UNDERSTANDING ABOUT HIV.

HIV

 Is a virus that attacks the immune system, and weakens your ability to fight infections and disease? It's most commonly caught by having sex without a condom.

It can also be passed on by sharing infected needles and other injecting equipment, and from an HIV-positive mother to her child during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding.

HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. The virus attacks the immune system, and weakens your ability to fight infections and disease.

There is no cure for HIV, but there are treatments to enable most people with the virus to live a long and healthy life.

AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection, when your body can no longer fight life-threatening infections. With early diagnosis and effective treatment, most people with HIV will not go on to develop AIDS.

HIV is found in the body fluids of an infected person, which includes semen, vaginal and anal fluids, blood, and breast milk. It is a fragile virus and does not survive outside the body for long.

HIV cannot be transmitted through sweat or urine.

The most common way of getting HIV in the UK is by anal or vaginal sex without a condom. According to statistics from Public Health England, 95% of those diagnosed with HIV in the UK in 2013 acquired HIV as a result of sexual contact.

Other ways of getting HIV include:

• using a contaminated needle, syringe or other injecting equipment
• transmission from mother to baby during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding

It's also possible for HIV to spread through oral sex and sharing sex toys, although the chances of this happening are very low. For example, it's estimated that you only have a 1 in 5,000 chance of getting HIV if you give unprotected oral sex to someone with the infection.

COUNSELLING FOR DISTURBED SLEEP.

People come to counselling for sexual abuse for many different reasons. You may be dealing with childhood sexual abuse or you may be dealing with a more recent experience as an adult. You will be living with the effects every day, trying to cope with feelings of dealing with shame, anger or guilt.

Sexual abuse can effect self esteem and personal power, anxiety, body image, intimacy, sexuality, children and parenting.

Counselling can provide you with useful techniques and skills that you can use now. It might help you think about your current behaviours and feelings in a different way. It might stop stress and triggers before they affect your whole life.

If you are not already receiving counselling, please contact your nearest Centre Against Sexual Assault so that you have support and guidance through the healing process.

All too often, particularly when counselling has not been sought, survivors of sexual assault experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. (PTSD) The symptoms of PTSD can be experienced years after the event(s). The symptoms can include;

Disturbed sleep

Survivors of sexual assault often experience sleepless nights and/or nightmares. The nightmare may involve reliving the assault/s which indicates that you have unresolved issues pertaining to the assault. As the healing process continues, the nightmares or sleepless nights will become less frequent.

Surviving nightmares

• Surround yourself with familiar things before you go to sleep. This could be a soft toy or something that comforts you. (You may want to hold a cuddly toy or an object that helps you feel safe while you sleep). Perhaps someone you trust could sit with you until you fall asleep.
• Sleep with a lamp/light on so that if you wake up after experiencing a nightmare, you will be able to look around the room and see the familiar things that comfort you, helping you to relax more quickly. If you wake from a nightmare and it is dark turn on a light or lamp. This helps chase away the shadows.
• Concentrate on breathing deeply and slowly. Sometimes when people are stressed they forget to breathe, and freeze up. When this happens it is easier for the nightmare to take hold of you.
• Remind yourself that the nightmare is just a dream. It cannot hurt you even though it may feel scary and painful. Remember that it is a memory of the abuse that is not happening now.
• Seek out a support person, someone you feel safe with, who you can sit with while you calm down.
• Imagine a safe place. This can be anywhere or anything that helps you to feel safe. It may help if you draw or write it down before a nightmare occurs, so that you can have it ready beside your bed if you wake up from a nightmare.
• Remember positive encouragement given by your support people. Imagine that person is there with you, encouraging you. Think of what he/she would say to you to help you feel stronger.
• Write the nightmare down and change the ending. At the point where the dream becomes a nightmare, rewrite the parts which are distressing so that for example, the abuse does not occur, you get rescued or that you overcome the abuser. Over time you are rewriting the actual dream so that when it happens you will dream the new version that you have written about. Tell someone you trust your new version of the nightmare helps to reinforce the 'new' dream into your mind.

Dealing with sleepless nights

Insomnia is when you regularly find it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep. You may have trouble getting to sleep initially or if you can fall asleep, you may find it hard to stay asleep during the night. Sometimes poor sleep habits can contribute to insomnia.

• Try to go to bed and get up at the same time each day
• Before going to bed, spend some time winding down and doing something relaxing.
• Avoid going to bed on a full stomach or hungry
• If you are not asleep after 20 minutes in bed, go to another room until you feel tired again and then go back to bed
• Many poor sleepers spend too long in bed
• Avoid having things in the bedroom that distract you from sleep
• Getting sunlight during the day will help you to sleep better at night
• Most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep a day. This stays the same even in old age
• Naps in the evening can make it hard to sleep at night
• Be sure to get counselling to treat the underlying causes of your insomnia.

ANXIETY.Brain scans reveal anxious parents are more likely to have nervous and depressed children.

Official figures show that anxiety and depressive disorders are a leading source of disability affecting hundreds of millions of people.

And now researchers have found that anxious parents are more likely to have anxious children, after discovering temperament is hereditary.

In particular, the study found that an overactive brain circuit that is typically linked to anxiety disorders is passed from generation to generation.

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Researchers studied 600 rhesus monkeys from a multi-generational family (stock image). They exposed the young monkeys to a mildly threatening situation that a child would also encounter exposure to a stranger who does not make eye contact and studied their brain activity using high-resolution imaging

Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry and the Health Emotions Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied 600 rhesus monkeys from a multi-generational family. 

They exposed the young monkeys to a mildly threatening situation that a child would also encounter - exposure to a stranger who does not make eye contact with the monkey. 

Headphones & Earphones Can Cause Permanent Hearing Loss:

 The iPod and things like it represent a major advance in personal portable sound systems that can be conveniently worn for extended periods. Included with the variety of sound systems is the variety of amplification systems that come in all shapes and sizes of headphones and earphones. 

  These devices are potentially dangerous because, if used improperly, they can cause permanent hearing loss.

   Personal sound systems have become so overwhelmingly popular it seems almost everywhere you go, you see people of all ages tuned into what they want to hear and tuned out of the world around them.  That said, what is the future cost for the luxury we have today to pump up the volume and listen to anything we want whenever and wherever we go, for how ever long we choose? What is the cost to the people that portable listening devices, especially in-ear headphones, are most popular with; namely, our youth?  A leading cause of hearing impairments used to be excessive noise exposure in the workplace, but today many young people are losing their hearing at alarming rates due to excessive noise exposure from portable stereo earphones.  The government through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has long known that noise pollution is one of the most common causes of hearing impairment in adults. During the past decade, the damaging effects of excessive noise pollution from portable stereo earphones have gained attention.