Being Able To Detect Mental Illness

By Mike Ramidden

 

Mental illnesses are biological brain disorders that many people suffer from, through no fault of their own. They cannot be wished away or combated through will power. While there are very real stigmas associated with these illnesses, the best way to get by is to diagnose the problem, study mental health treatment options and seek social support.
One group of mental illnesses is centered on serious depression. The World Health Organization reported that Major Depressive Disorder or Bipolar is the leading cause of disability in the United States and Canada.
Many people wonder how to tell the difference between serious mental illness and just having "the blues." The American Psychiatric Association characterizes clinical depression by time endured. If "the blues" don't go away within two weeks, then there may be a more serious underlying problem.
Other symptoms prey upon the body and make the simplest of day-to-day tasks almost impossible. These include decreased energy and motivation, loss of pleasure in hobbies, social withdrawal, thoughts of death or suicide, feelings of helplessness, guilt and worthlessness, irritability, insomnia, loss of appetite and persistent emptiness.
It is believed that most depression is caused by the lack of naturally-occurring monoamines like serotonin, norephinephrine and dopamine. Antidepressants can help stimulate production of monoamines and psychotherapy can further prevent relapses.
Another group of mental illnesses are the personality disorders. These involve ongoing patterns of thoughts and actions and create social impairment for the sufferer. For example, the person with Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD) withdraws from social contact and has an intense fear of inadequacy and being disliked.
There are extreme fears of being rejected or of being in social situations, making it much like a chronic phobia or panic disorder at times. In fact, research suggests that approximately 50% of the people who have agoraphobia (fear of open spaces, public settings) also suffer from APD.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is one of those mental illnesses that leads to a pervasive pattern of instability and failed interpersonal relationships. People with mental illness like BPD may exhibit a wide array of strange behaviors, from self-mutilation, to preoccupation with sex, binge eating, drinking, substance abuse, reckless driving, inappropriate explosive anger, an unstable self image and patterns of anxiety or moodiness that last a few hours at a time.
BPD sufferers are thought to be on the borderline between psychosis and neurosis, and behavior therapy is traditionally used, with other cases requiring medical intervention. Recent research suggests that 56% of the people diagnosed with BPD can show big improvement within one year of mental health treatment.
Schizoid Personality Disorder is fairly rare and occurs in 1% of the population, but results in coldness towards others, lack of emotion, indifference to social norms, odd behavior, indifference to praise or criticism and preoccupation with fantasy. The Schizoid has no sexual drive; few close relationships and may feel superior to others or extremely independent.
Some schizoids may give an outward appearance of giving and receiving, but may in fact give or receive very little because they are merely "playing a part." Schizoids are an interesting breed of people with mental illness because they seldom care to resolve it and feel quite comfortable in their own dueling loneliness and superiority. However, long term mental health treatment can be done through therapy, which involves adopting a whole new way of thinking.
The road to recovery starts with admitting that you may have a problem. Once diagnosed, there are a variety of books you can read, medications you can take or mental health association professionals with whom you can discuss your illness. You may not be able to "wish away" mental illnesses, but you can certainly understand more about them, treat the symptoms and work through your innermost fears and unhappiness.

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Do You Have Clutter Clearing Stress? Here's How To Get Rid Of Clutter Fast

   Do you get stressed out at the thought of clearing clutter from your home? Is clutter making you anxious? Are you reluctant to get rid of clutter?
You look around and see nothing but clutter that never seems to go away. You clean but it doesn't seem to make much difference - not for long, anyway. What's wrong? How can you fix it?
Well, I know exactly what you mean, although those of you with large families with have that many more people making your cleaning stress and anxiety worse.
Over the past 5-6 years, my house has become extremely cluttered. I've been busy with my online business which, in itself, causes clutter believe it or not. And here I thought that working electronically would eliminate all that paperwork - Not.
One day, I turned around from my computer and wondered where the heck all that mess came from. It was closing in on me with alarming speed. I can't remember the last time I sat on my couch or ate dinner at the dining room table.
That's when I made a decision to sort and clear the clutter. To my surprise, it wasn't nearly as easy as I had expected. It shouldn't have been a surprise, though, because I do tend to under-estimate how much work and how long it will take to do things.
After spending several days clearing clutter from one of my spare rooms, I got back to work at my computer to give myself a brief reprieve from cleaning. I needed a break from clutter clearing stress.
A day or so later, I realized that my living room was even more cluttered than it had been when I started my cleaning crusade.
Again I got to work clearing the clutter. I shuffled, sorted, threw out some stuff, actually put away a few items where they belonged, and managed to clear off my dining room table.
The next time I went into the spare room I'd cleared earlier, I was shocked to see how cluttered it had become when I wasn't even using it. That's when I made a startling revelation.
I hadn't really cleared the clutter. I'd redistributed it. What had been in the spare room initially had traveled to my living room and back again. In fact, it probably made its way into several other rooms as well during the process. Instead of finding homes for everything I touched, I put it in another room fully intending to "find a home for it later".
You see, when I'm on a clutter clearing campaign, I can't be distracted. I don't even stop to eat or have a drink. I forge ahead until I reach the bottom of the pile. Stopping to find permanent homes for everything is stressful. It means having to take a moment to think about each item, run it through my emotions to see if I really feel anything for the item, decide where it makes sense to store it, and then create the facility to store it, whether it's a canister, a cupboard or a file folder.
Yes. For some strange reason, that exercise of thinking, sense testing and decision-making stresses me out. Funny, huh?
Decision making is stressful. Doing it repeatedly throughout the clutter clearing process makes cleaning even more stressful. So, to alleviate (or should I say avoid) the stress, I move things around.
Apparently, I'm not alone in this methodology. A long time ago, I was watching a TV show about how to clear and get rid of clutter. The host pointed out that people pick up an item a certain number of times before they actually do something with it. I think it was 7 times. This is the basis of my thinking, I guess. Items won't get a permanent home until I've moved them 7 times.
I can tell you right now that my moves far exceed the norm. I've come across things I was sure I'd tossed out or filed. Yet there they are, making their way back into the spare room.
The solution to this form of cleaning madness is to take each item and make a definite plan for it's destination. Rather than putting it down elsewhere, make that final decision once and for all. Don't delay making that decision because to do so will only add to the stress of cleaning.
Are you ready to clear up your clutter?
Here's what you need to do.
Rule number one is partly taken from a great tip a military friend of mine gave me. Anything you haven't used in two years is probably garbage. Toss it or put it in a yard sale.
In preparation, take a box and mark it "yard sale". For each item you've decided to sell, put it in there right away. Don't put it on another table or in a corner of the room to put in the box later. You and I both know that you'll likely change your mind and you'll have an item that still hasn't been taken care of.
I can't begin to count the number of times I've put stuff in the 'yard sale' box, only to soften my determination and bring them back inside. So the follow up rule is to have a yard sale as soon as possible, so you can't change your mind.
For all your other clutter, you need to go through each item and be harsh in your decision. Do you really need it? If so, for what? And when might you use it again. Is it strictly a piece of nostalgia or is it of true value?
Here's an example.
I just finished cleaning out 3 boxes that held my portfolios from all my work as a reporter. I'd collected every article I wrote, including some very poor quality ones. I had duplicates of articles. I had duplicate copies of the actual newspapers "just in case" - in case of what, I don't know.
I had extremely poor quality photos I'd taken during my early years, some black and white darkroom experiments that didn't work. There were also some old photos I'd taken for certain projects I ran while I worked at the Canadian Mental Health Association. These weren't photos I cared to keep, so why was I hanging on to them?
Nostalgia. Just like the multiple copies of newspapers. I wanted the entire issues so I could have the overall experience of having been published. Well, getting published is no longer that important to me. The thrill went long ago.
Ruthless and determined, I went through each box, tossed out an entire recycling box worth of old articles, papers, brochures, letterhead, graphic designs, magazines and newspapers that were no longer important.
I no longer run a freelance business, so all those promotion kits are garbage. What do I need them for? To fill my closets, never to be seen again? No.
You have to be equally ruthless in your clutter clearing efforts. Be very selective of which items you keep and then find a permanent home for them. If you are reluctant to toss a favorite t-shirt or infant outfit, you could cut out the t-shirt image/graphic or logo, or part of the infant outfit, and frame it neatly and hang it on the wall. Then, you can truly enjoy them for eternityh, rather than having them stored out of sight.
Create file folders for all your paperwork and store them in one of those cardboard file drawers or in a cardboard box.
By the way, if you want a great box for files, drop by your local print shop and ask them for any empty paper boxes they might have. Those are the cartons that hold packages of paper. They make great file boxes because they are sturdy, they are the exact size you need, and they have a lid. They're much cheaper (free, in fact) than buying "proper" file boxes from the local stationery shop.
Clean out your drawers and allot one drawer per 'topic'. My stuff generally finds itself in the handiest or emptiest drawer. This has created drawers with mixed content, which makes it that much more difficult to find homes for things.
A friend of mine used to have a 'gopher' drawer - one drawer where she dumped everything. That's where you looked when you had to go-fer something, especially items that are one-of-a-kind and don't justify their own space.
These are just some of the ways you can get rid of clutter, get over clutter clearing stress and make your life clutter free forever.

Sylvia Dickens is an award-winning journalist who has struggled and overcome , depression, panic and anxiety. Formerly with the Canadian Mental Health Association, she's written, "A Guide to Teenage Depression & Suicide" and offers several books to cure panic quickly and without medication, along with other popular topics. You can learn more at http://www.book-titles.ca Her travel magazine offers family vacation getaway ideas for fun and relaxation. She also runs a blog on Natural Anxiety Relief and related topics at http://www.book-titles.ca/blog/

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Social Media and Mental Health Issues

By Rosie Nadal

 

   The Mental Health Camp, which is a conference in Vancouver, Canada, that acknowledges the relationship between social media like and mental health, believes that social media like Facebook and Twitter may be used to help people with psychiatric issues. Dr. Isabelle Mori, one of the organizers, says that they have seen how social media helps decrease the stigma, with the relative anonymity it offers encouraging more and more people to be open and to speak out about their own mental illnesses.
Dr. Mori also shares some of her thoughts regarding other people's takes on social media impairing mental health. Specifically, Dr. Mori points to a ThoughtPick article written by one writer who contends that this promotes certain psychological disorders.
Insomnia. According to the writer, known as "Beirut," social network is one of the causes of insomnia (as she herself has been kept awake on several occasions by Twitter). She acknowledges that overusing won't help with existing insomnia, but she contends that there is a difference between not being able to fall asleep and deciding not to go to sleep. She also points out how people automatically equate social media with it's excessive use.
ADHD. Beirut wrote that the use of social media brings about many distractions that help promote ADHD among people. To this, Dr. Mori points out that ADHD causes are not yet known. In fact, she relates that Texas Tech University study on the connection between TV - which is quite similar to social media - and ADHD could not find that television causes ADHD in young viewers. However, she says that social media does tend to promote fragmented attention among everyone, even people who are not suffering from the clinical condition.
Addiction. Beirut said that these provides a platform for those who are weak and who are not capable of organizing their time and of controlling their use. The writer said that while there are those addicted to drugs, alcohol and nicotine, there are also those who are addicted to social networking. She has a problem with Beirut referring to people with addiction as weak. She argues that addiction is a mental health condition and not a weakness. Although she agrees that having a lot of readily accessible social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is akin to having a casino right next to a gambler's home, she points out that there's still a lot of academic debate as to whether internet addiction really exists. Dr. Mori opines that addiction is mainly a behavioral problem and not something associated with a particular substance, therefore an individual can develop addiction to anything.
Anxiety/Depression. According to Beirut, this encourages a person to spend more time by himself in front of their computers, instead of spending it interacting with other people, and this sort of solitude can in turn cause anxiety and depression. Dr. Mori agrees that isolation is detrimental to one's mental health, especially those who are already experiencing depression, but she questions the writer's contention about social media actually increasing isolation. After all, it is called "social" media, and Dr. Mori points that many people do report finding deep and meaningful connections through the internet, with these connections turning into face-to-face connections.

http://www.psychologyacademy.org

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Mental Health- Chatelaine Article

Mental health

• August 30, 2010

    Mental health — feeling mentally well — is as important as physical health. Good mental health makes it possible to stay in control and cope with stress even during difficult times. Managing stress well lowers heart disease risk. Poor mental health raises the risk of anxiety, depression and other mental illness. Signs of good mental health include: the ability to enjoy life, resilience — being able to bounce back from hard times; balance — successfully juggling many aspects of life; self-actualization — recognizing your strengths and potential; and flexibility — being able to change expectation.

Stay mentally fit
Exercise Physical activity promotes mental wellness. It can reduce tension, fatigue, anger and anxiety, treat mild depression and enhance self-esteem. Endorphins, the brain chemicals released during exercise, are known for relieving pain and stimulating positive feelings. Exercise, meditation and other relaxation techniques can help slash the negative effects of stress.
A healthy diet Fresh foods, proteins, omega-3s and whole grains can help optimize brain function. These foods are also good for physical health.

What is a Nervous Breakdown and How Do You Fix It?

We've all heard the expression, "nervous breakdown", but what does that mean, exactly?
First off, what makes people think they are having a nervous breakdown? Is it the moment they feel they have lost all ability to cope with their lives and all the stresses that come with it?
What are the symptoms they are experiencing at that time? Probably the most prominent is their minds are spinning. They can't get a grip on any one thought because they all blend together as one chaotic mess. It's impossible to think straight, to sort things out. They might also have lost their energy and are unable to get up in the morning and complete their daily tasks. They can't cope with the simplest concept.
In short, they think they are going mad. After all, isn't madness the inability to care for yourself because your mind has gone awry? It's a terrifying concept, to be sure. But does a person really go mad?
We've seen the stereotypical images in movies of people wandering the halls of darkened institutions, staring straight ahead, shuffling their feet, and mumbling repeated phrases to themselves. They don't recognize others or know themselves. You can't communicate with them and they can't communicate with you.
In actuality, total madness that is depicted in movies is very rare and generally is not caused by the person having too much stress. Yet this is the image we might conjure up when we think of someone having a nervous breakdown.
The fact is, "nervous breakdown" is not a medically recognized term. It is a blanket term used to explain more the feeling than the actual condition. A "nervous breakdown" has nothing to do with nerves. It's a breakdown of the adrenal system.
If you think about stress, you will make the connection with anxiety and it's symptoms. You will notice that when under stress, your heart will race, your body will sweat, and your thoughts will speed up. The adrenal glands are designed to cause these changes so that you are prepared to react to danger. When the real danger never appears, however, the built-up apprehension and body changes are not released as they normally would be if a bear came at you and you ran away to safety.
When the body is under consistent stress, the adrenal glands continue to work until they begin to tire out. That's when the body has reached the point of adrenal fatigue.
In doing it's job, the adrenal glands produce 50 or more different hormones that are essential for life. They help our bodies to manage fat, regulate blood sugar and blood pressure, and manage the body's energy sources.
The hormone, cortisol, helps to keep our body systems balanced and protect body cells.
In effect, the adrenal glands help to predict our longevity. The healthier the adrenal glands, the longer we can expect to live healthy lives.
Unfortunately, chronic stress hampers the ability of the adrenal glands to do their jobs. Consequently, we experience increased difficulty concentrating, our energy levels drop significantly, and we become even less able to cope with stress.
Among the symptoms of adrenal fatigue are lowered sex drive, depression, muscle weakness, lightheadedness, increased menopausal or menstrual symptoms, cravings for foods that are high in fat and salt, and persistent tiredness even after a night's sleep.
What can you do about Adrenal Fatigue?
As with anxiety and panic disorders, adrenal fatigue can be eased by:

• Learning to laugh more often and to have fun
• Be sure to get enough rest
• Stay away from negative people
• Eat regularly and nutritiously (no junk food, processed foods, fats, salt)
• Take vitamin and magnesium supplements, including vitamin C & E
• Take Vitamin B complex supplements that are high in Vitamin B6
• Replace table salt with sea salt
• Reduce stress by eliminating the things that are causing it
• Participate in activities that help you to relax. Use music therapy, find your special place of peace and solitude and go there often. Let the stress fade away and the quiet replace it.

The longer and more severe your condition, the longer it will take to recover. It can take anywhere from six months to two years. Keep this in mind. Don't think your efforts are not working or aren't working fast enough. Be persistent with your program and you will recover from anxiety, stress and adrenal fatigue.

Find help on our relevant Anxiety Relief site. Sylvia Dickens is an award-winning journalist who has struggled and overcome depression, panic and anxiety. Formerly with the Canadian Mental Health Association, she's written, "A Guide to Teenage Depression & Suicide" and "How To Build Confidence and Banish Anxiety Forever". Visit Sylvia's Natural Anxiety Relief blog for more helpful articles. Our sister Ebook Web Site carries books on travel, music instruction, dog training, hobbies, fitness, wealth building, business and more.

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