Mental Rest

Mental illness, or also known as mental disorder, according to wikipedia, is a psychological or behavioral pattern associated with distress or disability that occurs in an individual and certainly is not a part of normal development.

Such phenomenon is believed to be caused by two types of factors. Firstly, in many cases, individuals who suffer from mental disorders are resulted from genetic vulnerabilities. In other cases, environmental stressors, such as working pressure, family tensions, negative social influences and etc, appear to be another common factor.

Now, there is another new branch of exploration as far as mental illnesses are concerned. Young healthy adults aged between 17 and 24 years old, and who got less than an average of 5 hours' sleep appear to have threefolds of risk in developing mental illness, comparing to those who sleep for about 8 or 9 hours each night averagely.

Such study involved participants from countries such as New South Wales and Australia. Professor Glozier, who took charge in the mentioned study, stressed that sleep disturbance appears to be an important symptom in mental disorders, for example depression.

The Other Benefit of Breastfeeding

Breast milk is a very essential source of nutrient. For many GTF members, the benefits of breastfeeding are already very much well-known among all of you. But for the sake of those who are not aware of it, this post will reveal what breastfeeding does, especially to the babies.

Derived from babycenter, breast milk is best for babies, and it actually extend well beyond basic nutrition. Many studies which revolve around breastfeeding, shown that stomach viruses, lower respiratory illnesses, ear infections, and meningitis occur less often in breastfed babies. Other than that, as many GTF members known for a long time, people who were breastfed during their infancy period, are likely to be a lot smarter than those who were not breastfed. What is more, breastfeeding causes the relationship between mother and the baby to become even more intimate.

Besides all those mentioned above, there is another reason why mothers should breastfeed their babies, not for the sake of the children, but for the sake of yourself (mothers). According to one fo the latest studies, an article published in the American Journal of Medicine, women who breastfed her children has a considerably lower risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes when she is older, compare to those who did not breastfeed.

There were 2,233 women aged between 40 and 78 years old who participated in the study. From the statistics, about 56% of them mentioned that they has breastfed for a month or more. From the study, about 27% of the mothers who did not breastfed developed Type 2 Diabetes, which is twice more likely than those who breastfed.