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WHAT TO DO FOR STRESS BREAKDOWN: ABOUT ANXIETY SYMPTOMS

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:59:23 +0000

Let us assume you discovered that in fact your anxiety was due to your trying to push your nervous system beyond its capacity. If you just stop doing that, your anxiety will subside. No harm done. The alarm mechanism has done its job.

However, like many other people, you may not think it is possible for you to reduce the load on your nervous system. You may have convinced yourself that there is no alternative to pushing yourself beyond the comfortable limits of your nervous system’s processing capacity. I have to ask you then some more questions.

1. Are you sure you can’t get any help, or is it your pride that makes you determined to do this work or face this problem without help?

2. Are you doubling your problem by setting time limits on work when you have no way of guaranteeing the performance of others who are also involved?

3. Are you fruitlessly trying to work out by yourself, in advance, how to deal with problems that may arise, when in reality the solution to those problems will require the cooperation of others?

Perhaps you might find after answering all these questions that you are in fact a person who has no alternative except to continue putting up with the anxiety because nobody else can really help. You may in fact be the only person who can stay up all night with a sick child or a dying relative, or you may have to see a task or problem through because you may be the only person qualified or able to do the job.

In this case, you might still be able to avoid further stress breakdown if you realize that immediately after the urgency has passed, you must pay back the psychic energy you borrowed in order to keep going under the stress. And remember, you are like Cinderella: your magic will definitely run out. However, Cinderalla had the advantage of knowing it would run out at the stroke of midnight; you aren’t sure how long you can keep going under stress, ignoring the warning signals.

If you decide you cannot slow down or avoid the stress, you must make sure that you get as much sleep as possible, snatching forty winks here and there as you can. You must eat regularly and you must not try to drive yourself to keep going by using stimulants. You should not take alcohol or sedative drugs. When the worst of the stress is over, you should rest and be looked after for a few days.

Above all, you must not make wrong assumptions about the anxiety symptoms you experience. Anxiety is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of a normally functioning nervous system.

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ANTI-DEPRESSANTS

NATURAL THERAPIES FOR INSOMNIA: HOW NATURAL THERAPIES CAN HELP

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:58:54 +0000

There is an ever-increasing variety of natural therapies available today, some complementary to orthodox medicine and some alternative; those most appropriate to sleeplessness are described in the next chapter. What they have in common is the principle that we all have our own powers of self-healing. They aim to remove blockages to health and self-healing by restoring harmony and balance, rather than zapping symptoms with drugs which can actually deplete the patient’s life force. While their methods vary, they work on the basis that body, mind and emotions are a single, interdependent unit, and that for a healthy system, all three need to be attended to.

As well as curing or relieving medical problems, natural therapies can help you to relax, and can relieve pain and anxiety. Many practitioners are also good counsellors who will provide emotional support to deal with the causes of your insomnia, or with withdrawal from tranquillizers or sleeping pills.

By contrast with conventional medicine, practitioners of natural medicines treat the person rather than the disease, which can involve a multiplicity of approaches, even within the same disciplines. They take into account the patient’s personality and lifestyle, recognizing that people vary in their responses to the same treatment. (To be fair to doctors, an increasing number nowadays also aim to treat patients in this holistic way.)

Another difference with conventional medicine is the speed at which treatments work. We have become used to a course of antibiotics, for instance, taking effect very speedily (and there are certainly emergency occasions when antibiotics are very useful). But antibiotics work by suppressing symptoms; natural medicines treat the mind and body which have become sufficiently depleted for bacteria or viruses to flourish, and symptoms are regarded as the body’s efforts to defend itself.

This means that restoring health to the whole person can take time. In addition, cure often involves what’s known as a healing crisis, when symptoms temporarily worsen as the body starts fighting back. So don’t be disappointed if results aren’t instant; give whatever therapy you choose at least a couple of months to see how it’s affecting you. A good practitioner will be happy to discuss your progress with you after the first few visits, and may then be able to give you an idea of how long treatment will take.

As far as insomnia is concerned, however, since natural treatments can be very relaxing, this is often one of the first symptoms to go.

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Anti-Depressants/Sleeping Aid

POWER OVER PANIC: CHANGING OUR PERCEPTION

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:21:27 +0000

Taking the power back means changing the way we perceive the attacks and the anxiety. We see them as being life threatening, or a threat to our sanity, or as causing us severe embarrassment. There is no doubt the anxiety can cause extreme discomfort and the attacks can feel quite violent, but they are not life threatening, nor a sign of impending insanity. We may feel as though we will be significantly embarrassed, but what is embarrassment? It is a state of mind, produced by the way we think and a point I will return to shortly. We compound the disorder by continually thinking about ‘worst case scenarios’. We need to see the anxiety and the attacks for what they really are: anxiety and attacks. Nothing more.

Our thinking is so much a part of us, we don’t pay any attention to the process. Without realising it our thoughts create, dictate and control our life. All of us know the endless silent conversations, the chattering thoughts and the continual negative cycles of thinking. They roll along, carrying us with them. Yet it need not be like this. We can step in and take the power back by learning to control them. We don’t have to be dictated by them. We can dictate to them. The ‘what ifs’ and the self absorption are part of the control we all use. Although we need to let go of them, we can also learn from them. We are creating the fear by the way we think. The ‘what ifs’ and the continual monitoring of our symptoms don’t protect us or provide us with an ‘early warning system’, because they create the very symptoms we are trying to protect ourselves from.

We never take time to examine our thoughts. We don’t even realise we can. We never watch the internal world of our thoughts as it spins this way and that. We react to our thoughts without realising they are actually separate fleeting moments in time. We don’t see this separateness. Instead, we believe we have no power over the continual progression of these thoughts, and the feelings caused by them. We don’t see how our feelings can change within seconds of a change in our thought pattern. We can be calm one minute and anxious the next. Not seeing the progression from one thought to another and thus not seeing the progression from one feeling to another, makes it appear our anxiety and attacks are beyond our control. They aren’t.

Our thoughts create the fear, which creates its own symptoms. The symptoms create the ‘what ifs’, which creates further symptoms. It is not so much the original stress which perpetuates the disorder, as the stress of the disorder itself. We need to be able to see how we create this stress by the fear of what we are thinking.

We need to be in control of ourselves and our environment, yet the only thing we do not control is our thinking. We need to change this by letting go of the overall need to be in control, and control our thinking.

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EXERCISE FOR IDENTIFYING SLEEP PROBLEM: DOES MY CHILD HAVE A SLEEP PROBLEM?

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:03:59 +0000

If you are wondering if your child’s sleep habits qualify as a “problem,” you might want to consider the following issues. Mark each statement A (agree) or D (disagree). If yours is a two-partner family, it is helpful if both partners mark the statements separately to see how each of you feels about the situation.

1.1 feel my child is not getting enough sleep. He is irritable during the day and shows subtle

signs of lack of sleep.

2. My child wakes too early or goes to sleep too late.

3. Sleep seems frightening to my child.

4. My child wakes during the middle of the night.

5. I wonder if my child is eating too much or too frequently.

6. Bedtime is unpleasant for my child. She goes to bed angry, sad, over-stimulated, or

frightened.

7. I believe an undesirable pattern may be developing.

8. My child needs me at times that seem unreasonable to me. I fear he may be overly

dependent on me.

9. Bedtime is unpleasant. I dread it.

10. I usually feel deprived of sleep. I crave a night of undisturbed sleep.

11. I need to go to bed sooner than I would like in order to accommodate an early riser or a non-sleeper.

12. My fatigue or anger is affecting my relationship with my child, his siblings, or my partner.

13. The current situation feels out of control.

14. I find myself asking, “Is my child the only one acting like this?”

15. My child continually disturbs the rest of the family.

Some of these statements reflect the child’s behavior. Others reflect the family’s response. If you agreed with three or more, there is definitely a problem within the family system. This checklist is only a guideline. A child may show only one area of difficulty that turns the family upside down. Go back to the definition of a sleep problem. If you experience it as a problem, then it is a problem worth working on.

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ANXIETY IN THE MIND: STUTTERING

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:33:31 +0000

Anxiety may have an effect on stuttering. The right side of the body is controlled by the left side of the brain and vice versa. In the right-handed person the left side of the brain is dominant over the right, and as a result the right hand is given preference over the left. In those who are left-handed the right side of the brain is dominant over the left. It is believed that stuttering often develops when the dominance of the leading side of the brain is incomplete, or when a potentially left-handed child is trained to function as a right-hander. We see then that stuttering results when the messages from the brain to the organ of speech are indecisive. This indecision may be further increased by the presence of anxiety. This is shown very clearly by the fact that many quite normal people show a hesitancy in their speaking or even a mild stutter when confronted with the task of speaking in some formal situation which produces anxiety.

On the other hand, some people stutter without showing or feeling much tension or anxiety at all. As a general rule these people who stutter in the absence of anxiety do not gain much help in their speech difficulty by practising relaxing mental exercises. However, the majority of stutterers experience considerable tension when they are speaking, and with them the reduction of the general level of anxiety by relaxing mental exercises is a great help toward establishing a pattern of easy normal speech.

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