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Stress and Anxiety
Stress Management
In today's world, multiple demands compete for our attention: fast-paced jobs, traffic, technological advances and technological problems, extreme expectations, complicated interpersonal relationships, financial issues, health issues, children, crime, and the aggressive legal system. Many people complain of exhaustion, chronic fatigue, frequent headaches, emotional outbursts, or other stress-related problems. It has become normative to feel stressed out and unpleasantly busy. Over time, chronic stress wears down our coping mechanisms and even our immune systems. We find ourselves less equipped than ever to deal with our hectic lifestyles. It is no surprise that things like road rage, relationship dissatisfaction, and financial instability have become accepted aspects of many of our daily lives.
Even when stress is not associated with a specific psychological disorder, it still bears intervention. It can be eased by learning and practicing physical relaxation techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. It can also be helped by mental strategies, like mindfulness training (learning to focus one's attention as one chooses). Problem-solving and thinking more adaptively about problems reduce stress as well. Stress management can be an important part of treatment for any psychological problem, and can also stand alone as a useful intervention.
Worry
Some people find themselves overwhelmed with worries. These worries can spread into multiple domains of one's life and can take up significant amounts of time. Worried people may find it difficult to control these anxious thoughts despite having some idea that such concerns are excessive. Some results of worry can be: feelings of restlessness or edginess, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance. Sometimes the worry can begin to interfere socially or at work. In some cases, it can begin to look and feel like depression.
People who worry can be aided by interventions that enhance their ability to relax. They can also be helped by learning to evaluate feared outcomes more realistically. There are specific interventions that can help constrain and limit the time spent worrying, and help arbitrate the painful emotional consequences of chronic worry. Sometimes the worry feels as though it is a way to "control" negative events; worried people can be helped to find more effective ways to actually, rather than superstitiously, gain more control over their experiences.
Panic and Agoraphobia
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Social Anxiety
Trauma