You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'anxiety' tag.
by Michelle Hancock
Not a day goes by that the word “cancer” doesn’t scare thousands of Canadians. Like a dreaded scourge, it hovers over us, presumably just waiting to claim its next victim.
But according to scientists in the growing field of mind/body medicine, the disease is not as much an external force as you might believe. Fear and anxiety–our thoughts and feelings–can impact our health just as much as a long list of cancer risk factors. “Psychoneuroimmunology”’ is the scientific term to describe the study of the mind/body connection. Carl Simonton, MD, is an oncologist who pioneered research in this discipline as early as the 1970s. His book, Getting Well Again (Bantam, 1978), shows how “an individual’s reaction to stress and other emotional factors can contribute to the onset and progress of cancer [while] positive expectations, self-awareness and self-care can ontribute to survival.”
From “The Complete Athlete” by John Winterdyk and Karen Jenson:
Fear of failure (anxiety about not being able to meet an objective) and fear of success (anxiety about achieving a goal) are the largest barriers to active living. You can choose to give in to these fears or you can use them to your advantage. You must believe in yourself in order to be truly healthy and achieve your goals.
Following are some suggestions for overcoming obstacles and living your dreams:
- Discover your passion. What have you always wanted to do?
- Develop your goal and find your own way of achieving it. Don’t listen to people who say the word “can’t.”
- Take small, manageable steps towards your goal. If you’ve always wanted to be a marathon runner, start by jogging every morning.
- Keep positive. Failure is merely a learning experience to help you become your best the next time.
- Be open. If things turn out differently from what you expect, adapt to the change and readjust your goal–just as Silken Laumann did.
- Have faith in yourself. You can do it!
Reprinted from You’ve Got the Power: Emotional and Mental Health at Alive.com
Even With More Free Time, Women Feel No Less Rushed, Study Finds
“Women worked more hours in paid employment in 1998 than they did in 1975,” Sayer said. “The amount of time they spend in household labor declined during that period, but not enough to offset the increase in paid work hours.”
Alternative Therapies – Meditation, with Dr Kathy Sykes
- Matthieu Ricard (French) - translator for Dalai Lama – Nepal, Kathmandu, meditation
- Dr Herbert Benson – the relaxation response - book
- Marharishi Vedic City
- Transcendental meditation, impact on coronary health
- pubmed.gov for papers
- “reviews” collate information from a number of papers, periodically
- Professor Mark Williams, Oxford
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
- Anti-depression/clinical-depression
- 80% mindfulness meditation, 20% cognitive therapy
- Uses meditation similar to that taught by Mattiau in Nepal
- Buddhist practices
- focus on breathing
- Observing without trying to fix
- Seeing thoughts as just thoughts
- Reduces risk of recurrence by up to 50% in patients who have had 3 or more depressive episodes
- Helps other anxiety – can help everyone (universal anxieties, self-doubts etc, awareness)
- Available to some on the NHS
- Dr Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin – Madison
- Meditation shifts brain activity over time from left-hand-side to right-hand-side
- Dr Sarah Lazar
- Meditation over time is associated with increased cortical thickness
- Effects are cumulative (“every minute sitting counts”)
- Cortex associated with attention and sensory processing
- alters ability to concentrate
- alters response to “sensory” stimuli – physical sensations (pain, hunger etc) but also emotional sensations (fear, anger etc)
- Need to work harder at circadian rhythm experiment
- Bed-times drifting later, 10pm is ok, 11pm (last night) is bad, 9pm would be best.
- Perhaps need to start preparing for sleep 8.30 latest.
- Need to pull back morning times, sun is rising earlier and am getting into bad habits.
- More tired this week, but should go to bed earlier to address that not get up later.
-
Thoughts about irrational worry
-
Feeling as though perpetually “have to be doing something” to avert illness (otherwise “haven’t tried hard enough”!! tsk!) or sense that if not constantly aware something bad could happen
-
Seem to be covering the same ground over and over again
-
Perhaps would be helpful to start rating days for “happiness” and/or find some well written “happiness scale” to use to record this.
-
Would be interesting to identify any patterns and capture stats (could be used to manage own expectations when feeling down)
-
Could start asking questions such as “what could I do today to make me happy”, “what has happened today that made me happy/was good” to balance focus and avoid negativity
-
Not to be misused for pretending to be happy when not! Repressing feelings is not healthy.
-
-
