Tag: education
Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
The one factor causing depression and anxiety in the workplace | Johann Hari | Big Think
Societal Expectations and Inner Desires: The Complex Dynamics of Motivation
ADHD: Signs, Symptoms, Solutions
12 signs you might be suffering from PTSD
PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder a condition officially recognized in 1980 to describe exposure to a relatively brief but devastating event typically a war a rape an accident or a terrorist incident complex PTSD recognized in 1994 describes exposure to something equally devastating but over a very long time normally the first 15 years of life emotional neglect humiliation bullying disrupted attachment violence and anger a lot of us as many as 20 percent are wandering the world as undiagnosed sufferers of complex PTSD we know that all isn't well but we don't have a term to capture the problem we don't connect up our ailments and we have no clue who to seek out or what sort of treatment might help so here are 12 leading symptoms of complex PTSD we might think about which ones if any apply to us and more than seven might be a warning sign worth listening to firstly a feeling that nothing is safe wherever we are we have an apprehension that something awful is about to happen we are in a state of hyper vigilance the catastrophe we expect often involves a sudden fall from grace we will behold away from current circumstances and humiliated perhaps put in prison and denied all access to anything kind or positive we won't necessarily be killed but to all intents our life will be over people may try to reassure us through logic that reality won't ever be that bad but logic doesn't help we're in the grip of an illness we aren't just a bit confused secondly we can never relax this shows up in our body we're permanently tense or rigid we have trouble with being touched perhaps in particular areas of the body the idea of doing yoga or meditation or breathing exercises these things aren't just not appealing they may be positively revolting we may call them hippie with a snare and deeper down they are of course terrifying probably our bowels are troubled too our anxiety has a direct link to our digestive system thirdly we can't ever really sleep and we wake up very early generally in a state of high alarm as though during rest we've let down our guard and are now in even greater danger than usual fourthly we have deepened ourselves an appalling self-image we hate who we are we think we're ugly monstrous repulsive we think we're awful possibly the most awful person in the world our sexuality is especially perturbed we feel predatory sickening shameful fifthly we're often drawn to highly unavailable people we tell ourselves we hate needy people but what we really hate are people who might be too available for us we make a beeline for people who are disengaged won't want warmth from us and who might be struggling with their own undiagnosed issues around avoidance sixthly we are sickened by people who want to be cozy with us we call these people puppy revolting or desperate seventh we are prone to losing our temper very badly sometimes with other people more often just with ourselves we aren't so much angry as very very worried worried that everything is about to become very awful again we are shouting because we're terrified we look mean we are in fact defenseless eighth we are highly paranoid it's not that we expect other people will poison us or follow us down the street we just suspect that other people will be hostile to us and will be looking out for opportunities to crush and humiliate us we can be mesmerically drawn to examples of this happening on social media the unkindest and most arbitrary environment which anyone with complex PTSD easily confuses with the whole world chiefly because it operates like their world randomly and very meanly ninth we find other people so dangerous and worrying that being alone has huge attractions we might like to go and live under a rock forever in some moods we associate Bliss with not having to see anyone again how a tenth we don't register to ourselves as suicidal but the truth is that we find living so exhausting and often so unpleasant we do sometimes long not to have to exist anymore 11.
We can't afford to show much spontaneity we're rigid about our routines everything may need to be exactly so as an attempt to ward off looming chaos we may clean a lot sudden changes of plan can feel indistinguishable from the ultimate downfall we dread 12. in a bid to try to find safety we may throw ourselves into work amassing money Fame honor Prestige but of course this never works the sense of danger and self-disgust is coming from so deep within we can never reach a sense of safety externally a million people can be cheering but one jeer will be enough once again to evoke the self-disgust we have left unaddressed inside breaks from work can feel especially worrying retirement and holidays create unique difficulties those are the symptoms so what is the cure for all these arduous symptoms of complex PTSD partly we need to courageously realize that we have come through something terrible that we haven't until now properly digested because we haven't had a kind stable environment in which to do so we are a little wonky because long ago the situation was genuinely awful when we were small someone made us feel extremely unsafe even though they might have been our parent we were made to think that nothing about who we were was acceptable in the name of being brave we had to endure some very difficult separations perhaps repeated over years no one reassured us of our worth we were judged with intolerable harshness the damage may have been very obvious but more typically it might have unfolded in objectively innocent circumstances a casual visitor might never have noticed there might have been a narrative which lingers still that we were part of a happy family one of the great discoveries of researchers in complex PTSD is that emotional neglect with an outwardly High achieving families can be as damaging as active violence in obviously deprived ones if any of this Rings Bells we should stop being brave we should allow ourselves to feel compassion for who we were that might not be easy given how hard we tend to be with ourselves the next step is to try to identify a therapist or counselor trained in how to handle complex PTSD that may well be someone trained specifically in dealing with trauma which involves directing enormous amounts of compassion towards one's younger self in order to have the courage to face the trauma and recognize its impact on one's life rather touchingly and simply the root cause of complex PTSD is an absence of love and the cure for it follows the same path we need to relearn to love someone we very unfairly hate beyond measure ourselves the School of Life offers online Psychotherapy to people all around the world our therapists are highly trained and accredited and are a vital source of kindness Solace and wisdom for life's most difficult moments click the link to find out more
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How Chronic Stress Harms Your Body
Things like abusive relationships, living in poverty, and being discriminated against have all been shown to cause chronic stress. And that psychological anguish takes a toll physically. When you experience acute stress, your body activates a system called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, or just HPA axis because why would you want to say all that other stuff over and over again. It starts deep in your brain, in the limbic system — the part responsible for a lot of your automatic emotional reactions, among other things. There, a region called the hypothalamus releases hormones that start a whole chain of more hormones being released — first by your pituitary gland, and then by your adrenal glands, which release a bunch of adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream. And those two hormones trigger the “fight-or-flight” response. They boost physical activity by increasing your blood sugar and the blood flow to your muscles, and bump up your metabolism at the same time.
The idea is that the physical boost helps you fight the stressor or run away. So, like, if you were suddenly face to face with a bear, the surge in energy would help you either outrun it, or go all like Revenant on it. The same system is activated by chronic stress, but things get a bit more complicated. Researchers have found that people under some kinds of chronic stress have perpetually high cortisol levels, as if their HPA axis is running constantly. For others, it can depend on the timing, with higher cortisol levels near the start of the stress before it actually dips lower than usual.
But we do know that while this stress reaction can be helpful at times, having it running all the time is a problem. People under chronic stress are at higher risk for all kinds of ailments, like heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and mental disorders like anxiety and depression. That’s because, in addition to it being super unpleasant to be stressed out all the time, the stress response is constantly sapping your energy. The resources used by fight-or-flight have to come from somewhere, and one of the places they come from is your immune system.
On the molecular level, the same cortisol that works to get extra glucose to your muscles also stops your body from making as many infection-fighting white blood cells as it normally would. So stress can tank your ability to fight infections. It's kind of like evolution is telling your body not to worry about fighting off that cold right now, because you need to fight that bear that is right in front of you. Except with chronic stress, the bear isn’t a bear. It’s your crappy job. Or your unhappy relationship. Or whatever it is that stresses you out all the time. And that means your immune system never gets the chance to recover and deal with that cold as easily as it normally would. One famous experiment demonstrating this involved 11 dental students who volunteered to have their mouths biopsied twice: first during summer vacation, and then again during exam week.
It took an average of 3 days longer for the wounds to heal while they were stressed about exams. All kinds of other studies have gotten similar results — some by punching small holes in people like they did with the dental students, and others by observing how stress affects recovery from surgery and other major wounds. There's also research suggesting that chronic stress explains part of the relationship between poverty and health.
Even just the perception of being in a lower socioeconomic class is associated with an increase in respiratory infections. Stress can also advance the aging process. By the time you get older, your DNA has had to replicate so many times that the protective parts at each of the ends of the chromosome, called telomeres, can kind of start to fray. When telomeres are shorter, it's more likely that there will be errors in copying genes. And those errors increase your risk of disease. There’s evidence that having more cortisol in your blood interrupts the repair of telomeres. Which might explain why stress is linked to diseases that are also associated with age, like heart disease, cancer, and anemia.
To stay healthy, the best thing you can do is get rid of the chronic stress. But, easier said than done. If you can’t get rid of it completely, things like meditation and relaxation therapies can help lower your stress response. And, weirdly enough, so might changing how you think about stress. Studies have shown that when people think about the source of stress as a challenge to overcome instead of a threat to their well-being, that seems to lower their perceived stress and reduce their body’s physical response. There’s another way you might be able to improve your health, too: help others reduce their stress. In a sample of over 800 older adults, those with high stress who also reported helping friends or neighbors with things like housework or childcare had mortality rates similar to those with low stress. Whereas those with high stress who didn’t help out had reduced odds of survival. So, chronic stress is not good for anyone. But even if you can’t avoid being stressed out all the time, there are ways to help yourself relax — and sometimes you can even reduce other people’s stress in the process.
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Could You Actually Have An Anxiety Disorder?
Why Do Depression and Anxiety Go Together?
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