How to Recognise the Signs of Alcoholism and Addiction

Posted By Carl-Peter
Categoirzed Under: Mental Health
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by Carl-Peter

Being able to identify the signs of alcoholism and drug addiction can usually be done via a few different ways. Typically it always starts with a gut feeling that there is a problem, but to be sure you want something more in the way of hard proof.

It also depends on which side of the fence you’re looking at the problem. Are you wanting to know the signs of addiction for your own benefit because you’re worried about your own alcohol or drug intake?

On the other hand, you may be worried about your husband, wife, partner or friend. I can’t promise to provide you with foolproof indicators - but I′ll try and provide you with a couple of pointers, and if you then want more comprehensive info - follow the links to my site.

You may begin to notice physical signs of an addiction to alcohol or drugs in the form of liver problems, which can show up as fatigue and various other things. High Blood pressure is also often a sign - but unless you go to see a Doctor, these are obviously more difficult to be sure of.

Signs of alcoholism and drug addiction that you are possibly likely to pick up on sooner - are for example making promises (even if it’s just to yourself) that you’re going to cut down or stop, which are obviously not kept; needing more and more to get the feeling you want; and withdrawals that become worse and worse.

For me the key indicator of a real problem is when your using or drinking starts to impact your sense of self, and when day to day things that have been fine before become effected - like work, school, relationships etc.

Another good way to test for addiction is to use psychometric type addiction and alcoholism tests - which are mostly very accurate in identifying a genuine addiction problem. I don’t unfortunately have enough space to put them here - but feel free to visit my website to try one.

Ultimately when it comes to recognizing the signs of addiction - it’s not about following a prescribed formula. Trust your instincts, be sure to familiarize yourself with all the symptoms, try one of the addiction tests - and in doing so you should then have pretty good idea as to whether these is indeed a genuine problem.

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What Is the Cause of Hyperventilation

Posted By Miley Neo
Categoirzed Under: Mental Health
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by Neo Miley

Human bodies are complicated pieces of machinery and many things happen when you hyperventilate. In a nutshell, you start to breath extremely fast when hyperventilating and you begin to suck in more oxygen than the body really needs.

If you are in a very stressful situation, whether it be physical or emotional, it could lead to hyperventilation. Stress and anxiety can cause you to respond this way. Anytime you are placed in a position where you feel out of control, it’s possible for your body to start hyperventilating or to go into a panic attack.

When it comes to a panic attack, rapid breathing and butterflies in the stomach are just a few things that might appear. Victims’ breathing becomes more and more rapid and that often leads to dizziness or possibly a fainting spell.

Once the body detects an imbalance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the system, the result is hyperventilation in an attempt to bring everything back into balance. Sometimes a brown paper bag was used to speed up this process.

The paper bag was supposed to put more carbon dioxide back into your body. Some experts disagree with using this technique and urge sufferers to seek out medical help in case it is not a panic attack but something more serious.

Getting the person to slow down their breathing is one of the best ways to stop hyperventilating. Talking and getting them to relax helps, as well as removing them from the stressful environment.

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Your Internal Clock - Is It Keeping Sleep Away?

Posted By Harold Ulvaeus
Categoirzed Under: Mental Health
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by Harold Ulvaeus

Your circadian rhythm and it’s level of function is closely connected to insomnia. While it is commonly believed that the circadian rhythm has to do with the time of day, it has a lot to do with the amount of light or darkness. We all have a clock inside that gives us a nudge when it is time to go to sleep for the night and when it is time to get up.

This internal clock within our body controls what is known as the circadian rhythm. These rhythms are associated with the regulation of many hormones that are released within our body throughout the day. For example, our body’s temperature and overall alertness are key factors directly affected by our circadian rhythm.

The circadian rhythm is partially responsible for us feeling sleepy or sluggish with low energy, certain times during the 24 hour cycle, and for having abundant energy other times during the cycle. Those with a sleeping disorder related to their circadian rhythm tend to feel tired when they should be alert and vice versa. Those working the night shift tend to suffer from this type of sleep disorder.

Light is one of the most influential factor in regulating your circadian rhythm. When there are long periods of low levels of light there is a tendency to feel more fatigued and suffer from low energy. This is very common in the winter, especially in the northern areas where there is only a few hours of light per day.

Correcting sleep disorders caused by, or related to, your circadian rhythm can be done by light therapy specially designed to slowly reset your circadian rhythm. The light is delivered from what is called a “light box” which has the correct wavelengths of light. 30-60 minutes of exposure to the light in conjunction with a strict sleep schedule explains the therapy.

The time of day you use your light box is the most important thing to consider. The schedule would depend on your schedule and the type of insomnia you have.

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Know Your Stress Levels so You can Reduce Stress

Posted By Rowena French
Categoirzed Under: Mental Health
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by Dr Jeff

My wife and I have been involved in teaching student was reading disabilities. We wanted to know students who had reading disabilities had high levels of stress. We chose a group of nine-year-old students and measured their stress using a self-report system. Luckily, the student with reading disabilities showed no elevated stress. This meant that we didn’t have to worry about introducing stress relief programs.

I’m often asked when people want stress relief therapy to tell them how to measure their stress levels. It is quite easy to measure stress levels. A psychologist can quickly determine whether you are stressed, depressed, or anxious. Most of the systems involve you telling the psychologist has stressed you are. With careful reflection, most people can report reliably their levels of stress, depression, and anxiety.

Apart from self-report, you can also measure stress through an analysis of a urine specimen. Blood analysis continues as levels of cortisol which is a market for stress levels. Cortisol increases as your stress increases. As well as cortisol changes, there are other physical changes as well. Flushing, skin blotching, increases in heart rate and blood pressure are other signs of high levels of stress. Some people experience what is called an aura and they might also have headaches and migraines.

If you want to find out about your stress levels you can use online testing. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that these tests are reliable. I use a structured self-report system to measure my patients′ stress. I need to be able to keep track of stress changes with my patients so measure them several times over several months. To know if my stress relief therapy is effective I need frequent measures.

When some people are stressed, they report that they can’t sleep, have wild mood swings, feel physically ill, upset, worried and distracted. If you looked carefully at their emotional and physical reactions you can see they fit into four different patterns. These are physiological and physical responses, cognitive or thinking changes, interpersonal variations, and emotional responses.

You need to know how stressed you are. If you have some idea of your stress levels, you can respond better to stress relief programs. I always says that stress is a silent killer and that is the enemy in terms of our feelings of security and emotional comfort. No one needs the emotional challenges of high stress, burnout, and constant feelings of being stressed out. There is very little of value to an individual who experiences high levels of stress. For a stress relief program to be effective, the patient needs to be able to know and understand their stress levels. I have 15 strategies for stress relief. For me, the stress relief challenge is to set the best strategy to the individual patient. I do not want my patients to have miserable, stressed lives.

When we are stressed, our relationships suffer. The danger of relationship breakdowns is that we lose the capacity to seek social support from our loved ones, one of the most effective stress relief interventions. Talking with others and sharing feelings is great for stress relief. Social support equals free therapy. Sharing worries and concerns reduces the stress. Some people are so worried that social support does not provide stress relief. One good example is mortgage stress and impending foreclosures. Professional help is essential in these cases.

There is a lot written about stress but I hope that my particular view about stress relief and stress management is helpful. I really want to be able to help people manage their stress. If you can engage in effective stress relief programs, even if you run them yourself, you will have a happier and more successful life.

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Panic Attacks - 3 Tips To Prevent Them Controlling Your Life

Posted By Samantha Adams
Categoirzed Under: Fitness
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by Samantha Adams

For anyone who has panic attacks if they allow them to they will soon take over their lives. But if you want to there are certain things you can do in order to prevent a panic attack from taking place. However, if the situation becomes such then only through medical intervention can they be treated. Below we provide a number of tips on how to stop panic attacks before they are able to take complete control over your life.

Tip 1 - One of the best ways to stop a panic attack before it takes a hold is to get your breathing right. It is important that you learn the right sorts of breathing techniques which can then help you to relax. There are a number of different techniques that you can use today and many of these you will find offered on the internet.

However the simplest breathing technique of all is where you find somewhere quiet to sit and relax then start to breathe in and out very slowly and deeply. The slow breathing is telling your body that it is becoming relaxed and calm. Signals are then sent to the adrenal glands which prevents them from producing more adrenalin.

Tip 2 - It may take you some time before you are able to master this particular tip. In order to stop a panic attack one needs to learn how to remove all negative thoughts from one’s mind. So what you need to do if a panic attack starts is tell yourself that you can and will prevent it from escalating. Doing this wil help you to then get the situation under control and will help to make your mind more relaxed.

But once you begin to stop having negative thoughts it is crucial that you replace them immediately with positive ones. But the thoughts you should be having are those which assert further what you are already thinking. So avoid thinking about lovely animals or warm sunshine, instead thing about those things which you have already done and which helped you to respond in the right way to the problem.

Tip 3 - It is vital that as soon as you begin to feel a panic attack happening that you move away from the source immediately which has triggered the attack in the first plce. Also as soon as you begin to have these feelings you need to be able to recognize what they are and then making just very small changes. These changes can then help you to avoid a similar situation in the future or help you to deal with the panic attacks when they arise.

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