Diet and nutrition is often the most overlooked factor in stress management, but it is a very important factor for effective therapy. Foods having high content of saturated fats, cholesterol, simple sugars and carbohydrates, sodium and physiological stimulants add to the symptoms of stress related disorders. Caffeine, alcohol, rarely cooked red meats, recreational drugs, tobacco based products are stimulatants for the body and nervous system and interfere with the normal functions. While caffeine can help to keep you awake, you may be ignoring a natural reaction of the body to sleep. Excessive indulgence of such stimulants will impose stress on your physiological and psychological health.

On the other hands, foods that are rich in nutrients such as magnesium, calcium, tryptophan, pantothenic acid, betacarotenes, Vitamins A,B and C, omega-3 fatty acids, monosaturated fats are very potent for yourself and are excellent augmentors for anxiety and stress reduction. In addition to promoting calmness in your body, nutrients such as magnesium help strengthen your cardiac muscles so that your body is ready for hyperactivity during stressful situations when heart rate tends to iincrease. Mixed greens, shiitake mushrooms, brocolli, squash, white meats, fish, eggs, cows milk - preferably containing less than 2% fat, lemons, oranges, apples, cherries are all excellent foods that are excellent natural anxiety cures.

May 1st, 2008
Categories: Diet and Nutrition . Author: Jay Bose . Comments: No Comments

Thanks to Hollywood and fiction authors, the science of Hypnosis has been given a bad name. In reality, hypnosis is technique by which it is possible to bypass the inherently repelling conscious mind and access the more receptive subconscious mind. The subconscious mind has no inhibitions or restrictions that the conscious mind does. Hence if you can access the subconscious mind, it is possible to make positive suggestions through audio and visual aids that have long lasting effects to cure many physiological and psychological limitations that you may have. So hypnotherapy for stress relief is not a myth by any stretch of imagination.

Whenever we hear the word hypnosis, images of a middle aged bespectacled man with a receeding hairline, holding an oscillating pendulum in a dimly lit room comes to mind. Oh Hollywood! In reality, you do not need anyone to get into a hypnotic state. We all experience hypnosis at some time or the other and snap out of it quite automatically. The sight of a beautiful person, radiant in his or her smile can send someone into momentary hypnosis quite unknowingly. Very shortly that state of “trance” concludes and the person’s concious mind reclaims the controls.

It is possible to self-hypnotize with very litte effort as long we some environmental conditions are set and a hypnotic messasge is delivered either visually or through a recorded audio. The message bypasses the conscous mind, but the subconscious mind picks them up with ease. These messages suggestive of anxiety and stress reduction can significantly help the patient suffering from stress related disorders. Hypnotherapy or stress relief is a proven science.

April 27th, 2008
Categories: Alternative Therapies . Author: Jay Bose . Comments: No Comments

It is no secret that one of the main reasons why we feel anxious is because we stop to think rationally. Anxiety is a symptom of stress. It is a response of your body, triggered by your brain to indicate that you there is some abnormality in your life at the moment. When you are feeling down, all negative thoughts start to cloud your imagination. Your mind starts to put the cart before the horse and anticipates a future event in simulation mode. Your mind gets immersed in that vision and you start to feel anxious.

So how does rationalization rate among the various anxiety cures available? When you are up against a situation that could impose an anxiety attack, try to force your mind to break the situation up into its constituent parts. Then make your mind rationalize each of the component parts of the situation in an effort to find a solution. In essence you are preventing your mind from imagining a future negative outcome that may not even happen in the first place. When you force your mind to think rationally you will find that treating anxiety attacks is not a rocket science as you might have thought.

April 22nd, 2008
Categories: Anxiety . Author: Jay Bose . Comments: No Comments

Isn’t it amazing how certain unfortunate events can completely change the basic fabric of one’s life? Whatever the reason is behind the trauma, post traumatic stress disorders are a serious disorder and can cause significant impact to a the patient’s character, convictions, behavior and of course psychological and physiological health. This makes finding effective PTSD treatments a challenge, since several factors are at play.

The most compelling challenge for PTSD sufferers is to open up and candidly talk about their experience. They prefer to remain bottled up and seek solace in their solitude. Nothing can convince them to think otherwise. This makes it difficult for a psychotherapist to find a suitable solution. Medications such as anti-depressants and tranquilizers can help, but they are temporary solutions and do not have long term effects anyway. Moreover there is always as risk that the patient gets addicted to these drugs, which the usage becomes more of an abuse.

One of the more effective PTSD treatments is group therapy. In this therapy, the patient is placed in a group of people who have suffered from the same kind of trauma and the group is encouraged to discuss their experience among themselves. Since everyone in the group have been through a similar traumatic experience, they tend to relate more to the other members of the group. This is called sympathetic bonding. Patients have reported an uplift in the moods simply by being able to share their story with someone who feels the same pain, thereby releasing all that bottled up negative energy from within.

Cognitive behavior therapy is a more longer term therapy that needs the help of a psychotherapist. The core concept of this therapy is to make your thoughts (cognitive) aligned positively through behavior modification and rational thinking.

April 22nd, 2008
Categories: PSTD, PTSD, Uncategorized . Author: Jay Bose . Comments: No Comments

It is very common for college teens to suffer from social anxiety disorders, especially for those who are introverts by nature. Students living out of town in dormatories away from their families tend to feel homesick. If grades also start to drop they lose confidence in themselves, which causes their grades to drop more often. This leads to a sense of failure, inferiority complex and teenagers are often found to develop social anxiety disorders which could turn into depression.
Teens in this situation need to understand that they cannot live under the constant supervision of their parents and they have to learn to make it in the world by themselves. Parents have the responsibility to instill such ideas in their child before sending them off to college. The student must also realize that getting the opportunity to study in college is a privilege that not many people in the world can boast about. In other words it is important for them to understand that depression and socia anxiety will not help them solve any problems and their mission in life is to complete their duties that they have signed themselves up for. If the field of study is not suitable, then proper action should be taken to change over to a discipline that the student has an interest in.
Open your minds, there is more to the world than your own inhibitions. Reach out and embrace the infiniteness of the world. Believe in yourself and you will soon surprise yourself by what you can achieve in life.

April 19th, 2008
Categories: Anxiety . Author: Jay Bose . Comments: No Comments