Emergency Preparedness at Mac

Serious business is going to go down at least once in your life, and while every context demands a unique response, there are some things to keep in mind when responding to emergencies. When you're on campus, call 911 if it's an emergency. Please don't hesitate to call for help for you or a friend because you're afraid of getting written up or in trouble. It is so much safer to get help when help is needed than to leave someone in danger. Also, call campus security (and the RHD, if you're in the dorm) so that they know what's going on and can coordinate the situation.

Here are some handy dandy tips for various emergencies. More to come.

FIRE!
Don't open really hot doors or doors with smoke billowing out of them. Chances are, there's a fire behind it.
Stop, drop, and roll. If your clothing is on fire, it is a good idea to try to get your clothes not on fire.
       Important tips you may not have learned or remembered as a child:
             Cover your eyes and mouth as you roll. Keep those sensitive areas safe.
             Roll with your legs out, like a log. Rolls in the fetal position will not be as effective.

Keep a smoke detector in all rooms in which people sleep. Fires release gases that can make an individual confused or drowsy; if a fire starts at night, the fumes may make a person sleepier rather than alert.

The heat alone can ignite materials not directly exposed to fire (called "flashover"). Needless to say, any heat that makes materials combust can kill.

Use cool water to treat burns - NOT butter. No butter. Not even "I can't believe it's not butter" or margarine or vegetable oil. This is just for minor burns, however. For major burns, full immersion in cool water can cause hypothermia. Cover all burns in a dry, clean cloth.

Seriously, though, more than 2500 people die from house fires every year in the US. (Ready.gov)

EXTREME COLD

If your house or living space loses heat during episodes of extreme cold, text SHELTER and your zipcode to 4FEMA/43362 to find the closest shelter to you. (Ready.gov)

Preventing Laptop-itis and Bad Posture Pain

By Lucia Callizo

The Problem

When not doing the Harlem Shake or treading through the snow, Macalester students are known to spend long hours sitting. Whether it’s classes, homework, or an extracurricular meeting, there is always something keeping us with our butts glued to the chair for extended periods of time, often in awkward positions, and often in front of a laptop.

Since these activities are so mundane, we rarely recognize the substantial negative health effects that prolonged computer use and bad posture can have. According to the McKinley Health Center, sitting for extended periods of time may result in “headaches, neck and low back pain, pain in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and hands.” Prolonged laptop use can also cause additional health problems such “an aching neck, throbbing head, and tingling fingers” according to the UNC School of Medicine. Because keyboard and monitors are combined in laptops, students are forced into inconvenient positions as they are unable to accommodate the monitor and keyboard to better locations. For more problems due to bad posture, check out this article on livestrong.com 

If you experience headaches, have a sore neck, get tingly fingers, or any of these other symptoms mentioned above after working on your computer or sitting still for a while, you might want to consider some of the following tips to feeling better.

Tiny Details, Great Change

1) Be mindful. Good posture is a matter of practice, as well as effort, so sit up straight when you realize you are hunching over and start forming a new habit.

2) Sit with both feet on the floor, forming 90-degree angles at the elbows, knees and hips.

3) When using a laptop, don’t look down at the keyboard, but accommodate the monitor so you can face straight ahead at the top third of the screen.

4) Position the laptop right in front of you so that your body and head are not rotated.

5) Use a palm rest for the keyboard and mouse so that wrists are always in neutral position.

6) Chill dude! J Keep the shoulders relaxed while studying.

7) Take occasional study breaks and move around! Muscle activity stimulates improved blood flow to stressed areas. A helpful way to do this, if you have a smart phone, would be to use the Pomodoro app: it times your breaks and keeps you on track!

8) Stretch! You can do some shoulder rolls and shrugs to reduce stress in neck and shoulder blade muscles. Check out this link for good sample exercises.

9) Exercise to keep muscles healthy and better able to withstand stress.

Sources

·      McKinley Health Center:

http://www.mckinley.illinois.edu/handouts/posture_study_habits/posture_study_habits.ht

·      UNC School of Medicine

http://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2010/august/protecting-your-back-neck-and-arms-from-laptop-itis

·      Livestrong

http://www.livestrong.com/article/135142-problems-occurring-from-bad-posture/

STRESS and your Health

Why you should listen when your mom says stress is bad for your health.

By Sophie Raynor

            We’ve all heard that too much stress is bad for us. Whether the information comes from your doctor or your mom makes little difference when you’ve got an O-chem test in a half an hour and that paper due at midnight that you’ve put off for way to long. You’re going to be stressed. We’re all going to be stressed (um, this is Macalester). So why does it matter? Your mom might be telling you to relax because she knows how unhappy you are. Anxiety is not a pleasant feeling. Unfortunately, there’s a bit more to it than that uncomfortable looming dread. Stress is not just mental. Your body has a physical response when feelings of stress are induced. In fact, your body’s physical response to that O-chem test is exactly the same as a zebra’s physical response to being chased by a lion. Similar chemicals are released into the blood stream under the stress of the chase as under the stress of the upcoming exam. Again, you think so what? Zebras are majestic, and the adrenaline helps me focus and get my homework done faster. Alas, there is one difference between the zebra and you. The zebra gets away from the lion, or gets eaten. Either way, the stress response is turned off, relatively soon after its instigation. One and done. You on the other hand, have a physics test two days after the O-chem test, that thing you’re applying for has 60 other applicants, and to top it all off, all the good off campus housing is gone and you’re not sure where you’re living next semester. It’s safe to say your stress response is on. All the time. This constant activation of your body’s stress response is what the doctor means when they say stress is bad for your health. It slowly degrades your body’s systems, such as the immune system, making you more susceptible to new diseases/health conditions while exacerbating any current health problems you may have (and that includes psychiatric health problems). Many of us don’t quite realize how much of a beating your body takes internally when you’re constantly stressed. There’s a reason everyone gets sick during finals. 

So what can you do?

• Physical Activity:
• Exercising is one of the best things you can do for yourself when you feel sick, sad, etc. Exercising releases endorphins your body craves when it’s feeling low. Studies have shown that exercising can be as effective as medication in decreasing stress and depression.
• Sleep: 
•  Plain and simple, when you don’t sleep, you don’t feel good. Without sleep your body’s systems downward spiral, so get the rest that your need! Adequate sleep is essential to reducing stress and health as a whole!

• Yoga
• Breathing Exercises
• Meditation
• Social Support
• Talk it out. When things get overwhelming, talk to a friend, a family member, a professor, etc. They are invaluable resources to help you manage your stress, and just the act of sharing can help bring down your stress levels.
• Professional Help
• Talking to a professional can be an extremely effective way to reduce stress. These professionals can help you develop strategies and skills for managing stress. The Health and Wellness Center provides counseling services. To schedule a confidential appointment, please call (651) 696-6275

For more information, check out the book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

By Robert M. Sapolsky.

Cognitive enhancement: What there is to know.

Around this time of year, for me at least, coursework becomes near unbearable. Many times it

feels like all of our professors expect us to dedicate ourselves entirely to one project or one essay. We are expected to somehow turn out a huge amount of high-quality work that will determine our grade in a class, and consequently our GPA. It feels impossible to get everything done and even harder to do work that meets our own high-standards.

Its no surprise then that a large amount of students take unprescribed ADHD or ADD drugs in order to

Reasons for Illegal Use of ADHD Medication (N=585)
(DeSantis, Webb and Noar, 2008)

give themselves a boost. Though ADHD drugs help a lot of people live fuller and more productive lives, these medications are also being misused a lot on college campuses by overworked and overstressed students. I am not going to lecture everyone about whether they should or should not take unprescribed ADHD or ADD drugs. In fact, I think soon colleges, professors and the general populace need to start asking serious questions about how we all contribute to an academic environment where many students feel constantly overwhelmed, are chronically sleep deprived, and are more often than not stressed. We live in a society where immediate results are constantly prioritized over personal health and well-being and for better or for worse, this is probably not going to change anytime soon. And I think it is important to remember that pharmacological "cognitive enhancement"  is not so much the result of personal weakness or moral bankruptcy, but a natural development of the current college atmosphere. According to DeSantis, Webb and Noar (2008), the the vast majority of students using ADHD medications without prescriptions, are not doing it to cheat or gain an unfair advantage, but to help them learn their material and complete assignments.

So even though I understand and empathize with the use of  unprescribed ADD and ADHD drugs for

"cognitive enhancement", I also believe that the somewhat common use of unprescribed ADD and ADHD drugs presents some interesting problems that people should be informed about. When I did research on these medications one of the most troubling conclusions I came to is that most first-time users of these drugs actually have relatively little information about the drugs they are taking. And this is my main goal for this post: to inform people about these drugs, so they can make their own informed decisions about these drugs and not simply use them because someone on our dorm floor uses them whenever they feel overwhelmed.

Many people are aware that drugs like Adderall and Ridolin could potentially help them work more quickly (almost manically) and possibly make them more efficient, but they do not know what chemicals these drugs actually contain. The major component of drugs like Adderall, Dexedrine and Vyvanse are amphetamines. This chemical compound is also found in meth, ecstasy and MDMA. Aderall, Dexedrine and many other ADHD drugs are actually in the same class of psychoactive drugs as these illegal drugs and they affect our brain chemistry in fundamentally the same way. So if you are not comfortable taking meth, ecstasy or MDMA for recreational purposes, you should probably not even consider using ADHD medications which are chemically very similar to those recreational drugs.

Rational scale to assess the harm of drugs (Nut, King, Saulsbary, 

Blakemore 2007). Drugs charted by there ability to physically 

harm to users on the x-axis and their potential for physical 

dependence on the y-axis Many ADHD drugs are amphetamines, 

which is an orange sphere on the graph. Many other

ADHD drugs, including Ritalin, are methylphenidates,

 which is also displayed on this graph as a yellow sphere in the

middle. 

I think is is also important to remember that the DEA classifies many ADHD medications like Adderall, Dexedrine and Ritalin as Schedule II. This classification means that these drugs have a very high potential for abuse and a very high risk for severe psychological and physiological dependence. Other Schedule II drugs include cocaine, morphine, PCP, barbiturates, methamphetamines, opium and OxyContin. Whether or not you use ADHD drugs for academic or recreational purposes, the potential for dependency and mental or physical harm is still the same.

It is important to understand the misuse of ADHD medications can have life threatening consequences. These drugs are powerful and have powerful effects on our bodies and our brains.  In 2010, approximately 31,000 people visited emergency rooms across the nation for reasons related to the use of ADHD medications, and 63% of these visits were because an ADHD medication negatively interacted with another prescription drug in the patient's system. It goes without saying, but the reason ADHD drugs require prescriptions is because even though they can improve many people's quality of life, their misuse is potentially dangerous. These drugs are powerful and have powerful effects on our bodies and our brains. ADHD medications when taken by people without ADHD produce the desired manic burst of energy that many people desire, but like many powerful medications can affect your body and brain chemistry in potent, but unpredictable ways. 

Some Short-Term Side Effects of ADHD stimulants:

Decreased Appetite    Irritability       Hallucinations                          Seizures

Sleep Problems          Tics                 Suicidal Thoughts                    Heart Palpitations        

Anxiety                      Mania              Cardiovascular Arrest              Elevation in Blood Pressure


If you want to do some additional research on the use of ADHD drugs on college campus, here are some of my sources that my prove to be a helpful start:

Illicit Use of Prescription ADHD Medications on a College Campus: A Multimethodological Approach

Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy

Emergency Department Visits Involving Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Stimulant Medications

NIMH: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Adderall: The Most Abused Prescription Drug in America.

Guilt and Health

My friend and I were walking by Health and Wellness the other day, noticing their sign about how getting 8 hours of sleep is best. “HA!” my friend said [paraphrased]. “I’ve been going to bed at 3 and waking up at 7:30 for the past few days – I have too much homework for that!”

Don’t we all? This isn't to criticize our Health and Wellness Center staff, who do so much to help. [We appreciate you dearly!] It's just so difficult to do everything "right" for your health when you have so many demands on your time. Eight hours of sleep every night? When there's a club meeting at 10 o'clock, a couple readings to finish, and you need to get up for work at 7am the next day, it's just not possible. You could skip the readings...unless there's a quiz tomorrow. Or you know the next few days are going to be even more tightly scheduled. Exercise? Same deal. You may have the space of an hour between classes, homework, meetings, sleep, but is it enough time to get your clothes, walk over to the LC, work out and shower - maybe, but you'd rather relax because you haven't had a breather all day. "Proper" diets? Let's say you just got a paper back in class and it's a C when you thought you might snag an A. Now you're starting to doubt whether you've really understood the past month of material as well as you thought you did and are losing confidence. You leave class for lunch and opt for tasty french fries instead of brussel sprouts or salad just to feel a bit better.

Then there's all this language about health, where some decisions are healthy and some are "poor choices". Things are "bad" for your health - helpful if you're talking about carcinogens, but kind of demoralizing when you realize your sleeping patterns are "bad for you". Solutions are provided, but they often revolve around planning your time more efficiently ("better"). Worse is the implication that those who don't take care of themselves are somehow morally deficient. This is pretty obvious in some of the discourse surrounding obesity and exercise, where accusations of laziness aren't uncommon.The issue is more complicated than "turning off the TV and getting off the couch", and it's insulting to everyone.

Instead of needing to plan our time more efficiently, even the most efficient and workaholic among us are still not going to be able to do what we “should” be doing for our health. The world is not organized around health. The modern liberal-arts college, including Macalester, is not organized around human health. Even the pre-med track, Community and Global Health concentration, and related classes are not really organized around health – not the students’ health, anyway, but health as abstracted in academia. [Whether or not it is feasible to make room for self-care at Macalester or in the wider world isn't the scope of this post.]

So where does that leave us? Well, don't feel obligated to feel guilty about your exercising, nutrition, or lack thereof. You don't have to feel like you're a failure or a bad person if you have problems with food - eating too much or too little or erratically because that's how you cope with destructive emotions or low self-esteem or you don't think you're skinny enough or it's just habit or plenty of other reasons. Resist thinking about your personal health in moral terms because you own your body, no one else, and nobody's rights are being taken away when you make choices about how to take care of yourself. If you only use the treadmill once a month and never get any faster or fitter, that’s ok. If you hate running, lifting, walking just for exercise, or gyms in general, I give you permission to never ever take part in your life.

And finally, don’t feel guilty about being guilty. If that’s the only way you can get yourself to eat vegetables or get exercise, then go ahead. (Although hopefully you eventually find a motivator that doesn’t pit physical and emotional health against each other.)

Peace, love, human rights, good health, and happy living!

Financing Your Birth Control

As college students on a budget, we are always looking for ways to save a few bucks, whether is is scanning the Daily Piper for catered events or pulling in a couch off the curb. Scrimping on birth control is generally not on this list - and for good reason! However, most Macalester students are eligible for coverage of their birth control through the Minnesota Family Planning Program.

Since 2006 the Minnesota Family Planning Program has been providing family planning services free of charge. Covered Services include yearly physical exams and birth control (birth control pills, IUDs, vaginal rings, etc). As a confidential process disconnected from other insurance programs you may be enrolled in, your parents/guardians will not be informed of your enrollment in the program.


In order to be eligible for the program you must:

• Be between the ages of 15 and 50
• A MN resident OR a U.S. citizen or non-citizen who is qualified to participate in federally funded programs 
• Make less than $1805 per month (your parents income is not included in this estimate)
• Not be pregnant
• Not be enrolled in Medical Assistance, MinnesotaCare, or General Assistance Medical. 

For more information: Minnesota Family Planning Brochure 

To enroll in the program download and fill out the following form:

Minnesota Family Planning Program Application

To access care, bring a completed copy of your application to:

Family Tree Clinic 

Location: 1619 Dayton Ave #205  St Paul, MN 55104 (In walking distance!)
Directions: http://goo.gl/maps/4f30Y

Hours: 

• Monday: 8am - 8:30pm
• Tuesday: 8am - 5pm
• Wednesday: 8am - 8:30pm
• Thursday: 8am - 5pm
• Friday: CLOSED
• Saturday: 10am - 2pm
• Sunday: CLOSED 

To schedule an appointment: (651) 645-0478

Planned Parenthood

Location: 671 Vandalia Street

Directions: http://goo.gl/maps/RW3CF
Hours: 

• Monday: CLOSED
• Tuesday: 8:00am - 4:00 pm
• Wednesday: 8:00am - 4:00 pm
• Thursday: 8:00am - 4:00 pm
• Friday: 8:00am - 4:00 pm
• Saturday: 8:00am - 4:00 pm
• Sunday: CLOSED

To schedule an appointment: (651) - 698-2406

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