A mindful sober subculture is emerging, indicating that we’re seeking out deeper, more meaningful connections to others.

A wide range of sober, mindful, after-work activities is emerging, as booze culture is beginning to fall by the wayside among the hipster generation.

Sobriety is becoming the new normal in the big cities - from New York to Los Angeles, reports Andrea Rice for the alternative lifestyle blog Wanderlust:

The buzz may have started with Daybreaker, the pre-workday dance party crusade that quickly swept both coasts (I’ve been more than once), eventually spreading throughout major cities across the globe. It’s an action-packed, sweaty, but sober, rave—glitter and all—that leaves just enough time afterward to do a little presto change-o before hitting the office. Then there’s The Get Down, the feel-good post-workday dance party in Manhattan started by house music DJ Tasha Blank.

The recently unveiled MNDFL, NYC’s first boutique meditation studio, has already gained a reputation for being a sober-chic place to hang and chill out, while big scale events like The Big Quiet have made mass meditations in public places a desirable activity among enlightenment seekers. Biet Simkin, a musician and founder of Center of the Cyclone, guides artistically charged meditations as part performance art, part mindfulness. Andrea Praet and Katia Tallarico lead The Uplift Project, which mobilizes the overstimulated and promises restoration and balance for today’s fast-paced world—a far cry from blowing off steam at the bar and drowning sorrows in alcohol.

And this week in The New York Times, a bi-monthly post-work mindful movement known to both LA and NYC as The Shine was profiled in the Styles section—a clear gauge that sober gatherings have officially gone mainstream.

Light Watkins, a meditation teacher, Wanderlust presenter, and author of The Inner Gym, founded The Shine in 2014 to create a mindful, connected community, without all the booze. An evening at The Shine will include meditation, music, film, and philanthropic enterprises, complimented with healthy nibbles and juices—and specially sourced artisan water.

In its first year, The Shine’s popularity as an aspirational gathering place to connect with like-minded individuals grew from just a dozen people to nearly 300. “The Shine started because I wanted to be more social, but I wasn’t attracted to the bar scene,” said Watkins. “I felt that it was hard to make meaningful connections with people who are buzzed - you’re not really meeting them, but rather the slightly to heavily intoxicated version of them, which may be uninhibited and fun, but it’s not real."

"We can’t help but wonder if this is just the beginning of an increasing demand for more alcohol-free zones for people to connect", Andrea concludes.

Researchers say that people with mental illness that do not abuse substances are no more likely to engage in violence than people from the general population.

Although people with bipolar disorder and other forms of mental illness may be perceived by the general public to be a more violent group of people, researchers in Sweden say that it’s actually substance abuse that causes any increase in violence, and that:

• People with bipolar who do not abuse drugs or alcohol are no more likely to engage in violence than non substance abusing people from the general population
• People with bipolar disorder that abuse drugs or alcohol are no more likely than people from the general population that abuse drugs or alcohol to engage in violent acts

People, whether mentally ill or not, who abused drugs or alcohol were between 6 and 7 times more likely to engage in violent acts than people from the general population. Unfortunately, people with bipolar disorder are 10 times as likely to abuse drugs or alcohol as people from the general population.  

Lead researcher Dr Seena Fazel of Oxford University commented on the findings, saying, "Most of the relationship between violent crime and serious mental illness can be explained by alcohol and substance abuse…It's probably more dangerous walking outside a pub on a late night than walking outside a hospital where patients have been released"

The full research results have been published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

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Researchers say that people who navigate spirituality without religion are more likely to have addiction and mental health problems.

Does belonging to a group matter?...Does it matter if you subscribe to any given religion so long as you have a personal spiritual understanding?

According to researchers at University College London, it probably does - they say that people who profess a sense of spirituality without any religious affiliation are significantly more likely to abuse drugs and to succumb to a variety of mental illnesses.

The Study

The researchers polled a random sample of 7403 people in the UK and asked about religious and spiritual beliefs, drug or alcohol abuse and mental illness/emotional problems.

The Results

• Of the people polled, 46% described themselves as not religious or spiritual, 35% described themselves as religious (predominantly Christian) and 15% described themselves as spiritual without belonging to any particular religion.
• Religious and non religious/non spiritual subjects were about equally likely to have addiction or mental illness

Compared to religious and not religious/not spiritual subjects, spiritual but not religious subjects were:

• 77% more likely to be addicted to drugs
• 72% more likely to have a specific phobia and 50% more likely to have generalized anxiety disorder
• 46% more likely to have abnormal eating attitudes
• 40% more likely to be using psychotropic medications
  
• 37% more likely to have a neurotic disorder

The Commentary

Lead author Professor Michael King explained that there is mounting evidence that spirituality without a religious framework increases a person’s vulnerability to mental illness. What’s needed now, he says, is more research to investigate what’s causing this increased susceptibility.

Read the full study findings in The British Journal of Psychiatry.

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Israeli scientists have developed a new strain of non intoxicating marijuana for use by medical marijuana patients.

By eliminating the effects of THC, Israeli scientists have developed a novel form of marijuana that won’t get you high, but which still works as a medicine.

Although lacking in THC, the new strain actually contains more than the normal amount of the cannabidiol that has been shown to help ease symptoms of diabetes and various psychiatric conditions.

Without the THC, medical marijuana users won’t experience intoxication or increased hunger, commonly known as the munchies.

Describing the new marijuana, head development researcher Tzahi Klein said, "It has the same scent, shape and taste as the original plant -- it's all the same -- but the numbing sensation that users are accustomed to has disappeared.”

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Even though people say mental illness would have a greater impact on quality of life, they’re not nearly as willing to pay to prevent it as they are to prevent physical illnesses.

How much would you pay to prevent an episode of depression or schizophrenia? How about to prevent diabetes or partial blindness? Which disorders would cause the greatest impact on your quality of life?

If you’re like most people, you’re willing to spend a lot more to prevent the onset of physical illness, even though you recognize that mental illnesses like schizophrenia would be more burdensome to your quality of life.

That’s the conclusion reached by researchers at Stony Brook University School of Medicine who polled a representative sample of 710 Americans to find out how we perceive mental and physical illnesses and to learn how much we’d be willing to pay to prevent illness onset.

For the survey study, each participant ranked 3 physical diseases or physical conditions (like partial amputation or partial blindness) and 2 mental illnesses, ordering each condition or illness for perceived severity and impact on quality of life and deciding how much they’d be willing to pay to prevent its onset.

• Paradoxically, although people ranked mental health conditions among the most burdensome they were also less willing to pay to prevent them - the subjects were willing to pay an average of 40% more to prevent physical illnesses than mental illness.
• Although subjects ranked depression as a high burden illness, they were the least willing to pay to prevent its onset and though schizophrenia was ranked as the illness that would have the greatest negative impact on quality of life subjects were not most willing to pay to prevent its onset.

Commenting on the findings, senior study author Peter Ubel, M.D wrote, "All else equal, the general public doesn't think it is as valuable to treat mental illness as other types of illness. There is a fundamental disconnect between how bad they think it would be to experience depression and their willingness to spend money to rid themselves of the illness."

Read the full study results in the April edition of Psychiatric Services

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The CDC says the HIV infection rate among injection drug users has been reduced by half over the last 20 years. Health experts credit an increase in needle exchange programs for the reduction.

In 2009 the CDC HIV-tested a random sample of 10 000 injection drug users from 20 major US cities. They found an infection rate of about 9%.

Two decades prior, a similar survey of US injection drug users found roughly twice the infection rate, with one in five of those surveyed testing positive for the virus.

Other statistics from CDC’s report on HIV among injection drug users include:

• Only half of the injection drug users surveyed had been tested for HIV with a year of being asked
• There are approximately 1.2 million Americans with HIV. 17% of these are injection drug users
• Only roughly half (45%) of those injection drug users infected with HIV were aware of their positive status prior to CDC testing
• In 2009, 34% of injection drug users surveyed reported sharing needles

The full survey results can be read in the March second edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

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Community elders say beer makers selling 4.9 million cans of beer to a town of 11 people right next to their reservation are complicit in an illegal smuggling operation into their dry community.

Eleven people live in Whiteclay Nebraska, yet the town boasts 4 beer and liquor stores which sell a combined 4.9 million cans of beer per year.

Adjacent to Whiteclay lies the alcoholism ravaged Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to 20 00 members of the Native American Sioux tribe.

Though community elders have banned the sale and possession of alcohol within the Reservation, substance abuse remains a huge problem: 85% of families have at least one alcoholic and the average life expectancy among members of is a shocking 48-52 years of age.

Since banning the sale of alcohol within the reservation has done little to remedy the problem, community elders have looked outward and have filed suit against the five largest beer companies in America; Anheuser-Busch, InBev, SABMiller, Molson Coors, MillerCoors and Pabst, as well as against the stores in Whiteclay which turn out such a massive quantity of alcohol each day.

The suit, which asks for $500 million in compensatory damages, alleges the intentional sale of alcohol to a ‘dry’ community, with manufacturers and retailers complicit in the illegal sale and smuggling of alcohol to the community.

Commenting on the actions of those selling the beer, Pine Ridge Reservation lawyer Tom White said, "You cannot sell 4.9 million 12oz [356ml] cans of beer and wash your hands like Pontius Pilate, and say we've got nothing to do with it being smuggled.”

He says that should the reservation win their suit they intend to use any payments to fund child rehabilitation efforts as well as community healthcare and social services.

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Need more evidence for the sensibility of a mature minimum drinking age (21)? Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say that women who grew up in states with lower legal minimum drinking ages were significantly more likely to fall victim to homicide or suicide over a lifetime.

From 1949 to 1972, legal drinking ages across American states differed substantially.  To find out what impact growing up with a lower legal minimum drinking age might have on violent death rates, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis examined data from 200,000 suicides and 130,000 murders during this 23 year period.

For men, they found that variations in legal minimum drinking age had little impact on violent death, but for women, the story was slightly different.

• Women who grew up in states with lower legal minimum drinking ages were 15% more likely to have been murdered and 12% more likely to have committed suicide than women who grew up in states with a legal minimum drinking age of 21.
  

The researchers say that based on this, they estimate that the nationwide legal minimum drinking age of 21 saves roughly 1200 women per year from death by suicide or homicide.

The full study results can be found in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research

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US military study shows that low Omega 3 levels are linked to an increased risk of suicide.

The US military has been reeling under an unprecedented increase in their suicide rate, now nearly double that of the general population amongst a group that has traditionally had a very low suicide percentage.

Environmental causes, such as witnessing death in combat, obviously play a role in trauma linked suicide, but according to new research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry this week, low levels of the docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) found in foods high in Omega 3s is an even greater predictor of suicidality.

The body does not make DHA. DHA is found in foods high in Omega 3s such as fatty fish.

Researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism compared the suicide risk factors of 800 service men and women who had committed suicide between 2002 and 2008 with those of a comparative sample of 800 service men and women who had not committed suicide.

They found that:

• Soldiers with low levels of DHA were 62% more likely to have committed suicide
• Soldiers who had seen death in combat were 52% more likely to have committed suicide
• The sample of soldiers revealed overall lower than average levels of DHA amongst military personnel

The research team says that low cost interventions to increase levels of DHA in the military diet could go a long way towards protecting against suicide and other mental health problems. Backing up their position, they point to previous studies which have also shown the efficacy of Omega 3s for mental health improvements, writing that previous research has shown that a supplement of just 2 grams of Omega 3 per day reduces suicidal thinking by 45% among populations with histories of self harm.

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Researchers say that in societies of scarcity, religious people are happier than non religious people, but that in societies of abundance, religious and non religious people are about equally happy.

When measuring religion’s influence on personal happiness, what seems most important, say researchers at the University of Illinois, is the stressfulness of the society.

While previous studies of Americans had found that people with religion are happier than their secular counterparts, the researchers wanted to know:

1. Whether the circumstances of a person’s society have any influence on the happiness effects of religion
   
2. If religion makes people happier, why are people in economically developed regions of the world abandoning religion in record numbers? 
   

To find out, they examined data from the 2005 to 2009 Gallup World Poll of people from more than 150 countries, which asked questions on religious feelings, life satisfaction, happiness, respect and negative and positive feelings.

The Results:

• Religion does make people happier if they are living in difficult or stressful environments, such as societies with scarce food, employment, education options, healthcare and security
  
• People living in richer societies with more social support were about equally happy, whether they defined themselves as religious or not
  
• In America, people in poorer states with less social support are the most religious, and religious people in these states do tend to have greater happiness than their secular neighbors.
• In America, Mississippi had the greatest religious participation, with 88% of people saying religion was important. Vermont had the lowest religious participation, which had only 44% calling themselves religious
  
• Globally, 68% of people call themselves religious

Commenting on the results, lead study author Ed Deiner said, “Circumstances predict religiousness.  Difficult circumstances lead more strongly to people being religious. And in religious societies and in difficult circumstances, religious people are happier than nonreligious people. But in nonreligious societies or more benign societies where many people's needs are met, religious people aren't happier -- everyone's happier."

The full study results can be read in the Aug 1st edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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OK, so we all know that spending a lot of time each day staring at a TV set is hardly conducive to excellent health, but just how bad is that couch potato lifestyle when it comes to affecting life expectancy?

That’s what researchers at The University of Queensland in Australia wanted to know, and to find out they used data from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study which has been running since 1999, and looked at how TV viewing habits affected mortality rates.

They found that:

• On average, compared to people who watched no TV, every hour of TV watched after the age of 25 took 22 minutes of a lifespan
• People who watch 6 hours of TV a day can expect to live roughly 5 years less than people who watch no TV
  
• In Australia, the amount of TV watched by the average person shortens life by 1.8 years for  men and 1.5 years for women
  

The study authors write that given the results of the study, TV viewing should be added to other known risk factors for premature death, like obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.

Commenting on the significance of the study, lead author Dr Lennert Veerman, talked about how prevalent TV watching is in our current society, saying, “While smoking rates are declining, watching TV is not, which has implications at a population level.”

Previous studies have shown that watching just 2 hours of TV a day increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 20% and heart disease by 15%.

The full study results can be read in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

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Due to better health care in prison, reduced violent crime and less access to drugs and alcohol, a Black man in America is about half as likely to die while incarcerated as he is while free. This disturbing truth that was unearthed by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during a decade long study of inmates in the North Carolina criminal justice system.

In a study which points to some pretty glaring differences in things like access to health care and likelihood of experiencing violent crime, researchers in North Carolina say that Black men are less likely to die in any given year while incarcerated, than they are while free.

• While in prison, White and Black men were equally likely to die during any given year, but out in the world, Black men have a much higher death rate than White men.
  
• But while the death rate for incarcerated Black and White men was the same, that same death rate was a 12% increase on the death rate experienced by White men on the outside and a 50% decrease on the death rate experienced by Black men on the outside.
  

The reasons given for the fact that Black men seem so much less likely to die while behind bars include:

• Better access to health care services
• A decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer (Black inmates are 30% - 40% less likely to die of thee diseases than Black men on the outside)
• Decreased abuse of drugs and alcohol
• Decreased rates of diabetes
• Decreased violent or traumatic death, such as accidents, murder or suicide

Commenting on the study results, lead author, Dr. David Rosen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said "For some populations, being in prison likely provides benefits in regards to access to healthcare and life expectancy. But it's important to remember that there are many possible negative consequences of imprisonment — for example, broken relationships, loss of employment opportunities, and greater entrenchment in criminal activity — that are not reflected in our study findings but nevertheless have an important influence on prisoners' lives and their overall health."

The full study results can be read in the journal, Annals of Epidemiology.

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Some disturbing facts from a report from Trust for America’s Health, entitled ‘F as in Fat’ include that two thirds of American adults are now overweight and that 20 years ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 15% - now every state does.

Health researchers from Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) say America is getting fat – dangerously fat.

They looked at self-report data compiled by the CDC on Americans across the union to get a picture of what’s happening to our collective waistlines. This is the 6th year of annual reports on obesity in America from  the RWJF and TFAH teams. Some key facts from the report include:

• Mississippi is the ‘fattest’ state, with 34.4% of its adult population classified as obese. Alabama and West Virginia round out the top three at 32.3% and 32.2% respectively. People are considered to be obese if they score a BMI of 30 or greater, or are more than 30 pounds above their ideal body weight.
  
• Colorado is the state with the least obesity and the only state today with an obesity rate under 20%, at 19.8%
  
• 12 states now have 30% or more adult citizens classified as obese. Lower income Americans are more likely to be obese.
  
• 33% of Americans who make less than $15 000 per year or who did not finish high school are obese. In contrast, 21.5% of college are technical school graduates are obese.
  
• African Americans had obesity rates above 40% in 15 states
  

The report authors say immediate steps are needed to reduce the scale of this health catastrophe. They recommend making sure everything served in schools meets or exceeds minimum healthy eating standards, encouraging increased physical activity in schools and for adults in the community and adopting pricing strategies that make healthy foods more affordable than junk foods.

Kelly D. Brownell, Executive Director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity commented on the findings by laying the blame for the obesity explosion squarely at the foot of federal and state governments, saying, "Until the government takes on the food industry, we'll continue to see the appalling numbers in this report…Government could start by changing agricultural subsidies, by not making it financially attractive for companies to market unhealthy foods, by placing serious restrictions on marketing to children, and with financial policies that make healthy foods cost less and unhealthy foods cost more."

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Researchers at American University in Washington D.C. say that underage consumers now receive a bombardment of alcohol advertising through diverse digital media platforms; and that by using social networking or sites like YouTube, marketers avoid limitations on access to this important but supposedly ‘protected’ demographic group.

Researchers are calling for federal regulators to step in and take a look at better protecting underage consumers from the alcohol marketing that’s occurring online.

In her report, Alcohol Marketing in the Digital Age, Professor Kathryn Montgomery of American University states that alcohol marketers are using the internet to sell their brands around the clock; using access points that include social media, video, digital music, mobile apps and many more. She says that weak protective regulations, such as having consumers enter their age as over 21 before granting access to a website, allow media savvy teens easy access to this content.

Montgomery states, “We're not calling for any kind of censorship, but we do think these are very serious issues that do require attention by regulators and public-health professionals." Report contributor, Jeff Chester adds, “There's a whole stealth world of marketing that occurs in social-media spaces. It's a completely Wild West environment."

• Through social media sites like Facebook, alcohol marketers use brand ambassadors who covertly market the brand to others ‘friends’.

• Heineken has built an online ‘city’ where guests can register for virtual apartments, email, storage and other goodies – and staying logged in for longer periods is rewarded with additional ‘space’ in the city.

• A video created by Smirnoff has gone viral on YouTube and has now been viewed over 5 million times

Although underage drinking accounts for an estimated 12% to 20% of total alcohol sales, Lisa Hawkins, vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council says that alcohol marketers do not target youth through conventional media or emerging media. She says that, “distilled spirits companies adhere to a rigorous set of content and placement guidelines for advertising and marketing materials in all media including online and digital communications channels.” Somewhat contentiously, she adds, "In today's marketplace, online and digital communications channels are used primarily by adults (21 years of age and older) for a key source of information, which makes these platforms responsible and appropriate channels for spirits marketers."

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Police say they found 10 black bears patrolling the fields of a marijuana plantation in B.C. Canada. The bears, they say, were paid in dog food for their security efforts.

Why pay for guards with cash when you can hire a much scarier deterrence and pay only dog food for the labor?

Last August, in Christina Lake, B.C., local police stumbled on a 1000 plant marijuana grow operation. To their surprise, they also found some unusual security guards working the plot – 10 black bears that were apparently paid for their labors with a ready supply of dog food.

Police arrested the property owner, Allen Wayne Piche, (he calls himself, ‘The Bear Dude’) on charges of feeding dangerous wildlife, but have yet to lay charges on the ownership of the marijuana plantation.

The bears were relocated to a more remote interior location before winter set in. They are currently in hibernation but expected to wake shortly and officers worry they will return to the more populated Christina Lake area in search of easy food.

Bears will often return to an area that once provided ample food and local police say that the bears had become quite tame and were docile and even playful with the officers on the scene. This familiarity and ease with humans could lead to their downfall, however, for if they return to the area and stay in close proximity to the local population they will be considered a safety threat and face destruction.

B.C.’s Minister of Environment, Terry Lake, commented on the situation, saying, “We are hoping if there is no food they will start foraging naturally -- if they don't, we will have to have a plan of action,' At that point, they'll be destroyed - there's nothing else we can do with them…Now the bears fate rests on what happens after they wake up from their deep sleep.”

Police say they are watching Piche to make sure he doesn’t start feeding the bears again.

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