct5,2019at2:24PMOct5,2019at2:33PM

In the early afternoon, while crowds were still arriving for day two of Austin City Limits Festival, a small crowd gathered in a shady patch of grass near the wine grove for a session hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow's high end wellness brand, Goop. Paltrow was not on site and no one was on hand to peddle hundred dollar skin care products or yoni eggs. Instead we were invited to welcome "clean energy" into our bodies with breathwork and easy movement.

We stretched and swayed and envisioned our breath carrying life force through our bodies.

Sometimes the inward focus our gentle leader encouraged was difficult to maintain with upbeat rap music from the Q brothers on the nearby Kiddie Limits stage and disinterested tweens staking their spots for the 2 p.m. Billie Eilish session on the Bonus scattered through the crowd, but for the most mindful of fest-goers it was a welcome escape from the frenetic energy of the festival at large.

We imagined our bodies as "vessels of light" ready to shine bright through the blazing heat of the afternoon sun.

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No Gwyneth, but good vibes at Goop meditation session - austin360

CEDAR PARK, TX It's easy to become overwhelmed in the hustle and bustle of today's society. For many, dealing with day-to-day challenges pose very real consequences that disrupt mental and physical wellness and finding meaningful ways to disconnect may be met with difficulty. There are, however, helpful ways to regain focus and mental clarity. Requiring little more than patience and time, meditation is a valuable tool used to yield positive effects and benefits.

Meditation is the practice of training the mind toward a frame of consciousness tied to a specific benefit. While meditation isn't easily mastered, research shows the relaxation response attained through the practice of meditating offers results including:

As a community service, Learn to Meditate will offer a community service event with its Meditation for Beginners Class offered Saturday, Oct. 12 from 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. at 201 S. Bell Blvd., Suite 104, Cedar Park, TX 78613.

The beginners class teaches the basics of meditation for understanding and self-realization and is free and open to the public. For more information, please click HERE.

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Beginners Learn Basics And Benefits Of Meditation - Patch.com

Churches that use the revised common lectionary will likely read from the ancient prophet Habakkuk this weekend during worship.

The passage begins: O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you Violence! and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. (Habakkuk 1: 2-3)

This passage was on my mind this week when I attended a chapel service led by a group of impassioned students at a local Christian high school.

The theme of the service centered on care of Gods creation, and the students shared their concerns for the future of our planet. They also showed a short clip from Swedish teenager Greta Thunbergs address to the United Nations Climate Action Summit last week. In it, Thunberg took world leaders to task for the prioritizing economic expansion over environmental preservation. During her comments, she stridently said, How dare you! to a room full of adults whom she sees as passive in the face of a climate crisis. I cannot help but hear Habakkuks cry How long, O Lord? in Thunbergs appeal for action.

After Thunbergs public comments, many dismissed and attempted to discredit her, calling her disturbed and obsessed. For centuries, the same has been said about those who share a prophetic witness.

Habakkuk was disturbed and railed against what he perceived as Gods passiveness in the face of violence and wrongdoing. Yet, in the midst of frustration and dismay, the prophet recommitted to waiting for God to answer his cries for help. When God responded, Habakkuk was instructed to write the vision and make it plain so that all could see and understand what would one day be. God even assured the discouraged prophet that his patience would be rewarded. Habakkuks anger and anxiety turned into trust in Gods promises.

Thunberg shared honest and forthright grief about the environmental violence she sees being committed. Yet, she also shared a vision of hope. She gave voice to anger and sadness at the complacency of world leaders and begged them to make positive change. She confessed that she holds out a hope that they will be moved to action and refuses to believe that the adults who hear her will succumb to the evil of inaction.

This is similar to where Habakkuk lands. Despite his lingering questions and difficulties, he ends his complaint with praise of God singing: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength. (Habakkuk 3: 18-19) We are called to do the same.

I, too, will rejoice. I rejoice in the prophetic witness of impassioned young people who challenge adults out of complacency. I celebrate faithful witnesses to the goodness of Gods creation. And, I delight in the steadfast example of all the righteous who live simply by faith.

May we all have the courage to share a message of Gods love for creation through our words and our deeds.

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MEDITATION: Share a message of God's love for creation - Hickory Daily Record

PORT TOWNSEND Keri Perderson will lead a meditation retreat, On the Path of Awakening from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Port Townsend Yacht Club, 2503 Washington St.

The retreat is sponsored by the Port Townsend Sangha and is appropriate for both beginning and experienced meditators.

Admission is $30 per day, however organizers state that no one will be excluded by the inability to pay.

For more information, visit http://www.ptsangha.org.

Unity speaker

PORT ANGELES Mark Stanton Welch will present The Season Within: Responding to the Call of Autumn at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Welch will be the guest speaker at Unity in the Olympics, 2917 E. Myrtle Ave. Sunday service begins at 10 a.m.

Child care is available.

For more information, call 360-457-3981 or visit http://www.unityintheolympics.org.

Lecture series

PORT ANGELES Bob Larsen will present Land Use and Agriculture: Dilemmas and Opportunities from 11 a.m. to noon Sunday.

The presentation is part of the weekly series Climate Warming as a Discipleship Challenge held in the downstairs fellowship hall at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 E. Lopez Ave.

The lecture series is free and open to the public.

For more information, call the church at 360-452-2323, email [emailprotected] or visit http://www.go2trinity.org.

Animal blessing

PORT ANGELES St. Andrews Episcopal Church and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church will hold a blessing of the animals at 2 p.m. Sunday.

The annual event will be held at the Gateway Center, 123 E. Front St.

Dog and cat treats will be provided, along with prayers for pets of all denominations.

Donations of pet food or non-clumping cat litter will be collected for the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society.

Evensong service

PORT TOWNSEND The Rev. Simon Ruth deVoil will offer music for an Evensong service from 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Sunday.

The free service will be held in Chetzemoka Park, 1000 Jackson St.

Evensong is a contemplative, Celtic, Christian service.

The public is welcome.

Yom Kippur service

PORT ANGELES Congregation Olympic Bnai Shalom will observe Yom Kippur on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, marks the end of the Jewish High Holy Days and includes fasting from sunset Erev, or Eve of, Yom Kippur through sunset on Yom Kippur.

They will hold a no-host dinner at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cafe Garden, 1506 E. First St.

Kol Nidre service will be held at 7 p.m. at Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1033 N. Barr Road.

A morning Torah service will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday and Torah study will be held at 2 p.m.

The afternoon, Yizkor and Neilah services will begin at 3:30 p.m.

At sundown, the congregation will hold a dairy potluck to break their fast.

All the services Wednesday will be held at Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Supper and show

PORT ANGELES The Peninsula Evangelical Friends Church will host Supper and a Show at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Friends will serve homemade soup, bread, rolls and cookies at Friends Church, 1291 N. Barr Road.

During dinner they will show the 2010 film Wonders of Gods Creation: Planet Earth. This family-friendly film screening is free and open to the public.

For more information, call Diane Hanes at 360-417-0422 or visit http://www.pefcpa.com.

Continued here:

NEWS BRIEFS: Meditation retreat planned for Saturday, Sunday in Port Townsend and other items - Peninsula Daily News

A hundred pages of reading, a lab report due tomorrow, an extra shift at work. It all tends to pile up on top of busy students.

Personally, I have struggled with anxiety since I was in middle school. I began meditating freshman year of high school, and since then, meditation has become a powerful tool for me to calm my nerves and slow down my thought process. It helps me take things one step at a time and escape from the mental claustrophobia that anxiety brings along with it.

Stress and anxiety are barriers that the majority of students experience during their time in college. According to a study by the American College Health Association, 63.4% of college students felt overwhelming anxiety within the past 12 months.

UT is not excluded from this anxiety epidemic. 76% of the issues that students seek help for at the Counseling and Mental Health Center (CMHC) are anxiety related, making it the largest category of issues the center encounters. Given that these symptoms are so ubiquitous, students should consider meditation to regulate their stress, and UT should provide a more concrete way for them to do so.

Although anxiety and stress are common features of the human experience, they often cause mood or personality changes and can detract from students academic performance. According to integrated health counselor Geeti Mahajan, there are a plethora of components that contribute to student anxiety, such as academic distress, living away from home, personal relationships and even the prospect of graduation.

Given that stress-inducing experiences are an unavoidable part of attending UT, meditation can provide desperately needed, medication-less relief for many students. Meditation can be performed for a short amount of time in any location without the need for any equipment, making it an accessible option for all students.

The mental benefits of meditation are varied, but they all make an important contribution to our calmness and awareness.

The goal is to be more mindful and aware of whats going on so you can take knowledgeable and wise actions to help yourself, Mahajan said. Breath regulation when meditating has a deep effect on the nervous system and helps to calm people down, so they have more insight and awareness to their problems and theyre able to find solutions more clearly for themselves.

Meditation is unique for everyone, and theres no right way to do it. It generally consists of sitting upright in a quiet space and devoting all brain activity to focusing on the breath and the body.

Electrical engineering junior Ashwin Hareesh experienced these positive benefits after meditating regularly.

Just being quiet and staying away from technology and everything else helps you regulate your brain so youre not so frantic all the time, Hareesh said.The break really helps and reduces my anxiety, at least.

UT could make a more distinctive push towards encouraging students to integrate meditation as a healthy coping mechanism through a required stress management skills course, as well as further publicizing meditation workshops already offered through CMHC.

Clinical nursing associate professor Rosa Schnyer, who teaches a stress management course to undergraduates, supports this kind of integration.

I would be a really big advocate for having a part of orientation or a first-year requirement dedicated to helping students gain the skills for emotional regulation because students could really use them at that age, Schnyer said.

The need for positive coping mechanisms for anxiety goes beyond academic performance and mood. Some students have found strategies to manage their anxiety, but many are at risk of developing bigger problems.

A lot of them may have maladaptive behaviors, especially if they are first year students, like drinking or using other substances to numb themselves, Schyner said.

The rise in mental health disorders among students and youth is alarming, and it is imperative that we find safe and healthy methods to cope with them. Meditation can provide this kind of relief for UT students if our community and University makes it a priority. So if youre stressed, put meditation to use and discover your inner zen.

Lazaroski is an international relations and global studies sophomore from Dallas.

Originally posted here:

Try meditation to regulate anxiety, improve emotional regulation skills - UT The Daily Texan

A high school Spanish teacherintroduced me to the practice of meditation. A few times a semester, he would begin or end his class with it.

During these sessions, he would suggest that my classmates and I sit in a relaxed position, head on our desks or back straight, with our eyes closed. And then hed pace the room, guiding us through imagery that would lull us into a meditative state.

Although Im convinced he was a deep believer in the benefits of mediation, I think he was just as interested in its fringe benefit: calming rowdy students.

This experience came to mind a few weeks ago when I had breakfast with Dr. Raghav Govindarajanbefore the CMTA Patient/Family Conference started. We were talking about the anxiety, stress, and muscle pain that are symptoms of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT). He brought up meditation a topic that he went into further during his conference presentation.

Ive been trying to incorporate intentional meditation practices into my life ever since.

Mounting evidence underscores the benefits of meditation. Some studies show it can reduce blood pressure, stress, pain, and inflammation symptoms of particular interest to many CMT-ers.

Ive never been a skeptic of what I understand to be a form of mindfulness meditation. I may not have known about all of its benefits, but I always felt that going into a meditative state was a nice way to relax. I just never called it meditating when I was younger.

I used it in high school marching band practice during extended periods of parade rest, a position we defaulted to while our band director gave attention to other sections. I would stand with my left hand at the small of my back, right hand holding my trumpet, and my feet shoulder-width apart.

I would close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Time would seem to slow. Id feel my muscles tense and relax as they worked to keep me upright and straight against the wind.

When my band director would call us to attention, Id open my eyes and feel them dilate to take in a world I had almost forgotten.

Ive also found meditation to be a nice escape during dental appointments.

Despite my appreciation for mindfulness meditation, I never incorporated it into my life with any regularity. However, Dr. Govindarajan suggested at the conference that its important to be proactive with self-care.

Ive tried to meditate a bit more during the past two weeks and have developed a few practices:

I havent noticed any big changes in my life, but I do have some small observations.

Ive found its a nice way to check up on your body both physically and mentally. Practicing mindfulness meditation reminded me of a conversation I had with my therapist friend. She told me that being mindful of our emotions can help us better manage them before they get out of control.

Meditating more frequently also reminds me of how antithetical it is to the idea of emptying your mind a thought I find off-putting. Mindfulness meditation as I understand it is allowing yourself to focus on the present instead of worrying about deadlines, schedules, or regrets.

When I focus on the sensations I feel within my body while it is in a relaxed state, its easy to keep track of how my body is that day. Some days, I would notice things I might not have without that moment to myself. Oh, Im slightly constipated, I would realize some days. Other days it would be, Wow, my feet are throbbing after that workout.

I cant say I have experienced anything life-changing during my short experiments with meditation, but Im interested to see where this practice takes me. If nothing else, I think meditation helps me sleep better.

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Trying Meditation as a Form of Self-care - Charcot-Marie-Tooth News

It takes a while before a human face appears in Angela Schanelecs I Was At Home, But, which opens on a static scene of nature. When it begins to aim on human faces, the exact details of their lives are left vaguely clarified, leaving puzzle pieces for the audience to sort out. The movie wears its indefinite nature just as its deliberately incomplete title.

On the streets of Berlin, a widowed mother, Astrid (Maren Eggert), appears to sleepwalk through her life. Pieces of scenes suggest off-screen chaos without clarifying the context. The mother arrives at the office and flings her arms around her child(Jakob Lassalle), as if he had been lost or a runaway. Later, the mother speaks with a teacher, pleading him for understanding, feeling they are discussing his expulsion. She also undergoes the mundane task of purchasing a secondhand bike, before arguing with the seller (Alan Williams). There are disparate subplots that do not orbit the core plot, such as a classroom rehearsal of Hamlet and a teacher (Franz Rogowski) breaking up with his girlfriend.

Uncertainty of context infuses the film. Its difficult to pinpoint an emotional core until halfway through when the mother slinks herself down on a burial plot and reveals that her theatre director husband died two years earlier. It becomes evident that unexamined grief simmers throughout her going-ons and the recent aftermath of a lost child. To some extent, she has found ways to move on, such as dating her childs tennis coach, but her sorrow insinuates itself in unsavory outbursts: one simmering one where she criticizes a professors (Dane Komljen) filmmaking choices, another where she argues with the secondhand bike seller with seething frustration as the latter tries to accommodate her, and then in her most explosive tantrum, she kicks her children out of the apartment simply because they made a mess and rebuffs their attempts at affection. Schanelec sharply depicts a middle-class single motherhood in crisis. Astrids irrational vindictiveness and rejection of her childrens embraces is followed by an image of maternal tenderness, with a Piet image of Astrid embracing her youngest as if pleading for forgiveness without words.

This is a movie that holds its breath and takes its sweet time before exhaling. The viewing experience is a succession of lingering shots rather than a deep dive. Toward the end, theres a contemplative moment engulfed in a natural light where an older sibling treads through a bubbling stream with his young sibling on his back. In perhaps the most dialogue-dense scene in the film, Astrid criticizes the professor on the artifice of its casting choices, it seems to externalize Schanelecs self-awareness of her chosen ambiguity.

The films portrait starts to assemble piece-by-piece. Not all puzzle pieces fit a cohesive whole of I Was At Home, But and they dont need to. It forgoes the cinematic ideals of narrative completeness and takes its scattered parts in stride. It radiates a reverence for the interiority of its players, how they are living passor throughan internal crisis, allowing a distant view without prying in. Arguably for many, it is so stuck on the ellipses to have an impact, even one that can creep up. But I couldnt help but to inhale and exhale with the film.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

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'I Was at Home, But...' Review: A Stark Meditation on Grief and Life [NYFF 2019] - /FILM