Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019 Page 41
I NEVER considered myself to be
addicted to my mobile phone
until I accidentally left it in a taxi
last week. Initially, I panicked.
Every few minutes I found myself
feeling my pocket. I worried
about being cut off from the
world. What if someone called?
What if I missed a text?
Then I consciously tried to
forget about it and found it was
incredibly liberating. I realised
that all the news and constant
communication doesn’t enrich
my life. Instead of staring
mindlessly at my phone on
the bus, I enjoyed watching the
world go by uninterrupted.
Not being able to cancel or
change plans at short notice
made me be more organised.
It was so blissful I was strangely
disappointed when I was
reunited with my phone three
days later. And a new study
published in the Journal of
Travel Research, which followed
people on a ‘digital detox’, drew
similar conclusions.
While those who gave up their
mobile phones initially reported
anxiety and withdrawal symp-
toms, these negative reactions
were relatively short-lived and
were soon replaced with feel-
ings of acceptance, enjoyment
and eventually liberation.
I recommend everyone does a
digital detox for a few days
every so often — it does won-
ders for your mental health.Aggressively treating
high blood pressure could
reduce the risk of dementia,
according to new research.
it’s thought high blood
pressure encourages protein
deposits, which are
associated with Alzheimer’s,
to form in the brain. When i
worked in dementia care, i’d
often see patients with highblood pressure that had gone
unchecked for years who had
developed dementia. That’s
why i eat a low-sodium diet,
exercise and have my blood
pressure checked regularly.
if it rises, i can start
medication to lower it. i also
take a statin to keep my
cholesterol low, as high levels
can also damage the brain.W
hen I was a medical
student, I remember
one lecturer causing a
furore about the
psychology of bias.
Whether we like it or not, we all make
unconscious assessments about people
based on looks, dress and how they speak.
The lecturer said that, given the choice,
she would rather that her children were
beautiful than clever.
Cue outrage from the students. how
could she possibly prize physical attrac-
tiveness over brains? her reasoning,
though, was sound. The evidence, she said,
showed that people who are more
attractive tend to be at an advantage.
We have an unconscious bias towards
beautiful people, which benefits them in a
host of different ways, while those with
a higher IQ are slightly more prone to
mental health problems, including
depression and anxiety.
Similar sentiments were echoed this
week by Clarissa Farr, the former high
mistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School, who
caused a public outcry when she said that
attractive women have more authority in
the boardroom. ‘Unfortunately, beauty is
part of successful leadership for women in
a way it shouldn’t be,’ she explained.
Despite the opprobrium some have
heaped on her for saying this — and while
we might not like to admit it — she is right,
as countless psychology experiments
have proved.
But it’s not just true for women;
attractive men have an advantage, too.
Psychologists call it the ‘physical
attractiveness stereotype’ — the tendencyA digital
detox
will work
wonders
How clean eating
fuels anorexia
NHS psychiatrist Max Pemberton may make you rethink your life
THE MIND
Dr MAX DOCTOR
DR MAX PRESCRIBES...
AUDACIOUS: A MOBILE NETWORK
FOR THE HARD OF HEARING
ThIS new mobile phone network
aims to help people with a range of
hearing problems.
Audacious’s founder, Matthew
Turner, suffers from severe hearing
loss, which makes using a phone
difficult, and he wanted to help
others in his situation.
You can visit audacious.co.uk and
take a free hearing test so the
company can create your unique
hearing profile.
This is then loaded onto a SIM card
that personalises your mobile calls
to your specific hearing problems —
for example by adjusting the
frequencies so sounds are clearer.
You don’t need to upgrade your
phone — simply swap your existing
SIM for the Audacious one. Plans
cost from £14 a month.A DUTCh study published this
week in the journal Radiology
has shown that Ritalin
(methylphenidate), used to
treat children with Attention
Deficit hyperactivity Disorder
(ADhD), significantly affects
brain development, with scans
showing less white matter in the
brain of patients prescribed it.
The drug can also have serious
side-effects, from insomnia and
anxiety to growth retardation.
Cochrane — an independent
database of medical research —
has warned that Ritalin should
be prescribed with caution
because of the lack of evidence
to support its use, yet it’s given
to children far too readily.
The World health Organisation
says ADhD in a child is
symptomatic of family
dysfunction. But it’s much easier
to dose up a youngster with
drugs than it is to address the
family dynamics that contribute
to their disruptive behaviour.
I wonder if in years to come we’ll
hang our heads in shame at the
way we prescribed this powerful
drug so freely.to assume that people who are
good looking also have other
socially desirable traits.
Studies have shown that we are
more likely to listen to and believe
them. They are more likely to be
promoted at work, have a higher
income and are less likely to be
convicted of a crime.
We also think that attractive
people are smarter, more
successful, more sociable, and less
lonely. But this stereotype can act
as a self-fulfilling prophecy where
the perception that attractive
people are more successful, for
example, leads to them receiving
preferential treatment so they
achieve more.
But those of us who are not
generously blessed in the looks
department shouldn’t despair.
Studies have also shown that we
tend to attribute beautiful
people’s success to their looks,rather than their intelligence
or talent, so they often feel
undermined and undervalued.
Moreover, good-looking people
are more likely to be perceived as
a threat, and assumed to be
arrogant and egocentric even if
they are not. And when it comes
to dating, they are often confused
as to whether people are attractedto them simply because of their
looks or because of who they really
are. Low self-esteem is also
surprisingly common among the
physically blessed.
I admit I found this hard to
believe until I sat next to a very
famous and incredibly beautiful
hollywood actress at a wedding.
She mentioned that she was singleand I joked that she could have
any man she wanted.
She looked rather forlorn and
explained that, far from it, most
men kept well away, thinking that
she was out of their league. She
said she always had to make the
first move with men but,
intimidated by her beauty, they
usually backed off, which was
making her feel miserable.
She did leave the wedding in a
helicopter, so I had limited
sympathy for her. But, still, it’s
somewhat reassuring to know
that even one of the most beautiful
women in the world struggles to
find a boyfriend.
Beauty, it seems, can be as much
of a curse as it is a blessing.
[email protected]MOST people have never
heard of ‘orthorexia’,
yet I see cases of it
every day in my
eating disor-
ders clinic.
Orthorexia is
an obsession
with a form of
‘healthy’ eating known
as clean eating.
People with it become
fixated about what they
eat, categorising food
as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and
cutting out entire food groups
they deem ‘unhealthy’.
One doctor, writing in the
journal Medical Humanities
this week, termed it a ‘digit-
ally transmitted condition’
because it is spread through
social media, which I think
sums it up. While orthorexia isactually a type of
anorexia, the
problem lies in the
fact the clean eating
movement, which advocates
eating foods in their most
natural state to maximise
health benefits, gives it a
veneer of respectability.
Misinformation about
nutrition is widespread on
social media, often by self-
proclaimed experts who
themselves have unhealthy
relationships with food.
This means sufferers can
justify their eating disorderedbehaviour not just to
themselves, but also their
families under the guise of
‘clean eating’.
As a result, patients often
only seek help when their
weight has become danger-
ously low and their health has
deteriorated.
Clean eating encourages
people to feel guilty and
scared about food rather than
learning to eat a rich and
varied diet.
We should call it out for what
it really is: an eating disorder
for the digital age.The risks
of Ritalin
Marilyn Monroe: Suffered
bouts of depressionPicture: ALAMYWho on
earth
would
want to be
beautiful?
(Yes, seriously!)