Your Weekly Dose of #5ThoughtsFriday: A description of what we think is important at BIAMD
  #5Thoughts Friday
The "Earmuff" Edit ion
03/13/2020
#5ThoughtsFriday is Powered By :
Here are the 5 things we thought were
worth sharing with you this week:
Brain Injury Awareness Day (March 18) and the
BIAMD 2020 Annual Conference
(March 26-27)
Have Been Canceled

CLICK HERE to find out more.
Photo by  Agustin Fernandez  on  Unsplash
Renters are being evicted across Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin for simply surviving an overdose. Many have not even been charged with a crime. City ordinances that mandate such evictions by landlords are part of a growing trend to punish Midwest overdose survivors—as seen recently with an  Indiana prosecutor ‘s move to use the successful administration of naloxone, the opioid-overdose reversal medication, as  probable cause  to gather evidence in support of felony charges.

More than 100 Illinois communities , around  50 Ohio jurisdictions  and some Wisconsin localities have adopted “crime-free rental housing” ordiances and/or “criminal activity nuisance ordinances” that hold landlords legally liable for tenants’ and visitors’ alleged drug use, regardless of whether it happens on or off the property.

“If you tell communities that calling for emergency assistance in that situation, it could lead to eviction, you’re essentially telling them to stop calling even in dire circumstances where someone may need life-saving, medical help,” American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Senior Attorney Sandra Park, who’s involved in lawsuits against cities with crime-free housing ordinances,  told  Illinois Newsroom.

In Granite City in southern Illinois, home to only 28,000 residents, at least 36 people who either survived an overdose or witnessed an overdose have faced eviction between 2014 and 2018 as a result of a policy adopted in 2010, the local newspaper Belleville News Democrat  reported  in January.

 
CLICK HERE to read more on this issue that's no longer just in the midwest.
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE ON THE HOME ACT

(Expanding the housing policy of Maryland to include providing for fair housing to all citizens regardless of source of income)

SB530 has passed both chambers and is being sent to Governor Hogan for his signature!!!   
Photo by  Tim Gouw  on  Unsplash
The web is literally built to distract you.
Here's how to fight back.
I've been on my computer for four hours today, and I'm not sure I've gotten anything done. This is entirely my fault, to be clear—I have deep impulse control problems. At the same time, this is happening by design.

The modern internet is optimized to be as distracting as possible. Social networks and other websites are built by some of the smartest software engineers who have ever lived, and often the objective is to take up as much of your time as possible.
I point this out not to make any kind of moral statement. A business, by definition, has to make money. That very much includes advertising-supported websites and apps that generate more profit the more time you spend scrolling. But it's important to realize this agenda exists—because it might not align with your personal goals.

Maybe you want to be more productive at work. Maybe you want to spend more time being creative or learning new skills. Or maybe you just wish you spent more time communicating with the people you love and less time scrolling through websites that bring you brief moments of joy just frequently enough that you're willing to tolerate the broader feeling of anxiety/jealousy/outrage.
The internet can be an amazing tool for pursuing these goals, but it's not necessarily designed to push you toward it. You've got to work to create the environment for yourself. Here are some ways you can do just that.

CLICK HERE to read Justin's tips
Adolescence is a time of massive change. As children become teenagers, they're subject to growth spurts, voice changes, new body hair, and annoying acne. But perhaps the biggest shifts of adolescence are the invisible ones happening inside the brain.

"The brain of an adolescent is no different in size or shape than that of an adult," says board-certified neurosurgeon  Marc Arginteanu , M.D., F.A.C.S. "On a standard CAT scan or MRI, your brain and that of your teenager would be indistinguishable. But, in terms of development, your brain is worlds apart from theirs."

The teenage brain isn't fully developed, and different parts of the brain mature at different rates. For instance, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which sits right behind the eyes and is responsible for executive function and rational reasoning, doesn't typically fully mature until age 24, while the amygdala, which is deep in the brain and processes and integrates emotions, emotional behaviors, and motivation, seems to reach full maturity much earlier.

Because the relationship between the PFC and the amygdala is off balance in adolescents, they lack the ability to put a cognitive control on emotional processes. This could help explain a common characteristic in teenagers: reckless decision making. In the adult brain, decision making is heavily influenced by the PFC, which helps rationalize. In adolescents, however, decision making is associated with an increase in activity in the striatum, a part of the brain considered to be a primary component of the reward system, and the insula, a part of the brain active during psychological conflicts.

CLICK HERE at your own risk!. ☺️
CLICK HERE to check out this fantastic Brain Injury Awareness month Public Service Announcement from the Kennedy Krieger Institute!
2) What We are Reading
We Know You Will Enjoy
While in grad school in the early 1990s, Chris Niebauer began to notice striking parallels between the latest discoveries in psychology, neuroscience, and the teachings of Buddhism, Taoism, and other schools of Eastern thought. When he presented his findings to a professor, his ideas were quickly dismissed as “pure coincidence, nothing more.”

Fast-forward 20 years later and Niebauer is a PhD and a tenured professor, and the Buddhist-neuroscience connection he found as a student is practically its own genre in the bookstore. But according to Niebauer, we are just beginning to understand the link between Eastern philosophy and the latest findings in psychology and neuroscience and what these assimilated ideas mean for the human experience.
In this groundbreaking book, Niebauer writes that the latest research in neuropsychology is now confirming a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, what is called Anatta, or the doctrine of “no self.”

CLICK HERE for more on this new perspective on an old way of thinking.
1) Quote We Are Contemplating...

"Don't Panic."

Have you ever clicked on the pictures posted at the end of every #5ThoughtsFridays? Try it. You might learn something fun!
Photo by  Ben White  on  Unsplash
HAVE A WONDERFUL
WEEKEND.
(AND WASH YOUR HANDS EARLY AND OFTEN)

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  Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend.