...Overcoming Social Anxiety I could sit here and write about all of my achievements throughout high school and my extracurricular activities but that would not describe what brought me to where I am today. I am proudly the person I am today due to three words, social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder affects 15 million people in the United States currently. I am one of fifteen million. I am more than a statistic, however. I am victim and a survivor. Social anxiety disorder is described as an intense fear of social situations and in result, avoidance of social situations and interactions. At the age of fifteen my parents had begun to grow in worry over my intense and unexplainable fear of interacting with other people. My story begins with an unpleasant trip to the psychiatrist’s office in 2010. After I was seated in a cold and unpleasant room for evaluation Dr. Beauchamp announced the name of my disorder and wrote up a prescription for Cymbalta, an antidepressant. I was fifteen years old at this time and I had already begun taking sixty milligrams per day just to get through my days. Suddenly I felt myself trapped under the hold of addiction. The medication was no longer helping my anxiety rather, increasing my anxiety. I began having four to five panic attacks per day. I stopped leaving my house, and I stopped answering my telephone out of fear. I remained inside at all possible hours throughout the next four years. During my sophomore year of high school I began to...
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...Overcoming Separation Anxiety on the First Day of School Entering a new environment filled with unfamiliar people can cause anxiety for children -- and their parents! Find out how to overcome the separation anxiety that accompanies a child's first day of school. What You Can Do Before School Preparing your child for school before his first day can greatly reduce any separation anxiety your child may feel when you leave. Here are some ways to familiarize your child with his new environment: • Introduce your child ahead of time to common school activities, such as drawing pictures or storytelling. • Visit your child's classroom a few times before school starts to familiarize her with the space. • Have your child meet his teacher. Don't minimize...
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...I think one of the most difficult challenges in my life was overcoming my anxiety. When I was in eighth grade, my parents filed for divorce. For a very long time, things were bad at home while my parents were still living in the same household. Their divorce gave me a rollercoaster of emotions, but I think my anxiety was the worst part of it. I am allergic to peanuts and tree nuts and I have very severe reactions when I ingest or touch these certain foods. During the divorce, I would freak out about every food I ate and would constantly think that I was having a reaction and that I was going to die. When this would happen to me, my mom would do everything in her power to try and calm me down, but nothing would seem to help. I would have these...
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...Hello Jazlynne, Provided that, systematic desensitization is a therapy that is a process of a therapist would ease a patient into relaxing one’s muscles in order to allow the progressing of constructing an anxiety hierarchy relaxing state in which one is desensitized to each imagines phobias (Meyers, 2012, pp. 551-552), I find this therapy to be less effective in assisting one in overcoming anxiety. I say this due to, the length in which one has to undergo therapy to obtain some sort of relief from an anxiety attack. To illustrate, my cousin who lives in Detroit, Michigan had a phobia of guns due to, the fact one was pulled on her in a bank robbery in 2012. Since the robbery she cannot stand to see a gun on television as well as, in reality....
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...the fear of depths. It is fear or anxiety associated with the sea or water bodies of various types, though; many Bathophobic individuals are also known to fear tunnels, mountain valleys or caves. The word Bathophobia originates from Greek word bathios which means “deep or depth” and phobos meaning “aversion, dread or fear”. People living with this phobia try to avoid lakes, swimming pools, seas, hallways, wells, mountain valleys, tunnels or all other things that have depth associated with them. When they do encounter these, they tend to experience apprehension or have a full blown panic attack. They often realize that their fear is irrational however they are unable to overcome it. In some extreme cases, their fear may even interfere with their daily lives. Like many specific phobias, the causes of Bathophobia are often unknown; however, most experts believe that they stem from negative or traumatic events in the individual’s early life. Thus, having witnessed a loved one drown, or even watching an older adult/caregiver/parent show a fear of depths can trigger Bathophobia. One Bathophobe recalls having been asked by his teacher to plunge his hand inside a 5 gallon jar for removing dead creatures that their class was studying in Biology. He recalls experiencing a “shiver and feeling of great apprehension” at the thought of encountering “the unexpected”. This incident led him to fear depths of all kinds even into his adulthood. Anxiety and phobias related to deep water...
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...Facing The Ice “There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it” teaches Ovid. ( Andy 24) This means that one cannot achieve pleasure easily; he needs anxiety to push himself to the limits and overcome fear. Collier, a freelance writer with more than six hundred articles to his credit, published an article, “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name “. He uses his personal experience and proves that we can overcome anxiety. Personally I do agree with Collier since I had to face anxiety in a way I never expected. In the article "Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name," Collier explains that anxiety is a very common part in our life and overcoming it instead of backing away is the only way we grow. Collier uses personal experiences, and shows his audience how he faced his anxiety which taught him lessons for the future .He was given a chance to travel with his roommate to Argentina, to work on a ranch. Collier had turned down the offer, since he already had made plans to teach his brother to sail. Turning down this opportunity, Collier learned a valuable lesson and developed a rule for himself: “do what makes you anxious; don’t do what makes you depressed”. ( Collier 95) When Collier was at graduate school, he began writing magazines articles and interviewing big names. Before each interview, he would get butterflies and his hands would start shaking (Collier 95). At one time, Collier had an interview with a musician that he admired, Duke Ellington. During...
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...I have always been very anxious and shy. As a kid, I often had to leave sleepovers and birthday parties because my anxiety would take over and make me physically get sick. I don’t know what I was afraid of, it was never anything rational. Basically, whenever I didn’t know exactly how the night was going to go, I would panic and have to go home. My anxiety also affected me in the classroom. For the most part, I was a normal, happy-go-lucky student. I received good grades, and school came easily to me. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed learning and participating in class. Then things changed a little. In middle school, it was more common to read aloud to the rest of the class. Not only that, but I was required to take a semester of speech! I remember one night, I was lying in bed, crying, trying to figure out how the heck I was going to give a speech that was due the next day....
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...Are you able to leave the comfort of your own home, without the fear of the outside world? Can you perform the simple task of collecting the mail, without falling victim to the hands of the famous puppeteer ‘Anxiety,’ who controls your every move? Approximately 1.5% to 3% of the population are unable to do so, and instead endure through the suffering of the anxiety disorder, ‘Agoraphobia,’ also known as an, “extreme or irrational fear of open or public spaces,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In extreme cases, victims of Agoraphobia are unable to leave the safety of their own home. It is estimated that 0.5% to 1% of the population have Agoraphobia to this extreme, meaning over half a million people are trapped within their homes....
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...FORMAL SENTENCE OUTLINE Thesis: Anxiety is a common problem that is consistently overlooked, but should be treated to prevent interference with a sufferer’s daily life. I. A healthy balance of anxiety, fear, worry and panic are needed in order to function properly. A. Antony & Swinson (2008) state that, “anxiety and fear have a helpful function in that they prepare you for future threats and protect you from danger (p.6) 1. There are known positive aspects of anxiety; increase in work ethics, successful completion of a project, and prepare people for challenges. 2. The goal is not to rid yourself of all fear and anxiety, but to reduce to a comfortable level to live with according to Antony & Swinson (2008). B. Anxiety existence is sometimes mistaken as the emotion of fear. 3. Anxiety is an apprehension of a future threat that may or may not occur. 4. Fear is triggered when immediate and real danger was present. II. It’s important to be educated on the different types of anxiety; this is needed in order to properly treat the disorder. C. Managed and maintained anxiety is important to know as a sufferer of any of the seven disorders of anxiety. 5. Learning how to differentiate when automatic thoughts are cognitive distortions is a key element. 6. Learning how to rationalize the mind in attempts to help challenge behavior is also an important element. ...
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...Overcoming Personal Procrastination Overcoming Personal Procrastination Abstract This paper will identify a personal problem of procrastination, where I will find solutions to help correct this problem, evaluate the information I have gathered, and explain how I will use the information to implement correction to my personal procrastination. Overcoming Personal Procrastination In my life I think I have always procrastinated. I remember since childhood in elementary school and middle school finishing projects the last day or late into the night before the project was due. Through this class, I have learned that it is partially due to my intense perfectionism. I get nervous and sometimes anxious of the impending project. It also has to do with the uncomfortable feeling of the unknown. When I do not know what I am going to do for a project, or I haven’t read what is expected, I push it off. I tend to always hit my deadlines, but do so in a hurry which does not help me to actually learn what I am working for. I don’t always procrastinate, but I undeniably do it frequently. I definitely always mean the best- as I want to be the best. Unfortunately, procrastination does not do me any justice. In order to overcome my procrastination I will need to do more than recognize it. Of course, though, it is a very important first step to fixing the problem. Besides understanding procrastination and how it develops, I need to do more research on understanding it and find...
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...What effects exactly do fairy tales have on children? In some stories, how come it is okay to get away with murder and still be the good guy? In “The Struggle For Meaning,” Bruno Bettelheim explains the psychoanalytical effect of fairy tales on children going through changes and struggles of growing up. Bettelheim provides analysis on how fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel offer children with support such as getting rid of separation anxiety and death anxiety, thematically prevalent in many stories. Separation anxiety is the natural unease a child feels when separated from a parental figure and death anxiety is the fear of death and detachment. While Bettelheim successfully describes how fairy tales provide a way for children to subconsciously battle their inner anxieties, more can be said about these developmental effects through the story of Hansel and Gretel. Bettelheim delves into the psychoanalytical aspect of fairy tales and their impact on the growth of children. He first introduces our innate desire to find meaning in life and the role fairy tales play in the lives of children as they attempt to understand this meaning and the world around them. Bettelheim suggests that “literature carries information best” (324), especially fairy tales which “stimulate imagination [and] help to develop intellect and clarify emotions” (325). Fairy tales enrich development subconsciously in children when they are most developmentally vulnerable and, as a result, assess real life situations...
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...“the internal process that occurs as people try to adjust to events and situations, especially those that they perceive to be beyond their coping strategies” (Bernstein et al., 2015, p. 103). Whilst the severity of the response is dependent on the individual involved, people often display similar reactions to stressors. In addition, physiological and psychological responses often occur together to form the individual’s response. The psychological responses can be further broken down into behavioural, cognitive and emotional changes. In response to a diagnosis with a poor likely outcome, individuals will likely experience a chain of emotional responses. Initially, the patient may be subjected to fear which may result in ongoing anxiety for the patient. Other common reported feelings due to stressors are anger, depression and irritability. However, in relation to a poor prognosis, individuals can often experience feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Individuals can act to reduce their emotional stress responses by employing emotion focused coping. Typically this involves “actions that are directed toward decreasing the emotional component of a stress response” (Grivas, Letch, Down,& Carter, 2010, p.599) and may include strategies such as denial, acceptance, distancing and wishful thinking. Research has found that self blame, an emotion focused coping mechanism had negative impacts on the emotional well being of breast cancer patients (Kim, Yeob Han, Shaw, McTavish...
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...different ways for treating patients suffering from anxiety. This essay seeks to look at some of these methods, aiming to uncover what these methods are, how they specifically target anxiety, what anxiety actually means on a biological and psychological level, and why hypnotherapy can be a good solution for some of the causes of anxiety(Gibb 2007). It is hoped that in the process of answering the question, a better understanding will be reached of the effects of anxiety and hypnotherapy, both in terms of its treatment and efficacy as a means of helping those suffering from anxiety. Before we can begin to look more closely at hypnotherapy, we must begin by arriving at some working definitions of anxiety. Anxiety stems from neural circuitry in the amygdala and hippocampus, both located in the limbic system within the medial temporal lobes of the brain. Although the hippocampus is more explicitly associated with memory, both combine to produce anxiety in human beings via a complex means of neural communication. Anxiety is not however, a mental illness but instead, a behavioural condition that is a reaction to biological causes. The first of these is an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. If the brain finds itself overloaded with substances such as adrenaline or epinephrine, or lacking in substances such as serotonin, the brain becomes more susceptible to stress (Rossi 1988). Any inbalance in these substances can lead to anxiety. Extended amounts of stress over a long period...
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...The stress response (also called the fight or flight response) is critical during emergency situations, such as when a driver has to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. It can also be activated in a milder form at a time when the pressure's on but there's no actual danger — like stepping up to take the foul shot that could win the game, getting ready to go to a big dance, or sitting down for a final exam. A little of this stress can help keep you on your toes, ready to rise to a challenge. And the nervous system quickly returns to its normal state, standing by to respond again when needed. But stress doesn't always happen in response to things that are immediate or that are over quickly. Ongoing or long-term events, like coping with a divorce or moving to a new neighborhood or school, can cause stress, too. Long-term stressful situations can produce a lasting, low-level stress that's hard on people. The nervous system senses continued pressure and may remain slightly activated and continue to pump out extra stress hormones over an extended period. This can wear out the body's reserves, leave a person feeling depleted or overwhelmed, weaken the body's immune system, and cause other problems. Although just enough stress can be a good thing, stress overload is a different story — too much stress isn't good for anyone. For example, feeling a little stress about a test that's coming up can motivate you to study hard. But stressing out too much over the test can make it hard...
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...difficult to recognise them and harder to do something with them. In simplest definition, we can say that stress is a reaction of a person to the tensions in their life. When we look at the steps, under which the stress response, we observe three main stages: 1. Th alarm stage - appears at the moment of danger. In a short period of time body has to adapt to reject the danger, or to avoid it. The situtation assessed as a danger, causes the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline into the blood by the adrenal cortex. The consistent effect of this hormones has increased impact on the efficiency of individual body organs. The changes in the body are referred as the biochemical mechanism of emergency. 2. The adaptation stage - the phase of overcoming difficulties. The alarm mechanism prepares the body to fight the threat/danger. It requires a high efficiency of the...
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