Losing One's Mind: How Coffee affects the Brain

Do you drink coffee? Join the millions of others who do. Coffee provides a pick-me-up in the morning along with the satisfying taste and aroma of the rain forest. It's a blessing on a cold winter day.

Is coffee then healthy or harmful?

It depends on what you want to achieve by drinking it.

According to one study, if you are in your midlife years and you drink a moderate amount of coffee (three to five cups per day), you will reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by 65% compared with those who drank either no coffee at all or very little.*

According to another study, if you drink too much coffee (defined as more than the equivalent of seven cups of coffee a day), you may be at risk of experiencing hallucinations, including hearing voices and seeing things and people that are not there!**

So do we or don't we?

Caffeine is a potent and quick-acting drug which produces an effect similar to the stress response on our bodies. It impacts quickly and will continue to influence one's physical and mental state for up to 6-8 hours. But caffeine affects each person differently and some people may be more sensitive to its effects than others.

In the end, the research gives us the message of Know Thyself. No one can predict how you will react to drugs, either natural or manufactured ones. Just like our individual reactions to life's stresses, our bodies are uniquely our own.

So enjoy yourself. Like most things in life, a moderate amount will do just fine.

*http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/135637.php

**http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/135466.php

Why Sons Need Their Fathers

A disproportionate number of mothers are trying to be fathers as well as mothers to their sons. I'm referring not just to single mothers. There are many homes with two parents in which only one of whom, the female, is in charge of parenting. Fathers have opted out.

Their sons are suffering as a result.

Fathers complain they "have no time" to spend with their sons and/or their wives do a "better job." How can mothers do a better job when they don't have the necessary qualifications? And when will fathers "find the time?" Listen to the lyrics of the Harry Chapin song, Cats in the Cradle, and you will learn the results.

What do fathers provide that mothers cannot? Read the following:

Boys need male guidance in exploring their own power and its limits, and in how to use it for their own good and the good of others. Boys need to learn how to know and respect their own strength, and yet not exaggerate it or flaunt it. They need to learn how to listen to the world and know its power and their own limits; how to listen to their own feelings and respect them, and how to express them, to find their voices, and to know the importance of honesty and of keeping one's word. They need to learn how to listen to and respect the feelings of others..."*

Fathers or, if necessary, their male stand-ins can and must provide the needed guidance for their sons. Boys grow up to be men who will enrich or diminish their families (and the world) based on their experiences or lack of it with their fathers.

Dad, your son needs YOU. Now.

*Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn. NY: Hyperion, 1997, p. 269.

Should you hit your children?

The debate about the corporal punishment is as old as the stick that's used for it. And we are quite emotional when asked about it.

I was with few women recently when one of them brought up the question. The response was immediate and emphatic: Yes! Children need a "light" smack once in awhile when the situation calls for it. For example, one woman said, if my child runs out of the house and into the street, a good smack will let him know not to do it again.

Will he do it again? If the into-the-street incident happens more than once, does one conclude that the child needs harsher punishment or, just maybe, that hitting does not and will not work (my stance)?

I can remember smacking one of my children. Fortunately, it didn't happen more than once. And the shock on her face was something that I'll never forget. I didn't do it again. It was hurtful for both of us.

I believe that we have confused discipline with punishment. Even the psychological tool of time-out has become a form of punishment rather than a helpful cooling-off period.

We need to set firm limits with our children. Limits and authority provide them with a sense of security and predictability. On the other hand, hitting - even if we think that we are doing so without anger - does not convey authority. On the contrary, when we hit our children we indicate that we lack confidence in our own ability to govern.

I came across a beautiful example of parenting, as recalled by the cartoonist Mel Lazarus in an article in the Sunday NY Times of May 28, 1995 entitled, "Angry Fathers."* Here is a summary:

"It was August 1938, at a Catskill Mountains boarding house. One hot Friday afternoon three of us - 9-year-old city boys - got to feeling listless... What we needed, on this unbearably boring afternoon, was some action." We decided to make our mark on the new casino. We picked up a long, wooden bench and used it as a battering ram, bashing it into a wall. Pretty soon, there was hardly a good square of sheetrock left.

Suddenly, the owner appeared in the doorway. He was furious. When they arrived from the city that night, he would tell our fathers! By six o'clock he stood at the driveway, grimly waiting for the fathers to start showing up. The first one, when he heard, took off his belt and viciously whipped his screaming son. The second knocked his son off his feet and, as the boy lay crying on the grass, kicked him. I wondered: What will my father do?

When my father came and was told what happened, I watched him follow the owner into the casino. When they emerged, my father stared at me for a long moment without expression. Then he got into his car and drove away! Where was he going?

An hour later my father came back. Tied onto the top of his car was a stack of huge sheetrock boards. Without a word, he untied it and one by one carried the boards into the casino. He spent the night there. All night long I could hear the banging of my father's hammer. I couldn't sleep, knowing what he was doing.

The next day my father didn't say a single word about the night before. We had a regular day, he, my mother and I.

"Was he mad at me? You bet he was. But in a time when many of his generation saw corporal punishment of their children as a G-d-given right, he knew "spanking" as beating, and beating as criminal. And that when kids were beaten, they always remembered the pain but often forgot the reason."

"I never forgot that my vandalism on that August afternoon was outrageous. And I'll never forget that it was also the day I first understood how deeply I could trust him."

*Quoted in Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, NY: Hyperion,1997,pp. 58-62.