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Why More Western Doctors Are Now Prescribing Yoga Therapy
With a growing body of research proving yoga’s healing benefits, it’s no wonder more Western doctors are prescribing this ancient practice. Learn what’s behind the trend.
SUSAN ENFIELD https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/western-doctors-prescribing-yoga-therapy
Yoga therapy is now recognized as a clinically viable treatment, with established programs at major health care centers, such as The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic, and many others. In 2003, there were just five yoga-therapy training programs in the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) database. Today, there are more than 130 worldwide, including 24 rigorous multi-year programs newly accredited by IAYT, with 20 more under review. According to a 2015 survey, most IAYT members work in hospital settings, while others work in outpatient clinics or physical therapy, oncology, or rehabilitation departments (and in private practice).
The health care world’s increased acceptance of yoga therapy is partly due to a significant body of clinical research that now documents yoga’s proven benefits for a range of health conditions, including back pain, anxiety, depression, and insomnia, as well as its ability to help reduce risk factors for cardiovascular disease and hypertension. Yoga has even been documented as a way to alleviate the side effects of cancer treatment.
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more on mindfulness in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mindfulness
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/14/magazine/tech-design-ai-chatbot.html
TWO YEARS AGO, Alison Darcy built a robot to help out the depressed. As a clinical research psychologist at Stanford University, she knew that one powerful way to help people suffering from depression or anxiety is cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T. It’s a form of treatment in which a therapist teaches patients simple techniques that help them break negative patterns of thinking.
In a study with 70 young adults, Darcy found that after two weeks of interacting with the bot, the test subjects had lower incidences of depression and anxiety. They were impressed, and even touched, by the software’s attentiveness.
Many tell Darcy that it’s easier to talk to a bot than a human; they don’t feel judged.
Darcy argues this is a glimpse of our rapidly arriving future, where talking software is increasingly able to help us manage our emotions. There will be A.I.s that detect our feelings, possibly better than we can. “I think you’ll see robots for weight loss, and robots for being more effective communicators,” she says. It may feel odd at first
RECENT HISTORY HAS seen a rapid change in at least one human attitude toward machines: We’ve grown accustomed to talking to them. Millions now tell Alexa or Siri or Google Assistant to play music, take memos, put something on their calendar or tell a terrible joke.
One reason botmakers are embracing artificiality is that the Turing Test turns out to be incredibly difficult to pass. Human conversation is full of idioms, metaphors and implied knowledge: Recognizing that the expression “It’s raining cats and dogs” isn’t actually about cats and dogs, for example, surpasses the reach of chatbots.
Conversational bots thus could bring on a new wave of unemployment — or “readjustment,” to use the bloodless term of economics. Service workers, sales agents, telemarketers — it’s not hard to imagine how millions of jobs that require social interaction, whether on the phone or online, could eventually be eliminated by code.
One person who bought a Jibo was Erin Partridge, an art therapist in Alameda, Calif., who works with the elderly. When she took Jibo on visits, her patients loved it.
For some technology critics, including Sherry Turkle, who does research on the psychology of tech at M.I.T., this raises ethical concerns. “People are hard-wired with sort of Darwinian vulnerabilities, Darwinian buttons,” she told me. “And these Darwinian buttons are pushed by this technology.” That is, programmers are manipulating our emotions when they create objects that inquire after our needs.
The precursor to today’s bots, Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, was created at M.I.T. in 1966. ELIZA was a pretty crude set of prompts, but by simply asking people about their feelings, it drew them into deep conversations.
Resources on Kinesiology and Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality:
Home – Landing Page
Lee, S.-H., Yeh, S.-C., Chan, R.-C., Chen, S., Yang, G., & Zheng, L.-R. (2016). Motor Ingredients Derived from a Wearable Sensor-Based Virtual Reality System for Frozen Shoulder Rehabilitation. BioMed Research International, 2016, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/7075464
Dvorkin, A. Y., Shahar, M., & Weiss, P. L. (2006). Reaching within Video-Capture Virtual Reality: Using Virtual Reality as a Motor Control Paradigm. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(2), 133–136. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.133
Zeng, N., Pope, Z., Lee, J. E., & Gao, Z. (2018). Virtual Reality Exercise for Anxiety and Depression: A Preliminary Review of Current Research in an Emerging Field.
Journal of Clinical Medicine,
7(3), 1-N.PAG.
https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm7030042
Kramer, M., Honold, M., Hohl, K., Bockholt, U., Rettig, A., Elbel, M., & Dehner, C. (2009). Reliability of a new virtual reality test to measure cervicocephalic kinaesthesia.
Journal of Electromyography & Kinesiology,
19(5), e353–e361.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelekin.2008.05.005
Report: World Support For Mental Health Care Is ‘Pitifully Small’+
October 15, 20183:12 PM ET JOANNE SILBERNER
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/15/656669752/report-world-support-for-mental-health-care-is-pitifully-small
a comprehensive report from the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health, three years in the making, released this past week at a London summit
In the mid-1990s, the first Global Burden of Disease study noted that of the top ten causes of disability worldwide, five were mental illnesses. Mental health researchers had little to offer at the time in terms of proven inexpensive treatments. But researchers since then have demonstrated that diseases such as depression and substance abuse can often be accurately identified and treated by community health workers with talk therapy.
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more on mindfulness in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mindfulness
It turns out, nobody really knows. The first study, a systematic review, summarizes the research to date on physician burnout. Study authors found that researchers do not use a consistent definition of burnout, and estimates of how common it is vary widely.
The second study followed doctors-in-training over six years and tracked how they felt about their work. They found that women and doctors in certain high-stress specialties were more likely to experience symptoms of burnout, like emotional exhaustion and regret about career choice.
Dr. Katherine Gold, coauthor of an editorial accompanying the JAMA studies. She says that the main questionnaire used to measure burnout wasn’t even designed for doctors. She says it’s intended for professionals like social workers and therapists, who have to cope with trauma their patients experience. My note: this is the merit of Kelsey Milne’s dissertation with SCSU EDAD program: how do we measure may be the key to the right assessment.
Burnout definition: How you define burnout is all over the map. Any time you have a diagnosis that might apply to 85 percent of the population, you wonder how useful that is. But burnout is much less stigmatized than depression. People are just more willing to say they’re burned out.People have resonated with the feeling that something isn’t right, and something is making our work really difficult. We’ve latched on to this as the word we’re going to use.
There’s talk about the solutions all being personal. The physician should be more resilient. The physician should do yoga. The physician should practice mindfulness. I think the stress that people are feeling is much more about external demands, like the electronic medical record and paperwork.
I know I feel frustrated when I get emails telling me that there’s lunchtime yoga, which of course I can’t make it to because I have too many patient charts to complete. My Note: this is part of Kelsey’s findings for educators also.
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more on meditation in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=meditation
Schools are using AI to track what students write on their computers
Under the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), any US school that receives federal funding is required to have an internet-safety policy. As school-issued tablets and
Chromebook laptops become more commonplace, schools must install technological guardrails to keep their students safe. For some, this simply means blocking inappropriate websites. Others, however, have turned to software companies like
Gaggle,
Securly, and
GoGuardian to surface potentially worrisome communications to school administrators
Over 50% of teachers say their schools are one-to-one (the industry term for assigning every student a device of their own), according to a
2017 survey from Freckle Education
But even in an age of student suicides and school shootings, when do security precautions start to infringe on students’ freedoms?
When the Gaggle algorithm surfaces a word or phrase that may be of concern—like a mention of drugs or signs of cyberbullying—the “incident” gets sent to human reviewers before being passed on to the school. Using AI, the software is able to process thousands of student tweets, posts, and status updates to look for signs of harm.
SMPs help normalize surveillance from a young age. In the wake of the
Cambridge Analytica scandal at Facebook and other recent data breaches from companies like
Equifax, we have the opportunity to teach kids the importance of protecting their online data
in an age of increased school violence, bullying, and depression, schools have an obligation to protect their students. But the protection of kids’ personal information is also a matter of their safety
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more on cybersecurity in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cybersecurity
more on surveillance in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance
more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
Methods activate ‘same brain mechanisms as cocaine’ and leads to users experiencing ‘phantom’ notification buzzing, experts warn
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-to-create-psychological-cravings
Social media platforms are using the same techniques as gambling firms to create psychological dependencies and ingrain their products in the lives of their users, experts warn.
atasha Schüll, the author of Addiction by Design, which reported how slot machines and other systems are designed to lock users into a cycle of addiction.
Whether it’s Snapchat streaks, Facebook photo-scrolling, or playing CandyCrush, Schüll explained, you get drawn into “ludic loops” or repeated cycles of uncertainty, anticipation and feedback — and the rewards are just enough to keep you going.
Like gambling, which physically alters the brain’s structure and makes people more susceptible to depression and anxiety, social media use has been linked to depression and its potential to have an adverse psychological impact on users cannot be overlooked or underestimated.
Tech insiders have previously said “our minds can be hijacked” and that Silicon Valley is addicting us to our phones, while some have confessed they ban their kids from using social media.
However, the number of monthly active users of Facebook hit 2.13 billion earlier this year, up 14% from a year ago. Despite the furore around its data privacy issues, the social media monolith posted record revenues for the first quarter of 2018, making $11.97bn, up 49% on last year.
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more on addiction in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=addiction
Notes from the webinar:
What is Digital Learning
Technology is a metaphor for change, it is also a metaphor for risk
technology is a means of uncertainly reduction that is made possible by the cause-effect relationship upon which the technology is based.
technology innovation creates a kind of uncertainty in the minds of potential adopters as well as represent an opportunity for reduced uncertainty.
The Diffusion of Innovations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm
technology is disruptive
- issues and impacts | response
- organizational practice and process | denial, anger
- individual behaviors and preferences | bargaining
- visualization: can I see me/us doing that | depression, acceptance
as per https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dying-Doctors-Nurses-Families/dp/1476775540
The key campus tech issues are no longer about IT (in the past e.g.: MS versus Apple). IT is the “easy part” of technology on campus. The challenges: people, planning policy, programs, priorities, silos, egos, and IT entitlements
How do we make Digital Learning compelling and safe for the faculty? provide evidence of impact, support, recognition and reward for faculty; communicate about effectiveness of and need for IT resources.
technology is not capital cost, it is operational cost. reoccurring.
Visualization:
underlying issues; can i do this? why should i do this? evidence of benefit?
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Green-PlusCaChange-EDUCAUSEReview-Sept2015.pdf
the more things change, the more things stay the same. new equilibrium.
change: from what did you do wrong to how do we do better. Use data as a resources, not as a weapon. there is a fear of trying, because there is no recognition or reward
Machiavelli: 1. concentrate your efforts 2. pick your issues carefully, know when to fight 3. know the history 4. build coalitions 5. set modest goals – and realistic 6. leverage the value of data (use it as resource not weapon) 7. anticipate personnel turnover 8. set deadlines for decisions
Colleagues,
We apologize for the short notice, but wanted to make you aware of the following opportunity: provide
From Ken Graetz at Winona State University:
As part of our Digital Faculty Fellows Program at WSU, Dr. Kenneth C. Green will be speaking this Thursday, March 22nd in Stark 103 Miller Auditorium from 11:30 to 12:30 on “Innovation, Infrastructure, and Digital Learning.” We will be streaming Casey’s talk using Skype Meeting Broadcast and you can join as a guest using the following link: Join the presentation. This will allow you to see and hear his presentation, as well as post moderated questions. By way of a teaser, here is a recent quote from Dr. Green’s blog, DigitalTweed, published by Inside Higher Ed:
“If trustees, presidents, provosts, deans, and department chairs really want to address the fear of trying and foster innovation in instruction, then they have to recognize that infrastructure fosters innovation. And infrastructure, in the context of technology and instruction, involves more than just computer hardware, software, digital projectors in classrooms, learning management systems, and campus web sites. The technology is actually the easy part. The real challenges involve a commitment to research about the impact of innovation in instruction, and recognition and reward for those faculty who would like to pursue innovation in their instructional activities.”
Dr. Green is the founding director of The Campus Computing Project, the largest continuing study of the role of digital learning and information technology in American colleges and universities. Campus Computing is widely cited as a definitive source for data, information, and insight about IT planning and policy issues affecting higher education. Dr. Green also serves as the director, moderator, and co-producer of TO A DEGREE, the postsecondary success podcast of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author or editor of some 20 books and published research reports and more than 100 articles and commentaries that have appeared in academic journals and professional publications. In 2002, Dr. Green received the first EDUCAUSE Award for Leadership in Public Policy and Practice. The EDUCAUSE award cites his work in creating The Campus Computing Project and recognizes his, “prominence in the arena of national and international technology agendas, and the linking of higher education to those agendas.”
Casey’s most recent TO A DEGREE podcasts are available now: Presidential Leadership in Challenging Times and Online’s Bottom Line.
Hope to see some of you online and please forward this invitation to anyone who might be interested.
Ken Graetz, PhD, Director of Teaching, Learning, and Technology Services, Winona State University, 507-429-3270
Students and Social Media: How Much is Too Much?
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2018 | 1:00 PM CENTRAL | 60 MINUTES
Instant communication with one another (and the world) has tremendous benefits. At the same time, it has serious drawbacks that tend to offset those advantages. The evidence is mounting that students’ overreliance on their cherished devices is interfering with their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, ultimately impacting their emotional health, mental health, and academic performance.
How can your institution assist students in the digitally-obsessed information age?
Register today for the Magna Online Seminar, Students and Social Media: How Much is Too Much?, presented by Aaron Hughey, EdD. You’ll explore ways to develop and implement a blueprint for effectively assisting students who are experiencing emotional and mental challenges due to their overindulgence in social media.
BENEFITS
Through the evidence-based best practices and insights gleaned through this seminar, you’ll be able to respond more effectively to the needs of students who are experiencing emotional and mental health challenges due to their overinvolvement with social media.
LEARNING GOALS
Upon completion of this seminar, you’ll be able to:
- Understand how today’s students are qualitatively different from their predecessors 15-20 years ago
- Articulate why technology has both benefits and challenges
- Describe the prevalence of emotional and mental issues among today’s college students
- Describe the emerging relationship between overinvolvement with social media and emotional issues
- Educate students, faculty, staff, and student affairs professionals regarding social media and how overinvolvement can precipitate stress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide and violence
- Recognize basic symptomology and warning signs associated with overinvolvement with social media, as well as response techniques
TOPICS COVERED
- Characteristics of today’s college students and the similarities/differences from previous generations
- How technology has affected the way students learn
- Emotional and mental issues among today’s college student population
- The increase in addiction disorders in today’s college students
- Overinvolvement with social media and emotional and mental health issues
- Social media and stress, anxiety, depression, violence, and suicide
- Emotional states and their connection to social media
- Symptomology and warning signs
- Intervention techniques
AUDIENCE
This seminar is designed for anyone at any institution who is responsible for the mental and emotional well-being of college students, especially faculty, administrators, and staff of departments that provide direct services to students, including college counseling centers, student health centers, career and academic advising services, housing and residence hall professionals and paraprofessionals, student activities and organizations, academic support services, and programs and services for at-risk students.
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more on social media and students in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media+students
Former Google Design Ethicist: Relying on Big Tech in Schools Is a ‘Race to the Bottom’
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-02-07-former-google-design-ethicist-relying-on-big-tech-in-schools-is-a-race-to-the-bottom
Common Sense Media recently partnered with the Center for Humane Technology, which supports the development of ethical technological tools, to lay out a fierce call for regulation and awareness about the health issues surrounding tech addiction.
Tristan Harris, a former ethicist at Google who founded the Center for Humane Technology
To support educators making such decisions, Common Sense Media is taking their “Truth about Tech” campaign to schools through an upgraded version of their current Digital Citizenship curriculum. The new updates will include more information on subjects such as:
- Creating a healthy media balance and digital wellness;
- Concerns about the rise of hate speech in schools, that go beyond talking about cyberbullying; and
- Fake news, media literacy and curating your own content
What Does ‘Tech Addiction’ Mean?
In a recent NPR report, writer Anya Kamenetz, notes that clinicians are debating whether technology overuse is best categorized as a bad habit, a symptom of other mental struggles (such as depression or anxiety) or as an addiction.
Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at the American Academy of Pediatrics, notes that though she’s seen solid evidence linking heavy media usage to problems with sleep and obesity, she hesitated to call the usage “addiction.”
Dr. Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist who studies hormones at the University of Southern California disagreed, noting that parents have to see the overuse of technology as an addiction.