I JUST THOUGHT THIS WAS INTERESTING DEPT: HOW TO BUILD UP YOUR STAMINA

Because we all need it, whether we have Moebius or not; after all, we all have lives.  So hether we have a long day at work, or at school, or we are training for a marathon, or...whether we're chasing a toddler around the house, the question is:  how can we build up our endurance?  Here are some ways:

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Whether you're training for a marathon or chasing a toddler around the house, there are plenty of reasons to want more stamina.

Often referred to as endurance, stamina is your ability to sustain a physical or mental effort for a long period of time. If you've been experiencing a personal energy crisis lately (outside of dealing with your utility bills), developing your endurance might be just the thing for recovering your zing.

Try these five not-so-obvious ways to boost stamina now.

1. Reduce recovery time and resistance

To build muscle endurance, limit your recovery time between sets to 30 to 90 seconds. Want to kick things up a notch? Take the recovery time -- and the weight -- down a notch. Less resistance, more repetitions and resting for 30 seconds or less between exercises is optimal for building stamina, a 2006 article in the Journal of Strength Conditioning and Research concluded. In other words, embrace those circuit workouts!

 

2. Maintain balance

Cutting your recovery time and pushing yourself during a workout are great steps toward having more stamina, but don't forget that your body still deserves some R&R.

"You want to train hard, but if you end up training hard every day, you might find that the intensity you put out gets lower and lower," says Erica Giovinazzo, registered dietitian and CrossFit coach at Brick New York. If you find your marathon gym sessions are adversely affecting your performance, take it easy for a day.

"Rest, go for a light run, bike ride, swim or take a yoga class instead of going all out," suggests Giovinazzo.

 

3. Ratchet up intensity

"There is a time and a place for keeping a steady pace, but if you really want to increase stamina, then increase the intensity," advises Giovinazzo. To accomplish that, she recommends doing short intervals at a sprint pace.

"(It) could be running, rowing, biking or doing other kinds of exercises -- such as burpees, squats or even push-ups," she says. "Whatever (you do), you'll know you've increased the intensity when you're out of breath and feel that good burning sensation in whatever muscles are being worked."

 

4. Remember 'frequency + duration'

Feeling the burn after an intense (but short) bout of burpees is a sign you're working your muscles. But hey, don't forget the other two components that comprise the stamina-building trifecta: frequency and duration.

Make sure you're not only going all-out one day per week, but that you're meeting the American College of Sports Medicine's recommendation, which includes doing three to five workouts weekly (each for 20-plus minutes).

 

5. Think: Mind over matter

Another important way to increase your stamina is to use the power of your mind. "Our minds are the key to either pushing our bodies or stopping short," says Giovinazzo. "If we want to increase stamina, we have to be willing to push the envelope. (And) to do that, we need willingness and determination."

 

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MOEBIUS SYNDROME IN THE NEWS

This is from the UK; meet Moebius hero George Read.  Some of you may have seen this story already; it's been posted elsewhere...but if you haven't, please read on.  George has Moebius Syndrome.  But it isn't stopping him:

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AN INSPIRATIONAL schoolboy has learned to play the bagpipes despite being born with a rare condition which caused paralysis on one side of his face.

Eleven-year-old George Read’s parents were told by doctors he would not even be able to drink from a straw after he was diagnosed with Moebius Syndrome.

But the determined youngster set his sights on mastering the pipes after he was sent home to practise on a chanter by his school.

Dad Colin, of Inglis Avenue, Port Seton, told the Courier: “Because of George’s condition, he can’t close his mouth around the pipes.

“When he first came home with the chanter he couldn’t get a sound from it, but he was determined.

“The first night he came into the living room and he had taped his mouth shut at the sides to try and get something.

“Eventually he worked out a way to lodge the pipe in the roof of his mouth with his tongue, and play.

“Now he’s moved on to the bagpipes, and is determined. We’re very proud of him.”

When George’s parents Colin and Dionne were told he had Moebius Syndrome, they were stunned by how little was known about the condition.

The rare congenital disorder’s main feature is the absence of the nerves which control facial expression, allowing blinking of the eyes and the ability to smile.

Other nerves and muscles can also be affected by the condition, causing a wide spectrum of symptoms, from difficulty in chewing and swallowing to speech impediments, hearing and sight sensitivity, and cleft palates.

It is estimated there are about 200 people with the condition in the UK.

Dionne and Colin, who run BNI Scotland South and East, set up the Moebius Research Trust to raise funds to allow research into the condition.

Dionne said: “So little was known about the condition when George was diagnosed and, while George’s symptoms are at the lower end of the spectrum, we have met families who need a lot of support.

“We now have more than 120 people with the condition on our register and have raised £110,000 towards our £250,000 goal.

“We hope George’s achievements give other families hope and show what can be overcome.

“When he was young we were told he’d never walk on grass, he’d never learn to ride a bicycle and would never drink from a straw, never mind master the bagpipes.

“He proved the doctors wrong and we want to be able to tell parents what their children can do, not what they cannot.”

George plays for Cockenzie and Port Seton Royal British Legion Pipes and Drums and marched with the band at last year’s gala day parade.

The Cockenzie Primary pupil has to wear sunglasses in the sunlight because his eyes are sensitive to light, but he happily stepped up to show off his piping skills.

And he has been invited to perform at the Piping Hot Ball later this month in Lanarkshire.

The annual ball raises money for Maggie’s Centres, and George has been asked to play solos for two guests who are celebrating their birthdays on the night.

George said: “I enjoy playing the bagpipes and I want to continue.”

And dad Colin revealed a family friend is working on a way to make playing even easier for George.

He said: “Because George can’t close his mouth it takes a lot more puff for him to play; sometimes he looks close to collapse at the end of a performance.

“A dentist friend is looking into creating a gumshield with a hole for the pipe to go in, which would make it easier.”

A concert to raise money for the Moebius Research Trust is being held in the Eskmills Function Suite, Musselburgh, tomorrow (Saturday) night.

Electric Eighties play their first Scottish show, headlining a night which will also feature Edinburgh’s Got Talent winner Saskia and professional dancers.

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AN INSPIRATIONAL schoolboy has learned to play the bagpipes despite being born with a rare condition which caused paralysis on one side of his face. - See more at: http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/roundup/articles/2014/03/07/490875-its-no-longer-a-pipe-dream-for-inspirational-george/?mode=print#sthash.x6Ws3mBO.dpuf

AN INSPIRATIONAL schoolboy has learned to play the bagpipes despite being born with a rare condition which caused paralysis on one side of his face.

George Read has beaten the odds to master the bagpipes

Eleven-year-old George Read’s parents were told by doctors he would not even be able to drink from a straw after he was diagnosed with Moebius Syndrome.

But the determined youngster set his sights on mastering the pipes after he was sent home to practise on a chanter by his school.

Dad Colin, of Inglis Avenue, Port Seton, told the Courier: “Because of George’s condition, he can’t close his mouth around the pipes.

“When he first came home with the chanter he couldn’t get a sound from it, but he was determined.

“The first night he came into the living room and he had taped his mouth shut at the sides to try and get something.

“Eventually he worked out a way to lodge the pipe in the roof of his mouth with his tongue, and play.

“Now he’s moved on to the bagpipes, and is determined. We’re very proud of him.”

When George’s parents Colin and Dionne were told he had Moebius Syndrome, they were stunned by how little was known about the condition.

The rare congenital disorder’s main feature is the absence of the nerves which control facial expression, allowing blinking of the eyes and the ability to smile.

Other nerves and muscles can also be affected by the condition, causing a wide spectrum of symptoms, from difficulty in chewing and swallowing to speech impediments, hearing and sight sensitivity, and cleft palates.

It is estimated there are about 200 people with the condition in the UK.

Dionne and Colin, who run BNI Scotland South and East, set up the Moebius Research Trust to raise funds to allow research into the condition.

Dionne said: “So little was known about the condition when George was diagnosed and, while George’s symptoms are at the lower end of the spectrum, we have met families who need a lot of support.

“We now have more than 120 people with the condition on our register and have raised £110,000 towards our £250,000 goal.

“We hope George’s achievements give other families hope and show what can be overcome.

“When he was young we were told he’d never walk on grass, he’d never learn to ride a bicycle and would never drink from a straw, never mind master the bagpipes.

“He proved the doctors wrong and we want to be able to tell parents what their children can do, not what they cannot.”

George plays for Cockenzie and Port Seton Royal British Legion Pipes and Drums and marched with the band at last year’s gala day parade.

The Cockenzie Primary pupil has to wear sunglasses in the sunlight because his eyes are sensitive to light, but he happily stepped up to show off his piping skills.

And he has been invited to perform at the Piping Hot Ball later this month in Lanarkshire.

The annual ball raises money for Maggie’s Centres, and George has been asked to play solos for two guests who are celebrating their birthdays on the night.

George said: “I enjoy playing the bagpipes and I want to continue.”

And dad Colin revealed a family friend is working on a way to make playing even easier for George.

He said: “Because George can’t close his mouth it takes a lot more puff for him to play; sometimes he looks close to collapse at the end of a performance.

“A dentist friend is looking into creating a gumshield with a hole for the pipe to go in, which would make it easier.”

A concert to raise money for the Moebius Research Trust is being held in the Eskmills Function Suite, Musselburgh, tomorrow (Saturday) night.

Electric Eighties play their first Scottish show, headlining a night which will also feature Edinburgh’s Got Talent winner Saskia and professional dancers.

- See more at: http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/roundup/articles/2014/03/07/490875-its-no-longer-a-pipe-dream-for-inspirational-george/#sthash.GG2bXApT.dpuf

AN INSPIRATIONAL schoolboy has learned to play the bagpipes despite being born with a rare condition which caused paralysis on one side of his face.

George Read has beaten the odds to master the bagpipes

Eleven-year-old George Read’s parents were told by doctors he would not even be able to drink from a straw after he was diagnosed with Moebius Syndrome.

But the determined youngster set his sights on mastering the pipes after he was sent home to practise on a chanter by his school.

Dad Colin, of Inglis Avenue, Port Seton, told the Courier: “Because of George’s condition, he can’t close his mouth around the pipes.

“When he first came home with the chanter he couldn’t get a sound from it, but he was determined.

“The first night he came into the living room and he had taped his mouth shut at the sides to try and get something.

“Eventually he worked out a way to lodge the pipe in the roof of his mouth with his tongue, and play.

“Now he’s moved on to the bagpipes, and is determined. We’re very proud of him.”

When George’s parents Colin and Dionne were told he had Moebius Syndrome, they were stunned by how little was known about the condition.

The rare congenital disorder’s main feature is the absence of the nerves which control facial expression, allowing blinking of the eyes and the ability to smile.

Other nerves and muscles can also be affected by the condition, causing a wide spectrum of symptoms, from difficulty in chewing and swallowing to speech impediments, hearing and sight sensitivity, and cleft palates.

It is estimated there are about 200 people with the condition in the UK.

Dionne and Colin, who run BNI Scotland South and East, set up the Moebius Research Trust to raise funds to allow research into the condition.

Dionne said: “So little was known about the condition when George was diagnosed and, while George’s symptoms are at the lower end of the spectrum, we have met families who need a lot of support.

“We now have more than 120 people with the condition on our register and have raised £110,000 towards our £250,000 goal.

“We hope George’s achievements give other families hope and show what can be overcome.

“When he was young we were told he’d never walk on grass, he’d never learn to ride a bicycle and would never drink from a straw, never mind master the bagpipes.

“He proved the doctors wrong and we want to be able to tell parents what their children can do, not what they cannot.”

George plays for Cockenzie and Port Seton Royal British Legion Pipes and Drums and marched with the band at last year’s gala day parade.

The Cockenzie Primary pupil has to wear sunglasses in the sunlight because his eyes are sensitive to light, but he happily stepped up to show off his piping skills.

And he has been invited to perform at the Piping Hot Ball later this month in Lanarkshire.

The annual ball raises money for Maggie’s Centres, and George has been asked to play solos for two guests who are celebrating their birthdays on the night.

George said: “I enjoy playing the bagpipes and I want to continue.”

And dad Colin revealed a family friend is working on a way to make playing even easier for George.

He said: “Because George can’t close his mouth it takes a lot more puff for him to play; sometimes he looks close to collapse at the end of a performance.

“A dentist friend is looking into creating a gumshield with a hole for the pipe to go in, which would make it easier.”

A concert to raise money for the Moebius Research Trust is being held in the Eskmills Function Suite, Musselburgh, tomorrow (Saturday) night.

Electric Eighties play their first Scottish show, headlining a night which will also feature Edinburgh’s Got Talent winner Saskia and professional dancers.

- See more at: http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/roundup/articles/2014/03/07/490875-its-no-longer-a-pipe-dream-for-inspirational-george/#sthash.GG2bXApT.dpuf

AN INSPIRATIONAL schoolboy has learned to play the bagpipes despite being born with a rare condition which caused paralysis on one side of his face.

George Read has beaten the odds to master the bagpipes

Eleven-year-old George Read’s parents were told by doctors he would not even be able to drink from a straw after he was diagnosed with Moebius Syndrome.

But the determined youngster set his sights on mastering the pipes after he was sent home to practise on a chanter by his school.

Dad Colin, of Inglis Avenue, Port Seton, told the Courier: “Because of George’s condition, he can’t close his mouth around the pipes.

“When he first came home with the chanter he couldn’t get a sound from it, but he was determined.

“The first night he came into the living room and he had taped his mouth shut at the sides to try and get something.

“Eventually he worked out a way to lodge the pipe in the roof of his mouth with his tongue, and play.

“Now he’s moved on to the bagpipes, and is determined. We’re very proud of him.”

When George’s parents Colin and Dionne were told he had Moebius Syndrome, they were stunned by how little was known about the condition.

The rare congenital disorder’s main feature is the absence of the nerves which control facial expression, allowing blinking of the eyes and the ability to smile.

Other nerves and muscles can also be affected by the condition, causing a wide spectrum of symptoms, from difficulty in chewing and swallowing to speech impediments, hearing and sight sensitivity, and cleft palates.

It is estimated there are about 200 people with the condition in the UK.

Dionne and Colin, who run BNI Scotland South and East, set up the Moebius Research Trust to raise funds to allow research into the condition.

Dionne said: “So little was known about the condition when George was diagnosed and, while George’s symptoms are at the lower end of the spectrum, we have met families who need a lot of support.

“We now have more than 120 people with the condition on our register and have raised £110,000 towards our £250,000 goal.

“We hope George’s achievements give other families hope and show what can be overcome.

“When he was young we were told he’d never walk on grass, he’d never learn to ride a bicycle and would never drink from a straw, never mind master the bagpipes.

“He proved the doctors wrong and we want to be able to tell parents what their children can do, not what they cannot.”

George plays for Cockenzie and Port Seton Royal British Legion Pipes and Drums and marched with the band at last year’s gala day parade.

The Cockenzie Primary pupil has to wear sunglasses in the sunlight because his eyes are sensitive to light, but he happily stepped up to show off his piping skills.

And he has been invited to perform at the Piping Hot Ball later this month in Lanarkshire.

The annual ball raises money for Maggie’s Centres, and George has been asked to play solos for two guests who are celebrating their birthdays on the night.

George said: “I enjoy playing the bagpipes and I want to continue.”

And dad Colin revealed a family friend is working on a way to make playing even easier for George.

He said: “Because George can’t close his mouth it takes a lot more puff for him to play; sometimes he looks close to collapse at the end of a performance.

“A dentist friend is looking into creating a gumshield with a hole for the pipe to go in, which would make it easier.”

A concert to raise money for the Moebius Research Trust is being held in the Eskmills Function Suite, Musselburgh, tomorrow (Saturday) night.

Electric Eighties play their first Scottish show, headlining a night which will also feature Edinburgh’s Got Talent winner Saskia and professional dancers.

- See more at: http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/roundup/articles/2014/03/07/490875-its-no-longer-a-pipe-dream-for-inspirational-george/#sthash.GG2bXApT.dpuf

HEALTH AND MEDICINE UPDATE: FIVE STUDIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

From CNN.  One of the new studies has to do with autism.  Read on:

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Here's a roundup of five medical studies published this week that might give you new insights into your health, mind and body. Remember, correlation is not causation – so if a study finds a connection between two things, it doesn't mean that one causes the other.

Autism may begin in the womb
Journal: New England Journal of Medicine
With this week's CDC announcement that 1 in 68 children in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder, there's even more reason to look at how and when this condition develops.
A new study suggests that there are changes in a developing child's brain even before he or she is born that are associated with autism. Researchers found patches of abnormalities in several brain areas, including those involved in social, emotional, communication and language functions.
But this is a small study, which looked at the brain tissue of only 22 children.
"Although interesting differences in brain architecture were found, questions regarding underlying mechanisms remain unanswered," says Zack Warren, director of  the Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.
Read more from the BBC
It's not safe to the pee in the pool
Journal: Environmental Science & Technology
There are two types of swimmers, an old saying goes: Those who pee in the pool, and those who say they don't. A new study may create a new kind - those begging the rest of us to stop.
Chemists found that mixing urine with sweat and chlorine in water created two compounds: trichloramine (NCl3) and cyanogen chloride (CNCl). NCl3 is associated with lung problems, and CNC1 may affect the lungs, heart and central nervous system, according to the American Chemical Society.
"Swimmers can improve pool conditions by simply urinating where they’re supposed to — in the bathrooms," the ACS concluded.
Lower back pain is a major cause of disability
Journal: Annals of Rheumatic Diseases
Lower back pain is common, affecting approximately 1 in 10 people around the globe. But you may not realize how disabling it can be.
Researchers pooled information from 117 studies in 47 different countries and 16 world regions. They concluded that lower back pain is the leading cause worldwide of years lost to disability. It was No. 1 among 291 conditions analyzed in this study.
Not all lower back pain comes from working, but many people do get it on the job. So what should people do?
“Exercise may be the most effective way to speed recovery from low back pain and help strengthen back and abdominal muscles. Maintaining and building muscle strength is particularly important for persons with skeletal irregularities,” according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Read more from TIME.com
Bariatric surgery does more than change your stomach size
Journal: Nature
Gastric bypass surgery reduces the size of an obese patient's stomach in hopes of making them eat less. But new research suggests the underlying chemical changes that occur in the patient's digestive system after surgery may be just as important - if not more so - to their ability to lose weight.
"We have more bacteria in our guts than we have cells in our bodies," study author Randy Seeley told USA Today. "Those bacteria and their interaction with our bodies is really important."
Scientists spent four years analyzing gastric bypass surgeries in mice. After bariatric surgery, our bodies increase liver bile acids that bind to a nuclear receptor called FXR, according to the study. When researchers removed the FXR receptor from the mice, they lost less weight than other mice who had undergone a gastric bypass procedure. The scientists also noticed changes in the mice's gut bacteria.
The results of this study could lead scientists to develop new ways to mimic the effects of bariatric surgery without physically altering the stomach.
Read more from USA Today
Smoking bans seem to be working
Journal: The Lancet
Rates of pre-term births and hospital admissions for children with asthma have dropped significantly since many states here and countries in Europe have introduced smoke-free legislation.
Researchers analyzed 11 studies and determined that the rates were reduced in the year after the laws went into effect. This shows a clear link between a reduction in second-hand smoke and a decrease in these conditions, they say.
"Together with the known health benefits in adults, our study provides clear evidence that smoking bans have considerable public health benefits for perinatal and child health, and provides strong support for WHO recommendations to create smoke-free public environments on a national level," Dr. Jasper Been told ScienceDaily.
Read more from ScienceDaily

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EXERCISE CAN BRING YOU HEALTHIER EYES

Almost everyone with Moebius Syndrome has their eyes affected by it--whether it is in the form of strabismus, or simply being unable to move one's eyes.  Plus many of us are affected by the things most folks have happen to them--we're near-sighted, or far-sighted, our vision needs more correction with age, etc.  So naturally we have an interest in keeping our eyes as healthy as possible, so that acceptable vision will last longer.  Here are some tips, and some research, that may shed light on how to do that:

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Age-related vision loss is common and devastating. But new research suggests that physical activity might protect our eyes as we age.

There have been suggestions that exercise might reduce the risk of macular degeneration, which occurs when neurons in the central part of the retina deteriorate. The disease robs millions of older Americans of clear vision. A 2009 study of more than 40,000 middle-aged distance runners, for instance, found that those covering the most miles had the least likelihood of developing the disease. But the study did not compare runners to non-runners, limiting its usefulness. It also did not try to explain how exercise might affect the incidence of an eye disease.

So, more recently, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta and the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center in Decatur, Ga., took up that question for a study published last month in The Journal of Neuroscience. Their interest was motivated in part by animal research at the V.A. medical center. That work had determined that exercise increases the levels of substances known as growth factors in the animals’ bloodstream and brains. These growth factors, especially one called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or B.D.N.F., are known to contribute to the health and well-being of neurons and consequently, it is thought, to improvements in brain health and cognition after regular exercise.

But the brain is not the only body part to contain neurons, as the researchers behind the new study knew. The retina does as well, and the researchers wondered whether exercise might raise levels of B.D.N.F. there, too, potentially affecting retinal health and vision.

To test that possibility, the researchers gathered adult, healthy lab mice. Half of these were allowed to remain sedentary throughout the day, while the other animals began running on little treadmills at a gentle rodent pace for about an hour a day. After two weeks, half of the mice in each group were exposed to a searingly bright light for four hours. The other animals stayed in dimly lit cages. This light exposure is a widely used and accepted means of inducing retinal degeneration in animals. It doesn’t precisely mimic the slowly progressing disease in humans, obviously. But it causes a comparable if time-compressed loss of retinal neurons.

The mice then returned to their former routine — running or not exercising — for another two weeks, after which the scientists measured the number of neurons in each animal’s eyes. The unexercised mice exposed to the bright light were experiencing, by then, severe retinal degeneration. Almost 75 percent of the neurons in their retinas that detect light had died. The animals’ vision was failing.

But the mice that had exercised before being exposed to the light retained about twice as many functioning retinal neurons as the sedentary animals; in addition, those cells were more responsive to normal light than the surviving retinal neurons in the unexercised mice. Exercise, it seems, had armored the runners’ retinas.

Separately, the researchers had other mice run or sit around for two weeks, and then measured levels of B.D.N.F. in their eyes and bloodstreams. The runners had far more. Tellingly, when the scientists injected still other mice with a chemical that blocks the uptake of the growth factor before allowing them to run and exposing them to the bright light, their eyes deteriorated as badly as among sedentary rodents. When the mice could not process B.D.N.F., exercise did not safeguard their eyes.

Taken together, these experiments strongly suggest that “exercise protects vision, at least in mice, by increasing B.D.N.F. in the retina,” said Jeffrey Boatright, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Emory University School of Medicine and a co-author of the study.

But obviously, mice are not people, so whether exercise can prevent or ameliorate macular degeneration in human eyes is “impossible to know, based on the data we have now,” said Machelle Pardue, a research career scientist at the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center, who is the senior author of the study. She and her colleagues are trying to find ways to determine the impact of exercise on human eyes. But such experiments will take years to return results.

For now, she and Dr. Boatright said, people who are concerned about their vision, and especially those with a family history of retinal degeneration, might want to discuss an exercise program with their doctor. “As potential treatments go,” she said, “it’s cheap, easy and safe.”

Dr. Boatright agreed, adding that eye researchers have been trying for some time to find a way to externally deliver growth factors or drugs to aging eyes, but the available methods typically involve injections into the retina, a process that is complicated, chancy, pricey, and fundamentally objectionable.

Now, though, “it’s beginning to look like we may have this other method” — exercise — “that costs almost nothing and results in you making your own growth factors, which is so much safer and more pleasant than having a needle stuck into your eyeball,” he said, getting no disagreement from me. 

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HONORING A HERO: THOUGH A DIFFERENT KIND OF HERO

Today's blog I guess is partly from the I-Just-Thought-This-Was-Interesting Department; but it is also kind of in honor of my son, Ethan.  He is 6 years old.  He absolutely loves Batman.  But what's interesting about the piece I found today is that, in honor of Batman's 75th anniversary, it's not just little boys who love Batman.  Even adults love him.  And there's reasons why--and actually very good reasons why.  Read on--and maybe a few of you going through tough times can identify with and be inspired by Batman, too:

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Hawkins lived in what he calls a "very broken home" as a child in Las Vegas. His parents got divorced when he was 8, and he described the atmosphere in the house as filled with "anger and sadness." However, he knew there was one thing he could count on: Batman.

He felt a bit like a loner, just like the character of Bruce Wayne, whose alter ego Batman first appeared on newsstands in "Detective Comics" #27 on March 30, 1939, and would be reinvented through countless movies, TV shows and books for the next 75 years.

(Time Warner is the parent company of DC Comics, the same as CNN.)

Readers were captivated by the story of how Bruce, heir to a vast fortune, witnessed his parents' murder at the hands of a mugger. As he grew older, Bruce was driven by vengeance and decided one night to take on the form of a bat to "strike terror" in the hearts of criminals.

"Being a child that young and watching your parents split up is a very harrowing experience," said Hawkins, now 26 and living in Seattle. "And in my head, the only way I could make any sense of it was likening it to being like Bruce Wayne when he lost his parents to something senseless and tried to find something good to bring out of it."

Despite the chaos at home, he could always rely on the 1989 "Batman" film making it all better. And after the 1992 animated series premiered, he came home every day, eagerly awaiting the show.

"It was a pure joy with me after every episode feeling inspired to keep going on the path I was going even if those around me didn't understand my way of doing things."

An inspiration to generations of people

In the 75 years since it began, the character of Batman has inspired many fans, young and old, in some cases because of a strong identification with the character.

Hawkins says he would have been a very different person if not for Batman, and that those emotions could have manifested themselves another way. He is a writer, creating stories that he hopes will inspire others just as Batman's did.

"Had Batman not given me the compass of justice, I may have been nothing more than a punk kid who bullied kids for how they looked or what they did or for whatever I fancied at the time," he said. "I wouldn't have gotten such good grades because I wouldn't have cared about school. And I may have even fallen into that dark place of feeling so angry and taking an unsavory means of trying to end what plagued me."

There is truly something universal to how people identify with Batman, said producer Michael Uslan, who has been involved in every "Batman" movie since 1989.

Uslan describes Batman's superpower as "his humanity": "When you see a young boy whose parents are murdered before his eyes ... he sacrifices his childhood in the belief that one person can make a difference, that he will get all the bad guys even if he has to walk through hell for the rest of his life," he explained. "That is an origin story that not only transcends borders but transcends cultures."

"Batman" comic book writer Scott Snyder put it this way: "He suffers a tragedy as a boy, and uses that tragedy as motivation to become a hero capable of preventing the same thing from happening to another child in Gotham City. There's something deeply inspiring in that."

Young people identify with the Caped Crusader

Andrea Letamendi, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and scientist, has studied Batman for years and notes that many young people can identify with his problems.

"Nearly three-quarters of youths have been exposed to at least one trauma by the time they hit adolescence," she said. "Childhood resiliency is also quite impressive -- only a fraction of youths who experience traumatic stress actually develop long-lasting mental health problems. We don't all put on a cape and cowl, but we are amazingly strong in the face of adversity."

Feelings of isolation and intense loneliness have plagued retail worker Dusty Lane for his whole life.

The Nashville resident said he often keeps people at a distance and has problems letting them get close. He finds himself deep in thought on many occasions, much like Bruce Wayne, but he also channels it into something positive.

"He's encouraged me to become a deep thinker, sharpen my wits, and truly believe in strong moral principles," Lane said.

He remembers a dramatic scene from the 1990s "Batman" animated series in which Robin confronts his parents' killer and attempts to kill him. Batman tells him not to let his emotions get the best of him.

"Before I ever make a decision out of anger that I would come to regret, I always hear that voice in the back of my head saying 'You can't let your emotions get the best of you.' "

Lane firmly believes that role models can have a major influence over how one lives their life, and he says he picked the right one in Batman.

'Batman helped me find my voice'

Actors who have played Batman

Eli Vizcaino's problems growing up were quite different, but Batman helped him as well.

He grew up with a speech impediment. As a child, he had to practice with a speech therapist in the mornings, then practiced reading in the afternoons after school. Once he opened up a Batman comic book, he immediately became a fan and became more interested in reading out loud.

"Batman helped me find my voice," he said.

The character continued to be a big part of Vizcaino's life when he would move to different parts of the United States and switch schools.

"During these periods of transition, I would always have a period of intense loneliness before I would make friends and during this time, Batman would be there to help through that time," said the Austin, Texas, resident.

It's no wonder that children battling adversity -- such as cancer survivor Miles Scott, who got to be "Batkid" in San Francisco in November as part of his Make-a-wish project -- see the brave and fearless Batman as their favorite hero.

"Batman turns weakness into strength," said Travis Langley, a professor of psychology at Henderson State University in Arkansas and a fellow Bat-fan. "Bruce Wayne took his own childhood fears and made something better out of them."

Hawkins could not agree more.

"Batman really touched me. He inspired me. He helped me. And to this day I have a sense of justice and decency."

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AUTISM UPDATE: DOES AUTISM DEVELOP DURING PREGNANCY?

And we look at this because autism is sometimes--though by no means always--associated with Moebius Syndrome.  A child with Moebius sometimes also is autistic.  And there's an interesting connection here--many have believed Moebius develops during pregnancy.  Is this also the case for autism?  Anyway--read on:

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A small study that examined brains from children who died found abnormal patterns of cell growth in autistic children. The research bolsters evidence that something before birth might cause autism, at least in some cases.
Clusters of disorganized brain cells were discovered in tissue samples from brain regions important for regulating social functioning, emotions and communication - which can all be troublesome for children with autism.
The abnormalities were found in 10 of 11 children with autism, but in only one of 11 children without the disease. The children's brains were donated to science after death; causes of death included drowning, accidents, asthma and heart problems.
The authors said the clusters, detected with sophisticated lab tests, are likely defects that occurred during the second or third trimesters of pregnancy.
"Because this points to the biological onset in prenatal life, it calls sharply into question other popular notions about autism," including the scientifically debunked theory that childhood vaccines might be involved, said lead author Eric Courchesne, an autism researcher at the University of California, San Diego.
Experts not involved in the latest study called the results preliminary and said larger studies are needed to determine if the unusual brain development found in the study causes problems, and if it is truly common in autism or even in people without the disorder. What causes the unusual structure isn't known, Courchesne said, adding, "It could be gene mutations and environmental factors together."
Scientists have been working for decades to find the cause of autism, and they increasingly believe its origins begin before birth. In addition to genetics, previous research suggests other factors might include infections during pregnancy, preterm birth and fathers' older age at conception.
The study was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Other scientists have suggested that autism may be linked with abnormalities in the brain's frontal region, and that for at least some children, problems begin before birth, said Dr. Janet Lainhart, an autism researcher and psychiatry professor at the University of Wisconsin.
"But this research provides probably some of the most elegant evidence for those two very important biological themes," she said.
The study follows Courchesne-led research suggesting that abnormal gene activity leads to an excessive number of brain cells in the brain's prefrontal cortex, located behind the forehead. The same region and adjacent areas of the brain were implicated in the new study.
His studies suggest that in children later diagnosed with autism, genetic networks that regulate prenatal brain cell growth are faulty. Larger studies are needed to determine how common the abnormalities are and what might be the cause.
"These abnormalities are not trivial," Courchesne said. "These are fundamental to developing a human brain."
The new study involved children aged 2 to 15. Most previous autism brain studies involved samples taken from autopsies of adults.
Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said the authors used advanced methods to examine cellular and molecular markers in more detail than previous research. But he said the study "highlights the critical need" for autopsy brain tissue to gain a better understanding of autism.
"If there really is this disorganized cortical architecture" in autism, it would develop before birth, said Insel. His government agency helped pay for the research.
About 1 in 88 children in the U.S. have one of the autistic spectrum disorders, which include classic autism and a mild form, Asperger syndrome.
Researchers from the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle also participated in the study. In addition to the National Institute of Mental Health, grants from the Allen institute, private foundations and the advocacy group Autism Speaks helped pay for the research.

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FOR MOEBIUS MOMS AND DADS: DO YOU FEEL "THE OVERWHELM"?

That is--do you feel overwhelmed?  Does the never-ending busyness of life weigh you down?  Is there any time for...anything????  Maybe there is; and maybe there's something you can.  There's a new book out; read more about it:

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When did we get so busy? For many of us, life unspools as a never-ending to-do list. Wake up, pack lunches, get the kids to school, get ourselves to our jobs, work all day, collect the kids, make dinner, supervise homework, do the laundry, walk the dog, pay the bills, answer e-mail, crawl into bed for a few fitful hours of sleep, wake up already exhausted, then do it all over again. Weekends, which ought to be oases of leisure, have their own hectic rhythms: errands, chores, sports events, grocery shopping, exercise. Dispatch one task and six more take its place, a regenerating zombie army of obligations.
This brain-eating assault of to-dos leaves its victims wrung out, joyless, too tired to stop and smell the roses (which probably need pruning and mulching anyway — add that to the list). But “this is how it feels to live my life: scattered, fragmented, and exhausting,” Brigid Schulte writes early in “Overwhelmed,” her unexpectedly liberating investigation into the plague of busyness that afflicts us. “I am always doing more than one thing at a time and feel I never do any one particularly well. I am always behind and always late, with one more thing and one more thing and one more thing to do before rushing out the door.”

She could be describing my days and probably yours, especially if you’re a working parent in the overcommitted middle part of life. Schulte, a longtime reporter for The Washington Post and the mother of two school-age kids, has a word for this shared unpleasantness: the Overwhelm. She takes her own harried-working-mom life as the jumping-off point for her research on where the Overwhelm comes from and what we can do about it.
Busyness has become so much the assumed default of many lives that it feels as elemental and uncontrollable as weather. So Schulte’s shocked when John Robinson, a University of Maryland sociologist known as Father Time, tells her that women have at least 30 hours of leisure a week, according to his time-use studies. She can’t reconcile that statistic with how her hours seem shredded into “time confetti — one big, chaotic burst of exploding slivers, bits, and scraps.” Nor does she believe it when Robinson tells her that we feel busy in part because we decide to feel busy.
Schulte quickly moves on to other researchers’ explorations of workplace culture, gender roles and time management, finding both reassurance and confirmation that she’s not making up the Overwhelm. She learns that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that “acts like a patient yet controlling kindergarten teacher,” shrinks under the neurochemical onslaught of constant stress. That lets the amygdala, “the seat of negative emotions like fear, aggression, and anxiety,” take over. Anyone who has ever yelled at her kids while searching frantically for the car keys 10 minutes after the family should have left the house understands this.
If the neuroscience Schulte reports is right, feeling busy all the time shrinks the better part of our brains. But busyness also delivers cultural rewards. We feel important when we’re always booked, according to researchers such as Ann Burnett, who has studied thousands of the holiday letters people send to trumpet the year’s accomplishments.
Burnett’s collection of letters, which date back to the 1960s, make up “an archive of the rise of busyness” as something to aspire to. As Burnett tells Schulte: “People are competing about being busy. It’s about showing status. That if you’re busy, you’re important. You’re leading a full and worthy life.” The more you do, the more you matter, or so the reigning cultural script goes.
That script dictates how many offices and homes run. At work, the cult of the always-available “ideal worker” still “holds immense power,” Schulte writes, even as more people telecommute and work flexible hours. The technology that untethers workers from cubicles also makes it very hard to not be on call at all times. (I’d have liked to see Shulte spend more time on how technology fuels the cult of busyness.)
Those who escape the “time cages” of traditional workplaces confront what Schulte calls “a stalled gender revolution” at home, with consequences especially burdensome for women. She cites work by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on how women’s time is “contaminated” by “keeping in mind at all times all the moving parts of kids, house, work, errands, and family calendar.”
Only in Denmark does Schulte find a culture that appears to balance work, home and play in a truly egalitarian way. Because “Overwhelmed” sticks closest to the experience of working American parents, she goes after the shameful lack of affordable child care in this country. She even interviews Pat Buchanan, who in the 1970s helped sabotage a bill that would have created universal child care.
While that’s a useful bit of policy history to contemplate, and one that still affects us today, the most engaging sections of “Overwhelmed” stick to the here and now and how we let the cult of busyness lay waste to our hours. “Contaminated” time eats away at leisure, according to researcher Ben Hunnicutt, and by “leisure” he does not mean hours spent parked on the sofa in front of the telly. Leisure, to Hunnicutt, means experiencing “the miracle of now” or “simply being open to the wonder and marvel of the present” — the sense of being alive, which no to-do list will ever capture.
Although it illuminates a painfully familiar experience, “Overwhelmed” doesn’t speak for or about everyone. It lingers most on the conditions under which middle-class mothers and fathers labor, but the Overwhelm afflicts the child-free, too. The working poor are stretched even thinner. And how workers in China or Indonesia or India or South Africa feel about the balance of their lives is understandably beyond Schulte’s scope, although Europeans make a few appearances.
The question raised by “Father Time” John Robinson nags at this book like a forgotten homework assignment. The further I read, the more I began to wonder how much of the Overwhelm is at least partly self-inflicted and to see opportunities to reclaim time. Like Jacob Marley’s ghost, we’ve forged chains of obligation that we drag around with us. But if we made those chains, we can loosen them too, as Schulte has tried to do, with some success. In an appendix, “Do One Thing,” she offers useful starting points, such as learning not to give your time away and setting clear expectations about what really needs to be accomplished. Not every to-do item is created equal.
Do our employers really expect us to be on call 24/7, tethered to our smartphones as if they were oxygen tanks? Just because we can check e-mail at all hours, should we? Do our offspring really need to be hauled around to every soccer game and music lesson? Does every last piece of laundry have to be folded and put away before we can sit down with a cup of coffee, stare out the window and daydream? As a neighbor said to me not long ago, your work e-mail can wait. Your life can’t.

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