Tag: Stomach

Anxiety Disorders In Children And Young Adults

Anxiety disorders in children are very treatable. Unknown to most Americans, anxiety disorders are extremely high on the list of health problems in children. Unfortunately, most people do not know what to look for, so the symptoms go untreated. It has even been suggested that many adults problems had their root in childhood, though left undiagnosed. These roots then grew, took hold, and often later showed up in their adult counterparts.

Anxiety is usually described as being a sense of worry mixed with fear, apprehension, and even distress. These feelings are perfectly normal in our lives, however, one must be able to judge when these feelings head toward being too frequent and overwhelming. Physical symptoms tend to include sweating, jitteriness, nausea, and headache; whereas the emotional counterparts are nervousness and fear. In anxiety disorders, these feelings and physical symptoms are much more severe. This can cause a childs rational thinking and decision making to become skewed, for them to view their own environments differently, as well as making sitting in school and trying to learn very difficult. Children with severe symptoms often complain of stomach aches, dizziness, diarrhea, not being able to breathe, feeling weak.

There are many types of anxiety disorders that can surface in children. General anxiety disorders are characterized by excessive feelings of apprehension, worry, and fear happening almost every day for longer than 6 months. The child cannot control these feelings and is often restless, hyper, irritable, and cannot fall asleep or stay asleep so is also easily tired out. Children with this type of general anxiety disorder have problems functioning in their daily lives and this causes them more feelings of distress and anxiousness.

Panic disorders are not the same as panic attacks. Panic disorders are actually repeated panic attacks with the addition of worrying about having other attacks and how it is affecting their behavior. Many people with this disorder find it difficult to function normally as they are constantly on edge worrying about when another panic attack will happen.

Obsessive-compulsive disorders are characterized by recurring unwanted thoughts and/or repeated behaviors. It is an obsession that has to be done no matter how hard the child wants to stop doing it. Obsessive-compulsives often wind up living alone as they cannot stand to have someone else soil their home, arrange their possessions, or not lock a door or window.

Posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder can be similar as these disorders are usually the result of witnessing, experiencing, or confronting a traumatic event. The only difference is that posttraumatic stress disorders persist longer than one month whereas acute stress disorder occurs and dissipates in less than a month. Both disorders cause extreme amounts of distress, sleeplessness, worry, and fear.

Phobias can also cause extreme amounts of stress in children. The main concern is for parents to be able to distinguish between a normal fear, such as monsters under the bed, and an irrational fear, such as being out in public. Once these are distinguished, then the parents can help the child seek out the appropriate treatment.

Physical Signs of Anxiety Attack

Anxiety is a feeling of fear, apprehension and discomfort over a situation. This is actually a good and healthy feeling since the body is able to recognize something that it needs to address. This “flight or fight” response enables the body to get that much needed boost of energy to react to the specific situation. In this case, anxiety is helpful. However, if it gets intense, recurring and exaggerated, it may already be considered as an anxiety attack.

The exact cause of an anxiety attack is not fully understood, but research suggests that genetics, life experiences and brain chemistry contribute to the onset of the attack. What is known is that during the attack, a person shows signs and changes in the body.

The immediate sign of anxiety attack is increased heartbeat or palpitation. This is the most distressing among anxiety symptoms. But this is generally a good thing since the heart works harder to pump more blood to your body, especially to your legs and your arms, enabling you to have a surge of energy to respond quicker than normal to any emergency. The chest feels tight as if it refuses to expand to accommodate air the body needs. Sometimes, the feeling is like someone is pushing a pillow into your face.

The additional oxygen requirement of the body must be compensated by breathing. Thus, during an anxiety attack, you breathe faster. As your arms and legs receive more oxygen and energy, your muscles tend to get tensed, which is important when abrupt movement is needed.

As your arms and legs receive more supply of oxygen through the blood, other parts of the body receive less than normal supply of oxygen (the stomach and the brain can survive with less oxygen during emergency situations). In other words, the oxygen that is supposed to go to the stomach is redirected to the arms and legs. This explains why a person who is undergoing an anxiety attack experiences churning feeling in the stomach. Because the brain receives less amount of oxygen for a short period of time, the person experiences light-headedness and dizziness. (Take note, however, that the reduced supply of oxygen in the brain is just enough to produce these symptoms and doesn’t cause any permanent brain damage.)

Because your heart pumps more blood to your muscles, your body temperature increases. So to keep a relatively normal temperature, you begin to sweat.

Aside from these signs, you can also experience weakness or fatigue, tingling sensation, and dry mouth. Also, side-effects of these signs may include diarrhea and constant urination.

These body responses are automatic. Meaning, there is no “switch” to turn it on. Thus, there is also no way you can turn it off by simply thinking that you should not feel any of these symptoms. What you should do, especially if the attack is chronic, recurring and it already affects your life, is to seek medical help. This way, your doctor will be able to identify and rule out any other possible causes of these signs which are unrelated to anxiety.

Allow your doctor to conduct a physical exam. He may prescribe you a drug or may refer you to a psychologist or a therapist. Following your doctor is important so do not ignore any advice and believe that you are totally okay.

Overcoming Performance Stress

So what is stress really all about? The following report includes some fascinating information about stress–info you can use, not just the old stuff they used to tell you.

What is Performance Stress?

Performance stress is one of the most common sources of stress in the workplace. With a working environment that constantly subjects its employees to a given set of standard they’d hold to meet, the amount of pressure importance lead one to question his or her abilities on a given task. There’s always this tactility of not being good enough in the standards of the company.

This is especially true when one has scheduled to make an important presentation for the company. Before the exact presentation, peerless experiences a sick feeling on the stomach. Sometimes, the pressure is too much that one’s performance is impacted during these situations. For those who are incapable of dealing with the level of stress they are subjected to in these situations, the importance of coping and overcoming performance stress is innumerable important to sustain your ability to deliver within the company’s standards.

Performance Planning

Whether you are taking part in bitty or big events, creating a good performance is always important. Peerless of the best ways to ensure that you perform well for a given project or task, you need to come up with a performance plan. This bequeath serve to outline what you need to achieve and how you are going to do it.

The Performance Plan leave include a list of things that occasion be accomplished since it will copy helpful during the performance. Here are basic performance planning tips, covering the perceptible and mental aspects of it:

Check every aspect multiple in your performance so you can make necessary adjustments in case some parts do not contribute to better performance;
If there is some travel involved, arrange them in advance;
Verify whether you have undivided the items and objects you need;
Come up with an alternate plan in case anything goes wrong at the steps you have previously outlined;
Keep your mind focused at the task at hand and as much as possible never entertain distractive thoughts. If possible, anticipate them before they happen so you can come up with a plan to counter its effects.

Reviewing Performance

One of the best ways to ensure that you always perform at the blessing of your level is to constantly creator for improvement. This is one road to combat performance stress knowing that you always re – evaluate your own standards when it comes to job performance. By doing a performance review, it gives you the opportunity for the next performance so you answerability do better.

Whole and reviewing your performance is a good technique to follow for effective stress relief. If possible, you can ask your superior or fellow officemates for mind that you rap use to improve your performance. Performance stress typically originates from your tendency to question your ability ( or inability ) to wind up at a given task. When you increase your confidence about your performance, you’d also be able to combat stress that is involved with it.

Creating Right Mindset

Establishing a mindset that will effectively help you before, during, and after a performance cede help get rid of the stress it brings. To find relief from performance stress, you can try the following:

Learn how to take criticism fit. Instead of developing self – pity, further your mentor or co – worker’s opinion as a pointer for areas in which you can improve your performance on.
Never aim for perfection. Past it is a good fuel, you must rather focus on the steps you need to brew instead of the end result. This will also help you be able to have fun with what you are doing, which is and way to relieve yourself of performance stress.
Comparing yourself inveigh your fellow workers will not help your cause to get rid of performance stress. Instead, focus on where you are and where you intend to go.

That’s the latest from the stress authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.

How foods affect you to get better sleep

People who are busy with their work are usually the ones who are having problems in sleeping. This is because the exhaustion and their hectic schedule keeps them from getting better sleep on daily basis. If you are one of those who are having trouble sleeping due to too much work, it is now time to reflect what might be causing these and address it properly.

One of the things that hinder people from getting better sleep is the set of foods that they eat. This is because these foods might contain ingredients and other properties that can really affect the person’s chemical balance. If you think that the foods that you are eating affects you in getting better sleep, try assessing your food intake for one day.

What you can do is list down all the foodsincluding the drinksthat you have taken in for one day and make an assessment after that day. In this way, you can track down which are the foods and drinks you have taken affect your sleeping habits especially at night. The following are just some of the list of foods that might lead one to troublesome and uncomfortable sleeping at nighttime:

1. Too much food intake. This is considered as the major culprit why many peopleespecially those who dont have sleeping problems beforeare having a hard time sleeping all of a sudden. Experts say that if a person have overeaten, the tendency is that the stomach will have a hard time digesting it. Too much food may also affect the how the digestive system work and may even cause clinical conditions such as ulcer if done regularly.

2. Foods that contain too much fat. Experts say that people are eating foods that have too much fat are prone to not sleeping well at night because it creates a lot of digesting work for the stomach. If one wants to get better sleep, he or she should cut down on foods that are too rich or fatty so there will be lesser work for the stomach especially at nighttime.

3. Too much spicy or acidic foods. These sets of foods can very much affect one’s sleeping habits especially at nighttime. If one eats too many sets of spicy foods especially at night, it can lead to troubles in the stomach and even heartburn which makes it harder for you to lie down and get better sleep at night.

4. Too much alcohol intake. Some people say that alcohol may help one to get better sleep but on the contrary, it doesnt especially if he or she has taken too much of it.

5. Foods that contain caffeine. These are another set of culprits for people who are having trouble sleeping. If you are prone to not sleeping, it is best to avoid foods as well as drinks that have high caffeine content such as coffee, chocolates, sodas that are caffeinated as well as teas. To get better sleep, it is best to not consume these for a while. Or if you really cannot do without these, try minimizing your consumption even for a couple of days. Once you get your sleeping pattern back, you may go back to consuming these but only to limited content so you would not go back to having sleeping problems again.