Posts

Less Sleep = More Anxiety

Image
Anxiety is one of the most common yet stigmatized health problems today. So many people deal with anxiety and so many people feel ashamed of it. What if I told you that, getting a sufficient amount of sleep could greatly reduce anxiety. A full, good night of sleep is something that should be so easy to get, yet so many people struggle to have it.      A study recently went out stating that sleep is one of the most helpful, natural anxiety relievers. Getting sleep to help anxiety is commonly overlooked though. In this study, 18 people watched scary, unsettling videos after a full night of sleep and after an insufficient night of sleep. After, the participants filled out surveys and scientists used MRI machines to study an area of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, which reduces anxiety and stress. The MRI revealed that “the medial prefrontal cortex was deactivated after a sleepless night.” It also revealed that “A sleepless night raised anxiety levels by up to 30%.”( CLICK

Two World Problems Connected : Air Pollution and Mental Health

Image
If you were to take a quick look through a newspaper, you will find countless articles about mental health and the state of our world. Everyone knows that two of our main problematic topics of today are the stigma around mental health and the fact that our world is deteriorating. Well, what if I told you that, strangely enough, air pollution is causing increased mental health problems in children. Two huge topics unfortunately connected. A study of how children react when the pollutant particle PM2.5 spikes was recently released. This is the particle responsible for causing mental health problems in children. This particle can cause physical damage as well. For example, it can get into the lungs and even the bloodstream causing heart and respiratory problems. Physical problems from a pollutant doesn't sound strange, but mental health problems are not something researchers were expecting. Researchers have found that whenever this particle occurs in higher amounts than usual in t

My Family History

     To start learning about my family history I sat down with my dad and asked him about his parents, past, and our last name. Our last name is Rosenblat and he said it is of German descendant, he thinks it means “rose leaf” but we are not entirely sure. Most often the last name of Rosenblat is spelled with two “Ts” at the end, we think there used to be a second “T” but when my grandfather came over from Poland to Ellis Island the second “T” was probably dropped. Our last name is also a fairly common Jewish last name because of the first part of it “Rosen” which tends to be common in many Jewish last names. One more thing actually about my first name, Jennifer, is that it was chosen because my grandfather’s name was Joseph and my parents wanted to honor him with another “J” name.      Like I said, my grandfather on my dads side was from Poland and my grandmother was from Waukegan. My grandfather took a boat to American and was supposed to go to Kansas City but he got off in Chicago a