Loneliness is a state of mind rather than a measure of how many people you interact with. You can be overwhelmed with a feeling of loneliness in a bustling restaurant or a cheering football stadium, in a business meeting or a family gathering, even while having sex. You can feel contented, complete, and at peace with the world deep in a forest far from the nearest human. So what causes feelings of loneliness and how can you overcome them?

Jonathan Huie, a motivational speaker and writer, Loneliness is really a form of neediness, the feeling of needing some expression of companionship and support that you don't feel you are getting. You feel lonely when the state of your world doesn't appear to be as it should. We are most likely to feel lonely when we have lost a companionship that we previously had a loved one died, left us, or moved away; our family, social group; or employer has rejected us. We feel the contrast between how thing are now and how they used to be better.

The other cause of loneliness is comparison with the apparently happy social networks of others seeing others appearing to enjoy their connections with family, friends and lovers, we long for those same pleasures.

Here are ten tips for coping with feelings of loneliness.

1. Focus on the present Whenever you find yourself longing for the past, stop. Bring your attention back to the present. Rather look to the great opportunities for your life today and tomorrow.
2. Be yourself and be proud of yourself Be happy and proud that you are exactly who you are.
3. Learn to enjoy spending time completely alone. Once you can be comfortable alone, you will defeat your compulsive need for companionship. Take long silent walks in the woods or on the seashore.
4. Know the purpose of your life, and keep busy with activities that support your purpose. When you know that your life is directed toward an important purpose, the support and encouragement of others lessens in significance. It is much harder to feel lonely when you are actively engaged with tasks that further your vision for your life.
5. Be of service to others- Volunteering your time to those less fortunate has a number of benefits. You will feel good about yourself. You will realize that you really are one of the more fortunate people in the world. The bonus is that service organizations attract the kind of people who have the potential of becoming great friends.
6. Find a furry four-legged friend A dog.
7. Join groups for the activities, and let the socializing be a bonus. Take lessons. Learn to dance, sing, play a musical instrument.
8. Be physically active Walk, join the gym or dance group. The endorphins that exercise generates make you happier, and it's hard to feel lonely when you're happy.
9. Turn on happy music Find the kind of music that makes you feel happy and turn up the volume. Dance to your music, sing to your music, let your music reverberate within you.
   It is never easy when a marriage or other significant relationship ends. Whatever the reason for the split-and whether or not you wanted it the breakup of a long term, committed relationship can turn your whole world upside down and trigger all sorts of painful and unsettling feelings.
   A breakup brings uncertainty about the future. What will life be like without your partner? Will you find someone else? Will you end up alone?
   Recognize that it is ok to have different feelings. It is normal to feel sad, angry, exhausted, frustrated and confused and these feelings can be intense. Accept that reactions like these will lessen over time.
10. Give yourself a break. Give yourself permission to feel and function at a less than optimal level for a period of time. You may not be able to be quite as productive on the job or care for others in exactly the way you are accustomed to for a little while.
    Don't go through this alone. Sharing your feelings with friends and family can help you get through this period. Consider joining a support group where you can talk to others in similar situations. Isolating yourself can raise your stress levels, reduce your concentration, and get in the way of your work, relationships and overall health. Don't be afraid to get outside help if you need it.

On my return to Nigeria, I visited the Chinese Embassy in Victoria Island. I requested to see the Ambassador, and was asked to identify myself. I introduced myself as a medical doctor from LUTH. Consequently, I met with the Ambassador who requested me to see some of his staff that was ill. I prescribed anti-malaria drugs to two, one was advised to return home because of severe depression, and another two were to see me in the hospital. My relationship with the embassy became more cordial to the extent that any Chinese that visited LUTH requested to see me. I was nick-named 'Chinese doctor'.

The Ambassador then invited me to a dinner and asked why I came to the embassy in the first place and for the medical bill. I told him there was no medical bill, the reason why I came to the embassy was to find out the possibility of studying acupuncture in China.

He sent message to China but the response was unfavourable because only very few Chinese could speak English fluently so I had to wait till 1975 before I could visit China. In the meantime, I studied Acupuncture in South-China in 1974. On my return from South-China, I was invited to give the 1974 Christmas Lecture at LUTH. I started practising acupuncture on myself and my wife. I organized the first acupuncture clinic in 1975 at the LUTH and became the Director. Even though I had strong opposition from my colleagues that I could not practise unorthodox medicine at LUTH. Late Professor Olu Mabayejo of blessed memory the first Registrar of MDCN was my benefactor who stood behind me (as rock of Gibraltar) that as a Consultant, the Medical Advisory Committee of the LUTH could not stop me from practising acupuncture since the patients benefited from it and there was no complaint. That could have been the end of acupuncture practice in Nigeria and probably in Africa.

My other benefactor was Late Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti of blessed memory, who provided the whole of the old Paedtriac Outpatient Department for my use as Acupuncture clinic in the afternoons.

I built bridges of understanding and mutual respect with my academic consultants at the LUTH so that patients were referred to acupuncture clinic from most departments. Late Professor Paul Omodare, a Professor of Paediatric Surgery whom I worked with as Paediatric Anaesthsiologist referred many cases of backache and later joined by other neurosurgeons. I convinced them that fair trial should be given to acupuncture, and if does not work go for laminectomy. We were able to save a few from undergoing laminectomy. The result of our work was published in Abstracts of First World Congress on Pain (5)

Similarly, we undertook various surgical operations under acupuncture in collaboration with surgeons and gyneacologists. The overall success rate was 71.4% which correlates with previous investigations. [6,7]. The advantages of acupuncture are prolonged postoperative analgesia, early ambulation and early alimentation, absence of abdominal distention (paralytic ileus) and lack of postoperative cardiovascular and respiratory complications. (8, 9, 10).

Professor Mason Falaiye, a renowned gastroenterologist referred a grossly obese lady diagnosed as duodenal ulcer to our clinic because she could not survive surgery. After six months of acupuncture therapy, the patient had marked improvement with increased in quality of life. Professor Falaiye could not believe acupuncture could achieve such a feat. It was at this stage, we decided to study the effects of acupuncture on gastric acid secretion by pentagarin stimulation test in 14 Nigerian patients pre and post treatment with acupuncture. Ten patients with clinical, endoscopic as well as radiological evidence of chronic duodenial ulcer constituted the “Ulcer Group”. Four other patients with history of dyspepsia formed the “Dyspeptic Group”. Pentagastrin stimulation test was performed on all subject pre and post acupuncture therapy. The classical Chinese acupuncture loci were employed.

One of our startling cases was a 27-year old Nigerian with sensori-neural deafness due to trauma since the age of 7 years. He was managed by therapeutic acupuncture and audiogram was monitored before and after treatment. There was marked improvement in speech discrimination and hearing ability. The work was carried out in collaboration with Professor Phillip Okeowo an ENT surgeon. (Published in the prestigious American Journal of Chinese Medicine [1980])
1979 was a remarkable and eventful year, that was the year I was invited as a visiting Professor of Anaesthesiology and Acupuncture to the prestigious University of Vienna, Austria by Dr. Otto Myrhoffer, the professor and chairman of the Department of Anaesthesiology to join the research team on Acupuncture. We investigated the mechanism of acupuncture analgesia in 30 cats.

Discharges were recorded from spinal dorsal horn neurons in response to heating at (500c) in anaesthetized cats. Repetitive electrical stimulation of the superficial peroneal (SP) and posteriortibial (PT) nerves inhibited those noceptive discharges as well as systematic administration of met-encephalimamide (synthetic endorphin). The inhibitory effects of electo-stimulation as well as administration of synthetic endorphin were partially antagonized by naloxone thus endorsing endogenous morphine alike substance release as the basis for the mechanism of acupuncture analgesia. However, non-responding neuronal units to the administration of enkephalin were also observed. These non-responding units may explain why acupuncture is not effective in some individuals. (This work was published in the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, New York [1981]) (15).

Our most typical patient at the First Centre for Integrative Medicine & Research, Surulere, Sportcity is someone with a chronic ailment; conventional medicine does poorly with intractable disorders. The western medicine specialist prescribes expensive powerful and toxic medications. At some point, the patient reads the package insert and says, “Oh my God, my doctor wants me to take this”? That's what we hear from the patients. They come with stark of records and a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, and say, my doctor wants me to take these drugs; predinisone, methotrexate and I read the side effects and fainted. There must be something better.

To which I reply, “I don't know if it is better, but there is something different to try before you go on to these very powerful drugs”. For example, patient themselves are often aware of events in their lives that are responsible for precipitating an illness. These are usually regarded as “incidence” by doctors.
The overall prevalence of autoimmune disease in women raises very difficult issues, the immune system, normally need for attacking invaders like viruses or bacteria, perceives the patients own body as foreign and attacks it. Thus the appropriate treatment of an auto-immune disease might not be cortisol to suppress everything but supporting therapy to restore the patient's sense of self worth. For some disorders, though we advocate patients to have conventional treatments. I was involved in a long argument with a lady about an abnormal Pap smear and I said just go and have Western treatment for this. And she simply would not. It was a benigh case, so we could wait and see. I was willing to say, “alright you let me monitor this, but if it doesn't improve, you promise to see a gynaecologist. I am not going to allow you to be followed up at this centre if you don't abide by the rules.

We are not magicians “if my colleagues in the orthodox medicine know that we [Complementary/Alternative Medicine Practitioners (CAMP)] have such a policy and also that we are not trying to steal their patients, we will gain acceptance and respect among the medical doctors.

Have you checked the number of obituaries in the newspapers lately? There is something odd and sad about the way and manner people continue to die before their time these days, mostly out of ignorance of what to do.
The other day I heard a lady complaining that she won't weep for a dead relative because he killed himself out of his own “over sabi” or what you call overzealousness.

Yours truly got fascinated and wanted to hear more, why would a big man with loads of money, both in local and hard currency willingly kill himself? I asked.
He dug his own grave, the lady, let's call her Monica, said. She now went on to give a long detail of how Mr X because he has so much money to travel all over the world on holidays or business always use the opportunities of such trips to do medical check-up virtually in all the countries he has ever visited.” Finally, they told him the condition of his heart was not good, he was never the same since then until he died”, she concluded.

So, is it bad to know the state of your health I quipped? It is generally believed that Africans are very superstitious. They will rather prefer not to hear the details of a comprehensive medical report and prefer to” let the sleeping dogs lie down not only within the illiterates but even amongst the educated, you will be amazed at some of their reactions to health issues. Everybody has an opinion.

Medical experts say that comprehensive medical check-up is a must for everybody, especially since most of us are under stress daily. From forty years and above people that are working hard or under pressure like those in the corporate world, civil servants, construction workers even market women and men are not excluded. You need it at least once in a year.

For you to live a productive and rewarding life you need to be in good health, available medical statistics also shows that the leading causes of death worldwide are heart diseases, stroke, cancer- to mention a few. About half of all deaths from heart disease and strokes are sudden and unexpected. But they are treatable either with herbs of synthetic drugs when detected early through the process of comprehensive health check-up.

Comprehensive check-up screens each organ closely to detect even the smallest symptom that could be an indication of a major disease. Some checks identify the reason for minor ailments, which are constant irritants; it also serves as a medical record for future references. If prevention is better, then the sooner a disorder is spotted and treated the better the chances of successfully treating it. The best time to go for a comprehensive health check-up according to medical experts is when you feel completely healthy.

Back to Sister Monica, while she continue to rant on how the dead man should have been less fanatical about his health status, two other sisters joined her, they regaled us with stories of their numerous trips out of Nigeria and how such trips affords them opportunity to do check-ups. “The facilities are now in Nigeria” one of them said.

The younger of the two women suddenly looked lost and concerned, what is the matter? The older one asked. “I suspect the last test that I had in Germany was manipulated she said, “they said their mother had breast cancer but I rejected it by the blood of Jesus, I have since refused to do anything, after all I had no pain before I left Nigeria, I had only travelled over there to go and enjoy my holiday's”. Please do another one the older woman pleaded, “It may further prolong your life”.

So do we join the elders in the village who says that “What you don't know cannot kill you” or make sure we know and prevent what can kill through checking up? Most times what is needed is a change in lifestyle, nutrition or exercises to prevent it and all sorts of advice that keeps us going healthier and stronger.

Mouse researchers conducting stress hormone experiments have stumbled onto a surprising new discovery - a potential treatment for hair loss.
Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Veterans Administration were working with genetically altered mice that typically develop headto-tail baldness as a result of overproducing a stress hormone. The experiment wasn't focused on hair loss. Instead. it was designed to study a chemical compound that blocks the effects of stress on the gut. The researchers treated the bald mice for five days with the compound and then returned them to the cages, where they scampered about with several furry mice from a control group.

Three months later, the scientists went back to the cage to conduct additional experiments. They were surprised by what they saw inside - all of the mice had full heads and backs of hair. The once-bald mice. eventually identified through ear tags, were indistinguishable from their normal, furry cage mates.
Dr. Million Mulugeta, co-director of the preclinical stress biology programme at UCLA, said he looked inside the cage and at first wondered why the bald mice weren't there. "I asked my colleague, 'How come these mice aren't distinguishable from the others?' " he said. "We Went back to our data log, and we realised all the mice had grown hair. It was a totally unexpected finding."

The serendipitous discovery was reported Wednesday in the online medical journal PLoS One.
Already the research is drawing a mixed response from dermatologists and hair loss researchers. Dr. Melissa Piliang, a dermatologist at the Cleveland Clinic, cautioned that the findings of a mouse ' study may not be applicable to humans, but she said that the results may spur more study of the role stress might play in human hair loss.

"We've certainly seen patients whose hair worsened when they are under a lot of stress," Piliang said. "But what we don't know is whether some of this genetic hair loss is particularly affected by stress. I think it's hopeful for future research and treatment." But Dr. George Cotsarelis, chairman of the dermatology department at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said any treatment developed from the research would probably be useful only for hair loss related to stress, like that caused by one-time events, rather than as a treatment for genetic baldness. "It's difficult to say that it's going to lead to a new treatment," he said.

Mulugeta said he is hopeful the findings will lead to new avenues of hair-loss research. The team decided to repeat the experiment several times. Each time, bald mice treated with tiny doses of the compound for five days grew new hair in just a few weeks. In another series of experiments, the compound was injected into young mice before their hair fell out. Those mice never went bald, suggesting the compound not only has the potential to grow hair but may also prevent age-related hair loss.

The effect also appeared to persist after only one series of treatments. The scientists continued to observe the mice for four months - a long time in the two-year life span of a mouse. The new hair remained on the once-bald mice, and the mice that were treated to prevent hair loss never went bald.
The duration of the effect is important, because current hair-loss prevention remedies - including minoxidil (sold under the brand name Rogaine) and fin aster ide (sold as Propecia) - require regular use to maintain what is typically described as only a modest benefit.

Still, Cotsarelis cautioned that the hair growth cycles are very different in mice and humans, so one could draw only limited conclusions from the research.
Mulugeta agreed that any treatment for humans is, at best, years away. "We are at the early stage of the work," he said. "We have a very strong observation, but we don't know whether this effect could be seen in humans. How does it act? All of these things have to be worked out, but we intend to follow through."
The mice used in the experiments had been genetically altered to overproduce a stress hormone called corticotrophin-releasing factor, or CRF To block the action of CRF, the researchers injected the mice with a peptide called astressin-B. The experiment was designed to measure how much the peptide would inhibit the effects of stress on the colon.

The mechanism by which the peptide triggered hair growth isn't known, Mulugeta said. The agent appears to be acting on stress hormone receptors in the skin and near, or within, the hair follicle. "The hair follicle in these mice is inactive," he said. "Something has turned on that cycle to put it back into an active phase, a hair-growing phase." \ Mulugeta also noted that in addition to preventing hair loss, the agent affected the mice's skin pigment, suggesting the compound may have the potential to affect hair 'color, including gray hair.

"The evidence to show that hair loss is not a permanent loss is shown very strongly in this study, and that by itself is very important," he said. "The antagonist really triggers a mechanism that covers a lot of biological phenomena, including hair growth and hair color. We certainly intend to continue the research."

Culled from The New York Times SCIENCE WORLD