One of life’s great annoyances is being in the presence of a loud chewer. Someone just sitting there, the sound of their mastication steadily growing in your mind until it becomes almost earsplitting.
If you feel that way about pretty much everyone’s chewing noises, to the point of having emotional reactions to them, you may have a condition is called “misophonia.”
One 18-year-old girl, Ellie Rapp of Pittsburgh, has been aware of having misophonia since middle school. But she’d been dealing with the condition since she was a toddler. When Ellie hears her family chewing their food at dinner, her “heart starts to pound.”
“I go one of two ways. I either start to cry or I just get really intensely angry. It’s really intense. I mean, it’s as if you’re going to die,” she told NPR.
Ellie’s mom, Kathy, spent years trying to figure out how to handle Ellie’s reaction to sounds. She found an article online about misophonia.
“And I read it and I said, ‘This is what I have. This is it,’” Ellie said.
Misophonia is not just a reaction to chewing. It also happens in response to other ordinary sounds that other people make, like clearing their throat or clicking their pen. Mouth stuff is a very common trigger.
Misophonia is basically the extreme version of what many people experience – an aversion to other people’s random noises. But it can be difficult to cope with, and there’s still a lot of work to be done in recognizing and treating the condition. It’s not listed in the DSM-5, and many doctors have never heard of it.
“It sounds bizarre, but it’s very real,” Kathy said.
Hedonic adaptation is the tendency for people to return to a baseline happiness level regardless of what happens to them. A study conducted on lottery winners and paraplegics concluded that neither group was either happier or sadder less than 6 months after the event.
Have you ever heard the term “Hylophobia?” I’m betting the majority of you haven’t – and yet it describes a fear that just about all of us grew up with.
Yes, I told you that you probably suffer from it. Let’s be honest: the woods are creepy and unpredictable. You have no idea what lurks out there and if you’ve been brought up on ungodly amounts of horror movies since you were a kid, you already know what happens in the forest and it’s never good.
If you’ve ever suffered from Postpartum Depression, you know the effects can be absolutely crushing. Celebrities are no different from me or you, and these 10 shared their stories dealing with the devastating condition.
1. Sharon Osbourne
“I did suffer from it with one of my pregnancies, but I was suffering from depression anyways.
“The depression is so dark, you feel like you’re in a black fog the whole time and you just cannot cope. And you get to a point where you don’t realise what you’ve got with the baby and you’re just so dark and distraught and alone and it’s the loneliest feeling in the world.”
2. Celine Dion
“Some of the first days after I came home, I was a little outside myself. One moment, tremendous happiness; the next, fatigue sets in, and I cried for no reason.” She added: “Some of the first days after I came home, I was a little outside myself. I had no appetite and that bothered me. My mother remarked that she noticed I had moments of lifelessness but reassured me that this was entirely normal. It’s for things like that after having a baby that mothers really need emotional support.”
3. Drew Barrymore
“I didn’t have postpartum the first time so I didn’t understand it because I was like, ‘I feel great.’
The second time, I was like, ‘Oh, whoa, I see what people talk about now. I understand’. It’s a different type of overwhelming with the second. I really got under the cloud. I just got right on the idea of, ‘Where do I need to be the most?’ Fifty-fifty would be ideal but life doesn’t work like that. Life is messy. It was just really challenging and I felt overwhelmed. I made a lot of decisions and I definitely changed my work life to suit my parenthood.”
4. Chrissy Teigen
“…I was different than before. Getting out of bed to get to set on time was painful. My lower back throbbed; my shoulders—even my wrists—hurt. I didn’t have an appetite. I would go two days without a bite of food, and you know how big of a deal food is for me. One thing that really got me was just how short I was with people.
I would be in my dressing room, sitting in a robe, getting hair and makeup done, and a crew member would knock on the door and ask: “Chrissy, do you know the lyrics to this song?” And I would lose it. Or “Chrissy, do you like these cat ears, or these panda hands?” And I’d be like: “Whatever you want. I don’t care.” They would leave. My eyes would well up and I would burst into tears. My makeup artist would pat them dry and give me a few minutes.
I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: “Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom.”
5. Brooke Shields
6. Cardi B
“I thought I was going to avoid it. When I gave birth, the doctor told me about postpartum, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m doing good right now, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’ But out of nowhere, the world was heavy on my shoulders.
For some reason, I still don’t feel like my body’s the same. I feel like I don’t have my balance right yet. When it comes to heels, I’m not as good at walking anymore. I feel like I’m holding a weight on me … But there’s an energy I haven’t gotten back yet that I had before I was pregnant.”
It’s just the weirdest thing.”
7. Adele
“My knowledge of postpartum — or post-natal, as we call it in England — is that you don’t want to be with your child; you’re worried you might hurt your child; you’re worried you weren’t doing a good job. But I was obsessed with my child. I felt very inadequate; I felt like I’d made the worst decision of my life. … It can come in many different forms.
“Eventually I just said, I’m going to give myself an afternoon a week, just to do whatever the f**k I want without my baby. A friend of mine said, ‘Really? Don’t you feel bad?’ I said, I do, but not as bad as I’d feel if I didn’t do it. Four of my friends felt the same way I did, and everyone was too embarrassed to talk about it; they thought everyone would think they were a bad mom, and it’s not the case. It makes you a better mom if you give yourself a better time.”
8. Hayden Panettiere
“If you think for one second that a mother wants to feel that way toward her child, you’re outta your mind. It is one of the most debilitating, scary, guilty feelings that you can ever feel. That a mother would not be able to connect with their child, would not be able to get a grip, or would not know what’s going on, for anybody to say that it’s false or created by us, you must have your head examined.”
9. Serena Williams
“Honestly, sometimes I still think I have to deal with it. I think people need to talk about it more because it’s almost like the fourth trimester, it’s part of the pregnancy.”
10. Gwyneth Paltrow
“About four months into it, Chris came to me and said, ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.’ I kept saying, ‘No, no, I’m fine.’ But Chris identified it, and that sort of burst the bubble.
I thought postpartum depression meant you were sobbing every single day and incapable of looking after a child. But there are different shades of it and depths of it, which is why I think it’s so important for women to talk about it. It was a trying time. I felt like a failure.”
As always, thanks for reading Did You Know. We really appreciate you spending time with us, and we hope you share articles like this with your friends so we can all be part of the conversation.
People who refer to themselves by name during inner monologues are calmer, less stressed and more confident than those who use “I” or “me” according to a research done by Michigan State University.
Do you know a kid who absolutely LOVES dinosaurs? My nephew is obsessed with them, and I was the kind of kid who could describe a paleontologist’s job in great detail back in second grade.
If that describes your kids, that’s great news since a recent study found that kids who are obsessed with dinosaurs are smarter than kids who aren’t.
In the psychology world, this phenomenon is called “intense interests.” Roughly one-third of kids develop an intense interest in their lives but for most the obsession usually fades after the age of six.
A study from the University of Indiana and the University of Wisconsin found that an intense interest can “enhance perseverance, improve attention and enhance skills of complex thinking as the processing of information”, especially when the interest demands a conceptual domain.
Intense interests have also been shown to improve linguistic skills and are a good indicator of higher understanding. It’s also been shown that the way children study dinosaurs helps them develop strategies to tackle problems throughout their lives.
Interestingly, kids’ intense interest in dinosaurs develops in the first year of life without encouragement from their parents. As mentioned earlier, most of these obsessions pass and only 20% of kids still have the intense interest when they enter school.
Researchers believe that once kids start school and have to devote time to learning new things, they lose their free time to explore their interests. It is suggested that in order to keep your child’s interest alive as they grow up, parents should teach their kids facts about the subject as opposed to letting them have “pretend adventures.”
Make sure those kids keep learning on their own after they start school, and remember, if your child is obsessed with T-Rex, that’s a good thing!
Everyone who’s ever taken care of children knows that getting them to clean up after themselves is quite a hassle. In fact, this single task can often be so difficult that many caregivers just give up and clean up the mess themselves.
But one mom has had a lot of success with a method that you may not have tried with your gremlins already. It’s called the “Mountain Method,” and it arose out of sheer desperation.
Writer Kristen Mae‘s son was around 9 years old when she couldn’t handle another second of helping him clean up the mess that he’d created. So, she swept all of his toys from their various hiding places into the middle of his room. She informed him that he couldn’t enjoy any screen time until everything in the pile was in its proper place. Then she left the room.
Kristen says she didn’t expect the trick to actually work – the mountain was more-so to make a point about how much mess really existed.
Amazingly enough, though, her son slowly chipped away at the pile until it was all cleaned up. Now, the Mountain Method is a regular part of her family’s cleaning routine.
If you’re familiar with Marie Kondo’s philosophy of cleaning, the Mountain Method makes a ton of sense. Like Kristen, Marie recommends first piling all of your mess into one place so you can see everything – then starting to organize.
“Having everything in one place turned what felt like a thousand tasks into one single task,” Kristen explained.
A mountain of a task, sure. But a doable one. It’s worth a try!
Between work, your spouse, your kids/pets, politics, or the general state of the world, life is pretty stressful.
That’s why it’s essential to have great good coping mechanisms that you can bust out when necessary. This particular one is actually used by the military – arguably one of the most stressful jobs ever. Known as combat breathing, four-count breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing, it can really help bring you back to center.
The tactic lowers your heart rate and helps you regain control of your breathing, explains clinical psychologist Belisa Vranich. She’s also the author of 2016’s Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program To Improve Your Mental and Physical Health.
I believe humanity can be divided into two basic categories: the morning people who are just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the minute the sun comes up, and the night owls who hit their stride when the sun goes down.
While there’s nothing wrong with being one or the other, day people definitely have an advantage, since the world tends to operate on a 9-5 schedule.
“A huge number of people struggle to deliver their best performance during work or school hours they are not naturally suited to,” said lead researcher Dr. Elise Facer-Childs. “There is a critical need to increase our understanding of these issues in order to minimise health risks in society, as well as maximise productivity.”
Roughly 50% of people identify as a night owl, which for the purpose of the study meant going to bed “late” and rising after 8:20am.
If that’s the half of the world you fall into, this new study published in the journal Sleep proves it’s not just something you can up and change – your brain is physically and chemically different from those who leap out of bed in the morning.
The international team of scientists, led by the University of Birmingham in the UK, found that night owls have lower connectivity in the areas of the brain linked to consciousness. That means that during “normal” working hours, night people are affected by sleepiness, a lack of attention, and slower reaction times.
“This mismatch between a person’s biological time and social time – which most of us have experienced in the form of jet lag – is a common issue for night owls trying to follow a normal working day. Our study is the first to show a potential intrinsic neuronal mechanism behind why ‘night owls’ may face cognitive disadvantages when being forced to fit into these constraints,” explains Facer-Childs.
38 volunteers completed questionnaires and underwent MRI scans at various points of the day, all the while reporting how sleepy they felt.
Research concluded that morning people were less sleepy and had faster reaction times in the early morning working hours, while night owls hit their stride around 8 in the evening and struggled after rolling out of bed. Night owls did not, however, perform significantly better than morning people at 8pm, which could mean that society’s business hours could have a detrimental effect on those whose natural body rhythms encourage them to wake up later.
Facer-Childs explains how this can be applied to the real world:
“To manage this, we need to get better at taking an individual’s personal body clock into account – particularly in the world of work. A typical day might last from 9am-5pm, but for a night owl, this could result in diminished performance during the morning, lower brain connectivity in regions linked to consciousness and increased daytime sleepiness. If, as a society, we could be more flexible about how we manage time we could go a long way toward maximising productivity and minimising health risks.”
Which is to say, you just might have an argument if you want to lobby your boss for flexible work hours.
Here’s a shocking stat: intimate partner violence affects nearly 20 people around the U.S. every single minute. That’s over 10 million victims every year! It’s clearly a problem that needs to be tackled head-on, and we simply can’t afford to keep it hidden behind closed doors any longer.
Abusive relationships are notoriously difficult (and dangerous) to escape, so naturally, the best solution would be to never enter one in the first place. But with abuse so common, and abusers so sneaky, how can people possibly avoid them all?
One domestic violence counselor has a test to help out. The “No Test,” as he calls it, can help identify potential abusers early in a relationship.
“The No Test is basically to watch out for the way your partner responds the first time you change your mind or say no,” Rob explained on ABC News.
“While expressing disappointment is OK, it’s not the same as annoyed. Annoyed is ‘how dare you,’ a sign of ownership or entitlement.”
Rob points out that this test isn’t new knowledge for most women. Instead, the test helps validate that gut feeling that abusers are so good at manipulating you to ignore. It’s okay to say no to people. It never warrants anger.
An important thing to remember, too, is that people don’t enter relationships with abusers on purpose. Abusers are quite good at charming people, and ending up in a relationship with an abuser is never your fault. Some abusers would pass the No Test with flying colors!
But if a partner fails this test? It’s a bright red flag that they’re a dangerous person, and you should trust your instinct.
As Rob said: “The only person who can stop the abuse is the person who is doing the abusing.”
