Mental Health Care

In the modern age of consumerism stress level has gone up. Man is falling to his own quest of attaining materialistic joys of life have put his own health on the trade off. Work pressure of man has gone up. Health problems are not just only physical problems any more.

With time our life has transformed fro simple to a more complicated one. Everyday we deal with at least fifty different types of tension. These tensions include family tensions, work tensions and pressure, social tensions etc. but man cannot live under constant stress and tension and it ultimately takes a toll on his health conditions.

Depression is the most recent and evil of all diseases. Other diseases can be seen and detected easily. But depression is caused due to chemical imbalance in mans brain. Depression cannot be easily detected because it is a mental illness. But depression can be havoc towards a man health and also his Well-being. Depression can be the cause of many other mental and physical illnesses. The first step in fighting depression and winning over it is to know if one is depressed or not. Once he finds out that he or she can be treated accordingly with proper medication and psychotherapy. Living everyday with depression can be disastrous for one. Depression can also be caused due to some wrong treatment or medication for some other ale ness.

Thus mental well being is very important and the first step towards a healthy living. The betterment of mental health leads to a better stress free, tension free life. Mental well being is important to stay fit and healthy forever. Mental health should be taken seriously and one should always try and lead a happy stress free life. These is because there is nothing like mental peace in this world.

Share This

Discuss your concerns with a trusted friend or family member. Talking helps relieve stress and put things in perspective; it may also lead to a healthy plan of action.

A positive social support system provides us with emotional sustenance, tangible resources and aid, and information when we are in need. It makes us feel cared about and valued by others and we also have a sense of belonging that can come in handy in moments of despair.

Many large community surveys have linked social support to good health and a superior ability to cope with stress. In general, people with extensive social ties live longer and healthier than those with few close social contacts. Even the perception of social support can help people cope with stress. Studies have found that the promise of availability of social support by itself mitigates the stressors, irrespective of the actual support received in need.

Even a pet at home can help lower the stress. The companionship acts as a balm to your bruised mind. Studies have found that in times of stress, people with pets made fewer visits to the doctor than those without pets.

Share This

Techniques such as meditation, yoga, muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and slow breathing can help you relax. Your goal is to lower your heart rate and blood pressure while reducing muscle tension.

Meditation. The relaxation response can be achieved just by following four simple steps: assume a comfortable position, close your eyes, concentrate on a single word, sound or phrase, and cast off all other thoughts. This can have many physiological benefits, including decreased heart rate, lower blood pressure and reduced oxygen consumption. It is a mechanism that is the opposite of the fight-or-flee response. Practise it for 10 to 20 minutes daily, and being a natural antidote to stress, it would ease your nerves.

Yoga. Yoga is a way of life prescribed and practised by our forefathers for almost 6,000 years. Seeking perfect health and inner harmony through a unique lifestyle, yoga, unlike Western medicine, seeks holistic solutions. Regular practice of yogic breathing (pranayama), yogic postures (asanas), and meditation can help reduce anxiety, slow down breathing, lower blood pressure, alter brain waves, and make your heart work more efficiently. On top of all that, it just makes you feel good.

But before you sign up for the nearest yoga class, you need to know that yoga is not easy. It demands discipline and concentration. The good news is you can do yoga almost anywhere and you can get its benefits in just 20 minutes, practising it once daily. If you want to give yoga a try, your must find a good instructor to teach you yogic breathing and poses. Doing it incorrectly or going beyond your limits can cause injury. Make sure your instructor can adapt poses for different levels of flexibility. Also, tell him or her about any physical limitations you have, and ask whether there are postures you should avoid.

Other techniques. The techniques of progressive muscle relaxation, visual imagery and relaxed breathing have been discussed. Practise them to prevail over stress and a range of stress-related disorders, including hypertension, migraine and tension headaches, and chronic pain.

Share This

Stress management simply aims at training your thoughts and actions and being in control of your self A positive mindset, perseverance and self-belief are the first pre­requisites to overcome stress, but the game plan also includes developing a social support group, using appropriate behavioural and mental techniques to relax, and turning to time ­tested formula of exercise, balanced diet, sleep, regular dose of humour, and recreation sports to dissipate stress. Let us see how:

Develop Positive Mental Coping Mechanisms

A positive mental and emotional approach towards life situations can help you cope with stress. You just have got to believe in self and hold that you can control much of all that happens to you. Researchers have found that people who hold a positive attitude about their abilities, do not get easily frustrated, remain optimistic, and persevere. They tend to cope well with stress. On the other hand, negative personality traits, such as low self-esteem and an outlook of gloom and negativity can trip people even if they have everything working in their favour. Bolster your psychological defence by equipping your self with the following mental strategies:

Think positive. For long, it has been asserted in Vedanta that our thoughts become reality. We are what we think. It is simple. If we think gloomy and negative thoughts, we feel miserable and unhappy. If we think anxious thoughts, we become tense and nervous. Conversely; if we think healthy thoughts, we feel happy. A positive self-talk that focuses on our capabilities and inner strengths eases stress, while a negative self-talk can push back even geniuses.

Set realistic goals. Setting our goals unrealistically high invites failure. Take a reality check. Assess your strengths, abilities and resources before deciding on the goals. Think big, but be pragmatic. Overstepping your limits can only lead to disappointment, frustration, and stress.

Prepare adequately. Plan your work in a step-by-step manner. Specify your target and work out all the details. Rehearse in your mind what the job will require of you. Then divide the target into small accomplishable tasks. While finalizing the plan, also keep an allowance for some extra time and expense. Events beyond your control will happen and jeopardise your planning, and if you account for them, it is easy on the nerves.

Prioritize. Concentrate on what’s important. Decide on your priorities and concentrate on the things most important to you. If more jobs come your way, do not take them unless you are comfortable.

A polite regret sometimes works better. A polite ‘no’ is much better than failing to deliver later. If you have too many things on your hands, do not add to your stress by accepting another job. It is wrong to think that another person will feel offended if you are honest.

A wishy-washy attitude gets you nowhere. Psychologists have found that people use two broad types of coping behaviours to triumph over stress: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. The goal of both is to control stress level. In problem-focused coping, people try to short-circuit negative emotions by taking some action to modify, avoid, or minimize the threatening situation. They adapt themselves to deal with the stressful situation. In emotion-focused coping, people try to moderate or eliminate unpleasant emotions through mechanisms that may not be ideal. For example, faced with a difficult situation you might prepare yourself and deal with it or conversely, indulge in wishful thinking and deny the situation. Both approaches may ease your immediate stress, but relief is temporary if you adopt the latter strategy.

To understand these responses, consider the example of a biochemistry student who is due to appear for his final examinations. He knows he must get top grades in order to have a chance at acceptance to the PhD programme. This situation is a potential source of stress. To cope, he could devote himself fully to master the course materials systematically (problem-focused coping). Or he may take a wishy­washy attitude and watch television for hours on end to prevent having to think about or study for the exams (emotion-focused coping).

Dissipate your anger healthily. If you experience anger, it needs to be expressed, but carefully. Count to 10, compose yourself and respond in an effective manner. Give the provoker the benefit of the doubt, and if you still feel aggrieved, make it known without attacking the other person. Let him know about your disagreement with tact and positive communication skills.

At the same time, also learn the art of forgiving. It has a positive psychological value for you. It makes your inner self glow, lowers your blood pressure and heart rate, and your breathing calms.

Share This

You could try several age-old simple recipes to knock off the tensions of life. Regular doses of humour, adequate sleep, a healthy balanced diet, exercise, recreation and sports, soaking in a warm tub, massage, and timely vacation can treat anxiety and stress.

Add laughter to life

A chuckle a day keeps the doctor away. This philosophy has been prevalent in yoga down the ages. The therapeutic powers of ‘hasya yoga’ or laughter are a legend. It relaxes mind, eases stress and anxieties, improves circulation and breathing, lowers blood pressure, and is a wonderful tonic both for the body and mind. Modern researchers investigating into the healing powers of laughter have found that humour also activates the natural stress-relieving chemicals in the brain and improves the defence system of the body. So, it may be a good idea to keep a collection of amusing books, comics and videos at your bedside and take a regular dose of humour before going to sleep.

Sleep well

Sleep is a healer both for the body and mind. It refreshes us, resolves emotional conflicts, helps us think clearly, and promotes positive mental health. Take regular six to eight hours sleep during the night and, if possible, a short post-lunch nap. Indulging frequent late nights and then cutting on sleep hours are the sure way to court stress.

Some people just cannot get sound sleep. The best way out is to maintain a regular sleep routine. Switch off the television and PC at least one hour before the bedtime. Light relaxing music, a bath, pleasant conversation and a gentle massage are some sure recipes to keep away from sleeping tablets.

Take a balanced diet

Do not neglect meals. Eat on time, even if you are under a time pressure. If you fast for long hours, the blood sugar is lowered, and you may feel easily fatigued. The second commandment is, eat light and enjoy a balanced diet. Take plenty of fresh fruits, salad and vegetables. They neutralize stress. On the other hand, too much carbohydrate in desi-videshi junk and fast food items, like pizza, aaloo ki tikki, samosas, chhole-bhature, French fries and hamburgers tend to adversely affect your think tank.

Do not indulge in self-abuse

Alcohol, cigarettes, and cups and cups of caffeine are not the solution to stress. Such substances only mask the problem and can make the situation worse. Their abuse stresses the body and the mind.

Exercise regularly

Start the day with a 30-45 minute brisk walk. Aerobic exercise ­such as running, walking, biking and swimming-can help keep stress levels down. It also increases the endurance of the heart and lungs. A physically fit individual has a lower heart rate and lower blood pressure, less reactivity to stress, and quicker recovery from stress. In addition, studies show that people who exercise regularly have higher self-esteem and suffer less from anxiety and depression than comparable people who are not aerobically fit.

Water is a wonderful energizer

Drink plenty of water every day. It makes more than 70 per cent of the human body. But splash in it also, whenever you can. A soak in the bathtub can wipe you clean of fatigue. A good swim, Jacuzzi, or sauna bath also make an excellent remedy for stress.

Massage is good

Touch is a newborn’s first contact with the world. As babies, we all snuggle up to our mothers for warmth, comfort and security. A warm rub by a loved one can bring back the same sense of comfort and care to your world.

Even an impersonal massage by a masseur has many virtues. It releases tension from aching muscles, stimulates blood flow, eases the mind and body, and fosters a sense of well-being.

Take out time for relaxation

Even though satisfying work is a great tonic, taking time out for recreation is also a must. You can do anything that you like. Read a book, play a game of chess; bridge, carom, or rummy, or take your family out for a picnic. Going for nature walks, enjoying a movie or play, visiting an art gallery, or partying with friends and family-all can help in a big way. Even helping your child do a school project or cooking a dish in the kitchen may work out to be an excellent rejuvenator.

Listen to music

Good music-music that you enjoy-is a wonderful remedy to overcome stress and fatigue. Tune in and soothe your self.

Take a vacation

A relaxing, fun-filled holiday is a perfect recipe for good health. It casts a magic effect on your physiological and psychological health and is one sure way to recharge your batteries, cleanse your mind and body and humour your soul. The best way is to simply rest and relax. Remember, the word ‘vacation’ is coined from vacate, which means ‘to leave’ or ‘go away’. Go away you must-not just physically, but mentally as well. A sedentary desk-bound person may wish to go out and stretch his muscles a bit, but a physically active worker may wish to take a quiet vacation. Let the vacation be a complete change from the routine.

Seek help

If you cannot devise a solution and find that stress is building up or you are not functioning well, contact your physician.

The key to handling stress is to keep it on your side. Some of it is necessary to keep you sufficiently motivated. Moderate stress fuels creativity and also enhances our performance. The joy lies in listening to the perfect twangs from your soul machine. If you let the strings too loose, they won’t just play. Tighten them too hard, and they may break.

Share This

The train of events begins when a person feels ’stressed’. Chemical messages are carried along the fibres of the netve cells to the hypothalamus, a major supervisory centre in the brain, which immediately sets off into action rapid-fire messengers to prepare the body for the fight-or-flee response.

The first signals reach the brain stem and spinal cord, arousing the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic division holds a sway over the internal organs of the body. It galvanizes the core of the adrenal glands to release epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline). These hormones prepare the body for action. Under their effect, the heart begins to beat more rapidly, blood pressure rises, muscle tension increases, and blood flow is diverted from the internal organs and skin to the brain and muscles. Breathing speeds up, the pupils dilate, and perspiration increases. This reaction is called the fight-or-flight response because it energizes the body to either confront or flee from a threat.

The hypothalamus also releases another hormonal messenger, the corticotrophin releasing factor, which quickly goes through to the pituitary gland, and directs it to secrete the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH travels down the circulation. Reaching the abdomen, it finds its way to the adrenal glands, which sit atop both kidneys. It stimulates the outer layer, or cortex, of the adrenal glands to release the stress hormone cortisol, which speeds up the body metabolism and increases the blood sugar to fuel the fight­or-flight response.

This primitive stress mechanism, which came to the aid of our ancestors, pushes our body machine into top gear ready for action. Yet, this heightened physiological and emotional arousal serves no good purpose in most modern day stressful sitUations. We can neither fight, nor flee from a threat. Unless we learn to flow with stress, it exhausts the body and mind, leaving us vulnerable to disease.

Signals of Stress

When the body is under too much stress it sends out clear distress signals. The effect is reflected through changes in mental, physical, and emotional behaviour and is visible in several forms.

Share This

The events that cause stress are called stressors. Stressors vary in severity and duration. For example, the responsibility of caring for a child born with birth defects may be a source of continuous major stress, whereas getting late to office may lead to mild, short­term stress. Some events, such as the death of a loved one, are stressful for everyone. Yet in other situations, people may respond differently to the same event-what is a stressor for one person may not be a worry for another. For example, a student who is unprepared for a test and knows he will get a bad grade, will be under stress, whereas his classmate who studies in advance may go out confident by of a good grade. An event or situation becomes a stressor for a person when they appraise it as threatening, and lack the coping resources.

Stressors are broadly classified into three categories: major social events, which include natural and man-made catastrophes, major events in an individual’s life, and everyday annoyances or hassles of life that all of us must live with.

Major social events

Life may suddenly come under the shadow of a serious, life­ threatening calamity or disaster. Earthquakes, fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars, terrorist attacks, and big-scale accidents can push people to the limits of endurance. For example, there are reports that survivors of the Bhuj (Gujarat) earthquake continue to suffer nightmares and other several emotional problems years after the event. Similarly, many of the survivors of India-Pakistan trauma partition continued to show serious emotional disturbances long after they were settled.

Major life events

Any new event, even positive events such as the birth of a child, a child leaving home for a better future, your own major personal achievement brings you some stress. The list of negative stressful events may be endless-a death in the family, divorce, imprisonment, losing one’s job, a major personal illness. All these occupy the high seats of stress.

Researchers have found that experiencing a large number of major life changes in a short period of time can affect the health more adversely. Two American researchers in particular, psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Holmes and psychologist Dr. Richard Rahe, have explored the linkages, drawing on extensive clinical research. They have come up with a social readjustment rating scale and, also, a predictive risk score.

Stress of daily life

The role of small everyday annoyances in contributing to psychological stress is best illustrated by the poet Charles Bukowski­

…It’s not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse…no, it’s the
continuing series of
small tragedies
that sends a man to the madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left…

A number of studies uphold the significance of the ’snapped shoelace’ factor. Researchers have discovered that the relentless pressures in our daily lives pertaining to our jobs, personal relationships, and everyday living circumstances do lead to considerable stress. We live through anxieties every day. The day may begin with no water in the taps, tripped power lines, and a dead phone. Leaving the ‘comfort’ of your home well on time, you inch your way through extra long miles of slow and noisy traffic, laden with frayed nerves and road rage to reach your office. Late for work, you open your office door and find the boss pacing up and down inside the room. You stand humbled. He looks at you with a glint in his eye and gives you a dressing down. You peep at the paperweight on the desk and long to hit a bull’s eye but, instead, look down and mumble an apology. All through the day, you do not get a moment to vent your frustration. Your stomach churns, muscles stay knotted, and blood pressure rises. The day over, you return home crawling through the same cruel traffic with the idea that you would relax with your family. But you reach home to a heap of demands. The family announces it has voted to raise its budgeted monthly spending, the children wish to fly out for a holiday, and your spouse wants a diamond ring for the anniversary. You bury your head in despair.

The details may vary, but the sabre-toothed tiger that purrs when it smells stress is definitely on the prowl. You are forced to a tightrope walk what with the pulls and pressures of market economy, the virtues of simple life lost in its glamour, the plethora of moral contradictions and warped values, the turmoil in human relationships, the lack of consideration for each other, the people you thought of as friends ready to upstage you (as a bureaucrat once remarked, ‘people hold on to their chair with one hand and put their best hand forward to shake you out’), the serpentine queues all around you and noisy places breaching your inner calm-there are any number of irritants to drive you nuts. Life in the fast lane of 21st century isn’t easy! The straws on the camel’s back are one too many. Only, this time it is your own back not a camel’s. Community surveys have assessed that more the exposure to these daily agitations the higher is the risk of our falling a victim to the stress-related illnesses.

Yet, these stressful forces must stay. A sociologist friend cites the theory of eternal decay and laughs them off, but unless you are vigilant and prepared to change, the price of these stressors is too heavy to pay. The idea is to build better defences against them rather than using the outdated fight-or-flee natural response.

Share This

Stress is a major contributor, either directly or indirectly, to a number of physical and psychological health problems. Stress-even in a short burst-can lead to disturbing physiological disorders, involving specific body organs, ranging from minor ailments like tension headaches, stiff shoulders, a bad neck, migraine, backache, and chronic pain. It can also lead to palpitations, muscle twitches, diarrhoea, constipation, worsening of pimples, eczema, rash and other skin conditions, disturbed sleep, and a host of psychological and behavioural symptoms.

However, it is the chronic stress which produces serious problems. Selye proposed a three-stage model of the stress response, which he termed the general adaptation syndrome. The three stages in this model are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The alarm stage is a generalized state of arousal during the body’s initial response to stress. In the resistance stage, the body adapts to the stress and continues to resist it with a high level of physiological arousal. When the stress persists for a long time, and the body is chronically overactive, resistance fails and the body moves to the exhaustion stage. In this stage, the body is vulnerable to disease.

Studies have linked chronic stress to a number of major physical illnesses: including chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease, ulcers and irritable bowel disease, skin. conditions, and some forms of cancers. It can also trigger attacks of asthma, and worsen other illnesses.

The body’s resistance fails, since the immune system is also hit. The T-lymphocyte white blood cells-the natural policemen of the body-that catch and kill the body-raiding bacteria and viruses, and the macrophages that gobble them up, go into a phase of relative inactivity increasing the body’s susceptibility to infection.

The effect is most apparent on the mental health. People who experience a high level of stress for a long time-and who cope poorly with this stress-may become irritable, socially withdrawn, and emotionally unstable. They may also have difficulty concentrating and solving problems and may take to alcoholism and drug abuse. Some people under intense and prolonged stress may be ill with extreme anxiety, and suffer from eating disorders, insomnia, or depression. They may suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder-all anxiety related disorders which may be propelled by stress. Continual stress also increases the risk of accidental deaths and suicides.

Sometimes, severe acute stress such as following a cataclysmic event can also lead to an anxiety disorder called ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ in people who survive the catastrophe. They often appear emotionally numb, and reexperience the traumatic event again and again in dreams and in disturbing memories or flashbacks during the day. Many people who saw their loved ones die in Bhuj, or lived on following the terrorist attack of 9/11 on the twin towers in New York continue to be haunted by this disorder.

Unless managed appropriately, stress is a deadly killer. The secret of managing stress lies in developing simple coping mechanisms, learning to flow with it, and conquering it with mental techniques­strategies.

Share This

Like it or not, stress-the modern day sabre-toothed tiger­is on the loose. Ready to snarl and gnaw at you and make mincemeat of you, if you let it. You must not fight it, nor flee from the scene, but keep it on a leash without letting it get perilously dose. This may not be easy. Its progeny romps everywhere, be it the streets of your city, your office, or home, in so many shapes and forms that you may sometimes even fail to recognize their real face till they are at your neck.

Stress pundits believe that Homo sapiens were never under so much pressure before. At the dawn of human history, man did have the demands of protection from natural elements-rain, sun, darkness at night, extremes of temperature, storms, and hurricanes, he had to hunt for food and shelter, was himself hunted, but the dangers were recognizable, not lurking in the dark.

The modern jungle is far more menacing and treacherous. Panic over a deadline, fiercely competitive workplace, an insecure boss, people not keeping time and sending the entire day’s schedule into a topspin, over crowded housing facilities, long queues, jam-packed roads, honks and hackles, a reckless driver on one’s tail are the new beasts over which you have no control. They can make your muscles tense, set your heart and lungs racing, put the teeth on edge, wash you up with your sweat, and you cannot even pick a rock and hurl at them. The physiological elements that prepared our ancestors for the fight-or-flee response serve no useful purpose in these settings. The burst of adrenaline is inappropriate to today’s social stresses. It is in fact dangerous and takes a heavy toll on your physical and psychological well-being.

What is Stress?

Before we take a reality test on different elements of modern day stress, let us try and understand what stress actually means. Broadly, it is an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that we experience in situations that we perceive as dangerous or threatening to our well-being; yet, if you ask people what stress means to them each may come up with a different answer. Some people describe stress as events that cause them to feel tension, pressure, or negative emotions such as anxiety and anger. Others view stress as the response to adverse situation. However, most psychologists regard stress as a process involving a person’s interpretation and response to a threatening situation.

To be honest, none of the descriptions are wide off the mark. Yet the simplest definition is the one enunciated by the founding father of stress research, Dr. Hans Selye. Born in Austria, Selye was a medical student at the University of Prague when he got interested in what he described as a pre-disease ’stress syndrome’ and devoted more than 50 years of his life to work out and identify its secrets. According to Dr. Selye, stress is simply ‘the rate of wear and tear in the body’.

The wear and tear occurs when the flight-or-fight response gets too pervasive, becomes chronic, and allows no let-ups. It is associated with an extraordinary set of physiochemical changes, with ramifications in the brain, the nervous system, and in almost all the major organs of the body.

Share This