A Blanket Remedy for Stress
It was one of those days--you know the kind. The boss snarls. The elevator creeps along. And everyone puts you on hold.
Come quitting time, your first inclination may be to go home, pull the covers around your ears and withdraw.
Not a bad idea, say some psychologists. Withdrawing into such non-social activities as reading may speed your return to normal emotional and physiological states.
“Withdrawal may be a way to cope,” speculates Rena Repetti, a New York University psychologist who studied the off-hour behavior of 33 stressed-out air traffic controllers and published her findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Pulling the covers over your head probably relieves stress, Repetti says, by distracting you from workday problems and helping you avoid additional stress-producing stimuli such as simple conversation, which can raise blood pressure and heart rate.
However, social withdrawal is more likely to be helpful after “run-of-the-mill” bad days than after crisis days with specific blowups. “Concrete problems like arguments with the boss may need talking out,” says University of Denver social psychologist Niall Bolger, who studied the effects of work stress in 166 married couples.
Both Bolger and Repetti preach the gospel of moderation. “It’s one thing to withdraw for a few hours in front of the television,” says Bolger, “and another to withdraw for days.”
Or day after day. “Withdrawal seems to be a good idea for the individual, but I’m not sure about the long-term effects on the family,” says Repetti, who’s studying that question now.
Thumb Injuries Sound Silly, but Plague Skiers
It’s not a glamorous, show-off injury like a broken leg. But a thumb injury, believe it or not, is the third most common ski injury.
They sound minor but can be very serious. “If your ski pole doesn’t release properly or if you keep holding on to it as you fall,” says Dr. Ralph Gambardella, an orthopedist at the Kerlan Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Inglewood, “your thumb may get pushed so far back that you rupture the ligament.”
If you ignore such an injury, warns Gambardella, who is also a USC assistant clinical professor of orthopedics, it may not heal, and you could have long-term problems performing such everyday activities as gripping a coffee cup. And untreated thumb injuries could ultimately lead to arthritic problems.
Technique Removes Swallowed Objects
Children often supplement their diets with batteries, small toys and other foreign objects. Many pass through the body without any problem. But sometimes doctors must retrieve them by anesthetizing the child, inserting a special tube down the throat and lowering tweezers to pick up the item.
Now there’s a simpler retrieval method, says Dr. Erik Paulson, a radiologist at Primary Children’s Medical Center, Salt Lake City.
Doctors attach a tiny magnet--about the size of an antibiotic capsule--to the end of a narrow rubber tube. Guided by televised X-ray, they drop the tube down the child’s throat and locate the foreign object. “The magnet grabs it,” says Paulson. “It’s quick and easy.” The five-minute procedure doesn’t require anesthesia.
Last week, the Salt Lake doctor reported his findings at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting. In his study of 37 children, ages 11 months to 13 years, Paulson was able to retrieve the swallowed objects in all but three cases.
He expects the new technique to be particularly useful in retrieving metal toys, such as whistles, and the disc batteries found in watches. “Most (batteries) pose no problem (after being swallowed), but they can lead, in rare cases, to perforation or inflammation of the intestines,” Paulson says.
Only a handful of hospitals across the country use the technique. Children’s Hospital of L.A. is planning to get one of the devices.
