Have you ever wondered what would happen if you woke up during a surgery? What would you feel? Would you be able to hear, see, or speak? Hopefully you’ve never actually had the experience and never will, but unfortunately Carol Weihrer did while undergoing eye surgery.

Weihrer said she could hear what the surgeons were saying and felt a tugging sensation on her eye, but she couldn’t move or speak. She tried screaming and getting up off of the operating table, but she was paralyzed. Weihrer continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (Sathya para. 2).

In the largest study of its kind, researchers surveyed more than 3 million patients who received general anesthesia in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Of those 3 million, approximately one in 19,600 patients accidentally woke up during surgery (Sathya para. 6). That’s roughly 153 people. I believe the article chose to word it “one in 19,600” to make it sound larger and more impressive. Studies in the US reported a much higher rate of 1 in 1,000 patients.

However, there are variables to consider here. It’s probably safe to assume that these cases occurred during different kinds of surgeries for different patients, considering the study doesn’t state otherwise and that would assure that the data was collected diversely. Because of this, isn’t it possible that patients are more likely to wake up during certain surgeries that require a lighter dosage of anesthesia? Perhaps it’s dosages for specific surgeries that’s the problem.

Patients described a range of sensations while being conscious during surgery, including choking, paralysis, pain, hallucinations, and near-death experiences. 75% of these reported episodes lasted under five minutes. Nearly half of all patients who were conscious during surgery suffer from PTSD and depression for a long period of time afterward (Sathya para. 10).

In the US, over 21 million patients receive general anesthesia. Experts estimate that roughly 26,000 of these patients experience anesthetic awareness. Even if the new relatively low rate found in this new study were applied, at least 1,000 Americans each year would still wake up during surgery (Sathya para. 14).

That seems like too many people to me. Hopefully, now that studies have made us aware of this problem, steps can start being taken toward fixing this problem and lowering the numbers.

Works Cited

Sathya, Chethan. “‘I Couldn’t Move’: Patients Who Wake up during Surgery.”CNN. Cable News Network, 28 Nov. 2014. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/28/health/wake-up-during-surgery/?hpt=ob_articlefooterold&iref=obinsite>.

Everyone loves a good massage. The relaxing of your muscles, the slowing of your breathing, the feeling as your aching body is pressed and kneaded back into its original flexible self. So just how good are these massages for you?

Getting a massage causes your muscles to unclench, a racing heart rate to slow, heightened blood pressure to fall, and levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, to drop. “Cortisol suppresses the immune response,” said Roberta Lee, MD (Dworkin-McDaniel para. 1). That means the more cortisol in your body, the weaker you immune system is. So basically, the less cortisol the better.

Based off of that information, getting massaged can even improve your immune system. “Anything that increases the relaxation response triggers the restoration of your immune response,” Lee explained (Dworkin-McDaniel para. 2). Restoring your immune response is a good thing that can keep you healthier by being able to fight off more illnesses.

Researchers conducted a study where they measured the immune function in healthy adults who got either a 45-minute Swedish massage or lighter touch massage. The massaged group had substantially more white blood cells, which can help fight viruses and other pathogens. The massaged group also had fewer types of inflammatory cytokines, which are associated with autoimmune diseases (Dworkin-McDaniel para. 3). In summary, getting massages potentially makes you healthier.

Lead study author Mark Rapaport, MD said “it’s not an unreasonable speculation” to wonder whether regular massages could actually keep you from catching a cold. However, for now, it’s too soon to tell.

Works Cited

Dworkin-McDaniel, Norine. “Touching Makes You Healthier.” CNN. Cable News Network, 05 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/touching.makes.you.healthier.health/>.

We’ve seen it in TV shows, movies, and throughout life. Someone is giving advice to someone else, and partway through they have the moment of realization where what they are saying can be applied directly to their own personal problems as well. We always say we should take our own advice, but just how helpful would that be?

According to a study conducted at Stanford, it would be very helpful. Undergraduate students were asked to write letters to “at-risk” middle school students in an attempt to help them through hard times and get them to stay in school. The undergrads were instructed to share personal stories about how they too experienced difficult struggles throughout school but persevered and eventually found academic success. They were also told to emphasize the idea that natural ability is overrated – that intelligence “is not a finite endowment but rather an expandable capacity” (Barker para. 2).

You’re probably wondering if these letters actually helped the middle school students.  That’s a good question…but they were never sent. This study was conducted to see if the college students who wrote the letters had more positive experiences academically after writing them. It turns out they did.

Months after composing the letters, the writers were still reporting greater enjoyment of school than were other Stanford undergrads. Even their grade point averages were higher by a third of a point on a four-point scale.

This experimental study reminds me of hearing that if you’re really angry with someone, you should write them a heated letter explaining how you feel and then throw it away without sending it. Apparently then you’ll feel better and you won’t be as upset with that person anymore because you got all of your feelings out on paper. It’s amazing how writing letters for different purposes can make people feel better. Perhaps the next time I’m feeling down, I’ll write a letter to no one in particular and see how I feel after.

Works Cited

Many people think that the more often positive things happen to you, the happier you are. As it turns out, that isn’t true. Happy people don’t experience a larger amount of happy life events than unhappy people. Happiness depends more on perspective, how prone you are to depression, and getting enough sleep.

Ed Diener and Martin Seligman screened over 200 undergraduates for levels of happiness. Then, they compared the upper 10% with the middle and bottom 10%, the upper being considered extremely happy. It was found that the upper 10% experienced no more positive life events than the other two groups (Barker).

These results are probably surprising for most people. It makes sense to assume that the more happy events you experience, the happier you’ll be. It’s very interesting that an observational study such as this proved the opposite.

In another study, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues asked 909 employed women to record their previous day’s experiences in detail in order to track their moods and activities. They found that most major life circumstances, including women’s household income and various features of their jobs, were correlated only minimally with their happiness (Barker).

In comparison, women’s sleep quality and proneness toward depression were good predictors of their happiness. Based off of these studies, it’s important to remember not to be too jealous when it appears that someone is experiencing many happy events in their life. It’s possible that they’re still not truly happy on the inside.

Works Cited

Barker, Eric. “11 Scientific Studies That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.” The Week. N.p., 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://theweek.com/article/index/266837/11-scientific-studies-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity>.

Barker, Eric. “Are the Big Events in Life Most Responsible for Your Happiness?” Barking Up The Wrong Tree. N.p., 7 Apr. 2012. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/04/are-the-big-events-in-life-most-responsible-f/>.

Have you ever wondered why your sister’s dirty laundry being left on the bathroom floor can absolutely infuriate you, while your boyfriend cheating on you can somehow be rationalized in your head? No? Just me? Well, Daniel Gilbert from Harvard decided to conduct three studies on this phenomenon. Why do people bounce back more easily from tougher problems?

People mistakenly expect intense unpleasant psychological states to last longer than mild ones. This is an easy assumption to make, considering it would theoretically make sense to be more upset about a divorce over a slow elevator.

In the first study, participants mistakenly predicted that the more they initially disliked a transgressor, the longer their dislike would last. In the second study, participants predicted that their dislike for a transgressor who hurt them a lot would last longer than their dislike for a transgressor who hurt them a little, but precisely the opposite resulted. In the third study, participants predicted that their dislike for a transgressor who hurt them a lot would last longer than their dislike for a transgressor who hurt someone else a lot, but, again, precisely the opposite was the case (Barker para. 1).

These mistaken predictions can be attributed to a phenomenon known as the region-beta paradox. It is defined as “the phenomenon that people can sometimes recover more quickly from more intense emotions or pain than from less distressing experiences” (Region-beta Paradox para. 1).

We rationalize big problems, not little ones. An example given describes a wife rationalizing her husband cheating on her as men needing to try it once and get it out of their systems, while his annoying habits, such as leaving dirty dishes in the sink, are not rationalized at all (Barker para. 2).  Most people would never dismiss a family member leaving dirty dishes in the sink as “needing to get it out of their systems” or some other justification. We don’t rationalize such things, so we become more angry because in our minds there’e no excuse.

Works Cited

Barker, Eric. “11 Scientific Studies That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.” The Week. N.p., 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://theweek.com/article/index/266837/11-scientific-studies-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity>.

Barker, Eric. “Do We Bounce Back Quickest When Life Hurts Us the Most?”Barking Up The Wrong Tree. N.p., 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/01/do-we-bounce-back-quickest-when-life-hurts-us/>.

“Region-beta Paradox.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Nov. 2014. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region-beta_paradox>.

I personally struggle with procrastination on a daily basis. For example, this is my first post for this blogging period. I’m not proud of it, and always feel bad while I’m doing it, so why do I still engage in this horrible habit over and over again? I decided this would be the perfect topic to research.

Experts define procrastination as “the voluntary delay of some important task that we intend to do, despite knowing that we’ll suffer as a result” (Jaffe para. 3).

One of the first studies done on procrastination was published in Psychological Science in 1997. College students were rated on a scale of procrastination.  Then, their academic performance, stress, and general health were tracked throughout the semester. Initially, those who procrastinated showed lower levels of stress, most likely because of putting off their work to engage in more pleasurable activities. However, in the end procrastinators received lower grades and reported higher amounts of stress and illness (Jaffe para. 8).

I believe this observational study shows that procrastination is not worth it. Although it may be fun at first, it’s not worth the stress and suffering at the end. However, being able to recognize that it’s a bad habit doesn’t cure someone from it. Most people who procrastinate already know it’s not the ideal method for getting work done, and yet they still do it. Another study was done to put the negative effects of procrastination into perspective and try to explain this issue.

Students were brought into a lab and were told they would be engaging in a math puzzle at the end of the session. Some students were told the task was an important test of their cognitive abilities, while others were told it was made to be meaningless and fun. Before completing the puzzle, the students had a time period where they could either prepare for the task or play games like Tetris. As a result, chronic procrastinators only delayed practicing for the puzzle when it was described as a cognitive evaluation. When it was described as fun, they behaved no differently from non-procrastinators (Jaffe para. 9).

The results of this experimental study initially surprised me. I would have assumed that the students would be more likely to procrastinate if it were a meaningless puzzle. However, after thinking about it, it makes sense. I only procrastinate important school work, never anything that appears fun or unnecessary. “The chronic procrastinator, the person who does this as a lifestyle, would rather have other people think that they lack effort than lacking ability,” says Joseph Ferrari, a professor from the study. “It’s a maladaptive lifestyle” (Jaffe para. 10).

That’s a hard pill to swallow. It appears that procrastination is way more than a bad habit. It’s a true problem in the brain. Ferrari compared it this way: Chronic procrastinators can’t be told to just get things done anymore than a depressed person can be told to cheer up.

Works Cited

Jaffe, Eric. “Why Wait? The Science Behind Procrastination.” Association for Psychological Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. <http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2013/april-13/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination.html>.

Hi everyone! My name’s Macy and I’m from Sunbury, Pennsylvania. I’m taking this course for two reasons. The first reason is because my Communications advisers put a list of the easiest science and math classes on the board the day we scheduled at NSO. Needless to say, this was one of those courses. The second reason I chose this class is because the description of the course caught my attention. It sounded like a science class I could finally enjoy, contribute to, and find interest in. I’m not currently planning on being a science major because science was never something I had a passion for or particularly enjoyed. However, I have no idea what I want to do with my life just yet, so I guess it’s not 100% off the table. Here’s a picture of me and my roommate Maria.

Shameless self-promotion! Twitter: @MacyCellitti Instagram: macycellitti