Stress, Trauma, Anxiety, Fears and Psychosomatic Disorders
1
Chapter 5: Stress, Trauma, Anxiety, Fears and Psychosomatic Disorders
All our lives long, every day and every hour we are engaged in the process of accommodating our changed and unchanged selves to changed and unchanged surroundings; living, in fact, is nothing less than this process of accommodation; when we fail in it a little we are stupid, when we fail flagrantly we are mad, when we suspend it
temporarily we sleep, when we give up the attempt altogether we die. -Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace...
Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity... When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king... you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready. -Lao-tzu, The Book of The Way, 500 B.C., translated by Stephen Mitchell
We have studied in chapters 3 and 4 about values to guide our lives and about how to control our behavior. In chapters 5 to 8, we turn our attention to four generally unwanted, unpleasant emotions-stress, depression, anger, and dependency. First, we will study stress, anxiety, and fears, because these are the most common emotional problems.
Stress, Trauma, Anxiety, Fears, and Psychosomatic Disorders
o Overview & new research o A case of being afraid of public speaking
Signs of stress
Sources and types of stress
o External situations that lead to stress o Frustration, threats, and conflicts o Prolonged and intense stress
2
Dealing with trauma
Becoming absorbed with one's wounds
Theories explaining stress and anxiety
o Constitutional factors--genes and physical causes o Operant and cognitive theories about anxiety
? Operant conditioning and stress ? Thoughts and emotions ? Observational learning and cognition ? Faulty perceptions and irrational reactions ? Can we handle it? ? How and what you think determine stress level ? Self confidence in coping skills ? Does thinking explain all fears and anxiety? ? Thoughts, emotions, and actions are interrelated o Psychoanalytic theories of anxiety ? Psychological defense mechanisms ? Unconscious causes of fear ? Summary of the means by which stress is developed ? Summary of the effects of stress
Ways of handling stress and anxiety
o How to cope o Confront the stressful situation o Find causes and escape stress o Support and self-help groups o Relaxation o Desensitization o Stress inoculation o Develop toughness and skills o Cognitive methods o Summary of how to handle anxiety, fears, and stress
Treatment of specific anxiety-based problems
o Anxiety, worry and shyness o Insomnia and burnout o Anxiety, fears, and phobias (books and sites) o Panic attacks and agoraphobia o Obsessions and compulsions (books and sites) o Personality, emotions, and health o Psychosomatic and physical disorders
? Heart disease, Cancer ? General health & Prayer ? Pain--headaches
3
Overview
Anxiety or tension is our body's way of telling us that something is going wrong and we need to correct it. It is an absolutely essential signal, necessary for our survival and well being. If primitive humans did not have food, the anxious anticipation of hunger motivated them to find food. If a worker hasn't been productive yet today, the fear of criticism from a supervisor or co-worker helps him/her get busy. If I am driving a little too fast on a rainy night on tires with 70,000 miles on them, my concern about safety slows me down. These are valid reasons for feeling that action is needed to avoid trouble.
Isn't it wonderful that we have a built-in automatic warning system? Yes, except when the system goes awry. Sometimes the expectation of trouble or danger is wrong; we exaggerate the problems or become tense for no good reason. At other times, the warning is accurate but nothing can be done, and we fret needlessly about our inability to change the situation. Sometimes, we have this stress alarm going off, but we don't know what is wrong. In each of these cases, we are psychologically and bodily all tensed up to run or fight an enemy, but the real enemy (the creator of the scary situation) is us.
Obviously, a major problem is telling the difference between realistic, helpful tensions, fears, or worries and unrealistic, unhealthy nervousness. This is because we all could start fretting about some possibly stressful event at almost any time. Risks are all around us. Thus, unrealistic worries are over-reactions to a tolerable situation or a prolonged over-reaction to a threatening situation that can not be avoided. But how can you be sure a situation won't cause trouble? You can't. How can you be sure you won't handle the problem any better if you worried about it a lot more? You can't be. However, we can learn to recognize extreme over-reactions, e.g. being terrified while flying or obsessing for hours about an insoluble problem. But a little worry about crashing while flying is realistic and some thought is necessary to know that you can't do much about a problem. So, how much time should you devote to a particular problem? There isn't an exact answer; that's why some of us let anxiety overwhelm us.
Instead of an over-reaction, some people under-react to a risk. They dismiss or deny it. They never get serious at work or prepare for a "bad spell;" they die on rain-soaked highways. Maybe they are unaware of the danger; maybe they just prefer to not think about it; maybe the situation is so threatening that they are scared witless, and shove awareness of the problem out of their mind. Both over-reactors and under-reactors to a threat are poorly prepared to deal with it. Both need to learn to react differently. This chapter deals more with over-reactors than with under-reactors.
Everyone has some anxiety
4
The complexity, confusion, and commonness of anxiety is reflected in the many words in the English language for anticipated troubles: tension, feeling on edge, up-tight, hassled, nervous, jittery, jumpy, wound up, scared, terrified, insecure, pressured, alarmed, anxious, worried, dreading what might happen, uncertain, vulnerable, apprehensive, edgy, troubled, and many more. Anxiety is one of the most common symptoms seen in a psychologist's or psychiatrist's office. Mental Help Net provides several articles about stress.
The broadest definitions of stress include the entire complex sequence of events: (1) the event that requires some change (external or mental; real or imaginary), (2) internal processes (perception, interpretation of the event, learning, adaptation, or coping mechanisms), (3) emotional reactions (our feelings) and (4) other behavioral-bodily reactions (nervousness, sweating, stumbling over words, high blood pressure, and all the medical conditions mentioned below). In a more limited usage, stress is the upsetting situation and strain is the mental and physical reactions. However, most of us use the term stress loosely for both the threatening situation and the anxious reaction.
Stress may refer to meeting any "demand" made of us, even good, reasonable, enjoyable ones. Thus, the experienced jogger meets the demands of running five miles and thoroughly enjoys it. A person given a promotion is delighted even though it means more responsibility and work. Doing well in school involves the stress of learning what you need to know to get high grades on tests. No one could work and raise a family without stress. How could anyone strive for a high, competitive goal or make sacrifices in order to live according to his/her values without experiencing stress? And, surely, stress is part of self-discovery, growth, and using all of one's potential, because these efforts open us up to failure when we find our limitations. Even the most wonderful events of life--loves, friendships, family, sex, travels, holidays--add stress because these situations require us to cope and adapt. So, some writers speak of "good" stress and "bad" stress. We all have both.
In everyday speech, however, we usually find other words, rather than anxiety or fear, for the hard work, uncertainty, and tension associated with doing a good job at work, in school, or in our relationships. We may say, "it's a hard job but he/she is handling it," rather than "his/her job is making him/her highly anxious." When we use the phrase "he is anxious" or "insecure" or "she is nervous" or "jumpy," we usually mean things aren't going well, the person is close to loosing control or threatened with failure. Therefore, words which imply the amount of anxiety and stress being experienced become a commonly accepted index--a barometer--of how well we are coping. Indeed, very high anxiety is an aspect of most psychological breakdowns or disorders. So, the stress-related words mentioned above usually communicate to others that we are having serious difficulty handling some situation.
5
What other emotions and/or terms are closely related to stress? Fears are when you feel scared in specific situations. Some are fears of real dangers; a fear of speeding or fighting or driving while drunk is healthy. Other fears, also called phobias, are not realistic; phobias of heights, flying, bugs, enclosed places, open spaces, or of speaking to groups are all over-reactions to the actual risks involved. Panic reactions are sudden, overwhelming fear reactions, often without an obvious external cause, usually involving rapid breathing, heart palpitations, fear of dying, and a frantic attempt to get to safety. Anxiety is an unpleasant tension state, something like fear, in certain circumstances but not associated with a specific stimulus, perhaps not with an external event at all. One might be generally anxious at work, meeting people, taking a class, or in many other situations; yet, no specific aspect of those situations is the identifiable source of the fear.
Because stress, fears, and anxiety are so unpleasant, you might be tempted to seek total relaxation in undemanding situations. Actually, the leisurely, effortless life style is not possible or even desirable for most of us. As I have already made clear, if you seek to do your best, to do new things, to stretch your capabilities, you will be challenged and stressed. Many of us are good students, good workers, or good religious folks partly because we are scared not to be. Many outstanding athletes, students, managers, scholars, professionals, and others obtain part of their drive by overcompensating for feelings of inadequacy.
As we have mentioned, the forewarnings of trouble help us cope and achieve. Thus, tension must, in many ways, be valued and welcomed. Psychologists don't yet know which achievements could have been accomplished without stress (demands from the environment and upon oneself), perhaps almost none. Thus, it seems likely that the better adjusted among us are constantly both reducing some of their unneeded anxieties and increasing other beneficial anxieties. It is a skillful, cogent person who can orchestrate his/her life into a pleasant and productive symphony of high and low stresses. Thus far, psychology has focused mostly on lowering high anxiety for good reason: it is a serious and fairly common problem.
The diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a chronic, debilitating condition consisting of excessive worry, disruptive anxiety, and distressful tension that has lasted for at least 6 months and maybe for years. It is the second most common psychiatric disorder (after depression); about 5% of the world's population suffers this disorder. Even in developed countries, however, less than 20% of sufferers get proper treatment. It is treatable, but many MDs have trouble diagnosing it and are uncertain how to treat it. GAD frequently results in sleeplessness, irritability, poor concentration, and fearful hyper-vigilance. There may be a variety of other symptoms including fatigue, muscle tension, sweating, heart palpitations, stomach trouble, diarrhea and others.
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- the mysterious stranger by mark twain full text archive
- nn1 high quality examples for nn metric 1a text
- trauma and spirituality the journey to awakening by the rev frank
- us english living with worry and anxiety amidst global uncertainty
- mark twain s the mysterious stranger
- al health care s s
- a review of horwitz horwitz and cope s theory of foreign language
- the economic burden of anxiety and stress disorders acnp
- understanding and coping with anxiety and panic
- grade 12 year at a glance m j i language arts a note to parents s
Related searches
- enneagram fears and motivation
- anxiety disorder and dating
- enneagram fears and desires
- social anxiety disorder and cbt
- list of fears and phobias
- rare fears and phobias
- funny fears and phobias
- difference between fears and phobias
- weird fears and their names
- articles about fears and phobias
- fears and phobias kids health
- anxiety phobias and panic