So you're feeling it too???

If you have been hit with a major whack of the blah stick, take some comfort in the fact that pretty much everyone I know- not just my patients but EVERYONE has come down with a major attack of end-of-year-itis this year.

Your symptoms; Tired, over it, no matter how much sleep you get it isn’t enough to make you feel refreshed and you need a holiday so badly it’s hideous!

I think what happens is that you see that light at the end of the tunnel (new year, a few days off at least, end of various projects) and you’re limping towards it and vaguely, feintly allowing yourself to relax into holiday mode. Plus you think “I’ll sleep in the holidays, I’ll relax in the holidays” etc. Meanwhile you run yourself ragged until those precious few days break actually arrive. Lastly we have the Christmas parties, the chocolates you’re given by the neighbours, your boss or your clients, the Christmas cheer and your eating habits have gone from restraint to diabolical and you’re now paying the price.

Then there’s the stress of the upsoming Christmas season. For my patients it’s often a matter of who gets which portion of the day(s). With so many needing to see mum and dad separately, often for both partners, there are sometimes four must-attend events. If any of those don’t have at least one person you’re dreading seeing, count your blessings.

So to get over the hump here my TOP 3 tips;

1. Exercise. My one size fits all panacea. Whether your thing is a half hour walk or a proper spin or pump calss at the gym, as long as you’re exercising more than just the fat on your rump, you will feel healthier.
2. Have some teetotal days. And don’t go nuts on the other days with the alcohol either. Feeling hung over or seedy won’t help you feel more energetic. Stick to water and maybe one glass of champagne or a beer. You really don’t need more than that.
3. Give away your Christmas hamper delights. I was fortunate enough to receive the most generous amounts of chocolate you have ever seen for Christmas. My problem is that having that stuff in the house overpowers my sense of self control. SO we packaged up our collective chocolates into brown paper bags and tomorrow we will drive them down to a local homeless shelter- or specifically to the guys sleeping in the rain outside because the homeless shelter is often full. I get to save my backside and the kids and I get to feel good at the same time. Bargain!!The year is nearly over! Enjoy!!

happy days!!!

If you’re sitting there dreading the upcoming festive season and wondering why your family is so uniquely insane, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that – take it from me- everyone’s family is just as insane as yours (trust me around this time of year I see a sudden rush of family aversion disorder that’s fairly ubiquitous!) the bad news is your family’s driving you nuts and that won’t change just because everyone else’s family is equally nuts.

While many people look to chardonnay, champagne and gin to blunt the angles of the sister-in-law’s barbs about your unruly kids, expanding rear or profligate spending, or your mother in law’s implication that she might get leprosy if she sits on your toilet, I do have some other suggestions to help you survive the day(s) with your liver vaguely in tact;

1. Team work. Christmas is a great opportunity for those who seek to divide and conquer. The ‘your family vs my family’ rift can become a gaping chasm around now unless you and your partner make a solid commitment to stay committed as an indelible team. Like a dog digging at the breach in the fence, toxic relatives will sniff a break in the wall of your relationship and start working it. Sure up your fence before you head into the lion’s den.
2. Be. Think about the person you are, the person you want to be and make sure your actions and words reflect that person- not the person who is overly sensitive or spoiling for a fight. If you think of yourself as ethical, dignified, generous and gracious, be that person on Christmas Day and let others behaviour be their problem- not yours. Snide comments and outright arguments don’t reflect well on them but they also won’t change the person you are if you stay true to yourself.
3. Count your blessings. Look around you at your partner, children, your home, your suburb and be thankful. I can’t tell you the number of patients I have that are spending Christmas alone. While having no psycho in laws might sound heavenly right now, just imagine your life with nobody close enough to you to have you over for lunch. Horrible, huh!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

May all of your wishes for 2012 come true!

Vitamin YUM

Despite dire warnings by every health organization under the sun that our obesity levels are killing us, it seems that chocolate is the new black, with a comprehensive literature review published in the British Medical Journal giving it the thumbs up as a preventer of heart disease. This is no joke… people who consumed most chocolate over a total of 7 studies had 37% less strokes and heart disease than those who ate the least.

And we’re not just talking about your slightly blah dark chocolate. The scientists threw in reports of chowing down on choc chip cookies, Freddo frogs, hot chocoalte and pretty much anything chocolatey you can think of that has hitherto been labelled as bad for you. Collective cheering explodes from multitudes of premenstrual women everywhere as their one-time guilty hidden pleasure can come out of the closet and be placed on the shelf next to the vitamin pills and green tea bags!

The Heart Foundation reacted with horror attempting to put our excitement back in the box declaring chocolate to be high in sugar and saturated fats and an altogether unsavoury snack. Pardon the pun!

So what’s the JD with chocolate? At the risk of invoking the ire of my role models at the Heart Foundation, I think we’d be foolish to dismiss the BMJ’s editorial team and their pooled analysis of 7 studies quite that quickly. We know chocolate (or more specifically cocoa) contains a wonderful array of antioxidants which travel around the body like fairy godmothers tapping nasty damage-causing free radicals and neutering them. We also know chocolate consumption seems to be linked to less diabetes and blood pressure.

But I don’t think that’s the full story. I’m no nutritionist but I suspect that the 500,000 odd steps between picking a cocoa bean and producing a choc chip muffin might lose a little of that antioxidant superpower along the way. My theory is this; lightening up!

Have you read ‘Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality’ by Glenn Ellenbogen? It’s actually about mental health but the name is brilliant isn’t it? My favourite book title ever ….and don’t I know a few people with exactly that problem? I am constantly supprounded by health zealots who want to wage holy Jihad against sugar, coffee, alcohol, carbs, non-organic vegetables, aritifical colours and all other sources of enjoyment. No that’s a bit of an exaggeration but guys,,,,, LIGHTEN UP!!! If you drink a couple of wines now and then you’re unlikely to die an unatural death. Coffee is actually good for you and all the other stuff is fine in moderation.

Maybe the chocolate lovers’ win is their willingness to just relax and not take their diet too seriously all the time? And now we know the odd Caramello Koala could sit on your hips but put a smile in your heart!

Is Sugar the new heroin?

Sunrise today- Click HERE to see our debate

Smile party girls, let's raise the roof!

Put a smile on your dial- even genetically hard wired sad sacks can tone down the misery

It was just a matter of time before we found the happiness gene. Your pre-programmed smile dial, which will decide whether you sit and whine about your lot when everyone else thinks you’re living the dream or whether you seem perennially satisfied despite being thrown from pillar to post by your own slings and arrows. New research published in the Journal of Human Genetics by Jan Emmanuel de Neve has found and named the new gene.

But if you suspect your low mood is the genetic aberration that abrogates you of your duty to smile, think again. Maybe it’s winter but nearly everyone I’ve seen this week at my surgery is feeling down- from just the exhaustion of dealing with sick miserable kids to outright depression. So, here’s the good news; everyone can take a few small steps to up their own happiness scores. There are mountains of research on this but these are my very best tips to feel happier;

1. Don’t let the little things pass you by. When life as a whole seems to hard, try instead to weave together little moments of happiness into a whole. That means stopping to register a bright blue sky, the sound of children laughing when you walk past a school playground, the smell of a fantastic coffee.. you get the drift. Lots of little happy moments can put a smile on your face that will last for five minutes… until you can find another moment of sunshine.
2. Be grateful. In Australia, we live in the most beautiful, free, open minded and liberal society. We all have people around us who care and would do lots for us.
3. Look after your body. If you are sleep deprived, run down to the point of sheer exhaustion or generally feeling like a train smash, it really is hard to love life. Don’t go for a radical lifestyle transplant in one hit but if your health habits could do with an extreme makeover, start with catching up on sleep, doing a little exercise and cutting out some of the junk food and move forward from there. I promise you, the way you feel will make you feel so much brighter.
4. Give. Studies have found that giving to charity, but even more importantly giving of your time and efforts to help those less fortunate is a short cut to satisfaction with your own lot.
5. Surround yourself with good energy people. Dig around your address book for the friends who make you laugh and who can take you away from your worst thoughts. You know those people who exhaust you and make you want to slit your own throat after a five minute conversation? Yeah, of course you do! Give them a very wide berth when things aren’t great!!

Ok they’re just the starters. But good ones. See if life looks better in a week’s time?

Might not be everyone's pin up but they rock my world!

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may not be your pin up parents but they just took yet another massive step up in my book yesterday when they told USA Today that they believe in complete honesty in their family. “There are no secrets at our house,” says Pitt, now starring in Cannes champ The Tree of Life. “We tell the kids, ‘Mom and Dad are going off to kiss.’ They go, ‘Eww, gross!’ But we demand it.”

I’m in the Brangelina camp because I want to raise kind, honest, good adults. I just don’t feel that I can demand honesty from my kids if I don’t lead by example. I want my kids to know that they can bet the farm that what I tell them is true (to the best of my knowledge) and that I will never lie to them. In return, I demand their honesty. Few things will make me come down like ten tons of bricks on their heads, but lying to me is one of them.

I think if you’re going to demand honesty from your children, you can’t paint them into a corner either. Let’s take the very contentious issue of teenage drinking. It’s dangerous, and not only for the body.  As we all know, the actions and facebook posts undertaken by a written off teenager can destroy their reputations, too. So please don’t think I’m a fan of the junior tipple- I am not.

But if I tell my kids that under no circumstances are they to touch alcohol … and that if I catch them they’ll be punished from here to Bullamacanka…. etc I am making it pretty inevitable that I’m going to cop a lie instead. Worse, if they really fear being caught disobeying me, they might find themselves in a situation where they are at risk of harm but too scared to call me to get help. Their safety comes first. So here’s how I handle the issue;

1. I explain my concerns about teenaged drinking. I explain why getting hammered is a terrible idea. I answer every question patiently and back up my position with facts.
2. I tell them that no matter what happens, they can always call me.
3. I do not allow other teenagers to drink in my home unless I’ve spoken to their parents and cleared it with them.
4. I will not buy/ supply alcohol to a minor
5. No lies- unbreakable rule

They will drink- not all the time, but in a way that I think will hopefully protect them from harm. You might have a different philosophy but that’s our stand.

The honesty message can be taken too far. I don’t think I need to volunteer to embelish every statement with sordid details and am happy to stick to the bare facts.

That’s the Dr Ginni philosophy and like so many areas in the parenting stream, all we have is expert opinion and close to nothing in objective scientific analysis. But (unlike so many aspects of parenting) I have never had any reason to look back and question that stance. Sam is now 18 and an incredibly responsible, honest and fun loving guy. Tick one for my theory!

What do you think?

Look mum! No hands!!

A new report has found that Australia has become a take-away Nation. New data shows Australia now has more than 1250 Subways, 845 Domino’s, 780 McDonald’s and 300 Hungry Jacks and 600 KFCs here and in New Zealand. And we’re getting fatter. A correlation? Perhaps!

Now anyone who knows me knows that not only am I a food Nazi- I’m one of those mums who insists my kids eat their veggies and fish and we keep junk food to special occasions only (and my defnition of junk is probably broader than yours!!)… but I’m also a bit of a wannabe Masterchef. I LOVE cooking- even for my crazily enormous and diverse family. But I work full time and there are an awful lot of us and sometimes when I’ve started my day at 4:45am to get to Chanedl 7 before a long day in the surgery getting home at 6:45pm I cannot be trucked maing a meal let alone buying the ingredietns for one.

So am I going to wag my finger at you and insist you go to a farmer’s market and hand fillet your organic lamb? Nope. Friends, if you need to take a night off the kitchen every night to preserve your sanity and your relationships, I’m in your corner fighting for you. Do it. But let’s do it right so you’re not turning into the Goodyear blimp and taking the rest of your family down the same pathh in the process;

1. Soup. It’s winter. Over a weekend, chucking veggies in a pan with some stock cubes (sorry Masterchef but this is the real world here) and water while you do a load of washing is not difficult. Said soup can be frozen in lots and reheated to SUPPLEMENT your take away so you don’t need quite as much of it.
2. On the same weekend grab a kilo of carrots and peel and chop into batons and whack them in water. Have some cucumbers washed and stored in yor fridge and some washed punnets of cherry tomatoes. I won’t tell you to do the same with capsicums unless you’re lucky enough to be on the BRW Rich 200 list! But you get my drift. Have a stack of ready to go veggies on tap and whacking a plate of the good stuff on the kitchen bench while you place the take away order is a five minute procedure tops.
3. Make veggies the mainstay of your meal. When ordering Asian takeaway you can order a beef, chicken, a lamb and some rice. Even when cooking, most of us make the meat or chicken the mainstay of the meal and the salad or veggies are the things we eat if there’s room afterwards. When getting take away make sure to order at least 50% veggie dishes. And then still supplement with the veggies you’ve ‘prepared earlier’!!
4. The following are take aways are going to have to be taken off the table.. Totally
   1. Hot chips. Any masterchef knows that good chips are twice fried in animal oil. Cheaper ones are usually doused in palm oil and well, don’t get me started but those things have no place in your life.
   2. Anything that comes in a big bucket. Pretty much for the same reasons above and for the love of those cute little Orangutans in Borneo. Fried chicken, especially when the closest thing to resemble a vegetable is some cabbage doused in so much mayo it’s a self contained calorie orgy … well it just doesn’t cut it as a meal.
   3. The following should be removed from the weekly menu and relagetd to birthday parties and special occasions
      1. Indian curries like butter chicken and other cream based dishes. They are loaded with saturated fats and coupled with carbs like naan bread and rice and you’re on fat boulevarde. Go for daal, chickpeas and fish.
      2. Thai or a Malaysian curries that are based on coconut milk. Coconut milk is so good and so loaded with saturated fats. Coupled with rice and you’re blimping up by the minute.
      3. Soft drinks. Why is it that pizza and burgers have to be consumed with Coke? Calorie packed, full of chemicals and lethal to teeth , these things are consumed if ever out of the house and at special occasions.

Hey how’s that? Now that I’ve given you permission to dodge the cooking bullet you’ve got more time for fun stuff like laundry and the kids homework. Oh shucks………. any time!!!!

We discussed this on Sunrise this morning- click HERE to watch the segment

There are a few topics that are certain to stir up passions and tension…. and misinformation. Immunizations, food allergies and ADHD. In Melbourne at the moment, an artist by the name of Sean O’Carroll has opened an exhibition called Ritalin depiciting boys in cages to signify the overuse of medications in a ‘disorder’ that is often an ill-gotten label for normal boy behaviour.

Now I didn’t speak personally to the artist and it is possible that he has a degree in neurochemistry that qualifies him to make that call. But I’m going to attempt to debunk it in the name of children who suffer terribly from the affliction and who benefit from an incredibly effective treatment braving the judgement of other parents in the process.

Stimulants including Ritalin and Strattera are good at treating ADHD. They have more scientific evidence to support them than many of the drugs more commonly prescribed today. That doesn’t leave them without flaws;

1. Diagnosing ADHD is not a simple yes-no scan or blood test. At the moment the best test we have is called the DSM IV. It’s a manual that describes a whole range of symptoms. The children need to have 6 out of 9 symptoms in three separate categories to earn the diagnosis; the symptoms need to be present in two separate settings (at home and at school for example) and need to have been there for more than six months. In addition the symptoms need to be wreaking havoc in their life- for example impacting on their ability to learn or make friends.There is a lot of subjectivity at play here- because the symptoms are reported by teachers and parents as well as observed by the doctor. So there is a lot of potential for bias and misdiagnosis. Having said that I can’t think of too many doctors who would confuse normal boy behaviour with a condition like ADHD.
2. Simply throwing a medicine at a child with ADHD without giving them support through occupational therapists, psychologists, behavioural therapists, training the teachers and the parents on how to manage the problem is often inadequate. Unfortunately with many schools poorly resourced (the funding is available to schools for extra therapists but you need a seriously committed principal who is prepared to put in 18 hour days to comeplete the necessary paperwork to make it happen!) and with parents working full time and struggling to put a meal on the table and keep up with the washing let alone sit and do strategies and extra therapies at night…. and the cost of face to face therapies being prohibitive to most families, few are getting the therapies they need. However that does not mean medication is ineffective- it just could be better with the appropriate supportiv therapies.
3. Many children with ADHD will ALSO have another disorder. The most common are learning difficulties, condact disorder, anxiety and mood disrders (like depression). If these problems aren’t picked up and effectively treated, then you won’t get an optimum result.

However rather than thinking that there’s too much Ritalin and Strattera around, I am convinced the opposite is true. Access to these drugs is through a specialist paediatrician or psychiatrist only, meaning access is limited, especially in disadvantaged communities where it’s needed most.

And given the hideous and frankly unscientific attack launched against parents who get their children treated and the kids themselves by artists and others whose intentions are good, I fear more kids who could really benefit from having their condition treated will miss out.

That’s a shame because untreated, their prognosis is poor with many having chronic academic failures, employment and social problems. Let’s stop judging and give these kids a break.

Flu? Too bad; mums can't get sick!

The seasons are starting earlier, don’t you think? It’s only March and it feels like July. The number of sick little ones doing the day care shuffle between ear infections, diarrhoea and the fabulous winter snot fest is frankly incredible. Their poor mums are already worn out from the endless nights of bleary eyed attempts at measuring out Panadol at 2am and then cleaning a steady [procession of runny nappies…

I almost don’t have the heart to tell them that we’re about to hit flu season and they’re already in the firing line. WE do know that children, especially little children from day care to the early primary years are the most likely to catch the flu. In kids flu is slightly different to adults. Along with the usual stock standard fevers, coughs and being miserable and off their food, they get diarrhoea and sometimes vomiting as well so the flu is just a great look all round. Not sure whether you knew this but along with the very sick and elderly, it’s the under twos that are most likely to be slammed hard by the flu and land up in hospital.

But kids are amazing. On the whole they bounce back and are running around like little madmen hours after mum was in tears with worry at the listless, pale mess in her arms.

She on the other hand is less resilient when she gets the flu. Not only does having flu make her feel like ten kinds of rubbish, it also stuffs up her entire family as a recent survey by Priceline pharmacies confirmed. The survey of busy mums (I know that is a tautology) and dads found that their number one concern was not being able to care for their children! Coming in far behind was their worry about falling behind with housework or losing income from having to take a day off work. Only 17% of the mums surveyed thought their family would manage fine if they caught the flu.

I’m seeing bundles of irony there. Firstly she is sitting in the firing line of the flu because she’s nursing her children through it. Also, hello; she can’t take care of her kids? Who exactly is taking care of her? Who’s making her a tea with lemon and honey and running to the shop for cold and flu tablets, huh? That didn’t even register as a concern for mums surveyed here.

That’s probably why mums don’t get flu shots (in the survey 43% had had one in the last three years). Oddly it was the blokes who were getting their shots (56%), probably because they get them free through work.

There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and flu is no different. A lot of mums think that it’s good hand hygiene that will save their skins this winter. I like the thinking and in no way am I bashing a good hand wash but when it comes to flu, it’s a vaccination that is by far the best way to prevent the flu and the ensuing chaos for the family. To me it’s a no brainer- yes I had one this year already!

Mother to mothers out there, I can relate to the expression ‘I can’t afford to get sick’. So if there’s a way to dodge the flu bullet, why wouldn’t you do it?

I love my job

So it turns out that when you say ‘work is killing me,’ it is. Literally. Well for some people anyway.

A new Australian study has added scientific rigour to the trend I see in my surgery every day; do a job that you hate and it is a drag on your mental health. The worst offenders; poor job security, excessive workload and feeling like you have no control over what happens at work.Ultimately it steals your sleep and zaps you physically as well.

It’s hardly surprising. In today’s materialistic, fast paced world, there are so many of us whose job defines us. So if you love you work, you feel good about yourself, but on the flip side turn up day in day out to a place where you’re not valued, not rewarded and it can rip the stuffing out of your soul.

I spend so much time trying to patch half broken people back together to get them back to work when it is clearly wearing them down. Especially when going to work means knowing the boss will look down her nose dismissively at everything you do; where you’ll be expected to stay back, come in early, never take sick leave and not be appropriately rewarded financially or otherwise; where you have no career progresion and no guarantee you’ll be employed next month; where you’re so loaded up with work that it starts consuming you; when work steals your sleep and it makes you feel useless and unappreciated.

Women are inherently risk averse. After spending years talking to women who put up with what I frankly see as toxic marriages, unacceptable treatment at work and even from their girlfriends, I’ve worked out that they hate change. They know their situation is a drudge, but they’re nervous to make any real moves because they instinctively believe that the grass on the other side of the mountain is no greener, but, rather, is likely to be a toxic swamp.

But this study has confirmed that waiting around for the world to change, or the Messiah to come, or whatever pie in the sky lightning bolt to make your life better is not just pointless but harmful to boot.

Food for thought!