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AP Photo/Mike Groll

Zhang Jie of China reacts while competing during the men's 62-kg weightlifting competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 30, 2012, in London.

What's the most shocking sight in the Olympics so far?  It’s not Michael Phelps failing to medal in the 400 IM.  Nor is it Jordyn Weiber getting eliminated from the gymnastics all-around finals. 

The most shocking sight to me is Chinese weightlifter Zhang Jie’s big, hairy facial mole.

Zhang sports a mole on the side of his chin that must measure at least half an inch in diameter.  Long, wiry, black hair protrudes from it, resembling the whiskers of a cat. 

As a plastic surgeon, I recommend that he have the mole removed.  It resembles a congenital hairy nevus, which carries a 0.8-4.9 percent risk of turning into skin cancer. The best treatment for moles like this is surgical excision. 

So why hasn’t Zhang had it cut off? 

Even more important, why doesn’t he clip those hairs?

According to the Chinese Fortune Calendar, dark moles are often considered good luck. Hairy moles signify even better luck than bald ones, as they are regarded as healthier. This belief may actually be supported medically: Cancerous moles often lose their hair, as the cancer cells invade the hair follicle, causing the hair shafts to fall out.  Therefore, hairy moles are considered less likely to be cancerous than non-hairy ones.

So was Zhang’s congenital hairy nevus good luck? 

Not really. Although he was the favorite to win the 62-kilogram competition, Zhang ended up placing fourth. 

Time to call the plastic surgeon.   

Dr. Anthony Youn is a Michigan-based cosmetic surgeon and frequent NBCNews.com and TODAY.com contributor. He is the author of the book "In Stitches," a humorous memoir about becoming a doctor. 

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Everyone dreams. But less than 1 percent of adults have a rare condition that causes them to act out their dreams while asleep.

During a vivid dream involving lots of action, people with REM sleep behavior disorder, (RBD) may punch, kick, scream, shout, swear or grab someone while sleeping or they may jump out of bed -- injuring themselves or hurting a bedmate in the process. 

RBD episodes happen during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, a stage of shut-eye when dreaming occurs, or roughly every two hours.

Usually the body is "paralyzed" during REM sleep. But this doesn't happen in people with RBD, so their arms and legs are free to move while dreaming. As a result, if someone with RBD is dreaming of being attacked, they may fight back in their sleep. There's medication to treat RBD symptoms, yet doctors have previously known little about who is affected by the disorder other than it is more common in men and typically strikes people after age 50.

For reasons that are still unclear, REM sleep behavior disorder also seems to increase a person's risk for Parkinson's disease and one type of dementia. Some studies have suggested that more than 50 percent of those with this rare sleep disorder may go on to develop a neurodegenerative disease.

To learn more, a recent study published in the journal Neurology tried to determine the risk factors for RBD and whether they were similar to those for Parkinson's disease or dementia.

They compared the lifestyle habits of 347 people with RBD to the same number of people who didn't have this sleep problem but were similar in age and gender. 

The study identified several potential risk factors for RBD, including having a previous head injury, being a farmer, and working in a job with pesticide exposure. All three of these risks have also been linked with Parkinson's disease.

Researchers also found that people who had fewer years of education increase their chances of RBD.

"Many of the risk factors for RBD are the same as for Parkinson's disease, however, it is ultimately where they differ that can teach us the most," says study author Dr. Ronald Postuma, a neurologist and associate professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

One important difference scientists found was that people who smoke were more likely to develop RBD, but nicotine has been shown to reduce the odds of Parkinson's disease. A second difference is that coffee drinking was not linked with the sleep disorder while other studies have suggested it helps protect against Parkinson's disease.

Postuma suspects that in some people, REM sleep behavior disorder can be an important sign of early Parkinson's disease. In these early stages, he says the disease may affect areas of the brain involved in sleep, smell, and bladder control.

As Parkinson's advances, it affects the motor areas of the brain, producing symptoms such as tremors, rigid muscles, and problems with walking or posture.

Someone who is acting out their dreams at night often first learns they're doing this from their sleep partner. Sleep talking or sleep walking is usually something quite different from RBD, points out Postuma.

A specialist at a sleep clinic can confirm the diagnosis. Postuma also recommends that RBD patients should be followed by a neurologist, who can monitor and treat their symptoms should any Parkinson changes emerge. 

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Natalie Wolchover
LifesLittleMysteries

With a presidential campaign, health care and the gun control debate in the news these days, one can't help getting sucked into the flame wars that are Internet comment threads. But psychologists say this addictive form of vitriolic back and forth should be avoided — or simply censored by online media outlets — because it actually damages society and mental health. 

These days, online comments "are extraordinarily aggressive, without resolving anything," said Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. "At the end of it you can't possibly feel like anybody heard you. Having a strong emotional experience that doesn't resolve itself in any healthy way can't be a good thing." 

If it's so unsatisfying and unhealthy, why do we do it? 

A perfect storm of factors come together to engender the rudeness and aggression seen in the comments' sections of Web pages, Markman said. First, commenters are often virtually anonymous, and thus, unaccountable for their rudeness. Second, they are at a distance from the target of their anger — be it the article they're commenting on or another comment on that article — and people tend to antagonize distant abstractions more easily than living, breathing interlocutors. Third, it's easier to be nasty in writing than in speech, hence the now somewhat outmoded practice of leaving angry notes (back when people used paper), Markman said.

Related: A typical day on the Internet 

And because comment-section discourses don't happen in real time, commenters can write lengthy monologues, which tend to entrench them in their extreme viewpoint. "When you're having a conversation in person, who actually gets to deliver a monologue except people in the movies? Even if you get angry, people are talking back and forth and so eventually you have to calm down and listen so you can have a conversation," Markman told Life's Little Mysteries. 

Chiming in on comment threads may even give one a feeling of accomplishment, albeit a false one. "There is so much going on in our lives that it is hard to find time to get out and physically help a cause, which makes 'armchair activism' an enticing [proposition]," a blogger at Daily Kos opined in a July 23 article. 

And finally, Edward Wasserman, Knight Professor in Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, noted another cause of the vitriol: bad examples set by the media. "Unfortunately, mainstream media have made a fortune teaching people the wrong ways to talk to each other, offering up Jerry Springer, Crossfire, Bill O'Reilly. People understandably conclude rage is the political vernacular, that this is how public ideas are talked about," Wasserman wrote in an article on his university's website. "It isn't." 

Communication, the scholars say, is really about taking someone else's perspective, understanding it, and responding. "Tone of voice and gesture can have a large influence on your ability to understand what someone is saying," Markman said. "The further away from face-to-face, real-time dialogue you get, the harder it is to communicate." 

In his opinion, media outlets should cut down on the anger and hatred that have become the norm in reader exchanges. "It's valuable to allow all sides of an argument to be heard. But it's not valuable for there to be personal attacks, or to have messages with an extremely angry tone. Even someone who is making a legitimate point but with an angry tone is hurting the nature of the argument, because they are promoting people to respond in kind," he said. "If on a website comments are left up that are making personal attacks in the nastiest way, you're sending the message that this is acceptable human behavior."

Related: Niceness is in your DNA, scientists find

For their part, people should seek out actual human beings to converse with, Markman said — and we should make a point of including a few people in our social circles who think differently from us. "You'll develop a healthy respect for people whose opinions differ from your own," he said. 

Working out solutions to the kinds of hard problems that tend to garner the most comments online requires lengthy discussion and compromise. "The back-and-forth negotiation that goes on in having a conversation with someone you don't agree with is a skill," Markman said. And this skill is languishing, both among members of the public and our leaders. 

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• People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say 

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By Chris Gorski, Inside Science

Call them pre-performance tweaks, athlete hacks, or just plain smart. In an effort to extrude every last bit of performance from their bodies, Olympians are likely to ingest some strange-sounding supplements in their final preparations for competition.

Beetroot juice, bicarbonate of soda, and caffeine may sound like the ingredients for a particularly colorful science-fair project, but sports physiology experts say these competition-legal supplements may significantly improve an athlete's performance.

"A one-percent difference in performance is something that will separate the guy who wins the 100 meter gold medal from the guy who comes last in the race," said Michael Gleeson, an exercise biochemist at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, U.K.

Caffeine is one supplement that many non-athletes rely on every day. Although athletes' use was once subject to limits under antidoping rules, it is no longer a regulated substance. The athletes are seeking many of the same benefits that the rest of us gain from a cup of coffee.

Beyond the benefits that most people recognize, such as increased alertness, "[Caffeine] also improves a lot of other physiological parameters, so a lot of people take it," said Keith Baar, an exercise physiologist at the University of California, Davis.

"There's no real reason why athletes wouldn't be taking caffeine," said Gleeson. "The dose that's needed to improve performance through a central brain stimulant effect is fairly low."

One limit to performance in many events that last longer than a minute, but usually less than 10, is the build-up of lactic acid in muscles. When intense exercise requires more energy than the body can provide through the aerobic process that uses oxygen, it creates energy using a different process, which ends with the formation of lactic acid. Buildup of this acid causes a burning sensation and can impair muscle contraction, slowing down athletes.

Some Olympians will take bicarbonate -- better known as baking soda -- to counteract this process. In theory, having a supply of bicarbonate in the blood allows it to buffer the acid's hydrogen ions, slowing down any buildup in the muscles, and helping to improve performance.  

Bicarbonate is used by those athletes that can abide its often significant effects on the digestive system. Once it reaches the stomach, bicarbonate produces carbon dioxide, which can cause flatulence, bloating and other unpleasant, potentially performance-impairing side effects.

"If an athlete can actually physically tolerate taking that supplement without too much gastrointestinal problems then it may well improve their performance," said Gleeson.

But recent scientific studies suggest that it might not actually work as well as was indicated in early studies, said Baar.

Juicing a beet provides a deeply colored liquid rich in chemicals called nitrates, and promises to provide multiple sources of assistance to athletes, both physiological and psychological. Nitrates are also found in other vegetables such as Swiss chard and roots.

Studies have shown that beetroot juice alone can improve performance by 2-3 percent in events lasting 20-30 minutes, said Baar.

"[F]or events lasting more than a minute and lasting up to several hours, it's a potentially performance- enhancing supplement," said Gleeson. "It essentially will improve endurance exercise performance by making you more efficient in the use of oxygen."

"Efficiency is one of the key things that's going to distinguish between a winner and just somebody who's there to compete," said Baar.

Beetroot juice also has an additional, instantly recognizable effect that could have a significant psychological impact. The vegetable's natural color can add unfamiliar hues to athletes' waste products.

"You're going to pee purple, you're going to poo purple," said Baar. "There's nothing quite as good for a placebo as seeing, 'Oh yeah, I'm taking the beetroot, there it is, everything is working really well.'"

In some cases, a supplement's physiological effect of might not be the most critical part of its contribution to an athlete's performance. Believing that something improves performance, whether it is a preparation ritual, or a supplement, might offer its own performance-enhancing effect.

This is one reason why it's so difficult to analyze the true effects of many supplements. A 2-3 percent difference would likely be easily recognized in a scientific experiment, but a lesser improvement might not, Gleeson indicated. Olympic medals are often decided by substantially smaller margins.

Athletes take many other supplements, both in training and in competition. But a winning performance does not prove that an intervention works.

"One of the many problems in this field, this whole area, is that to scientifically prove that something improves performance is very difficult to do for anything that might only have a relatively small effect," said Gleeson.

This story originally appeared on InsideScience.org.

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Darren Green

Everybody knows too much stress and anxiety is bad for you. It dents the immune system, the cardiovascular system and may even contribute to cancer. Now it appears that one common source of stress -- our jobs -- could be having damaging effects on critical DNA in our cells. And that could lead to early aging, and the diseases and conditions that go along with it.

A study led by Kirsi Ahola of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health measured the length of DNA sections called telomeres and how the lengths varied in association with job stress. It found that people with the most job stress tended to have shorter telomeres.

That matters because telomeres, located at the ends of chromosomes, serve as a kind of protective cap to the ropy strands, helping assure that the genetic instructions carried by genes on the chromosomes are accurately translated so cells get the right messages. Telomeres become shorter with age, oxidation and chemical insults. Often, when telomeres reach a critically short length, the cell dies in a process called apoptosis. Some cells don’t die. They become what scientists call “senescent.” They sputter along, making genetic errors and causing damage.

In their study, published this month in the journal PLoS One, Ahola and her co-workers looked at blood cells called leukocytes, a group of cells critical for immune function and a common subject of telomere experiments. They found that workers who experienced “severe exhaustion” from job stress had significantly shorter leukocyte telomeres than workers who were not exhausted from stress. 

As a result, those workers could face the diseases of aging sooner than they might otherwise. Telomere shortening has been associated with Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. In short, a constantly stressful job could make you old before your time.

“I think that these results should be used when considering health hazards and work place legislation,” Ahola told NBC News. “Chronic work stress can become a health risk and should be prevented.”

She acknowledged that “both individual and environmental factors affect the experience of stress,” so the same objective workplace conditions could have greater or lesser effects depending upon a number of personal traits.

That’s why, suggested Aoife O’Donovan, a research fellow at the University of California San Francisco, who studies the relationship between telomeres and stress, science can’t yet make definite cause and effect statements about telomere length, stress, aging and disease.

A number of life stressors aside from work, such as marital troubles, poverty, early childhood experience, gender (males tend to have shorter telomeres) -- as well as genetic makeup and health behaviors like smoking and diet – also appear to affect telomere length. For example, people who have experienced childhood trauma tend to be less able to cope with stress later in life and also tend to have shorter telomeres. The Finnish researchers adjusted their findings to take some of these factors into account, but it’s not possible to filter them out completely.

Still, O’Donovan doesn’t doubt the validity of the link between work stress and telomere shortening. “When you get a high enough dose of stress, hardly anyone is resilient,” she explained. “People can be resilient to one or two types of stressors in certain periods of time, but once it becomes cumulative, across domains, it’s rare to find resilient people.”

Stress builds on itself, she said. “Chronic stress begets chronic stress.”   

But despite the ample evidence that stress is damaging, O’Donovan said, “It’s amazing how much we talk about it, and how little we’re are doing about it.”  

Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young PhD., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction," (www.TheChemistryBetweenUs.com) to be published Sept. 13.

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Having wrinkles adds well, a new wrinkle for young people trying to gauge the emotions seen on older people's faces. A new study suggests that younger people may make more mistakes when judging the emotions of older folks.

To younger adults, age-related changes, such as wrinkles and folds, look like facial expressions, so they may interfere with the perception of emotion in an older face and perhaps convey the wrong message.

In the study, published online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers asked 65 college students to view computer-generated black and white faces. They viewed faces of three men and three women who were young (ages 19 to 21) or old (ages 76 to 83) displaying one of four facial expressions: neutral, happy, sad, or angry.

Participants were asked to rate the emotional expression on the person's face on a scale from 1 for "not at all intense" to 7 for "very intense."

Young people were were most accurate in recognizing an angry expression and least accurate in judging sadness in old faces. They perceived happy faces in older people as showing less overall emotion than a younger person.

The study found that a facial expression, such as pure anger, on an older face is perceived differently -- and less clearly -- than the very same expression displayed on a younger person.

"In the case of the older expresser, the anger is seen as mixed with other emotions,"  says lead author Dr. Ursula Hess, a professor of psychology at Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany.  "Clearly it makes a difference whether you think someone is just angry or someone is both angry and sad," she adds.

Even when it came to a neutral face, volunteers perceived that there was more emotion in a neutral older face than in a younger one.

Courtesy of Dr. Ursula Hess

Here's an example of the images researchers used in the study.

Researchers suggest that wrinkles do impact the communication of emotion.

"We may make mistakes when judging the emotions of the elderly," says Hess. "This may result in less harmonious interactions."

The age of the observers also likely made a difference in the results. Had the study participants been closer in age to the older faces, they would have had more experience at recognizing older faces to overcome the difficulties posed by a less clear emotional signal, Hess explains.

Although Botox may help smooth out the furrows and lines of an older face, it won't make it any easier for people to gauge your emotions. The cosmetic injections may limit facial expressions, making them harder to read.

So how can an older person make their emotions more visible -- and less obscure -- to other people?

Emotions are usually transmitted via a number of channels, including voice and posture, as well as the face, suggests Hess. And during everyday interactions, expressions are more dynamic than looking at a black-and-white photograph in a lab.

Since there are many different sources of emotion information, "an attentive interaction partner could learn how to properly decode the emotion," says Hess. That's probably why older people are better at decoding other older people's expressions.

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Think about how much time you'd save if you could judge which traffic toll lines move quickest, just by looking at them. According to new research, having that skill doesn't only subtract a few minutes from your road trip--it also makes your life a whole lot easier.

Some of us are born with a better "number sense" -- the math whizzes are likely the ones breezing through the tolls because they're better at judging numbers. Turns out, these people find daily tasks easier than those of us who struggle, say researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

The good news: You're not doomed if numbers aren't your strong suit. "The precision of people's gut sense of numbers seems to improve all the way up into their 30s," says lead study author Justin Halberda, Ph.D., an associate professor at Johns Hopkins.

Cool, right? Now use these tips to see how your number sense stacks up--and work to improve it. (And for more secrets to sharpening memory, boosting creativity, and slaying stress, discover 27 Ways to Power Up Your Brain.)

Improve your intuition
Everyday activities that stimulate your brain's ability to estimate can improve your number sense. When you're outside a bar, ask yourself: How many people are in line? Or at home: How many railings are on your porch? You don't even need to figure out the right answer, Halberda says. The process of asking your brain to calculate the estimations is enough exercise.

Be a better gamer
Preliminary research out of the University of Rochester shows the tasks and rapid decision-making that videogamers face might improve their numeric intuition. "People who play action video games may actually have a more precise number sense than people who don't," Halberda says. Your move: Stick with 3D action video games on your favorite system that have you in the driver's seat, scoring the goal, or climbing the mountain. (Looks like all those hours on your X-Box pay off on the court, too: Learn How Video Games Help You at Sports.)

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By MyHealthNewsDaily staff

For people with vertigo, watching certain videos on YouTube may help treat the condition, according to a new study.

Researchers reviewed more than 3,000 YouTube videos about vertigo treatments, and found 33 focused on the Epley maneuver, a technique aimed at preventing the dizziness that vertigo brings.

Of these videos, 64 percent accurately taught how to perform the maneuver, and therefore could be useful resources for people with a type of vertigo called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), which is caused by having free-floating particles trapped within a canal in the inner ear.

"This type of vertigo can be treated easily and quickly with a simple maneuver called the Epley maneuver, but too often, the maneuver isn't used," said study author Dr. Kevin Kerber, of the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.

Sufferers of vertigo feel extremely dizzy due to the perception that the world is spinning around them.

The Epley maneuver, which can be performed in a few minutes at the edge of a bed, requires a patient to make a few short, timed movements with their head, in order to get the free-floating particles out of the inner ear canal.

Vertigo can also result from problems within the brain, reactions to various drugs or headaches. In these cases, the Epley maneuver cannot treat the condition.

The video with the most hits was developed by the American Academy of Neurology, of which Kerber is a member. Health care providers could promote such videos as a good treatment method, which could be preferable to other options such waiting for dizziness to abate on its own, or taking drugs, the researchers said.

One downside of the videos is that people could use the technique to treat themselves, and thus may decide not to consult a health care professional, which may be problematic if their dizziness is actually resulting from another cause.

The findings may change practice for some doctors. Dr. J. Kirk Roberts, who leads the Columbia University Center for Dizziness, Vertigo and Balance and was not involved in the study, said he would now like to add a link to the videos to the handout he gives to patients when teaching them the maneuver.

"I have seen animated videos of the maneuver on medical sites, and I think I should have realized that -- given that everything gets on YouTube -- they would have found their way," Roberts said.

 Often, patients ask him to remind them how to do the maneuver, and the videos would be a good resource for them, Roberts said, though he cautioned against people attempting use the videos to diagnose themselves, as there are several causes of vertigo.

The study was published today (July 23) in the journal Neurology.

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Nightly News

As part of Tony Robbins’ motivational seminar “Unleash the Power Within” participants can opt to walk across a field of hot coals, which can reach temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Firewalking is always an unforgettable experience, but especially so for some firewalkers at Robbins' conference on July 19 -- 21 participants suffered second and third degree burns. 

Yet most people who walk across fire do not suffer from burns -- that's because coals are poor conductors of heat.  

“There is not much energy on the surface of the coals -- as long as you do not linger, [you won’t get burned],” explains Jearl Walker, a professor of physics at Cleveland State University.

“You want to walk at a moderate pace and you do not want to run,” because running kicks up embers, resulting in burns.

Some reports indicate that some of the injured people from the Robbins event hesitated when crossing the fire. Standing on the coals too long or walking across freshly raked coals also increases the chance of sustaining burns.   

Walker, who has firewalked seven times for classes and on his PBS show “Kinetic Karnival,” is one of the few experts on firewalking. While most of his firewalking experiences went off without a hitch, the third time he crossed the coals, an ember got caught under his toes and he carried it across the four feet of hot coals, causing third-degree burns.  

Why would any rational person decide to walk barefoot across fire? It’s simple -- firewalking provides a high.

“(Y)ou meet the challenge and then feel good about yourself. It gives you a rush,” Walker says.

Prior to traversing a bed of hot coals, people step on wet grass, which protects them from burns. (Although Walker admits he is normally so nervous his feet are sweaty enough to provide a layer of moisture.)

The dampness protects the skin because of a phenomenon called the Leidenfrost Effect. Walker says people can easily observe this in the kitchen. If one sprinkles water on a hot skillet, at a temperature of less than 100 degrees Celsius, the water sizzles and evaporates. But if the temperature exceeds 100 degree Celsius, the water spreads, causing a vapor layer, which actually prevents the water from evaporating quickly. This also happens when people with damp (or sweaty) feet walk across the coals: “When you walk over coals [the water] might produce a vapor layer and you avoid a burn because of that,” Walker says.

Also, frequent firewalkers stroll around without shoes to build up calluses on their feet. (Pro tip: avoid pedis prior to a firewalk.)  

“If you get really thick calluses and you burn part of them … you are not going [feel it],” Walker says.

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It's a nightmare scenario we've heard about again and again: mass shootings at political rallies, college campuses, crowded food courts. Friday morning, many Americans woke up to the news of one of the worst mass shootings in recent memory in an Aurora, Colo., movie theatre, where a lone gunman shot 71 men, women and children, killing 12 of them.

News like this is chilling to all of us, but what about those who already harbor fears of public spaces? Elizabeth Lombardo, a psychologist who specializes in anxiety disorders, says the Colorado shooting will most likely exacerbate the fears and phobias some people have about going out and about in public.

"What took place in Colorado is only going to fuel that fire," she says. "A lot of times when people have a phobia, they focus on possibility rather than probability. It could happen versus it's likely to happen. People will say, 'That's not likely to happen,' however, because this just happened, it increases that fear that they already have."

Lombardo, author of "A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness," says events like this can also increase stress, which in turn, can ramp up people's fears.

"When people have a higher stress level, their fears or concerns or even their irrational thoughts -- thoughts not based in fact -- tend to get stronger," she says. "That's another way something like this can affect people's phobias and fears. The overall stress level goes up and that will strengthen any other fear, make it more powerful, or any other negative thought someone might have."

Responses to the tragedy on Twitter certainly seem to indicate a heightened sense of unease. "Afraid to see dark knight rises Saturday after #Colorado #batman shooting!" tweeted @nadamtawfik. "This is unreal."

To cope with anxieties and fears like these, it's best to turn to exercise and other healthy stress relievers. "Don't grab for Ben & Jerry's therapy," she says. "Spend time with a loved one, go for a walk, practice deep breathing, listen to music, or watch a funny movie. Any of these things will help your stress level."

Focusing on the bright side is also effective, she says.

"I recommend my clients review all the positives," she says. "Things that are going well in their lives. I have them focus on all the times when good things happened when they were out in open spaces."

Dr. Dan Iosifescu, director of the mood and anxiety disorders program and associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, agrees.

"The best way of handling it is reminding yourself that this is just one very negative situation among thousands and thousands of normal situations," he says. "Remind yourself that this is something very unusual and let it pass."

Does it help to come up with a battle plan, like @FeliciaGanci, who tweeted "Sitting in the theater waiting to watch #batman watch must admit I'm kinda scared! I've already planned my escape route ..."

"That depends on the person," says Lombado. "For some people, if they're objective about it, as in, 'If something bad happens, I'll do X, Y and Z,'" then [a battle plan] could help."

Coming up with a plan of action may prove too distressing for others, though, she says.

"If they're too emotional, as in 'Oh my God, if I'm shot, it will be horrible and my kids won't have a mother and my poor husband, etc.,' that will make it worse," she says. "We call this fortune telling in psychology. When you predict the future negatively and emotionally react as if it's imminent."

The most important thing, Lombardo says, is to try to keep the fear from getting stronger.

"I'm not saying everyone should go out to the movie theatre today, but if you go to a movie theatre a fair amount, I encourage you to not let this discourage you from going," she says. "Your fear will only get stronger and stronger and it could go from a fear to a phobia."

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Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP/Getty Images

You've blamed your flushed skin and runny nose on bad shellfish, seasonal allergies, or too much jalapeno in your quesadilla. But the real culprit may be lurking in your wine glass, finds a new German study.

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz sent out questionnaires to thousands of people living in a wine-producing region of western Germany. Of the roughly 950 people who completed the questionnaire, 225 drinkers--or almost 25 percent of the group--reported some mild signs of alcohol intolerance, says study author Heinz Decker, Ph.D. The most common symptoms included flushed or itchy skin, a runny nose, diarrhea, and a rapid heartbeat, Decker explains.

Wine contains proteins from grapes, bacteria, and yeast, as well as sulfites and other organic compounds, Decker says. Any one of those may cause an allergic-like reaction, and may also be found in your favorite beer, the study explains. A specific type of protein allergen called "LTP" is found in the skins of grapes, which makes red wine more likely than other types of booze to cause a reaction, Decker adds. Meanwhile, white wine is fermented without the grape skins. (Going hiking? Drink the 5 Best Portable Wines on your next outdoor adventure.)

So are you allergic to alcohol? If you experience any of the symptoms mentioned above, as well as vomiting, shortness of breath, or swelling of the lips, mouth, or throat, the answer could be yes. You may also be suffering from alcohol intolerance, which produces symptoms similar to an allergic reaction. The ethanol in your favorite drink may cause blood vessels to expand, which makes absorption of irritating agents a lot more likely, Decker says.

But relax, you don't have to give up booze any time soon--as long as your symptoms are mild, Decker says. If red wine triggers one or several of the symptoms of alcohol intolerance, try switching to white. The same goes for beer and liquor: If you don't react well to one type, try another, Decker advises. But if your symptoms are severe--like if you have problems breathing or you become seriously ill--leave your liquor on the shelf and notify your doctor ASAP, he says. (In the clear? Then tip back your favorite brews--and lose up to 32 pounds in the process! Discover the gut-shrinking secret in Drink This, Not That!).

More Links:

• What Your Drink Order Says About You
• Cheap Beers We Love
• The Men's Health Allergy Center
• 4 Strange Reasons You Drink Too Much
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Self-control is a limited commodity that runs low as you use it. So once your pool dries up, you'll struggle when faced with temptation, finds a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Researchers asked 16 people to perform self-control tasks while being monitored by an fMRI scanner. During the first session, people were assigned to either a demanding mental task or easier task. Two weeks later, they swapped tasks.

The results: Brain scans from the first session showed promising activity in both the participants' anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)--an area that deals with decision-making--and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), an area that helps manage self-control.

But after the second session, those who were exposed to the demanding task first showed less activity in their DFPFC. Simply put, "if you exert a significant amount of self-control at one time, you'll have a hard time exerting it later," says lead study author William Hedgcock, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa.

Let's say you're sitting in front of a plate of brownies at work, but you resist because you're on a diet. Hedgcock's research shows the next time you're faced with sweets--whether it's later tonight or two days from now--you'll be more likely to cave. Why? Hedgcock believes it's because your self-control is like a muscle: If you use it extensively in the short term, it will wear out and become exhausted. And time is really the only thing that helps it recover.

To prevent your self-control engine from running out of fuel, use your resources more wisely, or make less drastic choices, says Hedgcock. That's easier said than done, but here's an example: If you're on a diet but still craving something sweet, opt for a smoothie over a large sundae, rather than caving or withholding completely.

That way, you satisfy your craving and exercise some self-control, but also refrain from overworking it, says Hedgcock. (For more tips on keeping your mind sharp, discover 27 Ways to Power Up Your Brain.)

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• The Simplest Way to Resist Fast-Food Cravings
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• Win the War Against Snacking
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“A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient,” Sir William Osler, a founding faculty member of Johns Hopkins Hospital and its famous school of medicine, once said. Yet we often try to diagnose ourselves using Dr. Google.  

Now, new research from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology helps explain why that’s a very bad idea: The closer we are to the subject -- and when we’re diagnosing ourselves we’re very close indeed -- the more likely we are to over- or under-estimate the chances we’ve got something.

Marketing PhD candidate Dengfeng Yan, who will assume a teaching post at the University of Texas at San Antonio this fall, and his department chairman, Jaideep Sengupta, conducted a series of experiments showing how our cognitive brains are subject to biases that affect judgment of disease risk.  

Building on past research, they explored self-positivity and self-negativity biases. Such research has shown, for example, that symptoms we perceive to be indigestion in a stranger are often thought to be a possible heart attack in ourselves (self-negativity). Conversely, we can underestimate our risk for many common conditions like sexually transmitted diseases (self-positivity).

Using hundreds of university students, they presented a variety of scenarios involving diseases like flu, hepatitis C, breast cancer, osteoporosis. They provided different sets of information (high or low) on the “base-rate” -- meaning the incidence of a condition in the population -- and “case-risk” -- one person’s profile of behaviors or symptoms. Sometimes the person was a stranger, sometimes themselves.

The experiments showed that social distance mattered. The less familiar the person in the scenario was, the more heavily the test subjects relied on base-rate information. The closer to the subjects, including themselves, the more they relied on individual case information.

“We found the effect to be quite strong, as evidenced by the fact that we replicated our findings using different manipulations of psychological distance, and across five different types of health risks,” Yan told NBC News.

For example, subjects were given differing sets of data about the rate of HIV in Hong Kong, and then given case information including a scenario about themselves or about a stranger. They were asked “How likely are you [or how likely is the stranger] to engage in risky behaviors by which HIV is transmitted?”

When told the disease base rate was high, but risky behavior likelihood was low, the subjects said they were less vulnerable to risk than others (who engaged in the same behaviors) were. That’s a self-positivity bias. But when told the base rate of HIV was low, but risky behavior likelihood was high, the participants judged themselves more vulnerable than others. That’s self-negativity.

Another test used two strains of flu, one mild and one more dangerous. Again, they tended to either underestimate their own risk when told that the base rate of mild flu was high but they had only one symptom, and overestimate their risk for dangerous swine flu when told the base rate was low, but they themselves had multiple symptoms, though those symptoms could also apply to the common cold or allergies.

Though he tested people of undergraduate age, Yan believes his results would hold for people of any age.

His findings, published this month in the Journal of Consumer Research, show that the advantage of seeing a real doctor isn’t just because he or she is an expert. It’s also that they aren’t you.      

Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young PhD., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction," (www.TheChemistryBetweenUs.com) to be published Sept. 13.

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Will smoke, even the first, faint scent of a fire, wake a person from a deep slumber?

At least according to published research, the answer to that burning question is quite hazy: Maybe.

Maybe smoke will wake you up but maybe not, according to two studies conducted during the past 15 years. 

“There is scant research that addresses awakening from the smell of smoke,” said Dr. Thomas Freedom, program director of the NorthShore University HealthSystem Sleep Program near Chicago. (He was not affiliated with either study.) “Some of the findings are contradictory.”

This much sleep doctors know: sensory stimuli -- sound, temperature, touch, even pain -- become less effective in rousing people the deeper they drop into nightly sleep stages.

For example, Freedom said, it’s easier to rally a sleeper who is in “stage N1” – a lighter phase of slumber – versus a person in “N3” or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is a more submerged state of siesta.

Things that go bump in the night or shoves from a frustrated bedmate (“Yo! Stop snoring!”) may activate “peripheral receptors” – tiny sensors, many of which are located in your skin. Louder sounds or stronger vibrations are, of course, more apt to fully wake someone, Freedom said.

“But the sense of smell may differ in that increasing intensity does not appear to lead to awakening in deeper stages of sleep,” Freedom said.

In 1997, a study performed by the Irondale Fire and Rescue Service in Irondale, Ala., found that among 10 adults who were snoozing in a medical sleep lab, two of the subjects awoke when a smoke odor was introduced into their room. 

In 2004, at Brown University, researchers found that among the six people they tested – three healthy men and three healthy women, aged 20 to 25 years old – all could be jostled awake disrupted by noise but none were stirred by odors. In the lab, the sleepers were exposed to both peppermint and pyridine, a compound that carries an strong, fish-like scent, reacting to neither. 

"As the saying goes," wrote the paper's co-author, psychiatry professor Mary A. Carskadon, "we 'wake up and smell the coffee,' not the other way around."

But Las Vegas resident Sharon Chayra believes the certain people – like her – with a fine-tuned olfactory sense are more prone to be yanked awake by a foreign smell. She’s been roused, she said, by the scents of her husband baking cookies late at night, by her dog pooping, and by fireplace embers that hadn’t been properly extinguished.

“We’d had a fire in the wood-burning fireplace downstairs. It was about 1 a.m. and I could just smell burning fire. I popped up just like a piece of toast,” said Chayra, 49. “There wasn’t smoke necessarily but enough of an odor for me to wake up and go check out what was going on.”

Once she reached main floor of her home, she doused the remaining red embers with water and sand.

Then again, Chayra says her children do tease her because she is constantly sniffing the air.

"'You act like a dog!’ That’s what they tell me. I guess I do. If I smell something, I will wake up and go track it down like a bloodhound.” 

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• Smells like nostalgia: Why do scents bring back memories?
• Afraid of crossing that bridge when you come to it? 
• Here's what paralyzes you during sleep

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The smell of chlorine wafts through the air. Suddenly, you recall childhood summers spent in a swimming pool. Or maybe it's a whiff of apple pie, or the scent of the same perfume your mom used to wear. Our noses have a way of sniffing out nostalgia.

“I stepped into an elevator and a bunch of people piled in behind me. I was behind a woman with her back to me, her hair was in my nose, and I could smell the perfume, Shalimar, and I hadn’t smelled it in [years]. It seemed like I was transported back to high school,” says Howard Eichenbaum, director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurobiology at Boston University.

While all the senses are connected with memories, smell in particular sparks a flurry of emotional memories. Why?   

After a smell enters the nose, it travels through the cranial nerve through the olfactory bulb, which helps the brain process smells. The olfactory bulb is part of the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. As a member of the limbic system, the olfactory bulb can easily access the amygdala, which plays a role in emotional memories (it’s also where the "fight or flight" reflex comes from).   

“Olfactory has a strong input into the amygdala, which process emotions. The kind of memories that it evokes are good and they are more powerful,” explains Eichenbaum.

This close relationship between the olfactory and the amygdala is one of the reason odors cause a spark of nostalgia. 

“We don’t use emotional memory that much,” says Dr. Ron DeVere, director of the Taste and Smell Disorders Clinic and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Center, in Austin, Texas, and member of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). He adds that when people consciously attempt to remember something they focus on the details, not feelings.

“You have an odor, you may not identify the odor, but you are associating that with some memories. The first time you smelled apple pie you may have been at your grandmother’s house,” DeVere says. 

Also at play is a relationship between the olfactory system and the hippocampus, which is critical to developing memories. Even though the olfactory system interacts with the emotion and memory centers in the brain, it does not connect with more developed regions.

“Smells do bring back memories,” says Dr. Ken Heilman, James E. Rooks Jr. Distinguished Professor Neurology and Health Psychology at the University of Florida and a member of AAN. “Smell goes into the emotional parts of the brain and the memory parts, whereas words go into thinking parts of the brain.”

This could explain why memories sparked by smell feel nostalgic and emotional, rather than concrete and detailed. Also, Eichenbaum notes that primates evolved to rely mostly on vision, not smell, so these memories are less reliable. (If you were a rat in his lab, your smell memories would be more detailed).

“When you smell things you remember your emotions … it’s very, very true,” says Heilman. 

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Crossing that bridge when you come to it is terrifying when you have a fear of bridges.

Known as gephyrophobia (pronounced jeff-i-ro-fo-bia), people with an intense fear of driving over a bridge -- or for some, the mere thought or anticipation of it -- brings on a panic attack. Their hearts race and palms sweat, and they may also have trouble breathing and feel light-headed.

If driving, their hands death-grip the steering wheel. They worry about losing control of the car and veering off the bridge, or of becoming so freaked out that they stop traffic with no shoulder of the road to pull into. 

Gephyrophobes are "not worried about the bridge collapsing, they're worried about themselves collapsing," says Jean Ratner, a social worker who directs the Center for Travel Anxiety in Bethesda, Md. She says a bridge phobia may stem from a fear of heights, and what's at the root of the problem is being scared of having a panic attack and not being able to manage it.

This anxiety disorder usually has a sudden onset and tends to strike extremely good drivers, suggests Ratner. It often catches a person by surprise because this was someone who previously had no trouble crossing bridges. Then one day, a panicky feeling occurs on a tall bridge, typically on the first half of it as the car is climbing up the arch.

Both the length and the height of the bridge can freak out sufferers, who may drive miles out of the way to find an alternative route or make excuses for their travel-related anxieties. A dread of bridges is more likely when the person is doing the driving, but may also occur as a passenger. 

Although less common than a fear of flying, bridge phobia is treatable in 6 to 9 months, suggests Ratner. She starts with office-based sessions to develop relaxation strategies that target the symptoms of panic, such as a slower breathing pattern and looking straight ahead. Then these behavioral methods might be practiced in a car on local roads.

Next Ratner might accompany that person while they walk across a bridge. Very gradually, the person works up to walking halfway across alone.

As a person slowly builds up more courage, then Ratner will discuss driving over a small bridge in a car with her sitting in the front seat. Then they may attempt a bigger bridge together. The next session may find Ratner in the back seat, then eventually to her in a separate car trailing behind the fearful driver.

Some people may take a mild tranquilizer to help them get over their bridge jitters, or carry it in a purse or wallet in case of panic.

Of the phobias she treats, Ratner says this is a hard one. With a fear of flying, people realize they're not piloting the plane. But with a fear of bridges, the driver is in charge and that person often feels an incredible sense of responsibility especially if other family members are depending on this individual to transport them safely.

Some bridges have drive-over services for the skittish. Nervous motorists can arrange to have someone else shuttle your car while you close your eyes or cower in the back seat. Some places charge for the service while others do it for free.

If drive-over services helps people get where they want to go, Ratner says she's very open them. But working with a therapist who treats phobias can be a bridge to getting over these fears for good.

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To most readers, this text looks black and white. But to a few, each letter possesses a different color, and reading becomes more than what’s in black and white.   

Those who read in color live with grapheme-color synesthesia, where the brain assigns colors to letter and numbers. Some synesthetes say words possess colors, too (someone might say truth looks gold, for example). Overall, 4 percent of the population experiences a form of synesthesia with 1 percent living with grapheme-color synesthesia.

Synesthesia gives many people a richer experience and it’s believed to be mostly harmless and fixed—people either have it or they don’t.

Until now.

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam found that people, without a history of grapheme-color synesthesia, who read books with some colored letters, associated those letters with the correlating hues. This is the first time anyone has taught synesthesia by reading books. 

“Whenever we give a talk or lecture, people ask if they can learn synesthesia,” says Olympia Colizoli, a doctoral student in the brain and cognition department at the University of Amsterdam.

“Most people would never want to give up their synesthesia and can’t imagine not having these experiences.”

To test whether people could learn grapheme-color synesthesia, Colizoli asked 15 subjects to read books that had four frequently occurring letters paired with four commonly seen colors. Each participant selected a book from Project Gutenberg and Colizoli applied color to the book (prior to the experiment she colored every letter in a book but it made it very difficult to read). Colizoli’s interest isn’t simply professional; she has "time form" synesthesia, which means she sees periods of times, such as days, weeks, or centuries, as shapes.

“Even though [synesthesia] seems to run in families and the evidences suggests it is genetic, language is learned and it comes from the environment … no one is born with the letter a in their brain,” she says. Yet, there seems to be little understanding of the role of environment and synesthesia. 

Prior to reading the colored book, Colizoli asked the participants to take a modified Stroop test, which detects grapheme-color synesthesia, to assure none of the subjects had it. In a modified Stroop test, people look at the words printed in different colored ink. Grapheme-color synethetes have delayed responses when identifying the letters’ colors.

After completing the book, the subjects re-took the Stroop test and showed behavioral signs of synesthesia. Colizoli does not believe these effects are permanent, noting more research needs to be conducted. She and her colleagues also replicated the results with participants who read in Dutch.

“We are bombarded by colored letters all the time,” Colizoli says. “It is interesting to see how adaptive [synesthesia] may be.”

Colizoli also asked the subjects if they noticed any differences since the experiment and they gave a variety of subjective responses (much like synesthetes would). One person claimed to dislike orange until reading in color, while two subjects say they now read faster. Another woman, a musician, enjoyed reading in color so much she asked if Colizoli could print all her sheet music in color for her. (This is not uncommon; artists frequently claim to be synesthetes. Vladimir Nabokov saw the alphabet in rainbow colors with each letter appearing the same shade each time he saw it.)   

“She could remember the music better and fell in love with it. Some people were really sensitive to it.”  

The paper appears in the online journal PLoS ONE. If you want to try reading like a grapheme-color synsethete, check out this link.

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You've heard about the elephant in the room, which no one wants to talk about. Now new research describes a gorilla in the room, which not everyone seems to hear.

For the first time, a study has confirmed the existence of "inattentional deafness." This is "when the absence of attention causes people to miss sounds that are otherwise easily detectable," says study author Dr. Polly Dalton, a senior lecturer in cognitive psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London.

In this study, appearing online in the journal Cognition, Dalton and co-author Nick Fraenkel asked 45 people aged 16 to 47 to listen to a recording on headphones. Half of the participants were told to pay attention to the two women talking in the recording, while the others were told to tune in to a conversation between two men.

Halfway through the recording, a man's voice is heard repeatedly saying "I'm a gorilla" for 19 seconds.

Participants were later asked if they heard anything unusual. To hear what the audio sounded like, click here. 

While 10 percent of the people listening to the men's voices failed to detect the "gorilla," 70 percent of the volunteers listening to the women's voices didn't hear it.

Afterward when researchers explained the study, "most of our participants found it hard to believe that they had missed such an unusual and distinctive sound, particularly given that it lasted for 19 seconds," says Dalton.

The research was modeled after a classic psychology study of "inattentional blindness."

This "invisible gorilla" study found that when people were focused on a visual task -- watching a video and counting the number of basketball passes made by one team --  they failed to notice someone walking across a basketball court dressed in a gorilla suit.

Dalton and Fraenkel monkeyed around with this concept replacing the visible gorilla with an auditory one to see if it would also go undetected.

In a second version of the experiment with 50 different volunteers, the male voice saying "I'm a gorilla" walked closer to the two women talking.

There was even more "inattentional deafness" in this scenario because 35 percent of participants focused on the men's conversation failed to hear the "gorilla" and 55 percent of volunteers concentrating on the women's discussion missed it.

"I think the most surprising aspect of the findings was just how strong the effects of attention could be," points out Dalton. When attention is lacking, it can leave people "deaf" to sounds or "blind" to visual images they would otherwise hear or see. 

One real-life example of inattentional deafness is when you're sitting in a restaurant with a friend, and two people are having an interesting conversation at a nearby table. But you've completely missed everything your friend has been saying to you because you've been listening in -- eavesdropping, really -- to the others' talk. 

Dalton suspects inattentional deafness happens because the brain is prioritizing the signals when concentrating on one task, but it filters out irrelevant information to avoid being distracted.

But don't go blaming inattentional deafness the next time you hear the words "Please, take out the garbage." That's usually a deliberate failure between your ears known as selective hearing, or only hearing what you want to hear.

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Whether you’re a victim of illness or boozy overindulgence, a suddenly watery mouth – atop of a queasy stomach – is never a sign of good things to come.

When the drool pools, you know what’s up: your stomach contents. Literally. It’s not going to look pretty. And afterward, you’re not going to feel pretty.

But salivating before vomiting runs counter to our basic understanding of slobber. Shouldn’t that oral reaction only accompany the scent, sight, promise or actual consumption of tasty morsels?

Actually, it’s all part of the same digestive chain reaction – a chemical concoction involving your mouth and your gastric juices, the fluid generated within your gut to help your body dissolve chewed food.

“The body is attempting to solve the problem of whatever is causing the nausea and (in a sense) digest it,” said Dr. Isaac Eliaz, who blends Western medicine with acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine – an approach known as “integrative medicine.”

“Our digestive process starts in the mouth with the saliva, which is high in amylase, an important digestive enzyme that helps break down carbohydrates. So as part of the digestive process triggered by whatever may be causing the nausea, we have increased salivation,” said Eliaz, based in Sebastopol, Calif.

At the same time, nausea stimulates the vagus nerve – which runs from the brain down through the neck, relaying information about the condition of body’s organs, Eliaz said. An upset stomach also awakens the parasympathetic nervous system, which revs and runs your “rest and digest” functions, including crying and urination plus, in this case, digestion and salivation.

In short, that extra drool means your stomach and brain are chatting up a storm as you just try to hang on through that bumpy night, or that rough morning.

But we’re not here to simply explain this weird sensation. We seek to provide a tip to, perhaps, prevent you from hurling.

Check out the wisdom offered by Ken Beckstead, 48, a Las Vegas resident: “Whenever I start to salivate excessively and feel like I am going to vomit, I start spitting the excess saliva.

“Swallowing the saliva actually makes you vomit. Spitting it out until the saliva stops filling your mouth will help you not vomit,” Beckstead said.

Doctor?

“I can say that there is, indeed, an explanation to such relief,” Eliaz said. That reason, he adds, comes via his knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine.

“It is specific to a certain energetic pattern or issue that will cause nausea: what we call in traditional Chinese medicine the accumulation of phlegm and mucus in the stomach,” Eliaz said. “In this case, spitting saliva will help relieve the condition.”

So, East or West, the solution: spit and rest. Either way, though, you'll probably need a bucket. 

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Lack of sleep won't make you nuts

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Chronic sleep deprivation – or a severe, short-term lack of Z’s from, say, cramming for exams over two straight nights – can make you silly or sad, slow to react, memory-impaired and more apt to take risks.

But what it rarely does, according to a leading sleep expert, is make you go temporarily insane, as a JetBlue Airways pilot apparently did on a March 27 flight from New York to Las Vegas. After Clayton Osbon had a cockpit meltdown, ranting about religion and terrorists, passengers eventually wrestled him to the cabin floor and a co-pilot safely landed the plane. Osbon was charged with interfering with flight crew instructions.   

During the pilot's trial, a psychologist testified that Osbon suffered "a brief psychotic disorder" due to lack of sleep, according to a court transcript obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. A federal judge in Texas agreed with that notion and on July 3 ruled Osbon not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.

“But if somebody is going to have a psychotic episode due to sleep deprivation, it’s usually not the first time it’s going to happen, and usually there is a history of depression or other psychiatric illness," said Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based clinical psychologist and a member of the American Board of Sleep Medicine.

Breus has not reviewed Osbon’s case and can only speak, he said, from his experiences with other patients and from existing literature.

“I don’t know about this pilot’s mental health background. But think back to when you were in college. Did you ever pull an all-nighter? I sure did. Last time I checked, people who pull all-nighters don’t go screaming through the hallways screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs,” Breus said.

At Osbon’s trial, forensic neuropsychologist Robert E.H. Johnson testified that Osbon's disorder lasted roughly one week after his mental break aboard the flight. On the stand, Johnson did not make clear how long Osbon went without sleep. The pilot’s psychiatric evaluation was sealed during the trial, according to the AP. A JetBlue spokeswoman told the AP that Osbon did not fly March 24 or March 25, and worked a round-trip flight March 26, meaning he had 17 hours of down time before his March 27 departure to Las Vegas.

“The deprivation that would probably be required for somebody to have a psychotic episode - if they’ve never had one before - he’s going to had to have been up for a couple of days,” Breus said.

More commonly, especially among emergency room doctors and the parents of newborns, acute sleep deprivation (one or two nights without any sleep) or partial, chronic sleep deprivation (maybe four hours per night over several weeks) can trigger an array of less-frightening symptoms, Breus said.

Depending on how much sleep they are lacking and how long they’ve gone without closing their eyes, people can hallucinate and find things funny that aren’t the least bit comical – also known as being giddy, Breus said.

“Also, your reaction time slows down: you may drive like you might be drunk,” Breus said. “You’re not making decisions the way you should. Data also shows that people take higher risks when sleep deprived.”

He cited cases of gamblers, wagering without much sleep, who disregard high odds and plunk down tall stacks of chips anyway. 

“They knew the risks or odds at the table but they didn’t care,” Breus said.

Inappropriate emotional swings also can take root, meaning people laugh more hysterically than they should when watching marginally funny events, or they become more depressed than is necessary when they witness something just a bit sad.

Oddly, in people diagnosed with depression, their mood can actually lighten when they go 24 hours without sleep – and their depression returns after rest, Breus said.

“What happens with sleep deprivation is usually not permanent. It’s usually temporary,” Breus said. “So you’re sleep deprived, you have some weird behaviors, you react slowly, your mood changes. But once you get some sleep, that stuff goes all away. How long has that pilot been in the hospital now?”

Osbon remains at a mental health facility in Fort Worth, the AP reported. He is scheduled for a hearing early next month during which his possible release from that hospital will be examined. 

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