Archive for the “Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid” Category
THE SELF-MANAGEMENT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN:
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | 4:35 amTHE SELF-MANAGEMENT OF SUDDEN UNEXPECTED PAIN
This is a different clinical problem again. The difficulty with sudden unexpected pain is that the pain is likely to get out of hand and overwhelm us. It is then easy to be overcome with distress before we can compose ourselves. It happens in the case of an unexpected blow, a broken bone, a burn, or even a severe sprain.
Our studies in the self-management of pain help in two ways. If we have learned something of the approach and have had some experience in the mental exercises, we do not react so drastically to sudden pain. This has been my own experience, and a number of patients have volunteered a similar observation. In the second place, if we should find that we are suddenly threatened with loss of control in this way, we now have the means to bring ourselves quickly under control and restore our composure.
As in each of the other aspects of pain and anxiety, we work to bring our principles of
self-management more and more into our everyday life. So when we experience some sudden and unexpected pain, even if it is only of minor degree, we immediately restore our composure by momentary mental relaxation instead of giving vent to our feelings as we have done in the past. Be warned that there is a good deal of false teaching by psychiatrists and those who should know better that it is good to give vent to our emotions and feelings. If we give vent to our feeling of pain, we too easily become distressed, and the intensity of the pain is increased.
Four years ago a dentist came to me. He has a degenerative condition of his backbone so that the nerves are pinched as they come from the spinal cord between the bones. He suffered sudden unexpected twinges of acute pain as well as quite severe chronic pain. His work as a dentist with the long hours on his feet and the necessity of leaning forward over the patient made him very vulnerable to this condition.
He has learned to control the pain. He is still working full-time. Between patients he occasionally lies down in a side room for a few minutes to re-establish his mental and physical relaxation.
A seventy-two-year-old single woman was referred to me in the hope that I might be able to help her with the pain in her tic douloureux. This is a shockingly painful condition characterized by sudden jabs of acute pain in the side of the face. The first attack had come on eleven years previously, but this had settled down. She was now subject to continual jabs of pain when she was talking or eating. On occasions the pain was excruciating. Three years previously she had developed trigger points on the face and tongue, and if these were touched, it would precipitate excruciating pain. At night if she moved in her sleep and the bedclothes brushed her face, pain would be precipitated in this way.
She was a very courageous, stoic woman, and I have no doubt that at times she experienced really terrible pain. However, she wanted to avoid the orthodox treatment by injection or the operation of cutting the nerve, both of which leave that part of the face without feeling and so open to injury.
She was a particularly good patient, as are many people who are in extreme pain. I only saw her on four occasions. She then claimed that she could reduce the pain to quite bearable proportions; and she did in fact allow me to touch the trigger spots, which previously had been so exquisitely tender.
*147\57\2*
—admin | no comments
(posted in Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid)
MANAGING OUR STRESS: MEDITATION IN OUR LIFE
Thursday, April 23, 2009 | 2:37 amIn classical meditation it is regarded as important that the meditator should meditate sitting cross-legged in the position known as the lotus posture. In the ashrams of India and the zen-dos of Japan this posture is regarded as essential, and the beginner is told to get his legs as nearly as he can into this position, and to maintain it, no matter how much it hurts, for the duration of the meditation. There is none of this in the meditation that I would advise you to pursue. If we are striving against discomfort and pain, the essential stillness of mind is impossible.
For the type of meditation that I advocate, we must start our meditation in some position of slight discomfort. Then we let our mind run quietly, with as little thought as possible, and we are soon no longer aware of any discomfort. This transcendence of slight discomfort is an essential feature of successful meditation.
It does not matter how we induce the slight discomfort. This will depend on age, and on the physical and mental condition of the meditator. At the start, just sitting straight on an upright chair may be enough to produce slight discomfort. As the beginner becomes more experienced, he will soon learn that he quite easily transcends greater degrees of discomfort. He can then lie flat on his back on the floor, or sit cross-legged on a cushion or pillow, or better still on the telephone book. The meditator may prefer to kneel, either kneeling up, as in a posture of prayer, or kneeling back with the buttocks resting on the heels. If this produces too much discomfort, it can be reduced by placing a pillow over the heels.
The important factor is that the discomfort must never be so great that it is not transcended in the first few minutes of meditation. Furthermore, the discomfort needs to be progressively more severe as the meditator becomes more experienced.
Any idea of meditating while lying comfortably in bed is quite useless. In this case the individual may become relaxed. And of course physical relaxation is a good precursor to meditation, but when lying in bed the relaxation comes from nervous impulses to the brain reporting relaxation of the muscles. This is not what we want. We are seeking a form of relaxation which arises in the brain itself.
In classical meditation the meditator is taught to be constantly aware of his breathing. The breath goes in and out, in and out. The awareness of it means that there is continuing activity of the mind, which means that this process produces a type of meditation quite different from that which I advocate. There is another point. The awareness of our breathing gives our mind something to do, and so reduces the intrusion of thoughts. This makes meditation easier. So those learning to meditate easily fall into the habit of stilling their thoughts in this way. But if we are meditating with awareness of our breathing, our brain never achieves the quiet stillness which is so effective in restoring harmonious function and so relieving stress.
These same principles apply to the technique of visualization. In the last few years there has been a great vogue of visualizing in meditation. The idea is not new to me as I described it in a textbook, A System of Medical Hypnosis.
In this procedure the meditator sees in his mind’s eye the desired result being fulfilled. The person who is under stress visualizes himself calm and at ease in the face of various problems. The technique has become quite widely used with patients suffering from cancer. Of course, while the patient visualizes, his brain remains active, and the therapeutic effect of stillness of mind is never attained.
*87/98/5*
—admin | no comments
(posted in Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid)
INFERIOR PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTIONS TO ESCAPE STRESS: DEPENDENCE
Thursday, April 23, 2009 | 2:34 amThe way in which we manage our dependence reactions is an important part of successful living, and may become intimately bound up with our reaction to stress. In infancy and childhood we are completely dependent on our parents. In adult life we provide dependence for our own children. In old age our children provide dependence for us, and we learn to accept it.
The dependence that we give our children is not constant. It is variable. We instinctively vary it according to the child’s needs. If something has gone wrong for him, or he is having a tough time, we move closer. When things are going well, and his need of dependence on us is less, we move away so that he comes to learn the self-dependence of adult life.
In our adult life, when things go wrong, we tend to fall back on childhood reactions and patterns of behaviour. Some people, when they come under stress, try to cope with the situation by craving for an intense dependent relationship. The businessman, under stress from problems at work, may become intensely dependent on his wife. The intensity of the dependence may progress to real childishness at home although it is never shown at work.
The relationship reactivates feelings of childhood. He feels more secure, and the symptoms of stress are reduced. And because he feels better, he tends to prolong the over-dependent reaction long after the problem causing the stress has been resolved. The result is that the wife comes to find herself burdened with the emotional needs of another child.
We must be clear about this. It is only the intensity of the dependence reaction following stress that makes it pathological. The giving and acceptance of emotional dependence, when the other needs it, is what man and woman is all about.
*80/98/5*
—admin | no comments
(posted in Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid)
BODILY SYMPTOMS OF STRESS: BUTTERFLIES
Thursday, April 23, 2009 | 2:26 am“It is usually just a light movement in my stomach. Light. Like a flutter of a butterfly. But a butterfly is nice, and this is not a nice feeling. Not pain. Not hurting. But disagreeable. Nasty. Worrying. Yes. The worrying part of it is the worst. The tests were all OK. But it is worrying. You can’t get away from that. Then if you feel it, and it’s worrying, you can’t concentrate on what you should be concentrating on. Keep thinking of my stomach.
‘Then sometimes it’s worse. Not just light. But heavier. Stomach turning over. They say your stomach can’t turn over. But I can feel it. Sometimes makes me feel as if I want to be sick. I am sure there is something wrong.
‘When it’s very bad it is really heavy. A weight in my stomach. A weight and I can feel a lump. A heavy lump. There must be a tumour. If you can feel it, for certain it must be there. Cancer does not always show in the tests.”
In stress, the activation of the brain cells may spread out so as to involve groups of cells which control various bodily functions. In this case the autonomic nervous system has become activated. This part of our nervous system regulates the movement of our stomach and bowel. Increased rhythmical contractions of the muscle in the walls of the stomach are felt as a fluttering feeling. If the process becomes further aggravated, ‘here may come about a generalized contraction of muscle in the walls of the stomach. This can be felt as something hard, and gives rise to the feeling of a tumour and possibly cancer.
As in the case of palpitation of the heart, the trouble is made worse by the increased perception of sensation, so that we become aware of movements which would normally not be of sufficient significance to be registered in consciousness.
*42/98/5*
—admin | no comments
(posted in Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid)