Calling all Veterans! Families and Friends of Veterans!

I Can’t claim to be as heroic as some of the characters we see that have returned from battle, or indeed those that do not return, or those we see revealed to us on the screens from the film industry, I do however have a goal and a dream, and one I believe to be so important that I remain focused on achieving it. I’ve had this for some time and although life has often forced me to push it to one side every now and then to focus on the more mundane issues we all face, it remains the same. Altruistic in nature, my aim to research and help develop a more effective strategy and interventions for Veteran Suicide.

I am constantly looking to speak with Veterans, friends and family of Veterans who have been exposed to this painful phenomenon so that a greater understanding of the thought processes from different perspectives can be examined.

I am particularly interested to here from those that have left the service early, known as Early service leavers (ESL) specifically as these individuals may not have benefited from the routinely delivered resettlement courses that service personnel who leave the service time served are afforded.

An Early Service Leaver (ESL) may be a person who left due to injury, or possible at their own request or for several other reasons, importantly it has been identified that these personnel are potentially an ‘at risk’ group and I want to hear from you.

There is a contact me page on my dedicated website that can be used to get in touch the link is at the bottom of this page. All your information is purely for my research and will not be used or shared with any other organisation and will only be used to collate data for this project. Unless you decide to allow me to share your information with mental health professional bodies that might be able to help you further.

The challenge for you, if you are an Early Service Leaver or a family member of a lost loved one who was successful in their suicide attempt, or if you have been affected by veteran suicide.

I would like for you to write a bit about your experience, perhaps if you can write a little bit about yourself, try to keep to a five-hundred-word limit, not a strict limit but as close as you can be.

Please include the following information: –

• Which service, Army, Navy, Air force, Marine, or other etc?
• When you enlisted? – a month and year are satisfactory.
• When you left the service? – Month and year are fine
• Did you leave the service earlier than initially expected? I.e. ESL?
• What was you reason for leaving the service?
• Did you receive any form of official resettlement training?
• Talk about you and your experiences with military life. Talk about your own struggles or successes with mental Health, suicide, low mood, or anxiety etc please remember as much information as you can in 500 words or as close as you can get.
• Your name and best method of contacting you?
• Your consent if you wish me to share your details with Mental Health Professionals?

It will take a while for me to read through the submissions, so please manage your expectations where a reply may be forthcoming it might be a few months or so before I am able to get in touch.

https://www.daranoswyn.co.uk/contact-me.php

 

Mindfulness should no longer be considered a “nice-to-have” It’s a “must-have”.

• A way to keep our brains healthy, to support self-regulation and effective decision-making capabilities, and to protect ourselves from toxic stress.

by Christina Congleton Britta K. Hölzel Sara W. Lazar

The business world is abuzz with mindfulness. But perhaps you haven’t heard that the hype is backed by hard science. Recent research provides strong evidence that practicing non-judgmental, present-moment awareness (a.k.a. mindfulness) changes the brain, and it does so in ways that anyone working in today’s complex business environment, and certainly every leader, should know about.

We contributed to this research in 2011 with a study on participants who completed an eight-week mindfulness program. We observed significant increases in the density of their gray matter. In the years since, other neuroscience laboratories from around the world have also investigated ways in which meditation, one key way to practice mindfulness, changes the brain. This year, a team of scientists from the University of British Columbia and the Chemnitz University of Technology were able to pool data from more than 20 studies to determine which areas of the brain are consistently affected. They identified at least eight different regions. Here we will focus on two that we believe to be of particular interest to business professionals

The second brain region we want to highlight is the hippocampus, a region that showed increased amounts of gray matter in the brains of our 2011 mindfulness program participants. This seahorse-shaped area is buried inside the temple on each side of the brain and is part of the limbic system, a set of inner structures associated with emotion and memory. It is covered in receptors for the stress hormone cortisol, and studies have shown that it can be damaged by chronic stress, contributing to a harmful spiral in the body. Indeed, people with stress-related disorders like depresssion and PTSD tend to have a smaller hippocampus. All of this points to the importance of this brain area in resilience—another key skill in the current high-demand business world.

These findings are just the beginning of the story. Neuroscientists have also shown that practicing mindfulness affects brain areas related to perception, body awareness, pain tolerance, emotion regulation, introspection, complex thinking, and sense of self. While more research is needed to document these changes over time and to understand underlying mechanisms, the converging evidence is compelling.

Mindfulness should no longer be considered a “nice-to-have” for executives. It’s a “must-have”:  a way to keep our brains healthy, to support self-regulation and effective decision-making capabilities, and to protect ourselves from toxic stress. It can be integrated into one’s religious or spiritual life, or practiced as a form of secular mental training.  When we take a seat, take a breath, and commit to being mindful, particularly when we gather with others who are doing the same, we have the potential to be changed.

https://www.daranoswyn.co.uk/

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/daran-oswyn-jones

 

This talk was presented at an official TED conference: Jeremy Forbes

Is there someone in your life dealing with anxiety, depression or thoughts of suicide — but is too ashamed to talk about it? Jeremy Forbes saw this happening around him, and now he’s on a mission to teach people how to start a conversation about it. In this deeply personal talk, Forbes shares his approach to helping a group of traditionally silent men in his community open up about their struggles. “We can all be life preservers,” he says.

Through his charity HALT, Jeremy Forbes aims to break through the stigma attached to mental health, raise awareness through education and empower men to open up conversations around mental health and suicide prevention.

 

 

Things are changing, lets all be part of it. Please share far and wide.

Suicides in the UK: 2017 registrations

Registered deaths in the UK from suicide analysed by sex, age, area of usual residence of the deceased and suicide method.

Main points

In 2017 there were 5,821 suicides registered in the UK, an age-standardised rate of 10.1 deaths per 100,000 population.

The UK male suicide rate of 15.5 deaths per 100,000 was the lowest since our time-series began in 1981; for females, the UK rate was 4.9 deaths per 100,000, this remains consistent with the rates seen in the last 10 years.

Males accounted for three-quarters of suicides registered in 2017 (4,382 deaths), which has been the case since the mid-1990s.

The highest age-specific suicide rate was 24.8 deaths per 100,000 among males aged 45 to 49 years; for females, the age group with the highest rate was 50 to 54 years, at 6.8 deaths per 100,000.

Scotland had the highest suicide rate in Great Britain with 13.9 deaths per 100,000 persons, and England the lowest with 9.2 deaths per 100,000.

The full Office of National Statistics (ONS) report can be found by following this link.

World Mental Health day

Thank you so much for taking part in the ‘Depression: Asking the Right Questions’ project. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Last year 30 organisations from the world of mental health set out to try and pick the top priorities for research into depression.

But we wanted those priorities to be set by people affected by depression.

Today, on World Mental Health Day, dozens of people, including those with depression, their family members, friends and health care professionals will get together to work out the top 10 priorities for research into depression.

Want to keep up with the day’s events?

Follow the live-blog or take a look at the hashtag #DepressionQs on Twitter.

We’ll be in touch soon to report back on what the top ten priorities are.

Remember to check out http://www.daranoswyn.co.uk

Thanks for reading and sharing.

Doj