Tag Archives: relationship

Vaping Linked to Mental Health Issues – Futurism

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Vaping might not be as unhealthy as smoking cigarettes, but it carries its own long list of physical risks. And now, new research indicates it may be harmful to mental health and sleep patterns, too.

As researchers from England's University of Surrey have found, young adults aged 18-25 who use nicotine vape products were significantly more likely to experience a range of mental health issues than their non-vaping peers, including depression, anxiety, and rumination or dwelling on negative thoughts, as well as sleep issues like insomnia and emotional problems such as loneliness.

Published in the journal Healthcare, this new study surveyed more than 300 university students, about 15 percent of whom did vape and the other 85 percent of whom didn't, using a battery of questionnaires related to mindfulness and emotional regulation, anxiety and depression, rumination, sleep quality, loneliness, self-compassion and, of course, vaping and cigarette usage.

Of the 49 students who were vape users, there were some traits seen across the board, including lower levels of mindfulness, worse sleep quality, and heightened levels of rumination. They tended to be lonelierand have both less compassion for themselves and a much higher tendency of being diurnal or "night owls" than their non-vaping counterparts. Furthermore, the vape group also "reported significantly higher levels of alcohol consumption in terms of units consumed per week," the study notes.

Perhaps the biggest shared characteristic among the vaping group, as Surrey neuroscience lecturer and study co-author Dr. Simon Evans said in the university's press release, was an overwhelming tendency towards anxiety, with a whopping "95.9 percent of users being categorized as having clinical levels of anxiety symptoms."

"In this study, we found a disturbing link between vape use and anxiety symptoms," Evans continued, "and it can become a vicious cycle of using a vape to soothe anxiety but then being unable to sleep, making you feel worse in the long run."

With data from other studies about cigarette smoking suggesting that mindfulness, or the attenuation to one's emotional and mental regulation in the moment, can help with smoking cessation, the good doctor said that there may well be interventions regarding mindfulness and "combating rumination" that "could be useful to reduce vape use amongst young people."

Important to note: this is a type of research where it's very hard to pin down the relationship between correlation and causation. Are the students anxious because they're vaping, or do anxious kids tend to gravitate to vaping for a variety of social and psychological reasons? It's tough to say, and probably complicated.

That said, it's pretty amazing that such a small percentage of the youthful group surveyed for this study vaped at all, suggesting that the kids may be more alright than we give them credit for, relatively speaking.

More on mental health: Scientists Find Link Between ADHD, Depression and Hypersexuality

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Vaping Linked to Mental Health Issues - Futurism

David Cameron’s U-turn on Brexit is truly embarrassing – The New European

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It seems that seven years in a shepherds hut has somehow changed Lord Camerons mind.

Here was I thinking that he was still in favour of the UK being in the EU, that he must be deeply ashamed and contrite about the damage that his calling and losing of the Brexit referendum has caused to the country he loves, and that he would want to re-establish the closest possible ties with the EU as soon as possible.

But it turns out there is no zeal from Cameron to right the wrongs for which he is partially responsible. He is merely a humble public servant who answered the call to serve again. To serve a party that rejected him, to serve a PM whose policies he fought against, to serve a cause he knows is not in the national interest, and to serve a government that is willing to break international law. The former PM makes the Vicar of Bray look like a man of deep, unbending, moral principle.

Lord Camerons grilling by the House of Lords European Affairs Committee was always going to be a rather embarrassing event, where the former PM had to answer questions on why he was implementing a European policy which he previously called a threat to national security and to the economy.

Where he said as PM that the UKs membership of the EU maximised our influence in foreign affairs, now we just have to make the most of the situation we are in, he told their Lordships. Far from being a direct answer this is a disingenuous one. Apparently trying to bend the EU to the UKs way of thinking used to be frustrating and the new ad hoc arrangement is working well (although presumably nothing like as well as it used to when we were sitting round the table, you know being ad hoc and all that).

Lord Cameron also thinks the UKs relationship with the EU is positive and driving good results, is functioning well and that a lot of the heat and anger has subsided.

The stuff left unsaid and unanswered was: is the relationship as positive and good as it used to be, are the results as good, is the relationship functioning as well as it did pre-Brexit and how much heat and anger is left to undermine that relationship?

The foreign secretary, also said that UK/EU relations were now much more functional heaven knows how dysfunctional they got if this is an improvement and we just wanted to be the EUs friend, neighbour and partner, which does sound a bit like a pathetic Billy No Mates asking to join the playground games.

But perhaps the best bit is this; apparently the foreign secretary finds it interesting to come back and see how it is working. Yes, I suppose it must be interesting.

Having called a referendum purely to try to settle an ongoing Tory civil war that has continued virtually unabated for the last seven years, having risked his countrys economy and influence and security (his words) by calling and then incompetently losing that referendum, then having wandered off humming and spending seven years making money, David swans back to the Foreign Office to take a good look at how bad things have got.

If he had said to the Committee, It is far worse than even I feared, we are a laughing stock, our influence is diminished and we are less secure, poorer and permanently on the outside looking in, you might think more of the man.

But apparently it is nothing to do with Dave he is the impartial witness to someone elses crime. He just wishes to serve, to make the best of a bad job.

God, this noblesse oblige can be a right pain sometimes, but it can make life more interesting. Especially for those stuck sulking in a field, in a shepherds hut.

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David Cameron's U-turn on Brexit is truly embarrassing - The New European