Mindful Monkey.

Buy Ambien Canada Online – Sleeping Pills

In the US, about 750,000 people take sleeping pills every night to fight insomnia. About 300,000 people do this more than three months and are chronic users of sleeping pills. This is an insomnia underestimated public health problem.
Most used sleep drugs
The most commonly prescribed sleep drugs are oxazepam (brand name Seresta), temazepam (brand name Normisom) and generic Ambien (Zolpidem). These drugs are covered by the so-called benzodiazepines, a collective term for drugs with sedative ingredients. Most sedatives and hypnotics belong to this group.
Benzodiazepines have a positive effect in the short term, but work after prolonged use highly addictive. Women and old people are relative users of many sleeping pills and sedatives. The benzodiazepines group is also the largest.
Using these pills should be gradual and performed under proper guidance. Still succeeds in only half of the people who addicted to sleeping pills to really stop that treatment.
Side effects
The negative side effects of Ambien 20mg (benzodiazepines) are large and downright dangerous. Sleeping pills make you drowsy and slow, causing muscle weakness.
Also, you have no coordination and concentration that occurs more memory, habituation and addiction. Your function is deteriorating day, like your driving skills. Of the elderly who take hypnotics, it is known that they frequently fall and break a hip.
Of oxazepam and temazepam we also know that the disable your ability to have a strong dream using Ambien from Canada. The funds help to quell fears that would prevent else to sleep well at night.
It is not known what the consequences are if you do not dream a long time, but it is certain that dreams play a crucial role in processing emotions.
Withdrawal symptoms
The withdrawal symptoms after stopping sleep medications are big. A summary: palpitations, anxiety, irritability, agitation, muscle twitching, tremors, hard tense muscles, diarrhea, dizziness, sensitivity to light, sound or touch, burning skin, loss of interest, concentration disturbance, decreased appetite, nausea, headache, blurred vision and – how ironic! – Fatigue and insomnia.
The conventional sleep medications we rely on when we want a good night’s sleep, so do end often do more harm than good.


Hallucinogenic Mushrooms may help with depression, say leading scientists

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An article in the Guardian (23.1.12) reported some studies using Hallucinogenic Mushrooms it said:

A drug derived from magic mushrooms could help people with depression by enabling them to relive positive and happy moments of their lives, according to scientists including the former government drug adviser, Professor David Nutt.

Two studies, for which scientists struggled to find funding because of public suspicion and political sensitivity around psychedelic drugs, have shed light on how magic mushrooms affect the brain.

Nutt, from Imperial College London, was sacked as a government drug adviser after claiming tobacco and alcohol were more dangerous than cannabis and psychedelic drugs such as ecstasy and LSD.

He believes prejudice and fear have prevented important scientific work on psychedelic drugs. Research began in the 1950s and 60s but was stopped by the criminalisation of drugs and stringent regulations which made the work costly.

“Everybody who has taken psychedelics makes the point that these can produce the most profound changes in the state of awareness and being that any of them have experienced,” said Nutt.

Magic mushrooms may help with depression, say leading scientists | Society | The Guardian.

If you are interested in these ideas then you might like to take a look at the work of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – http://maps.org/.


Addiction Services in 2012 – where are we headed?

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The magazine ‘Addiction Today’ has produced a preview of the challenges faced by addiction services in 2012. The contributors come from a variety of different perspectives. Worth a read I think.

Leading personalities in the field of addiction treatment and recovery use their insights and inside information to predict what they consider will be the major opportunities and threats of the

Addiction Today: PREPARE FOR THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF 2012.


Who can we lean on when times are hard?

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Based on figures released by the NHS Information Centre some newspapers reported ‘A rising tide of Depression’. The detailed figures are alarming to read.

Prescriptions for drugs such as antidepressants and sleeping pills have jumped 20% in just three years, according to new figures.  The Press Association: Use of antidepressants ‘is soaring’.

In 1999 the World Health Organisation, the global monitor of health in the world, stated that, Depression was the world’s fourth most debilitating human condition, behind heart disease, cancer, and traffic accidents. It also predicted by 2020 depression will have risen to become the second most common cause of human suffering worldwide. In 2006 the WHO predicted that in high-income countries, depression would become the number one cause of disease burden by 2030.

I guess whatever we are doing in our society isn’t making us happy! And the evidence for help from antidepressants is questionable. So what works? Well it seems that mindfulness skills can help. The evidence for its effectiveness in helping with depression is growing and NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) guidelines on the treatment of Depression now include Mindfulness based approaches.

The Mental Health Foundation produced the Mindfulness Report in 2010, and ran the ‘Be Mindful‘ campaign. Their summary of the evidence for Mindfulness goes well beyond depression to many other areas of well being.

We will be running Mindfulness Courses in 2011, watch this space. In the meantime feel free to try out my short guided mindfulness download called the Breathing Space which is described in an earlier post


Foundation Degree in Drug & Alcohol Counselling – at the University of Leicester

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I am the course tutor on the Foundation Degree. If you are working with substance users or would like to move into the field then the Foundation Degree might be the course for you. It is part time and designed to fit alongside work. It runs as a one evening a week class or as a Distance Learning Course, if you live further afield or need the flexible study option.

“The course will provide the skills, knowledge base and expertise needed to use counselling skills within the drug and alcohol counselling field. The Degree provides an opportunity for people to train as drug and alcohol counselling workers and build a career in this profession… and will enable students to develop sufficient competence and confidence to access employment in the drug and alcohol counselling field.”

More information about the Face to Face Course or the Distance Learning Course. Alternatively you can download the information here:

Course Information – Distance Learning

Course Information – Evening Classes in Leicester

Application Form

Intake for 2012 will start in January.

 


Post Graduate Courses in Drug & Alcohol Treatment

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I am involved in running a Post Graduate course at the University of Leicester, Department of Medical & Social Care Education. If you work with Substance Users, have a degree and want to to go further then:

The Postgraduate Courses in Drug and Alcohol Treatment are specifically designed for people working with those who have drug or alcohol problems.  The curriculum is based on the skills and knowledge required for effective treatment and course tutors are all practitioners from a variety of professions with many years experience.

The course starts of with the Post Graduate Certificate and students can take this further to a Masters if they wish.

  • Year 1 – Post Graduate Certificate
  • Year 2 – Post Graduate Diploma
  • Year 3 – Masters (by Dissertation)

Click Here for further information.

Alternatively you can download the Information for Applicants and Application Form here.


The rise of Ecstasy in Brazil

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An article in the guardian on 18.12.11 reports on the rise of Ecstasy use in Brazil; it says:

“The annual incineration of police hauls of marijuana and cocaine is nothing new to South America, home to some of the biggest coca fields and marijuana plantations on Earth… Brazil remains one of the largest cocaine consumers in the world and a major transit point for the drug. But a recent report by the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime suggested consumption of synthetic drugs, stable or falling in much of Europe, is on the rise in Brazil and other South American countries… In 2001 Brazil’s federal police reported seizing 1,909 ecstasy pills at the country’s borders and airports. Ten years on, that figure has mutiplied by 100.

After a July operation that dismantled an ecstasy trafficking ring which had been importing 30,000 pills each month from Holland, drug squad chief João Luiz Caetano de Araújo said: “Synthetic drugs are slowly replacing cocaine consumption.”

Next year the changing habits of Brazilian drug users will make their big screen debut, with the release of Artificial Paradises, a feature film focusing on “Brazil’s ecstasy generation”

Looks like they are starting to go through what happened in the UK from the late 80s with the ‘Rave Generation’. At the moment they seem to be importing from Europe. I wonder what will happen when the supply lines shift to China. There are reports that MDMA production is starting up in china using the infrastructure and supply lines established with Mephedrone and the other ‘Legal Highs’.

via Brazil ecstasy haul points to new generation of drug mules | World news | guardian.co.uk.



Being open to what you are not looking for…

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I was recently given a prescription for Penicillin for a throat infection and was reminded of the fascinating history of this medicine. Still in use today it was the first substance that ushered in the modern era of antibiotics that have saved countless lives. Before these drugs people would die from what we might regard as relatively minor infections. Said to have been discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928; he was studying some bacterial cultures and found that one had got accidentally contaminated with a mould. He noticed that the mould seemed to be inhibiting bacterial growth and further investigation led to the identification and extraction of Penicillin.

Usually when things go mouldy they get thrown into the bin; it was serendipitous that he noticed the significance of the space around the mould where the bacteria were not growing. The history of discovery is littered with stories like this one; this is just one example of how being able to look at things our perceptual filters set a bit wider can let us see something important.


The Breathing Space

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I am attaching a short recording that I recently made. It is a guided meditation that can be useful when trying to do something self nourishing in a busy life.

It is called the Breathing Space, designed to fit into small spaces during the day, it is only about 4 minutes long. You can put in on your computer, mp3 player etc. and use it when you have a spare few minutes.
After a while you get to know the (simple) steps and don’t need the recording to do take a short mindfulness break and can do it without the recording. You can also vary the time you do it for, it could be a minute or 10 depending on the situation. If you do use it then feel free to let me know how you get on with it.

Click on the ‘Downloads’ link above to go to the recording


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