Hasta La Gadget!

Having a new baby is supposed to be a joyful experience — but for many women, it comes with some significant mental health challenges.

While up to 70 percent of women report some experience of “baby blues” after giving birth, postpartum depression affects roughly 16 percent of new mothers.

But there is a wide variety in how women experience postpartum depression. New University of North Carolina research breaks down postpartum depression into three distinct subtypes.

According to the study, some women experience the onset of depressive symptoms during pregnancy, which can result in a greater risk of developing the most severe type of postpartum depression.

Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody of UNC’s Perinatal Psychiatry Program said that it’s important that doctors be aware of the various ways that postpartum depression presents itself.

“A thorough assessment of a women’s history is necessary to guide appropriate clinical and treatment decisions,” Meltzer-Brody said in a statement. “We now understand that postpartum depression can have onset of symptoms that may begin in pregnancy. Improved understanding of the differences in clinical presentation of postpartum depression impacts the implementation and interpretation of screening, diagnosis, treatment, and research of perinatal mood disorders. We are now working to apply our findings from this work to future biological and genetic studies of depression in women across the perinatal period.”

The study analyzed data from more than 10,000 women collected during previous studies, using a common technique in psychiatry called latent class analysis. This statistical method is employed to create subgroups within a class, in this case, women with postpartum depression.

Based on the data analysis, the researchers divided up postpartum depression into class 1, class 2 and class 3, looking specifically at severity of symptoms, timing of onset, suicidal ideation and comorbid anxiety. Class 1 had the least severe symptoms, followed by class 2 and then class 3. The third tier classification was found to be heavily associated with onset of symptoms during pregnancy (rather than during the month following childbirth), as well as anxiety, poor mood, obstetric complications and suicidal ideation.

In addition to clinicians being knowledgeable about the various ways that postpartum depression presents itself, it’s also important for expecting moths to be away of the risk factors for developing this condition. It’s long been known that women who have suffered from depression are at a higher risk for developing postpartum depression, in addition to younger women and women who have had children previously.

Recently, research has revealed other important and previously unknown risk factors for postpartum depression. Northwestern University research linked controlling the pain of childbirth and post-delivery to a reduced risk of developing postpartum depression. The study showed that postpartum depression rates were doubled for women who didn’t have an epidural. A Finnish study also found that women diagnosed with fear of childbirth are at a three times higher risk of postpartum depression.

The findings were present at a recent consortium, Postpartum Depression: Action Towards Causes and Treatment (PACT), and are published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.

Mental strength requires a three-pronged approach — managing our thoughts, regulating our emotions, and behaving productively despite our circumstances. While all three areas can be a struggle, it’s often our thoughts that make it most difficult to be mentally strong.

As we go about our daily routines, our internal monologue narrates our experience. Our self-talk guides our behavior and influences the way we interact with others. It also plays a major role in how you feel about yourself, other people, and the world in general.

Quite often, however, our conscious thoughts aren’t realistic. Instead, they’re irrational and inaccurate. Believing our irrational thoughts can lead to a variety of problems, including communication issues, relationship problems, and unhealthy decisions.

Whether you’re striving to reach your personal or professional goals, the key to success often starts with recognizing and replacing inaccurate thoughts. The most common thinking errors can be divided into these 10 categories, which are adapted from David Burns book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking
Sometimes we see things as being black or white. Perhaps you have two categories of coworkers in your mind — the good ones and the bad ones. Or, maybe you look at each project as either a success or a failure. Recognize the shades of gray, rather than putting things in terms of all good or all bad.

2. Overgeneralizing
It’s easy to take one particular event and generalize it to the rest of our lives. If you failed to close one deal, you may decide, “I’m bad at closing deals.” Or if you are treated poorly by one family member, you might think, “Everyone in my family is rude.” Take notice of times where an incident may apply to a specific situation only, instead of all other areas of life.

3. Filtering Out the Positive
If nine good things happen, and one bad thing, sometimes we filter out the good and hone in on the bad. Maybe we declare we had a bad day, despite the positive events that occurred. Or maybe we look back at our performance and declare it was terrible because we made a single mistake. Filtering out the positive can prevent you from establishing a realistic outlook on a situation. Develop a balanced outlook by noticing both the positive and the negative.

4. Mind-Reading
We can never be sure what someone else is thinking. Yet, everyone occasionally assumes they know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. Thinking things like, “He must have thought I was stupid at the meeting,” makes inferences that aren’t necessarily based on reality. Remind yourself that you may not be making accurate guesses about other people’s perceptions.

5. Catastrophizing
Sometimes we think things are much worse than they actually are. If you fall short on meeting your financial goals one month you may think, “I’m going to end up bankrupt,” or “I’ll never have enough money to retire,” even though there’s no evidence that the situation is nearly that dire. It can be easy to get swept up into catastrophizing the situation once your thoughts become negative. When you begin predicting doom and gloom, remind yourself that there are many other potential outcomes.

6. Emotional Reasoning
Our emotions aren’t always based on reality but, we often assume those feelings are rational. If you’re worried about making a career change, you might assume, “If I’m this scared about it, I just shouldn’t change jobs.” Or, you may be tempted to assume, “If I feel like a loser, I must be a loser.” It’s essential to recognize that emotions, just like our thoughts, aren’t always based on the facts.

7. Labeling
Labeling involves putting a name to something. Instead of thinking, “He made a mistake,” you might label your neighbor as “an idiot.” Labelling people and experiences places them into categories that are often based on isolated incidents. Notice when you try to categorize things and work to avoid placing mental labels on everything.

8. Fortune-telling
Although none of us know what will happen in the future, we sometimes like to try our hand at fortunetelling. We think things like, “I’m going to embarrass myself tomorrow,” or “If I go on a diet, I’ll probably just gain weight.” These types of thoughts can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you’re not careful. When you’re predicting doom and gloom, remind yourself of all the other possible outcomes.

9. Personalization
As much as we’d like to say we don’t think the world revolves around us, it’s easy to personalize everything. If a friend doesn’t call back, you may assumea, “She must be mad at me,” or if a co-worker is grumpy, you might conclude, “He doesn’t like me.” When you catch yourself personalizing situations, take time to point out other possible factors that may be influencing the circumstances.

10. Unreal Ideal
Making unfair comparisons about ourselves and other people can ruin our motivation. Looking at someone who has achieved much success and thinking, “I should have been able to do that,” isn’t helpful, especially if that person had some lucky breaks or competitive advantages along the way. Rather than measuring your life against someone else’s, commit to focusing on your own path to success.

Fixing Thinking Errors
Once you begin recognizing thinking errors, you can begin working on trying to challenge those thoughts. Look for exceptions to the rule and gather evidence that your thoughts aren’t 100-percent true. Then, you can begin replacing those thoughts with more realistic thoughts.

The goal doesn’t need to be to replace negative thoughts with overly idealistic or positive ones. Instead replace them with realistic thoughts. Changing the way you think takes a lot of effort initially, but with practice, you’ll notice big changes — not just in the way you think, but also in the way you feel and behave. You can make peace with the past, look at the present differently, and think about the future in a way that will support your chances of reaching your goals.

Amy Morin is a licensed clinical social worker and an internationally recognized expert on mental strength. Her book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success provides strategies and exercises to build mental strength. Watch the video trailer to learn about her personal story behind the book.

You know that a TV show has hit a bad stretch when the producers bring in a controversial guest star to boost ratings. A reality show about a two-year-old beauty pageant star is tanking in the ratings? Bring in Sarah Palin to serve as her life coach. Saturday Night Live on a long spiral downward? Invite Anthony Wiener to host — or better yet, Kim Jong Eun.

If Congress were a TV show, it would have been yanked off the air years ago. In the political ratings war, President Obama’s popularity has rebounded in the last month to 50 percent. Congress remains barely above single digits.

In general, Congress could care less about its dismal popularity. After all, in the last election, voters returned over 95 percent of incumbents to office. Although they’re not at risk of being replaced by a more entertaining reality show, Congress is worried about the popularity of certain key initiatives. On those issues, hardliners are desperate to undercut the president in any way they can. And that explains Speaker of the House John Boehner’s unprecedented response to the president’s recent State of the Union address.

Last week, the president laid out the foreign policy agenda for his last two years in office in an hour-long speech to Congress and the nation. This time around, however, the congressional opposition didn’t content itself merely with a rebuttal from Iowa Republican Joni Ernst.

Boehner immediately called in the heavy guns. He invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address both houses of Congress in March. The expected topic of the speech: Iran. Obama wants a deal with Iran on its nuclear program. Congressional hardliners — and Netanyahu — want to apply more sanctions on the principle of no pain, no gain.

Netanyahu’s appearance has a side benefit for him: Israel is heading into an election season, and the prime minister’s appearance could give him the extra bounce he needs.

The invitation might seem routine. Netanyahu has already addressed Congress on several occasions. But according to protocol, the leaders of both parties consult over invitations to foreign leaders, and the White House is kept in the loop as well. Not this time. In retaliation, neither the president nor the secretary of state plans to meet Netanyahu when he’s here.

Boehner’s Nuclear Option

If you’re going to defy protocol and encroach on the mandate of the president as commander-of-chief, why stop at Netanyahu? There are plenty of other controversial guest stars that Boehner and company could bring in to bat for their confrontational agenda. Here’s what to expect if congressional hawks decide to follow through with their nuclear option and get all up in the president’s face on foreign policy over the next two years.

Cuba: The president shocked the foreign policy establishment with the recently negotiated détente with Cuba. Although Washington and Havana are currently restarting diplomatic relations after a half-century pause, the U.S. trade embargo is still in place and Congress insists on its prerogative to maintain a cold war against the island nation.

Boehner’s move: The obvious person to invite to address Congress on the dangers of Communism in America’s backyard would be Augusto Pinochet, but the former Chilean dictator has been dead for nearly a decade. Why should that stop congressional hardliners? Pinochet, though dead, has been on the move lately. When Obama made his historic announcement, the dictator no doubt rolled over in his grave. Since he’s already in motion, why not roll him all the way up to DC?

If propping Pinochet up on the dais for symbolic value doesn’t appeal, Boehner will have to call up someone else from the bench. But rabid anti-Communists have become thin on the ground in Latin America. One of the few left who can fit the bill is former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt. Okay, he’s on trial for genocide and is in poor health. But if Boehner wants to resurrect the Cold War in Latin America without resurrecting Pinochet, he’ll need to fly in the old Guatemalan general before he’s behind bars or six feet under.

North Korea: The Obama administration has been in a holding pattern in its approach to North Korea for the last several years. In response to the latest Sony hacking scandal, the administration tacked on some more sanctions (even though, as I write in Spyware vs. Spyware, the United States was the first to hack into North Korea’s computers a couple years ago). Pyongyang has offered to cooperate in a joint investigation and suspend nuclear tests if the United States calls off its annual military drill. Radio silence from the Obama administration.

Boehner’s move: Congressional hawks have been all excited about putting North Korea back on the terrorism list. But why stop there? Why doesn’t Boehner invite someone to address Congress who wants to go all out for regime change in Pyongyang — someone like Dave Skylark. The fact that he’s a fictional character — the daffy, unctuous, puppy-loving TV host in the film The Interview — shouldn’t be a problem. Stephen Colbert once testified in character before Congress.

If James Franco doesn’t want to reprise Dave Skylark in front of Congress or develop a bromance with Boehner, the Republican leadership could go with Park Sang-hak. The North Korean defector wants to drop 100,000 copies of The Interview over his homeland to encourage regime collapse. The fact that even North Koreans who dislike their leader are appalled at the film’s depiction of their fellow citizens as either automata or bumbling idiots has not dissuaded Park from his grand plan..

Russia: Relations with Russia are not exactly upbeat at the moment. Moscow recently cancelled cooperation with the United States on nuclear security, one of the great achievements of the post-Cold War era. And the Obama administration continues to maintain sanctions on Russia, which, with the worldwide drop in oil prices, are beginning to affect the Russian economy. Just this week, Standard and Poors downgraded Russian debt to the status of junk bonds. In response to the latest shelling of Mariupol by Russian-backed separatists, President Obama has promised to consider all responses short of military action.

Boehner’s move: The Republican leadership has been hammering the president for not throwing his full weight behind the Ukrainian government in its fight against the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and others seem way too nostalgic for the old days when Washington and Moscow went head-to-head in proxy wars in the Third World. This time around, however, the battlefield is smack between Russia and Europe, and the EU has a lot of challenges to deal with at the moment without having to address a world war on its borders.

To push for heightened conflict with Moscow, Boehner could invite Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the paramilitary known as the Azov Battalion, which is fighting the separatists in the Donbas region. Biletsky has a fondness for national socialism, and the Battalion has attractedwhite supremacists from inside and even outside country. The Ukrainian government is, despite the claims of Moscow and others, not fascist. And Russia has its own politically influential contingent of fascists as well. But if Boehner wants to enrage Moscow and rewind U.S.-Russian relations to the early 1980s, then Biletsky is the man.

Extremists of a Feather

What do all these potential congressional speakers have in common? Netanyahu is an elected leader, Rios Montt a disgraced dictator, Park Sang-hak a civil society activist, and Andriy Biletsky a neo-fascist fighter. They wouldn’t necessarily get along very well at a speakers’ table. But they all represent the ugliest facet of American foreign policy, the bedfellows we generally don’t want to wake up next to after an evening of binge propagandizing.

But bedfellows they are.

The Obama administration has expressed opposition to Netanyahu’s illegal settlement policy in the West Bank, but the Israeli leader remains the closest U.S. ally in the region. The U.S. government backed Rios Montt when he was in charge of Guatemala. Park Sang-hak is supported by the U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation, and Washington has directed funding to regime-change enthusiasts through the National Endowment for Democracy. The United States doesn’t attach any strings to the non-lethal assistance to Ukraine that would prevent its use by paramilitaries, and the Senate has already passed a bill to provide a range of weapons including anti-tank and anti-armor munitions that would inevitably find their way to battalions on the front line.

The efforts by congressional hardliners to push President Obama in a more militant direction — and this includes Democrats like Robert Menendez, who has co-sponsored both the latest Iran sanctions and the lethal aid to Ukraine — are not in sync with the American public. Polls indicate that Americans overwhelmingly support détente with Cuba and an agreement with Iran. The public is also war-weary and doesn’t want to risk a clash with Russia or North Korea.

And that’s why, despite his inbred exceptionalism, Boehner is contracting out to a foreigner to undercut presidential policy. It’s the congressional equivalent of a Hail Mary pass. Let’s hope that this out-sourcing stops at Bibi, and we won’t have to endure other controversial guest appearances in Congress.

Crossposted with Foreign Policy In Focus

Roughly 1,500 kids are tied up or locked down every day by school officials in the United States.

At least 500 students are locked up in some form of solitary confinement every day, whether it be a padded room, a closet or a duffel bag. In many cases, parents are rarely notified when such methods are used.

On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”

In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums. Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers (a.k.a. police officers) in the nation’s public schools.

For example, in what may be the youngest example of a child being restrained in this way, in October 2014, a 4-year-old Virginia preschooler was handcuffed, leg shackled and transported to the sheriff’s office after reportedly throwing blocks and climbing on top of the furniture. School officials claim the restraints were necessary to protect the adults from injury.

In New York, “school safety agents” tied a 5-year-old ADHD student to a chair with Velcro straps as a punishment for throwing a tantrum in class. Police officers claim the straps were necessary because the boy had tried to bite one of the adults.

A 6-year-old kindergarten student in a Georgia public school was handcuffed, transported to the police station, and charged with simple battery of a schoolteacher and criminal damage to property for throwing a temper tantrum at school.

A second-grader in Arizona who suffers from ADHD was duct-taped to her chair after getting up to sharpen her pencil too often.

Kentucky school officials placed a 9-year-old autistic student in a duffel bag as a punishment acting up in class. Turns out, it wasn’t the first time the boy had been placed inside the “therapy bag.”

An 11-year-old special needs student had his hands cuffed behind his back and was driven home in a police car after refusing to come inside after recess and acting in an out of control manner by “passively” resisting police officers.

Unfortunately, these are far from isolated incidents.

According to a ProPublica investigative report, such harsh punishments are part of a widespread phenomenon plaguing school districts across the country. “Most [incidents] of restraints and seclusions happen to kids with disabilities–and are more likely to happen to kids with autism or emotional/behavioral problems.”

In 2012 alone, there were more than 267,000 attempts by school officials to restrain or lock up students using straps, bungee cords, and duct tape.

At least 500 students are placed in “Scream Rooms” every day (there were 104,000 reported uses of scream rooms in a given year). For those unfamiliar with the term, a “scream room” is an isolated, unmonitored, locked room — sometimes padded, often as small as four-feet-by-four-feet — which school officials use to place students in seclusion. As psychiatrist Keith Ablow points out, “Scream rooms are nothing but solitary confinement, and by extension, that makes every school that uses them a prison. They turn principals into wardens and make every student an inmate.”

Schools acting like prisons. School officials acting like wardens. Students treated like inmates and punished like hardened criminals.

This is the end product of all those so-called school “safety” policies, which run the gamut from zero tolerance policies that punish all infractions harshly to surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, school-wide lockdowns, active-shooter drills and militarized police officers.

Paradoxically, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are traumatized. Indeed, all signs point to the fact that these tactics are not working and “should never be used for punishment or discipline.”

Unfortunately, in an age that values efficiency, expediency and conformity, it’s often faster and easier to “lock down” a kid who won’t sit still, won’t follow orders, and won’t comply.

Certainly, this is a mindset we see all too often in the American police state.

So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now — the children growing up in these quasi-prisons — but for the future of this country? How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials — all before he reaches the age of adulthood — that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

Most of all, as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?

Clearly, the pathology that characterizes the American police state has passed down to the schools. Now in addition to the government and its agents viewing the citizenry as suspects to be probed, poked, pinched, tasered, searched, seized, stripped and generally manhandled, all with the general blessing of the court, our children in the public schools are also fair game.

What can be done?

Without a doubt, change is needed, but that will mean taking on all of the unions and corporations that profit mightily from an industrial school complex.

As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards. For a start, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.

If we do not rein in the police state’s influence in the schools now, the future to which we are sending our children could be nothing less than brutal.

You might know that the Seattle Seahawks are going to destroy the New England Patriots this Sunday, but despite your fandom for the blue and green, there’s probably some trivia you’d like to brush up on about your favorite team.

Especially if you’re one of the diehard Twelves, you’ve got to learn these five things about the Seahawks before they take on the Patriots at Super Bowl XLIX.

Grab some Skittles and keep reading.

1. The logo was based off a real transformation mask made by the regional Kwakwaka’wakw tribe.

The designers for the Seattle Seahawks logo were inspired by native Northwest Coast art, specifically settling on a Kwakwaka’wakw transformation mask. In 2014, Robin K. Wright, Curator of Native American art at the Burke Museum in Washington, wrote an article about the mask which at the time had unknown whereabouts. But Wright’s article ended up causing the mask to be rediscovered at the Hudson Museum in Maine, which had not originally been mentioning anything about Seahawk logo inspiration.

The mask’s similarities to the Seattle Seahawks logo went unnoticed while at the Hudson Museum because it was always featured in an open position, showing the human face inside rather than the “thunderbird.”

Now the mask has been temporarily moved to the Burke Museum in Washington where it is currently on display until July, 2015. Ex-Seahawks star quarterback Jim Zorn was there for the opening celebration. The Huffington Post reached out to Wright about the mask who explained:

It was used as a transformation mask. It’s a type of mask that’s used by the Kwakwaka’wakw people in their winter ceremony that’s called the Tlasula. It’s the ceremony where the inherited privileges of the host family are brought out and displayed in the big house in the firelight and the dancer dances the mask around the fire.

To have your family go through this ceremony was a “very prestigious privilege.”

The Burke Museum in Washington and Hudson Museum in Maine have a friendly Super Bowl bet over their two home teams. If the Patriots win than the Hudson is getting Seattle crabs and if the Seahawks win Maine lobsters are coming to Washington. “We like to say that the Seahawks haven’t lost since the mask came to Seattle,” said Wright.

Images provided by the Burke Museum. Image top right was provided to them by the Hudson Museum and image bottom right is originally from the book Art of the Northwest Coast Indians.

2. A Washington resident named Hazel Cooke is credited with naming the team after winning a contest.

Before mentioning anything else, it should probably be said that the football team isn’t the first “Seattle Seahawks” to exist in the city. From 1933 to 1941 a hockey team called the Seattle Seahawks played in the North West and Pacific Coast hockey leagues.

Jump a few decades later and the NFL awards an expansion team to Seattle. At this time, the new organization held a contest to name the team and as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, 20,365 entries were submitted with 1,741 different proposed names. Mariners, Evergreens, Olympics and Sockeyes were among those proposed. 151 of those names were for the “Seattle Seahawks.”

From those 151 names, the now-called Seattle Seahawks organization drew a name randomly to determine who officially named the team. A woman named Hazel Cooke won and said at the time, “I submitted Seahawks because it’s alliterative with Seattle. And a hawk is proud, bold, fierce. I hope the team will be such.” Cooke won two 1976 season tickets

The others who submitted “Seattle Seahawks” also received some prizes. One winner was Deane Brazas who wrote to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to describe what he got:

In addition to a framed certificate signed by the owners, I received a personalized book about the history of the team, complete with photos and bios of all the original players and owners. In addition, I received two tickets to a preseason game every year until Paul Allen bought the team.

3. The “Legion of Boom” all started with an innocuous comment about dieting by Kam Chancellor.

The origin of this phrase is considered a bit of a mystery, but here’s what seems to be the most likely backstory.

Kam Chancellor was guesting on “The Bob and Groz Show” in August, 2012 when he simply said, “I changed my diet up, just eating a lot cleaner, just eating chicken, fish, vegetables, fruit, trying to stay light to where I can run fast, but also still have a little weight to keep that boom.”

This mention of keeping up “that boom” took off as around that time the show was looking for suggestions of what to call the Seahawks backfield. Later in October, 2013 Chancellor was back on “The Bob and Groz Show” to give them credit saying:

It started on your show, yeah I remember saying ‘the boom’, the whole boom idea, and then it went to Twitter, and the 12th Man came up with “Legion of Boom,” and you know we just ran with it there. But it definitely started on your show, with me saying ‘boom.’

The first surviving tweet from that first August 2012 was made by @realjoedurfee and said, “#Seahawks secondary is now called The Legion Of Boom. I kinda like it.” HuffPost reached out to Joe asking where he’d first heard the “Legion of Doom” and he said it was “just something that someone had suggested and I guess it stuck.” Joe said he heard it on 710 ESPN Seattle, the station that plays “The Bob and Groz Show.”

4. The first ever player to be drafted by the Seahawks was almost one of their greatest of all time, but then got an injury after one season.

Defensive tackle Steve Niehaus was the first person chosen by the Seattle Seahawks and the second overall in the 1976 draft. Occasionally he is thrown into a list of terrible draft choices, but this isn’t quite what happened.

In this first year with the Seahawks, Niehaus notched 9.5 sacks which still stands as a team-high total. By the end of the year he’d also received the NFC Defensive Rookie of the Year award. Niehaus was on pace to be one of the defensive greats.

Unfortunately, Niehaus’ arm just wouldn’t hold up. As Seattle Times writer Danny O’Neil described, “Niehaus would lie there and twitch and wait for someone to reset the joint.” That would be after the arm came out of his socket, regularly. Occasionally Niehaus would even use a leather strap to keep his arm in his side and still play football. When Niehaus finally had a major operation on the arm however, he was done and had to quit the game. It’s too bad this first Seahawk found out what happened when you fly too close to the Sun.

Image Right: Seahawks Official Website

5. Seahawks fans have created multiple earthquakes.

The Marshawn Lynch 67-yard touchdown “Beast Quake” run in 2011 was noticed by John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, who on a whim discovered that a seismic monitoring station about 100 yards west of Qwest Field had recorded a magnitude somewhere between 1 and 3.

This original Seahawk fan created earthquake lasted about 30 seconds.

The 12th man did it again during the 2015 playoffs when Kam Chancellor returned an interception against the Carolina Panthers for 90-yard touchdown run.

And then a “dance quake” was reported to have occurred by ESPN after the win against the Green Bay Packers to advance to the 2015 Super Bowl. The University of Washington’s Steve Malone said that this dance quake was the biggest seismic signal Seahawks fans had ever created. If only the Super Bowl was a home game!

With all this ground-shaking activity, seismic sensors have actually been installed at CenturyLink Field to monitor further earthquakes caused by Seahawks fans.

BONUS: The “12th Man” is so loud that it’s close to ear rupturing. No other crowd causes more false starts.

The Twelves have gotten up to 137.6 decibels, which is just about 12 decibels from what it takes to rupture an eardrum.

Because of this extremely loud crowd, ever since the team started recording opposing team false starts at home games in 2005, the Seahawks have led the league.

In 2006, when the team was still at Qwest Field the Giants GM Ernie Accorsi complained to the league that the Seahawks might be blasting additional crowd noise out of their speakers. This was found to be completely false, Seattle fans are really just that loud.

All images Getty unless otherwise noted.