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Mud Wasps and Ketamine. Not a Cocktail, Don't Worry.
Also, pilots aren't reporting mental health problems but college students are.
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Battling the Mud Wasp
We’re fast approaching the darkest day of the year, coming up this week, in fact. And that got me thinking about seasonal affective disorder and deciding to make an episode about it. One of the first things I found out was that, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), it’s not even called seasonal affective disorder or SAD anymore. It’s now major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern.
Given how handy the SAD acronym was, I immediately thought of the new terminology and what that acronym could spell out. MDDWASP doesn’t roll off the tongue so much but “MUD WASP” does. So that blah feeling that a whole lot of people get every winter? That’s a mud wasp. Or MUD WASP. Capitalization is up to you.
On this week’s episode, I talk with Dr. Ken Duckworth, the chief medical officer for NAMI about this phenomenon. He says we know that this phenomenon is real and that it is a type of depression. The symptoms will be pretty familiar to anyone who experiences depression outside of a seasonal context. We also talk about the lesser known but very real alternative version of the mud wasp - the spring/summer variety. It’s much less common and even less understood.
For the winter wasp, Ken recommends getting one of those light box lamps and spending regularly scheduled times in front of it. It’s better at stimulating the pineal gland, he says, than just standing near a window in the winter.
We also spend some time on this episode with a couple of listeners from our Preshies group on Facebook and learn about their experiences navigating the mud wasp. In that group online, someone pointed out that the real mud wasp is a nasty insect, horrible bitey things. Yep, the new name holds up.
Pilots aren’t reporting mental health troubles
If you can navigate the byzantine series of paywalls and logins, you should be able to read for free an article about airline pilots not reporting problems with their mental health for fear of being grounded.
The commercial airline pilot kept his condition a secret for years. He was supposed to inform the Federal Aviation Administration that he was seeing a therapist for anxiety and depression, but he couldn’t bring himself to share his despair. He was afraid of the repercussions.
“I lied to the FAA about the treatment I was receiving because that would have opened a can of worms. I would have been grounded until I was better,” said the 31-year-old first officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his airline did not authorize him to talk with journalists. “It is very easy to just not tell them what’s going on.”
I hope you are not reading this newsletter on a plane and if you are I hope there is no sobbing sound coming from the cockpit.
Ketamine risks and rewards
In the wake of actor Matthew Perry’s death being blamed on the effects of ketamine, PBS has a look at current thinking involving the drug. Ketamine has become increasingly popular and done so quickly and a clear regulatory path doesn’t really exist particularly in regard to marketing, according to one of the doctors in the story:
The bottom line is that there is an important loophole in our system of regulating how prescription drugs can be marketed. And this loophole needs to be closed. We have a patchwork of regulations by the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and consumer protection laws.
And these restrict how pharmaceutical companies the makers of ketamine can market and promote the drug, but they don't necessarily restrict how other companies, these telehealth companies and freestanding clinics can market and promote the drug.
The bottom line is that our regulations governing drug promotion were conceived and were written in an era before these companies existed. And so we now have companies that are exploiting these loopholes, and marketing this drug making wildly outlandish claims about it safety and effectiveness.
As liberal arts gets devalued, mental distress increases
So writes Rosario Ceballo of Georgetown University:
It is not a coincidence that this mental health crisis is happening at precisely the same time we are devaluing intellectual exploration and a liberal arts education. In 2020, just 4 percent of college graduates majored in English, foreign languages and literatures, history, or philosophy.
The increasingly public push against a liberal arts education is separating students from their intrinsic motivations for learning and pushing them toward purely extrinsic factors in their choice of major. A wealth of research demonstrates that intrinsic motivation is a catalyst for learning; it is associated with deeper engagement, perseverance and a greater understanding of new material.
On Sleeping with Celebrities: Ben Partridge
Doze off while being toured around southern Wales!
Benjamin Partridge is the host of Beef and Dairy Network podcast, which is a very funny comedy program described as “The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.” It is a program here on the Maximum Fun network. Mr. Partridge is also a Welshman and would very much like for you to join him as he takes us on a tour of the smaller and larger cities of the southern Wales coastline. Learn about the seaside recreation area where all the nearby miners went at once and learn about the city with a cathedral much too large for the city’s population. You will fall asleep before we ever reach the western shore.
I have learned so much from listening to John’s interviews and podcasts. I do contribute monthly to maximum fun. Wish I could afford to give more but this is the only subscription I give to- other than my house of worship. Thanks, John Moe.
Hi John! I’m glad you’re here. Hey, I listened to Sleeping With Celebrities (with Benjamin Partridge-) for the very first time this morning between 7 & 8am CST. I’m not Welsh, but fascinated with Wales and the Welsh language (Cymru), so I was wide awake through the whole thing. I live in Kansas, the Kansas City area. Thank you for this program, but more importantly Depresh Mode & The Hilarious World of Depression. Life-saving and entertaining! Thank you.