Mindful of Culture

1. Talk it out. When something worries you, don't keep it to yourself.
2. Escape for a while. When things go wrong, it helps to escape from the pain problems for awhile.
3. Laugh! Read one of your favourite jokes or simply laugh aloud.
4. Visualise yourself relaxing at your favourite vacation spot or completing some big and difficult task with ease. 
5. Take a quick "mental break" by visualising a favourite place in your mind - whether it be the ocean, the mountains, or your own back yard. Concentrate on "seeing", "smelling", and "hearing" the things you imagine.
6. Massage: Close your eyes and use your fingertips to vigorously massage your forehead and the back of your neck. Rub in circles, and rub hard.
7. Get out of the rut. Making up new ways to do old things can be a great reliever of both stress and boredom. Try  taking different routes when driving to work, or change the way you do ordinary tasks such as putting on makeup, fixing your hair or getting dressed.
8. Develop hobbies: What's fun for you can be good for you. Whatever your interests are, indulge in them. Feeling competent and in control is relaxing.
9. Do something for others. If you feel you are worring sbout yourself all the time, try doing something for someone else.
10. Above all, forget the "superman" or "superwoman" image. No one can be perfect in everything.

EXERCISE

We urge our readers to keep fit by taking regular exercise. Saints and sages, philosphers, and physicians, all have stressed the importance of Regular Exercise to keep fit.

In this section we are suggesting two Simple, but extremely useful exercises that everyone can do without any problem.

These two exercises will set a nice tone for the rest of your daily life. Try them. you have nothing to lose.

1. Exercise No 1. Once you  are ready to start your daily exercises, stand comfortable with your feet roughly 9 inches apart. Now start shaking the whole body, firstly gently then gradually increase the intensity to as fast as you can. It is just like a wake up call to all parts of your body and the blood will start flowing to the farthest points in your body.
2. Exercise No 2. After the first exercise let there be a gap of a few minutes. Now try this simple exercise. Breath in normally and hold your breath. While you are holding your breath, try to tense your body - the whole body, hands, arms, legs, etc. This will stimulate circulation of blood in the most inactive parts of your system. Keep holding your breath and keep your body tense up to a comfortable level - say about thirty seconds. Now exhale and consciously let all parts of your body relax - totally and experience a sense of joy through out your body.

Both the exercises will not take more than 10 minutes. They will give you a wonderful sense of welll-being.                                      

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Just one of those days! LOL

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Have A Safe And Happy New Year!

Dr. R. B. Malik

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It's not easy being a young woman. It's not at all easy being a student in a highly competive atomsphere. Being both is positively difficult.

These who have been teaching and working with female college students have found a number suffering from problems such as repeated exam failure, anxiety and adjustement difficulties to more serious problems of personality difficulties, acute emotional distress and even suicide. Recent newspaper coverage of these issues and sensationalist reports of drug abuse among female college students prompted Dr. Riffet Malik, head of Fatima Jinnah Medical College Department of Psychiatry to launch a research project on the subject.

Funded by the Pakistan Medical Research Council, the pilot study entitled "A Psychological & Drug Abuse Profile of Female College Students" was carried out earlier this year, with the assistance of honorary Clinical Psychologist Neelam and Dr. Nazir Malik. Questionaireswere distributed among 400 randomly selected female students at Fatima Jinnah Medical College, National College of Arts and Kinnaird College. Out of the  70% who responded most were in the 15 - 24 age group, although there were two 28-year olds and the study actually covers the 15 - 30 age group. Following the successful presentation of the pilot study's results at the annual held in Karachi last month, Dr. Riffet Malik now plans to expand the study to includ all 30,000 female students in Lahore.

Since the project was concerned with both psychological and drug abuse, the questionaire had two distinct elements. The section one personal data apart from objective facts such as age, occupation of parents, and family size also asked for subjective details. This included personality assessment questions like "How do you feel most of the time? " and others about eating habits, sociability, leisure activities. The second section specifically targeted drug medicine abuse.

Research by other psychologists has shown that female drug abuse is very rare. Psychiatrists Dr. Ghazala Musa, a private practitioner, and Dr. Ijaz Tareen, Head of the Mayo Hospital-based UN-Pak Drug Abuse Control Programme both estimate female abuse of hard drugs (herion, cocaine, opium) at 1% of the total. However, abuse of psyhotropic drug by women has been found to be worryingly high. Psychologist Humair Hashmi quotes a 1981 research study conducted in lahore which found as many as 15% of women were abusing psychotropic drugs. These drugs include the tranquillisers category - valium, ativan, librium, etc - and amphetamines, ritallin etc. Abuse of these medi-limits.

  This abuse category is apparently far more common among women in Pakistan than the alcohol and cigarette and hard drug abuse categories. The tragedy is that this form of abuse, which can have devastating effects on the addict, her family, friends and work, is regarded as socially acceptable and not a problem.

In the study on female college students, those who answered positively to questions regarding the use of medicines, drugs and substances were then asked to answer further questions on possible addiction patterns. Finally, those whose sleeping, eating, smoking or drug-taking habits had changed recently were to fill in a brief General Health Questionaire (GHQ) based on an internationally standard set of questions aimed at uncovering emotional problems. These problems might be either a cause or result of  drug-taking behaviour. The 30 GHQ questions included ones like " Have you recently felt constantly under strain? / been getting out of the house as much as usual? / been feeling hopeful about your future?" The choice of answers ranged from 'more so than usual' and 'about the same as usual' to 'less than usual' and 'much less than usual' or 'not at all'.

When she began her study, Dr. Riffet Malik had a number of basic empirical questions in mind:-

• Is there a need for a formal psychiatric service for adolescents?
• Does medical education in an ALL female, highly competitive atmosphere put girls under more stress?
• Are educational methods incorrect?
• Are pre-Clinical years more stressful with higher psychiatric morbidity?
• Do the high scorers on the GHQ fare badly in exams?

Although the study's preliminary findings do not provide conclusive answers to these questions, a large number of very general patterns did emerge, which serve as pointers to some potential problems. Dr. Riffet Malik beliees the extended study among Lahore's entire female college student population will confirm and add to these results.

• None of the students in the polit study acknowledged that they had ever used illegal drugs.
• However, 42.8% of those who responded said they had occasionally used tranquillisers or amphetamines in the past.
• 57.2% of those who responded said they had never used any drug.
• 14.6% of those who admitted to having used drugs admitted to abuse over a period of time (weeks or months) and that it was difficult for them to give up.
• All of these girls were found to recorded problems on the GHQ.

Other prepiminary findings revealed that the FSc pre-medical students showed greater frequency of psychological problems than the older students. Adolescence and problems of adjusting to college life probably account for these. Equally, among the medical students the pre-clinical - the first 2 MBBS years - appeared to be more stressful, confirming the need for concrete answers to Dr. Riffet Malik's basic questions about the education system. GHQ high scores were also found to be those not doing well in their exams, implying a definite link between mental well-being and success in studies. Anumber of the GHQ high scorers were already seeking professional help for their problems.

Generally, the pre-clinical student faced problems centered on their studies, while the older 3rd-5th year girls were facing pressure in relationships, aspecially in grouping and rivairies. Analgesic (painkillerss) and tranquillisers abuse was also found to be in greater amounts in this group. This appears to be a reflection partly because of their way of dealing with their problems (psychosomatic illness, for example) and partly of their greater knowledge about pharmacology as senior medical studnets.

The only questional left totally unanswered by the pilot study was whether there were any conection between the high levels of 'medical' drug taking and the abuse of illegal drugs. The Mayo Hospital's Drug Abuse Control Unit's statistics on 2,226 new heroin addicts show that well over one-third had shifted to heroin from other drugs.

Dr. Riffet Malik believes that the preliminary findings confirm the need for a formal counseling/advice/guidance service for female college students. Although some colleges have informal arrangements with staff and/or outside specialists, the level of problems uncovered by the pilot study shows that many girls are still slipping through this safty net. However,  attempts to establish a formal service in the city's colleges have so far been frustrated. Staff who feel their teaching methods or general attitude to the students may be questioned have resisted the idea, while bureaucratic attitudes and fear of adverse publicity regarding the students' emotional problems have been further obstacles. There is also scepticism of psychological/psychiatric services and refusal by society as a whole to accept that young women may face serious life problems. Dr. Riffet Malik noted that there is often the sarcastic comment that how such pretty girls who dress so nicely can have any problems.

Yet if Dr. Riffet Malik's pilot study turns out to be an accurate estimate of the psychological and drug abuse profile of all female college students in lahore, this would mean there are well over 2,00 young women with grave mental and drug abuse problems.

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