Archive for the ‘Stress Management’ Category

Problems & Causes of Psychological Health

Monday, February 7th, 2011

The health of the human mind (psyche) is much more difficult to establish than the well-being of the body. How we deal with people and the world around us says a lot about our ability to cope with the ups and downs of life, but whether it exposes the secret world of unconscious motivations is another matter.

It is how people deal with the stresses and the intensity of feelings that is important. This depends on an innate ability (nature) as well as the psychological responses learned during the growing up process (nurture).

Psychological problems and their causes

  • There are many signs of psychological problems. There may be a marked personality change or simply an inability to cope. Some people may have strange, grandiose or obsessive ideas.
  • A prolonged period of depression and apathy, as well as marked changes in eating or sleeping patterns may also be indications of psychological problems.
  • Thinking or talking about suicide, extreme emotional highs and lows and the abuse of alcohol or drugs are signs of psychological difficulties, as are excessive outbursts of anger, hostility or violent behavior.
  • Psychological problems have various origins, which can be placed in a number of categories. An individual’s life history is an important factor in the development of psychological problems. It is when people are young that they develop their basic assumptions of others and themselves, as well as their strategies for coping with life.

These strategies need continual updating – a strategy that may have been appropriate at the age of five is no longer useful at the age of 40. Sometimes people cling to outmoded and detrimental strategies that then lead to difficulties in current relationships and eventually to psychological and emotional distress.

In general, a healthy mind implies being content with yourself. For healthy people, on the whole, life has meaning and fulfillment. They have friends and family to whom they can express thoughts and emotions. They do not fear change and are always ready to learn. Amid the stresses and strains of everyday life they are able to enjoy themselves. A healthy mind is one that can deal with both positive and negative events, from getting married to a death in the family. It is normal to feel frustration as well as happiness, or anger as well as joy.

  • Some people have a genetic propensity to psychological problems. This could be due to the way in which their brain is formed or because they easily produce excess stress hormones, making them more likely to be susceptible to stressful life events. Physical ill-health can affect a person’s psychological well-being, too. Seriously ill people may become depressed or anxious. This in turn can affect their physical health, slowing their recovery and possibly making them more depressed – and so the cycle continues.
  • Situational factors can negatively influence psychological well-being – for example, living in a socially deprived area with frequent vandalism and drug abuse. Trauma, such as a car accident or physical attack, or even the witnessing of a traumatic event, can produce adverse reactions that can lead to post-traumatic stress. Loss and bereavement, while a natural part of life, can also affect people’s psychological health and while all societies have rituals in place to facilitate the grieving process some people find it very difficult to come to terms with their loss.
  • Cultural factors can affect the person’s sense of identity and belonging and can have a direct effect on individual’s sense of psychological well-being. For example, people from immigrant populations encounter more psychosocial problems than those in the dominant culture.
  • Each category can produce psychological problems on its own, but it is usually when there are two or more factors that psychological “disease” takes hold. For instance, if someone has had a very difficult early life, he or she may respond more negatively to a traumatic event than someone who has had stable, loving childhood. However, people’s reactions are unpredictable. Someone with a difficult early life, for example, may have learned at an early age to cope with trauma and so manage better than the person with a stable background who has not encountered any traumatic events.

Benefits of Mind-Body Medicine : Relieving Stress and Depression

Friday, January 14th, 2011

An ever-growing body of evidence has demonstrated that psychosocial stress is an important factor in many medical conditions, ranging from coronary artery disease and chronic pain to immune problems. Within the confines of our modern environment, mental cues such as anxious thoughts, crowds, work pressures and traffic jams, are often perceived as threatening and can trigger the fight-or-flight response, even though no physical threat is involved.

Moreover, psychological stressors may linger and allow the alarm response to persist far beyond its useful time. Powerful hormones released during this stress response have a specific physical impact on the body and can contribute to disease.

Other negative emotions and personality traits have also been found to be associated with the risk of chronic disease. It was once thought that the “Type A” personality, which is marked by highly stressed, time-pressurized and aggressive behavior, was a reliable predictor of mortality from coronary artery disease. Actually, “hostility” is the Type A factor that seems to be predictive of heart attacks. In 1995, Dr Murray Mittleman and other researchers at Harvard Medical School in the US reported their analysis of interviews with patients after they had had a heart attack. They reported that the likelihood of having a heart attack was 2.3 times greater within two hours of having an angry outburst than at other times.

Depression is also common in patients with coronary artery disease and is associated with a higher incidence of heart disease as well as an increased mortality rate following heart attacks. In 1996, a team of researchers led by Dr Barefoot at Duke University in the US studied mortality statistics for people who had a documented history of heart disease. They discovered that the mortality rate was 78 per cent higher in those individuals with moderate to severe depression compared to those who were not depressed. Of course, this depression could have been the result rather than the cause of the physical illness, but clearly the entanglement of mind and body influenced the outcome of the illness.

Among their other benefits, most mind–body therapies create a relaxed state which is the opposite of the arousal characteristic of the stress response. Practicing meditation, relaxation techniques, imagery work, hypnosis and movement therapies, such as yoga and Qi gong, can all produce a beneficial relaxed state.

Techniques from cognitive behavioral therapies are also employed in teaching stress management. Individuals learn to recognize stress triggers and respond to them in a different, healthier way by learning a technique called reframing, which allows them to think more positively about the stress-inducing situations they encounter.

Through practicing a wide variety of CBT techniques, people learn to master symptoms that had previously been overwhelming. This allows them to build up self-confidence which then spills over into other aspects of their professional and personal life and enables them to make positive lifestyle changes which go well beyond the alleviation of specific symptoms.