Anxiety and Depression, Head Lice Hysteria

• Anxiety and Depression - Not a bug, a Feature
• Rant 'O The Month - Head Lice Hysteria
• Monroe Street Clinic News - New Newsletter Distributor

Anxiety and Depression - Not a Bug, a Feature

Have you ever wondered why you are sometimes anxious or depressed? Perhaps you've questioned whether these unasked-for feelings mark some mental flaw or fault? Well, you can stop worrying about that, anyway. These troubling feelings are natural to human beings. It's like what the computer guy at the help desk says when you call up to complain about a bug in your program. The perceived problem is actually a feature built into the program, he explains, to prevent some other problem. "It's not a bug," he says. "It's a feature." Likewise, I would argue that a little anxiety and depression are not bugs in our mental software, they're features.

Consciousness - the Knife That Cuts Both Ways

According to Alan Barbour of Stanford University, feelings of anxiety and depression arise in part simply because we are conscious beings. Does a tiger look around and think, "I should have been a rhinoceros; I'd be much happier"? Does the llama know it is going to die? Does the cow ever ask itself, "Am I giving enough milk compared to the other cows in my barn?" Does the armadillo ever torment itself with speculations such as, "You know, if I'd raised the little armadillos differently, their lives today might be better." Our intelligence leads us to be aware of such questions. As the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote

"The mind all logic is like the knife all blade. It cuts the hand that holds it."

While none of us has an entirely logical mind, most of us have enough logic to ask ourselves painful questions.

The Evolutionary Connection

Anxiety and depression may be more than just an unfortunate side effect of consciousness. In their book, Why We Get Sick, Randolph Nesse and George Williams present a convincing case that the human propensity for emotional unease evolved because it helped our ancestors survive.

As you already know, evolution favors individuals who are able to reproduce. For example, dark-skinned humans became more prevalent in sunny climates because they better survived the skin-damage of the sun than did their lighter-skinned family members. They were healthier, mated more, and thus their offspring dominated.

How does survival of the fittest apply to anxiety and depression? In one experiment, a scientist divided some guppies into groups based on their reactions to a small-mouth bass. Timid guppies hid, while bold guppies eyed the bass. When kept in an aquarium with the bass, about 40 percent of the timid guppies survived, while none of the bold guppies did.

Survival of the Nervous

Imagine two tribes of early humans on the African savannah. One has a genetic tendency to be a bit anxious and jumpy when faced with an unusual situation, while the other tribe does not suffer at all from anxiety. Which tribe is more likely to survive and prosper when faced with the unusual and changing situations that life brings? If members of the tribe don't jump when they hear a branch break, occasionally they will fall victim to the tiger that stepped on the branch. If members of the tribe do jump when they hear the broken branch, they will waste some time jumping because of a monkey in the tree, but at least they won't get eaten by a tiger. They are more likely to survive and reproduce. By this mechanism, the genetic tendency to anxiety has become common -- it is a survival trait.

Again imagine two tribes of Homo sapiens on the African savannah. For each the days will sometimes bring losses of forage, of possessions, or of tribal members. All of these result in a loss of reproductive resources. The tribe without a tendency to depression carries on as usual and finds itself with no plans to change its habits, with more children than it has resources to care for, and a resulting higher death rate. The tribe with a genetic capacity for depression loses interest in sex, becomes introspective, and re-evaluates its capacities and goals in a very sober way. It may decide to move to better foraging grounds, or away from enemies, or it may take other measures to ensure success. In the long run, that tribe is more likely to survive.

In some people genetic tendencies to depression and anxiety are expressed to a degree that is harmful, but more commonly we inherit a modest dose of these emotions, an amount that actually benefits us. If we get anxious before taking a trip, that may motivate us to make sure we packed all the right clothes, took enough money out of the bank, and didn't forget to bring our plane tickets.

Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Evolution

While evolution results in a healthier species as a whole, it can work against a particular individual's well-being. The genes that lead to manic-depressive illness can cause some individuals to become more sexually aggressive, to achieve more, and therefore be more successful at reproduction. Expressed to an excessive degree, these genes do not lead to success, but to failure. Schizophrenia is another example. Families of people with schizophrenia tend to be more successful than average, even though the genes lead some people to develop a devastating illness. As long as a mild dose of these genes is beneficial, humankind will carry them.

Some Ways to Deal With Your Emotional Heritage

If your anxiety paralyzes you or your depression makes your feel suicidal, then it's time to seek help. But if you suffer ordinary feelings of sadness or anxiety, consider these common sense ways of dealing with them.

1. Take care of yourself physically. Get enough sleep, exercise regularly,and eat healthy meals. When your body feels good, your head tends to feel good too.
2. Accept your emotions as a part of living. Rather than characterizing them as negative, rather than trying to quell them with food or alcohol or trying not to think about them, allow yourself to feel them. They will pass. Who feels joy? The person who has had nothing but sunny days? Or the person who has known anxiety and pain?
3. Evaluate what your emotions are telling you. Perhaps you need to grieve, or take action about something you can change, or accept that some things are beyond your control. Perhaps you need to seek advice, or explore options, or just take a walk!
4. Ask for counsel. Depending on the situation, you might talk with a family member, psychologist, friend, co-worker, pastor or priest.

Rant o' the Month - Head Lice Hysteria

I'm not going to say that head lice have been with us for millions of years and they've got a right to live, too. No, if I run into a cootie, I'm going to terminate it because I am a human and that is what we humans do. We don't like to itch!

However, in the past few decades we have gone overboard, thinking that head lice equals inferiority or poor upbringing. The fact is that even the President can get head lice. He may have to borrow a hat from the wrong Senator, but that's about all it takes. You can get head lice with your clothes on, and most people do.

The schools have gone overboard in prohibiting school attendance if a child has a single nit. A nit is the egg case of a louse. The louse cares about its children and wants them to succeed, so it carefully attaches that egg case to the hair as close to the scalp as possible. If you find an egg case more than a quarter-inch away from the scalp end of the hair, the baby louse inside is long gone. After being treated for head lice, many school kids still have a few undiscovered nits. This is no reason to make them miss a day of school.

To discover infestation with head lice, use a fine-tooth comb and start at the crown of the scalp. If lice are present, you should find one within a minute or so. If all you can find are egg cases, all you know is that lice were there in the past.

Who joins me in protesting the "no-nit" school policy? The American Public Health Association, for one, does not support exclusion from school because of head lice. The Centers for Disease Control sensibly suggest that we treat and cure head lice, but that we not go overboard into "nit"-picking. For more information on head lice, check out the CDC Website.

Even though I disagree with the no-nit policy, I'm not suggesting that you fight with the school about it. If your child is sent home with a diagnosis of nits or lice, don't regard it as a personal attack or accuse the school of neglect. This kind of "nit-picking" only encourages the "no-nit" policy. The schools don't want to waste time defending themselves, and often find it easier to have black-and-white policies.

Monroe Street Clinic News - New Newsletter Distributor

Effective with this issue, Olympus.net will be our new email newsletter distributor. Knowing computers, this may involve a few teething problems, so let us know if this causes any inconvenience.