Reading As A Cure For Depression

I read an interesting article recently about the positive effects of reading on depression. As someone who is lucky enough not to be affected herself by this challenge, but who has family members that are, the article naturally caught my eye.

Starting in May 2013, parts of the U.K. are initiating a new program called ‘Books on Prescription’. As part of this program, doctors will be able to prescribe self-help and mood-boosting books to patients suffering from depression, anxiety, phobias, chronic pain, and eating disorders. A government grant will fund libraries to carry these books, making them available to readers. Supported by the Royal Colleges of General Practitioners, Nursing and Psychiatrists, the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, and the British Psychological Society, this program is essentially cognitive behavioural therapy through reading and literature.

Established by Dr. Neil Frude, a clinical psychologist, this therapy model has been successfully used in Wales’ public libraries since 2005. Psychology professionals selected a list of self-help books on various topics for the program, and mood uplifting books were selected by readers and reading groups across the U.K. These include not only general books, but also those directed towards both younger and older age groups.

‘Bibliotherapy’ or the use of the written word as therapy is not a new concept. First used by the ancient Greeks, who considered libraries to be healing places, its use was promoted by Sigmund Freud as a component of his psychotherapeutic treatments, and was recommended for recovering World War II veterans. Current research suggests that reading can reduce stress levels in the reader up to 68%, more than listening to music or taking a walk, with positive physical stress readouts evident in only six minutes.

But how does reading affect our mindset?

• Reading allows the reader to connect with others undergoing similar challenges, reminding them that they aren’t alone. Finding similarities between themselves and that character may also assist in building their own self-confidence.
• It allows the reader to explore ways of overcoming their problems in a safe manner before trying a particular method for themselves.
• Reading can bring about a change in emotional state simply by immersion in the story. The pure escapism of a story can also give the reader something else to concentrate on other than their own challenges.
• The act of reading can cause the creation of new connections in the brain, especially in children and teenagers, allowing for differential brain function.
• It can assist children by demonstrating new coping skills, couched in terms they understand.
• Evidence exists that social reading/reading groups promote well-being and decreases isolation with participation in the group environment. 

While bibliotherapy likely won’t replace medical aids for mental illness, it may assist in decreasing a patient’s reliance on them, or, for mild to moderate sufferers, may lighten their needs for prescription drugs and their accompanying side effects.

So you know what this means—next time you’re having a bad day and are feeling low, reach for a book!

Photo credit: Spirit-Fire

Forensic Case Files: Black Death Victims Uncovered in London

A burial ground containing thirteen sets of remains was recently discovered in London during excavations for the Crossrail project, the expansion of London’s existing public transit rail lines. Located in Farringdon—an area of downtown London—in one of the rare undeveloped sections of the city, the remains were uncovered in a location suspected to be one of the city’s emergency burial grounds used during the 14th century plague known as the ‘Black Death’. Open in 1349 and possibly receiving up to 50,000 dead during the next three years, the Farringdon burial ground was referred to in historical texts as ‘no man’s land’. Closed in the 1500’s, its exact location was lost to time until now.

Laying a mere eight feet underground, the skeletons were discovered in two neat rows. The burial pattern indicates that this area of the cemetery was used at the beginning of the plague, when death rates were low and individual burials were common. In later years, the overburdened and fearful population simply discarded the constant stream of bodies into mass graves. An indication of the mindset of the population at the time—in 1347, the average number of wills registered in London was only 20; but by 1349, that number ballooned to 370. Simply put, the English expected to die, and wanted no contact with the sick or the dying that lessened their chances of survival.

Osteologists and archeologists from the Museum of London are already excavating and removing the remains for study. They plan to extract plague DNA from the tooth pulp of the victims and hope to be able to sequence the bacteria’s genomic DNA, possibly mapping it as the ‘mother of all modern plague species’. The remains will also give scientists a glimpse into life in the 14th century—the wear patterns on the bones reveal it was a life of heavy labour, but other indicators will give information about their general health and stature.

Yersinia pestis, the bacteria responsible for the Black Plague, originated in China and was brought to Europe in the mid-14th century. It started in Persia in 1346 and then spread through southern Europe in 1347 before moving north into the rest of Europe and Russia over the next five years. It arrived in London and the south of Britain in 1348 before spreading to the rest of the country and beyond. By the time the epidemic played out, an estimated 75 – 200 million people, roughly 30 – 60% of Europe’s population were dead. Carried by rats, and transmitted by the rodents’ fleas, Y. pestis sickens it’s victims by suppressing the body’s normal immune response. It directly affects immune cells in the blood and evades the body’s response by hiding and replicating in the lymph nodes, creating the characteristic black buboes or swollen lymph nodes that often oozed pus and blood. Medieval physicians often lanced the buboes, exposing the unsuspecting practitioner to the infectious contents and spreading the plague further. The number of infections dramatically decreased in Britain after 1350, but smaller outbreaks continued for the rest of the 14th century. A second major plague took place between 1665 and 1666 in London, but by the late 18th century, it had mostly disappeared from Europe.

An electron micrograph of a cluster of Yersinia pestis bacteria.

Why the plague died out has never been definitively answered, but there are several possibilities. Those that survived the first wave of the plague in 1348 became immune to further infections, leaving fewer susceptible to future infection. The 1348 wave of the plague mostly infected adults, but later waves—1361 for instance—primarily infected children who were not alive in 1348 and had no resistance to the bacteria. Later on, herd immunity (the greater immune population protecting the lesser susceptible population simply by their inability to become infected) would have protected younger members of the population. There is also a theory that the fleas that carried Yersinia pestis only lived on black rats. When larger brown rats out-competed the black rats in Europe, there were fewer carriers for the plague.

Photo credit: Crossrail, Rocky Mountain Laboratories/Wikimedia Commons, and the Toggenburg Bible.

Giveaways!

It’s the final days for Five Star’s Goodreads giveaway! 10 ARCs of DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT are up for grabs to American entrants, ending on Sunday night: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/41803-dead-without-a-stone-to-tell-it

And stay tuned for more giveaways coming soon!

Forensic Case Files: Arlington Burial for U.S.S. Monitor Sailors

Last May, we brought you a story about the remains of two U.S.S Monitor sailors, recovered in 2002 when the turret of the disintegrating wreck was recovered off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. While forensic anthropologists were able to determine important information about both men, conclusive identifications remain elusive more than a decade later.

Last Friday, more than 150 years after their deaths, those two soldiers were finally laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. They are likely to be the final Civil War soldiers buried there. Only two were buried on the grounds that previously belonged to Confederate General Robert E. Lee, but the ceremony honoured all sixteen sailors lost when the Monitor sank on December 31, 1862. Members from the sixteen families attended the ceremony, many travelling across country to be present. The public event was very well attended, some even appearing in full period dress in honour of the occasion.

A monument will be erected near the graves, honouring the sixteen sailors. The body of the ironclad warship will remain where it lies in 260 feet of water, possibly still containing the remains of her fourteen missing men.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy, Alex Brandon/Associated Press, Win McNamee/Getty Images, and Linda Davis/The Washington Post

Giveaways!

I’m giving away an autographed ARC of DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT to Canadian entrants. The contest closes on March 15, 2013: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/46552-dead-without-a-stone-to-tell-it

Five Star is giving away 10 ARCs to American entrants, ending on March 25, 2013: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/41803-dead-without-a-stone-to-tell-it

A Facebook giveaway! Stop by Facebook for your chance to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to win an autographed ARC: http://is.gd/iDxH1z

Forensics 101: Using the Bomb Curve to Date Human Remains

Over the past month, we’ve discussed human remains that were centuries—King Richard III—if not a millennium old—King Alfred the Great. For remains of this age, classic carbon dating is the most reliable way of determining time since death. But is there a more precise way to date more recent remains, remains that might only be thirty to fifty years old, instead of six hundred? There is, and that method uses the fallout from nuclear testing following the Second World War to determine time since death.

Following the end of the Second World War, nuclear weapons were tested by the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia. The fallout from this testing radically changed the percentage of radioactive carbon—14C—in the atmosphere, spiking significantly in the early 1960’s before peaking in 1963 at a level nearly twice that of 1950. Atmospheric 14C levels fell slowly in the decades following, but still remain 15% higher than in 1950.

Average atmospheric 14CO2 for the northern hemisphere

Just as strontium is incorporated into living organisms, 14C in atmospheric CO2 enters the food chain when plants use it to manufacture carbohydrates and proteins during photosynthesis. Those plants are then eaten by herbivores and become a permanent part of that animal’s bone structure. As a result, 14C from samples taken from skeletal remains after the 1950’s can be compared to the bomb curve to determine relevant dates. Samples taken from the mid-shaft of long bones represent childhood 14C levels. Spongy cancellous bone sampled from the ends of long bones will show a greater amount of turnover and remodeling that correlates closely to the date of death. Enamel from teeth captures a snapshot of the time when the tooth developed and erupted. If all the values fall in the pre-1950’s range, a different manner of aging the remains must to be used. But for those values that fall post 1950, a window of only a few years can be determined for the date of death.

The slow drop in atmospheric 14CO2 following the early 1960s is due to the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. In August of 1963, representatives from the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom signed a treaty banning all nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in space or under water. In the decades that followed, 123 additional countries signed the ban (the most recent was Montenegro in 2006), leaving 58 states as non-signatory.

Photo credit: Fastfission via Wikimedia Commons and Ubelaker, DH et al. Analysis of Artificial Radiocarbon in Different Skeletal and Dental Tissue Types to Evaluate Date of Death. Journal of Forensic Sciences; May, 2006

Giveaways!

A new Goodreads giveaway starts today! I’m giving away an autographed ARC to Canadian entrants. The contest closes on March 15, 2013: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/46552-dead-without-a-stone-to-tell-it

Five Star is giving away 10 copies to American entrants, ending on March 25, 2013: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/41803-dead-without-a-stone-to-tell-it

A Facebook giveaway! Stop by Facebook for your chance to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to win an autographed ARC: http://is.gd/iDxH1z