Gambling away your health..

Although just a correlation, a recent study has found that Pathological Gamblers are at risk of Mental Health Disorders - they are 3 times more likely to commit suicisde than non-gamblers.

"..Pathological gamblers account for five percent of all suicides. These staggering statistics motivated us to study the difference between gamblers and non-gamblers," says study co-author, Richard Boyer.

The study examined 122 suicides between 2006 and 2009 and found that 49 (40%) were pathological gamblers.

Those committing suicide were found to be twice as likely to be suffering from Specific Mental Disorders than other suicide cases, suggesting that the personality disorder is a significant flag towards increased suicide risk.

Boyer reported that there are three elements generally recognised: depression, alcohol or drug consumption and a personality disorder. They believed that it was the interaction between these problems that led ultimately to suicide.

But they didn't stop there. The study also found that gamblers who committed suicide were three times less likely to have seen the doctor the year preceding their death.

Boyer believes this is because they see their financial or alcohol/drug problems as a result of their gambling addiciton and seek help for that rather than get help for their other issues.

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Do you know anybody in your life with a gambling problem? It could affect anybody! Just keep an eye out for the warning signs and remember that gambling may not be their only problem!

Link to Article

Change your life in 66 days ?

Phillippa Lally and her colleagues at UCL (Lally et al (2009) How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world European Journal of Social Psychology) has been involved in addressing a fascinating question that is pressing for any practitioner who is trying to help their client change - namely how long does it take - not only to make a change but to ensure it is well established...in other words has become a new "habit" in their lives which they do automatically without thinking.

The average time taken was 66 days, although the spread ranged between 18 and 254 days. Not surprisingly, establishing new behavioural health habits (like doing sit ups every morning) took longer.

The good news from this study is that missing a single day's practice isn't of crucial importance. However, the bad news is that if a typical period for establishing a change is over two months (AFTER the change is learnt) brief interventions that are withdrawn as soon as a change is initiated are likely to lead to high relapse levels.

Our services (and ourselves as professionals) are forever overly preoccupied with clients at a Action Stage (in the Cycle of Change) and pay insufficient attention to Maintenance. Interventions for weight loss for example are well evidenced, but the containing failure at the maintenance stage continues to create problems. The issue is even more pronounced within mental health, where the preoccupation with acute problems remain just that - acute. Even when the issue of relapse is examined (as in depression) and its prevention through the use of mindfulness skills, there is little that looks at how long it takes a client to regularly and automatically use such new skills.

Whatever field we work in, if we were to keep the figure of 66 days in mind more frequently, it might substantially increase our long term effectiveness with our client and avoid the "hit and run" mentality that is currently so common.