The importance of a good family

The importance of a good familyOr.....The importance of learning to make sense of the world around you

Aaron Antonovsky 1923-1994

.....expresses the extent to which one has a feeling of confidence that the stimuli deriving from one's internal and external environments in the course of living are structured, predictable and explicable, that one has the internal resources to meet the demands posed by these stimuli and, finally, that these demands are seen as challenges, worthy of investment and engagement."Sense of coherence....

For the creation of health........the social and physical environment must be:ComprehensibleManageableMeaningful......or the individual would experience chronic stress

Creating healthChallengeResponseStressTensionResolutionConsistencyParticipation in shapingBalance in stimulationSuccessfulstressmanagementAntonovsky 79

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Months of Orphanage Rearing

Log10 Salivary Cortisol

*linear trendline

Evening Cortisol Levels Increase with

Months of Orphanage Rearing *

The Founders Network

STRESS AND GRADE OF EMPLOYMENT: MENSalivary CortisolTime of DaySteptoe et al. 2003, Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, 461-470

What happens during early brain development?Reprinted with permission Prof Peter Seeman

Attachment theoryAinsworthDeep emotional connection that infant develops with primary caregiverReflects an internal working model expressing the infants expectations of parental behaviour in meaningful situationsBasis for development of later relationshipsIncreasingly recognised as determinant of later emotional, cognitive and social outcomes

The Dunedin cohort1000 children recruited in late 1972/3At age 3, at risk children identified on the basis of chaotic circumstances, emotional behaviour, negativity and poor attentivenessAs adults, those at risk were more likely to :be unemployedhave criminal convictions (especially for violence) been pregnant as a teenagerhave a substance abuse problemexhibit signs of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome

The stressed brain

The Ottawa Charter 1986Health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life; where they learn, work, play and love. Health is created by caring for oneself and others, by being able to take decisions and have control over one's life circumstances, and by ensuring that the society one lives in creates conditions that allow the attainment of health by all its members.

Jimmy Reid 1971

Rectorial AddressLet me right at the outset define what I mean by alienation. It is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It's the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies.....

*The man who first understood what was happening was this chap who was an /American sociologist who finished his career working in Istrael where he studied adults who, as children were in concentration camps**Some of these children went on, not ust to survive but to be healthy and successful in their lives. What were the influences that kept them healthy.**Antonovsky described the sense of coherence, something children developed if the parenting they experienced allowed them to understand that the world was predictable and explicable, that they had the resilience to cope with what the world threw at them and that the effort of coping was worthwhile expending**Failure of see the world as..........would be extremely stressful***Men at the top of an occupational hierarchy have higher diurnal cortisols that men lower down a hierarchy and this is assumed to be due to be due to control. At the top of a hierarchy if someone was given a task they didnt like thay can pass it down thew line. At the bottom of the hierarchy, the person has no possibility of passing it on. He has less control over his work and this is stressful. (This relates to Antonovskys point about manageability)Dr Bruce McEwen, with whom we are collaborating has studied the brains of these monkeys. He finds that they do not develop in the same way as monkeys not exposed to stress. The PF cortex gets less cell growth, as does the hippocampus but the amygdala sees more dense connections develop between cells. The significance of that is that the hip[pocampus suppresses the stress response while the amygdala upregulates it. If they get out of balance a potentially permanent resetting of the stress response results. Also, the hippocampus is important in memory development so any reduction in cell growth could affect learning. The amygdala is associated with emotion so enlargement here will cause aggression, anxiety etcLoss of PF cortex will reduce executive functioning**With permission from Prof SeemanIn efrfect, baby get signals that the world is dangerous so it reorients brain development to respond to threat*