Latest news with #mentalhealth
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Parents, You're Focusing on the Wrong Part of Your Kid's Screen Use
When it comes to monitoring kids and technology, parents are all doing the best we can. Especially in the summertime when rules fly out the window. However, a new study found that parents may actually be worried about the wrong thing when it comes to kids and screens. A study published June 18 in JAMA, a journal of the American Medical Association, found that the amount of time kids spent on social media, mobile phones, and video games wasn't linked to more internalized symptoms of mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Surprisingly, it also wasn't associated with externalized symptoms of mental health problems like rule breaking, aggression, suicidal behaviors, or suicidal ideation. This sounds good right? The problem is, researchers found that screen addiction was linked to both internal and external symptoms of mental health problems. More from SheKnows PopSockets Partnered With This Celeb-Loved Jewelry Brand to Drop Beach-Chic Limited-Edition Accessories There is a difference; a subtle distinction with big consequences. Yunyu Xiao, lead study author and an assistant professor in the department of population health sciences and department of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, explained addiction as 'excessive use' that interferes with home responsibilities, schoolwork or other activities, per CNN. 'They find a craving for it and cannot stop using it,' he explained. The study found one in two of the young people in the study were on a 'high trajectory of addictive use' for mobile phones, while over 40 percent were on the same path for video games. For the kids with high or increasing use of social media and mobile phones, they were two to three times more likely to engage in suicidal behavior and suicidal ideations than kids on the lower trajectory. These kids also had increased risk of symptoms of mental health problems, with a high use of video games associated with a greater risk of symptoms of mental health problems, suicidal behaviors, and suicidal ideation. It's absolutely heartbreaking! And teens know they need help. In Feb. 2025, SheKnows spoke with teens in New York City about their phone use, and the results were concerning. One 16-year-old named Annabella told us that she spends 12 hours on her phone. 'My friends are on it [their phones], I feel like I couldn't get off it or certain apps, I don't know — I'm just, like, addicted,' Annabella admitted. The Anxious Generation author Jonathan Haidt recommends not giving your child a phone until high school, not allowing social media until 16, and encouraging real-world independence and risk-taking in kids. Ariana Hoet, Ph.D., executive clinical director of children's mental health organization On Our Sleeves, previously told SheKnows that she recommends designated screen-free times every day: during dinner, for example, and powering phones down a couple of hours before bedtime. You should also talk about screens as a family. 'You can talk about what social media platforms you're going to use. Who do you follow? What do you post? And then most importantly, when are the screen-free times? What are other activities you're doing? Who do you go to if you're worried about something?' Dr. Hoet told us. 'You also need to establish the consequences: what happens if these rules are broken?' Dr. Becky Kennedy, psychologist, author, and mom of three previously told SheKnows that screen time isn't inherently bad for kids. It all depends on what the screen time is being used for and if your kids have a healthy balance. She suggests parents define screen time boundaries in advance, encourage kids to learn on their screen before playing, and anticipate the meltdowns around screen time by setting firm boundaries about when to put it up at the end of the day. 'To me, if you're a parent who's just struggling with screen time with your kid, you're probably doing it right. It's a tool we need to use,' she told us. 'It's something I don't think parents need to feel guilty about. It's just something parents need to have a level of mindfulness about relative to making sure we're setting up our home today for success — but that we're also setting up our kids for success long-term.' Look out for these signs that your child might be addicted to cell phones or video games, per the Mayo Clinic: Intense urges for screen time or video games that block out other thoughts. Cutting back on social or recreational activities because of preference for screen time or video games. Feeling irritable, anxiety, or anger when forced to stop playing, even for brief periods of time. Lying to others about the extent of their use. Needing more screen time over time to get the same level of enjoyment. Neglecting their appearance, including lack of interest in grooming or clothing. If you think your child is developing a phone or video game addiction, call their pediatrician and/or therapist for help managing their addiction in a screen-heavy of SheKnows Tween & Teen Slang 2025: A Definitive Guide to 'What the Hellyante' Your Kid Is Saying Right Now Celebrity Parents Who Are So Proud of Their LGBTQ Kids Recent Baby & Toddler Product Recalls Every Parent and Caregiver Should Know About


The Sun
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Fresh Meat and Death In Paradise star reveals life changing diagnosis at 39 saying she's in tears and ‘still processing'
A FRESH Meat and Death in Paradise star has revealed her life changing health diagnosis at 39, saying she's in tears and 'still processing.' Kimberley Nixon famously played Josie in Fresh Meat, who seemed like a very shy Welsh girl, but was actually foul-mouthed and short-tempered. 4 4 Before Fresh Meat, Kimberley had been in films Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. Since the show she's appeared in Ordinary Lies, Death in Paradise and ITV drama The Salisbury Poisonings. Now, the 39-year-old actress has revealed she has been clinically diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. Sharing a collage of photos of herself crying 'happy tears,' in a grey jumper, the star shared her update with fans. Kimberley wrote: 'Happy tears. Still processing. Haven't read the full report yet but… 'Today I was clinically diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. 'I feel lighter than I have in a long time because instead of feeling like my brain is 'broken', I know now that it was just doing things differently all this time.' She continued: 'I want to go back in time and give my younger self a cwtch and save her a lot of time and heartache but I can't change anything about how I got here really because then I wouldn't be me. 'I've always shared the ups and downs - so I wanted to share this with the most compassionate and accepting bunch I know - and that's been you lot over these past few years. Jack Whitehall reunites with Fresh Meat co-stars 12yrs after joining Channel 4 sitcom 'From the midst of brutal Postnatal OCD through to today's diagnosis, a lot of you have been with me every step of the way. Thank you, thank you.' Fans rushed to the comments to praise the star for her honest words, as one person wrote: 'Congratulations on the first day of the rest of your life.' A second penned: 'We hope it brings you some self-compassion and understanding,' and a third echoed: 'Welcomeeeeee 💛 Go gently with yourself as you adjust to a new inner reality! Xx' What is autism? Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an incurable, lifelong developmental condition that affects how people perceive the world and interact with others. It affects around one in 100 people in the UK and is three to four times more common in boys than in girls. Many people with ASD find it hard to understand other people's feelings and emotions, and they may have difficulty holding conversations. When they are young, their language development may take longer and they can struggle to use facial expressions, using gestures to communicate instead. They may also find it hard to connect with other people and to hold eye contact with unfamiliar individuals. Many children with ASD like to follow a routine, and changes to this can cause distress. High functioning autism is an informal term some people use to describe those on the autism spectrum disorder. The star is a proud mum to a little boy, and also has a dog, both of which she shares occasional photos of on social media. In a sweet Father's Day post recently, Kimberley praised her partner and posted a carousel of images of him with their adorable son. She wrote: 'To the Dads who not only have a newborn but a struggling partner to care for. 'To the Dads that show up ALL the time even if they're knackered or grumpy or even more knackered. To the Dads who care so deeply but show so little. 'To the Dads that really mean it when it's 50/50. Or 60/40 or 70/30 depending what's going on in life. 'To the Dads who hug and kiss their children and leave them in no doubt how loved they are. To the Dads who always stand up for their partner. 'To this Dad, who never looked away even when things got tough. Who always saw straight through to the heart of me when I lost myself and even I couldn't see it. Who loves me and our son unconditionally but that doesn't mean he'll let us get away with stuff. 'Sometimes Dads get left out of the perinatal mental illness conversation. I've found in a lot of instances, they're the silent, sidelined heroes keeping everything together. Remember that there's help and support for Dads too.' 4 4
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
This Dave Ramsey Caller Is Spending Half His $78,000 Income On Legal Fees For Custody Battles With Two Women He Got Pregnant In College
A recent caller to 'The Ramsey Show' shared how ongoing custody disputes with two former partners are draining both his bank account and mental health. The man, Tanner, told hosts Jade Warshaw and Dave Ramsey that legal costs now consume half of every paycheck. 'It's kind of taken over half of every one of my paychecks,' he said. 'I'm trying to find the balance between trying to do what's right for my kids and be financially responsible at the same time.' Don't Miss: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to Tanner, now 30, had a son with his ex-wife when he was 22 and still in college. Later, he had a daughter with a girlfriend before graduating, who left during the pregnancy and hasn't allowed him to meet the child. Though Tanner had a 50/50 custody agreement for his son, he said he hasn't seen him in over a year. His ex-wife and the ex-girlfriend have since become friends and have made legal proceedings more difficult. 'I've never met my daughter... and my son I haven't seen in over a year,' he said. Warshaw asked if there were any legitimate reasons for the women to keep the children from him. Tanner said no, claiming he has no history of substance abuse or violence. He acknowledged that the second woman had made abuse allegations, which he denied. Trending: Maximize saving for your retirement and cut down on taxes: . Legal delays and complications have stretched the conflict for years. 'I filed something immediately... we showed up to a hearing in May of last year,' Tanner explained. 'It was 5:30 and the judge said, 'Y'all go home, we'll schedule for another date.'' To make matters worse, his attorney died last year. Ramsey came out swinging. He told Tanner the system had failed him, and his passive legal approach wasn't working. 'You need to get a lawyer that is much smarter and much meaner than the lawyer that you've had,' Ramsey said. 'It's way past time playing nice here.'He urged Tanner to go on the offensive: file multiple motions, pressure the courts, and create enough legal action to force progress. 'Sometimes the best defense is a good offense,' Ramsey said. 'I want an attorney who's filing like seven motions every morning just to piss everybody off, including the judge.' Ramsey acknowledged how overwhelming the situation had become. 'You're burning all your calories on these issues,' he said. 'You're getting the runaround rather than giving the runaround.' In closing, Ramsey gave Tanner two options: hire an aggressive attorney and fight hard, or walk away and face the consequences later. Either way, he warned, the legal system is unforgiving. 'It sucks and it will drain you dry,' Ramsey said. Read Next:Peter Thiel turned $1,700 into $5 billion—now accredited investors are eyeing this software company with similar breakout potential. Learn how you can UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article This Dave Ramsey Caller Is Spending Half His $78,000 Income On Legal Fees For Custody Battles With Two Women He Got Pregnant In College originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Sign in to access your portfolio


Telegraph
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
From snail porridge to psychosis, Heston Blumenthal on the trauma of bipolar
In 2023, while at his home in France, Heston Blumenthal was sectioned. In Heston: My Life With Bipolar (BBC Two), a remarkably frank film in which the chef lays bare the workings of his mind, Blumenthal revisits this distressing event. But he doesn't just talk about it. Blumenthal plays himself in a reconstruction, acting out the moment he tried to fight off the policemen, doctor, and firemen who had been called there at his wife's request to take him to a psychiatric hospital. So this is not an ordinary documentary in which the director asks questions and the subject answers them. It is a deeply personal film made with some of the creativity that made Blumenthal famous. And it is based around a central question that preoccupies him: now that Blumenthal is on medication to damp down his manic highs – as well as saving him from the terrible lows which come with bipolar disorder – will that creativity desert him? It is an unusual focus in a programme about mental illness, but being unusual was what made Blumenthal a star in the first place. He was always a chef fizzing with ideas. Remember the bacon and egg ice cream, the snail porridge? Or the time he attempted to perfect the crispy skin on a Peking duck by using a petrol station tyre pump? In the film, he represents his 'kid in a sweet shop' mentality with a scene in which sweets rain down on his head. But by 2021, two years before his diagnosis, it was evident that something was very wrong. The film includes footage of a BBC interview in which, responding to a simple question, he launches into a mile-a-minute riff about the evolution of humanity. According to the programme, 1.3m people in the UK have bipolar disorder. It can take years to secure a diagnosis, and the care can be dangerously lacking; Blumenthal met Natalie, the mother of 22-year-old trainee paramedic Rebecca McLellan who died by suicide after failing to get the right support. He now has his condition under control, although the medication he takes has slowed his speech and he has a fragile air, no longer the swashbuckling chef. In the grip of a manic episode, Blumenthal believed he could communicate telepathically with his dog and solve the world's water crisis. His wife, Melanie Ceysson, felt compelled to have him sectioned after he began having hallucinations, believing there was a gun on the table in front of him. 'Bipolar had progressed to a point where I was a danger to myself before anyone raised the alarm,' he says now. 'Perhaps my reputation for energy and creativity made people less likely to question my manic highs.' There is no attempt to sugarcoat Blumenthal's story and the effect it has had on those around him. In perhaps the programme's most brutally honest moment, he sits down with Jack, one of his children. Jack says that dealing with their father could be horrible. 'We just wanted a relaxing conversation with our dad. You didn't want it. You didn't want to know anyone's thoughts,' Jack says. Was that entirely down to Blumenthal's illness? Top chefs are notoriously driven. But he is clearly in a better place now, and able to shine a light on the subject in a way that could be helpful to others.


Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Heston: My Life with Bipolar: Gripping account of celebrity chef's journey from denial to diagnosis
In the UK , it is estimated that some 1.3 million people have bipolar disorder – more than have dementia. The statistics are presumably much the same in Ireland and yet the condition remains taboo and largely undiscussed. For that reason, it never occurred to celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal that he might have the disorder when he began to experience manic episodes several years ago. While he suspected he was neurodivergent, the word 'bipolar' never crossed his mind. How little he knew, he says in the gripping and gruelling Heston: My Life with Bipolar (BBC Two, Thursday 8pm) – until the episodes became severe, and in late 2023, he hallucinated that he had a gun. This was in France, where he lives with his wife, the French entrepreneur Melanie Ceysson. 'I was trying to fight my way out of it. Two people held my arms down,' he says. 'I was struggling a lot. Then I saw the doctor pull out this whacking great syringe.' Eighteen months later, Blumenthal is on a heavy regime of medication that has led to weight gain and resulted in his speech slowing down to a meditative not-quite-slur. He hasn't had any more of the extreme shifts in mood and energy that are a signature of bipolar disorder. And yet there this isn't quite a happy story with a happy ending. One of the themes of this fascinating and admirably honest film is his fear that the drugs that have stabilised his mind may have snuffed out the creativity that drove him in his early career. As foodies will know, Blumenthal was at the cutting edge of the cutting edge as proprietor of the Fat Duck restaurant in Bray (a village in Berkshire rather than the Irish seaside town, as I was disappointed to discover after many years of assuming Wicklow was at the white-hot frontline of gastronomic innovation). Snail porridge, bacon and egg ice cream – he was the master of the non sequitur menu. READ MORE Blumenthal had long suspected his brain was different. He compares the zing of inspiration to a drizzle of sweets pitter-pattering down on his head. In 2023, the downpour became a deluge, and he was overwhelmed. Looking back, it is obvious he was hurtling towards a crash. However, he had been too blinded by success to recognise the danger signs. 'I ended up becoming a hamster on a wheel. I self-medicated with cocaine. I didn't realise I was self-medicating at the time. I was absolutely self-medicating. I knew I had a busy head. I didn't know if it was more busy than other people's heads,' he says. 'I looked up if I was autistic. I didn't even think about bipolar.' In one painful scene, he is shown a TV interview he gave shortly before his breakdown. The journalist says hello, and Blumenthal, dialling in over Zoom, embarks on a 10-minute stream-of-consciousness monologue. It's as if every nerve ending in his brain is firing at once, and it's all coming straight out of his mouth. 'I want to put the inside-out back into the outside-in. I want to put the being back into the human,' he says. The interviewer smiles nervously. 'He's asked me one question,' says Blumenthal today. ''How are you? That's it.' A more self-involved celebrity would make it all about themselves. To his credit, Blumenthal moves on from his own struggles to address the failure of the British health service to meet the needs of those who are bipolar. He calls on the mother of Rebecca McLellan, a paramedic from Ipswich who died by suicide after being denied the medical care she required. In another moving scene, Blumenthal meets his son Jack, who talks about how difficult it was to be around his father. 'We'd plan it three weeks in advance, getting prepared just to see you for half an hour,' says Jack, who now runs his own restaurant. 'And there was nothing I could do to help you.' Blumenthal's face crumples, and he struggles to hold back tears. 'I'm sorry,' he says. It is one of many hugely emotive sequences in a documentary that bravely traces the chef's journey from denial to diagnosis. Its most significant achievement is that, just a few minutes in, the viewers begins to see Blumenthal not as a famous foodie in fancy spectacles – but a vulnerable individual who desperately needs support.