Drink? What drink?

Back to the topic of binge drinking. As someone commonly termed 'a one pot screamer', meaning one drink usually makes me very cheap entertainment, I certainly blog a lot about alcohol.

Note that I never address the issues of binge chocolate eating. *cough*

Seriously, the increasing trend for binge drinking is a worry on so many levels. I've previously blogged about associated behavioural inhibition leading to risky behaviours and 'drunkorexia' but the list of concerns continues.

A new study from Northumbria and Keele Universities in the U. K. has revealed that binge drinking can have an impact on memory and that the effects are not transient but can last up to several days. This raises the issue, particularly in the context of adolescent drinking where the brain is still developing, of potential longterm damage.

The study examined students aged 17 to 19. Binge drinking was defined as at least 8 units a session for a man and 6 for a woman once or twice a week. In the study, drinkers consumed, on average, 30 units in just two sessions.

While binge drinkers reported no differences in memory compared to non-drinkers on self-report measures, a video-based test of memory showed otherwise. Binge drinkers reported up to a third less of items than non-drinkers.

Dr Thomas Heffernan, from the University of Northumbria states, "There is evidence that excess alcohol and binge drinking in particular damages parts of the brain that underpin everyday memory. Not only may these teenagers be harming their memory, if their brains are still developing they could be storing up problems for the future." Worrying stuff.

You can read a brief review of the study here.

Resource:

Binge drinking damages memory (BBC News)

Heffernan, T. (2008). The impact of excessive alcohol use on prospective memory: A brief review. Current Drug Abuse Reviews, 1, 36-41 (link provided above).

Memory fun 2

Explore Your Memory from the BBC website.

More interesting than the previous memory test, looks at different forms of memory and provides a little more feedback on your performance and what it means.

Although data is being collated for a study, you can still take the test even if you are not a U.K. resident. Your results just won't be included in the study.

Memory fun

Apologies for not posting something more substantial this week but I've been conducting my own research into medical text anxiety. Hmm. Always easier to talk the anxiety through when it's someone else being poked and prodded. Funny that.

So, I thought maybe a little fun was in order.

Ah, the power of distraction!

I just came across what has been touted as the first World Memory Challenge. It's part of a project by memory expert Tony Buzan to find out who has the best brains by country, gender and profession.

It has been running for some time. Currently, Australia is failing to make the top 20, women are lagging slightly behind men and health professionals have yet to make the top 10 scoring occupations.

So, what are you waiting for? Go to it!

Sweet, sweet memories

My mother recently gave me a brooch that I had bought for her on holiday when I was about six years old. A somewhat tacky looking article (truth be known), consisting of diamond shaped bits of coloured glass, surrounded by hearts constructed out of fake pearl. Immediately, I was transported back through the years. It cost me 2/6 in the old money. I thought it was wildly expensive, I thought it was a gem on a parallel with the crown jewels. I thought I'd given my mother the earth. Even writing about that now, I still can experience the joy and excitement I felt at that moment.

This all came to mind after reading about research from University of Southhampton in the UK. Psychologist Tim Wildschut and his colleagues have found nostalgic memories, such as I experienced, to be a potent mood booster. They found that people who write about good memories are more cheerful compared to people who write about everyday events, report higher self-esteem and feel more positively about their personal relationships. These findings reinforce earlier studies which also show the protective psychological benefits of nostalgia.

Does mentally revisiting times, places, events, interactions really help? In an earlier post on rumination, a kind of mental chewing of the cud, I highlighted its role in the influencing the onset, severity and duration of depression. Isn't nostalgia a variation on the same thing and, therefore, potentially unhelpful?

A critical difference lies in thought content.

Ruminating about unpleasant events can have negative effects, potentially placing the individual at risk of retraumatisation. Rumination can increase an existent bias towards negative thinking, including distorted interpretations of life events, more negative self-evaluations, a sense of loss of control and more pessimistic predictions about the future. Ruminators often fail to generate solutions to problems and, even when they do, they often express low confidence in their solutions and fail to act on them.

However, with pleasant events, rumination can have a positive impact. Dr. Sonja Lyubormirsky of the University of California, one of the leading researchers on rumination, says this makes perfect sense.

"You don't want to get past a positive experience.

There's a magic and mystery in positive events, so analysing

them lifts the veil and makes wondrous events more ordinary."

Read more about the positive effects of nostalgia and strategies for incorporating good memories into your life here.