Social Phobia and Isolating One’s Self

June 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Family Health

Everyone knows how hard it is to initiate social interaction. After all, most people share in the experience of how awkward it is to deliver a speech in front of a huge crowd, ask that special someone out on a date, or perform before a huge audience. The fear of being embarrassed, after all, is completely normal. However, people who suffer social anxiety disorder, otherwise known as social phobia, suffer from these difficulties each and every day.

Many individuals who suffer from social anxiety disorder are often simply considered reserved, even if the underlying condition is far more serious. This is because the condition is characterized by an overwhelming fear of social interaction. Those who suffer from this condition often feel as though they are being constantly judged by the people around them, and as such, live in fear of inevitably doing something that may embarrass them. While everyone worries at one time or another, the extent with which those who suffer from social phobia feel fear is often something that paralyzes them from doing what they want to do.

Some of those who have social phobia may simply act shy to keep themselves from being noticed. They will try their best not to call attention to themselves, and may even go as far as doing away with having to deal with other people. When left untreated, those who suffer from severe forms of social phobia may completely shut themselves out from the rest of the world.

A form of severe social anxiety is called selective mutism. This is characterized by individuals who fear specific types of social activity, and in those instances, find it physically impossible to speak. With people they are comfortable with, they are able to speak with confidence. However, in stressful situations, they are unable to speak at all.

This means that for those who suffer social anxiety disorder, the symptoms of the disease are not only in their mind, where they worry about embarrassing themselves. At some point, the fear they feel materializes to the extent that it manifests physically. Physical symptoms include excessive sweating, breathing rapidly, chest tightening, drying of the mouth, and feeling pain in the stomach.

Social anxiety disorder is triggered by a good number of factors, like all mental disorders. Those who suffer from social phobia often have a natural proclivity towards shyness, despite the fact that no one is born with social phobia. It may be triggered as they grow older if they see a close friend or relative exhibiting the same traits, or if they experience some traumatic event.

Luckily, social anxiety disorders can be treated, given the advances in medication and therapy. Apart from those in the formal field of medicine, there are other alternative means to gain relief from social anxiety disorder, like yoga, meditation, and the like. Treatment may not exactly turn a person into an extrovert; however, it can help a person more capably engage in meaningful interactions with other people.

Talk to your physician about social phobia, and how it can be treated. Otherwise, ask for a referral for a physician who specializes in such anxiety disorders. The Internet is also rich in information which you can explore. Braced with enough information and resolve, you will find yourself more capable of handling social interactions.

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Changing the Way You Feel About Yourself

May 29th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Family Health

There is a huge number of people who now suffer om a variety of anxiety disorders. This is largely a result of the growth in the number of stressors we are exposed to each day. However, there are instances when external forces are not the cause of stress; rather, the primary cause is self-image.

While low self-esteem is most common among adolescent girls, this problem is something that is not limited to these teens. The various stressors inherent in life can make someone easily feel insufficient in one part of their life or another, despite the relative completeness of their lives. Unfortunately, low self-esteem often comes with anxiety.

People who suffer from low self-esteem often seek the approval of other people all the time, which does not always come their way. Without constant affirmation, these individuals become self-destructive, which can further the anxiety they feel.

Improving How You See Yourself

To begin gaining enough self-esteem and pride, change the way you think and see the world. This one is not something that will happen overnight. However, by slowly building your self-esteem daily, you will find that it will be able to strengthen it to the point that you will have eliminated what has been causing your anxiety. Below are some guidelines on how you can begin to improve your esteem.

  • Recognize the reality that no one is truly perfect. If you feel unattractive, stop for a moment to contemplate on how much effort goes into editing and polishing the images that you see on television or on print. These celebrities have armies of stylists whose only job is to ensure that each hair is in place. Some of the images you see are even airbrushed to perfection.
  • Your worth is not measurable by how people see you. In fact, you’ll be surprised at how there are other people out there who try to deal with their own insecurity by putting others down. Those who are indifferent to your plight often are overwhelmed by their own issues that they hardly have any time to mind other people. The business of being happy is something you owe yourself, and not anyone else.
  • List down your traits that you like. There’s no need to short-change yourself or be modest about it; this is a list that’s designed for you to appreciate yourself better. When you’re feeling down, go over this list and look at all the things that make you a great person.
  • Begin seeing yourself in a new light, and consider changing first the things that will cause a visible impact on your life. There are things about ourselves that we don’t like, some of which are within our control, some are not. Focus on things you can change, and work daily to change them. Thinking about the things you cannot change is useless and counterproductive.

The way you see yourself and how you feel has a huge impact of the amount of stress you feel. Once you feel satisfied and content about your life, you will be surprised that you will either be feeling less stressed, or be more capable of the daily stressors that life throws on you. Having a more positive sense of self will help you ensure that you will not succumb to anxiety.

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The Difficulty of Diagnosing Mental Health

May 25th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Family Health

The medical sciences have undergone meaningful advances in recent history, which is the reason why for many illnesses, going to a hospital, seeing doctors, and following through with treatments have led us to wellness. This almost linear effectiveness has caused us to get used to getting well regardless of our condition, which is perhaps the reason why we treat with utmost irritation and desperation instances when diagnosis and treatment is not as straightforward. This is usually the case when it comes to mental health complications.

The difference lies in the process of even identifying what disorder you have. For many medical conditions, all medical practitioners have to do is to run a couple of exams in order to narrow down a list of complications, often exactly, to find out what you are suffering from. In fact, in many of these tests, doctors are even able to determine the extent of progression of the disease. On the other hand, mental illnesses are almost impervious to these sorts of physical tests, making its diagnosis vaguer. Not only are we unable to definitively diagnose mental illnesses, but we are also usually unaware of what causes them.

The other problem with the diagnosis of mental disorders is that there is too often a large pool of symptoms that can point to the existence of that disorder. This means that while two people may suffer from the same disease, they may not at all be alike in most respects.

Each mental disorder is characterized by these huge pools of symptoms, which lead to a huge number of patients not actually fitting a single profile clearly. At times, people might display symptoms of even more than one disease, yet not fit one entirely.

In order to properly determine what psychological disorder a person is suffering from, it is important to first study that person’s entire medical history, as well as the history of the mental illness. The physician will likely want to find out when the symptoms began manifesting, the extent of the manifestation of the symptoms, and other relevant details that may help him or her better understand your mental state.

In addition to this psychological probing, the physician will also do standard physical tests, like blood tests and screenings. This is because there are some psychiatric conditions that are caused by some hormonal imbalances or nutrient deficiencies. Obviously, if your body is not functioning the way it should, it may have an impact on the ability of the brain to operate properly. If your psychological condition is caused by physical conditions, you will likely receive the recommendation to see a medical practitioner for other treatments.

In order to aid psychiatric diagnosis, there are a variety of tests that have been developed. Usually, these tests include a set of questions that relate to specific situational symptoms of a mental disorder. The questions allow individuals to answer in a scale of five. This becomes the basis for the objective analysis to arrive at a diagnosis.

However, it is unfortunate that most of these tests rely largely on the honesty and ability of the patient to honestly assess their own feelings. The doctor then largely relies on the patient to arrive at the diagnosis.

While the science of mental diagnosis is inexact, continuous research has led to greater effectiveness. With enough effort, we may be able to find better ways to diagnose and treat mental illness.

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