Archive for the ‘Mental Health’ Category

Stress is part of life. There’s just no escaping it. There are good forms of stress and bad forms, but it’s always with us in one way or another.

Acute stress – also known as fight-or-flight response, is an anxiety disorder. It occurs when we experience either a real or perceived threat to us. The perceived threat can be physical in nature, such as a speeding car 100 feet away bearing down on us or a black bear 100 yards away from our camping tent. Or the threat can be emotional as a mother might feel as she’s waiting for the hospital to call regarding the fate of her husband or child that is lying on a hospital operating table.

The hypothesis of acute stress response is not new. It’s been around since at least the 1920’s. When acute stress response occurs, the body experiences many changes. The blood vessels constrict which causes blood to drain away from the skin and leading to the expression “he was white as a ghost” as a way of describing somebody who has just experienced a frightening event. The drained blood, and oxygen, flows into the muscles, lungs, and large muscles – strengthening them all. The heart rate increases enabling blood to be pumped to the various body organs faster. And the pupils of the eye becomes dilated allowing for sharper vision.

In addition to the above symptoms, the adrenal glands secrete the “stress hormone” cortisol which floods through the body. Cortisol has an immediate and dramatic effect on the body. Reflexes are heightened, immunity is increased, sensitivity to pain is decreased, and the body is suddenly filled with energy and ready to run or fight.

According to traumatic stress treatment centres treatments, prime candidates for acute stress are soldiers returning from war. Many of the troops coming home from Iraq have experienced high levels of acute stress. Many people in the medical field, such as doctors and nurses, experience this as well.

Acute stress disorder is something a bit more serious. It is something that develops after the initial traumatic event that may have caused acute stress in the person. It’s triggered by the person merely remembering the event. Only a licensed therapist or psychologist can diagnose acute stress disorder, but some symptoms are:

1) Difficulty concentrating – the person may have problems focusing or following a train of thought and may seem as if he is in a daze or fog.

2) Detachment and a decrease in emotional responsiveness – the person may seem emotionally aloof, as if they’ve detached themselves from their feelings in order to avoid further pain.

3) Ongoing Short term amnesia – the person may go into a room to get something but suddenly can’t remember what it was he wanted. Or, he may start to ask you an important question, but can’t remember what he wanted to ask.

In order for symptoms to be classified as acute stress disorder, they must take place within 1 month subsequent to the initial traumatic event. This disorder is very intimately associated with PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is essentially a longer lasting type of acute stress disorder.

Generally stress is considered bad for us. And usually it is. But acute stress or short term stress is a centuries old survival mechanism that helps us to cope with wrenching events in our lives.

transgender surgery

Gender dysphoria is a feeling of extreme discomfort or unhappiness with one’s physical sex. It is considered a symptom of a gender identity disorder. It manifests, often in early childhood, as a wish to be, or a feeling that one is of the opposite sex. A boy may engage in typically feminine behavior, such as playing with dolls or dressing in feminine clothing. A girl may wish to have her hair cut short, engage in rough-and-tumble play and generally displays tomboyish behavior. If the feeling of having the wrong physical sex persists, a transgender teen may feel disgust with his or her body as they begin to develop sexually.

Many in the transgender community dispute the notion that non-conformity with traditionally accepted gender roles is a sign of a mental disorder. Many children grow out of gender dysphoria, and come to feel comfortable with their gender, but are identified as homosexuals. Some teens try desperately to fit in with their socially defined gender roles. This may cause them great emotional distress. Those who object to the idea of a gender identity disorder point out, particularly in the case of a transgender teen who may be exploring his or her sexual identity, the idea that they may have a mental illness and this reinforces the notion that “different is bad.”

In some cases, gender dysphoria persists into adulthood. The person feels that they are trapped in the body of the opposite sex of what they actually are. This feeling often begins in childhood, and a transgender teen may wish to live as the opposite of his or her physical sex. Such persons, as they reach adulthood, may seek transgender therapy. This therapy consists of psychological counseling, hormonal treatment, and for some, sexual reassignment surgery. Generally, the person is required to live as a member of their desired sex for at least a year, often up to two years, before the transgender surgery is done.

A person who feels that his or her physical sex differs from their gender identity can suffer a great deal of emotional pain. Pressure from family members and peers to conform their gender roles to their physical sex can compound the problems of gender dysphoria, especially for transgender teens. Many who feel trapped in the body of the opposite sex seek transgender therapy. Those who go on to have transgender surgery often feel great relief as their bodies finally reflect their true gender identities.

Facing Your Phobias

Have you ever wondered how a person could develop a phobia, especially of kittens or balloons, or the other things you hear people having phobias of? Although many phobias do sound pretty outlandish, their development is not that odd. In facts, the development of a phobia is a natural survival instinct that is a little confused.

Although the creation of phobias is not an absolute science, all types of phobias form as the result of an extreme aversion to something. The difference between a phobia and simply being afraid of something is the level of fear that is characteristic of a phobia. In addition to feeling emotionally uneasy, phobia sufferers show physical symptoms of their fear, including increased heart rate and breathing, sweating, feeling faint, and feeling as though they are choking. Phobias strike people differently depending on the severity of their phobia and what triggers the phobic response. For example, for someone who has a phobic reaction to heights is usually not equally frightened by all situations involving heights, and how high they are, the presence of a handrail, and a number of other factors affect each individual phobic response. However, the classic example of phobia formation is that a fear of poisonous snakes gets transferred to all snakes, creating a snake phobia. Although the ideas about phobia development have progressed from this theory, the phobia forms because the brain identifies a great threat, in this case a snake, and sees the situation as out of control and dangerous.

In many cases, this causes the body to undergo a fight or flight response, or even have a full-blown panic attack. Another way to describe a phobia is that the brain forms false associations between a situation or thing, which caused the phobia sufferer to ascend into fear unnecessarily. An example of the phobia mindset would be that after burning your hand on a stove, instead of fearing or avoiding putting your hand on a hot burner, you have an intense fear of all stoves and fear their presence instead of being careful not to touch the hot burner. Some phobias are so severe that even the thought of the phobia trigger can cause a phobia episode.

While phobias can be difficult to deal with, the system that causes phobias to develop is a means of protection and was very helpful to our early ancestors. In specific places in the world at various times throughout history, it might have been the people who have snake phobias who were capable of surviving, particularly in areas such as Australia as well as Africa where they have an abundance of very venomous species of snakes. For early people, fearing and avoiding snakes may have kept them alive, but they were able to react in an extreme way to the presence of a snake. They were also allowed to kill the snake, which may help cure the phobia, if the presence of a snake was seen as a controllable situation.

Although you can have a phobia of anything, it has been shown that people are genetically predisposed to develop phobias or fears of some things much more easily than others. An experiment that focused on exposing subjects to images and electric shocks showed that it took very little to develop a fear of certain animals, while others took many electric shocks. Because of this, experts think that phobias develop as a survival instinct, but that survival instinct is, for the most part, unnecessary in the modern world. However, these instincts are intact in case we ever need them.

For a great deal more informational value go here: Controlling Your Panic Attacks and certainly try Help A Panic Attack and more information at What Is A Panic Attack