Learning to Recognize Symptoms of Stress

The nagging headache starts at the office. You feel tired. You’re having trouble concentrating. Your productivity starts to suffer, and you begin to wonder if you’re coming down with the flu. By the time you get home you’re ready to tuck yourself into bed. The chills and fever never materialize but your symptoms don’t go away.

While persistent headaches, fatigue, frequent forgetfulness and decreased productivity can be signs of illness, stress is often the culprit. Stress can affect your body physically, can impair thoughts and emotions, and can impact behavior.

• Physically, excessive or long-term stress can cause headache, back pain, chest pain, high blood pressure, erratic heart beat, stomach and intestinal problems, and sleep problems. Persistent stress can decrease your immunity to disease and cause heart disease.
• Emotionally, persistent stress can cause anxiety, restlessness, excessive worry, irritability, sadness, anger, feelings of insecurity, inability to concentrate and forgetfulness. Left untreated, stress can lead to serious depression.
• Behavior changes associated with constant stress include overeating or undereating, problems managing and controlling anger, drug or alcohol abuse, increased smoking, social withdrawal, crying spells and relationship conflicts.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms of excessive or chronic stress, it is important to seek medical help. Naturally, a trip to your primary care physician to rule out and address any physical illness that may be responsible for your symptoms is in order. However, if chronic stress is the source of your symptoms, you will have to go beyond your primary care physician to cure what ails you. 

Chronic stress can be treated and overcome and you can learn to live a happier, more balanced, relatively stress-free life. With the help and guidance of a psychiatrist experienced in stress management, you can learn to recognize your personal stressors and how they impact your life and health. Through cognitive-behavioral therapy, an experienced psychiatrist can help you learn to recognize and control your reaction to stress. With expert guidance, you can learn new techniques for responding to stressful situations and people. You don’t have to let control your life. With help, you can learn to control stress and regain control of your life.

Peaceful Sleep

Having trouble falling and staying asleep?

When you lie down at night is your mind still wide-awake and racing, even though your body is begging you to close your eyes? And when you finally fall asleep do you twist and turn; and wake up in the morning feeling more exhausted than when you went to bed?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I recommend that before you invest in over the counter sleep-aids you listen to my soothing Peaceful Sleep CD.

On it, you’ll hear over 60 minutes of soothing therapeutic music; melodies and tunes I personally selected to help you erase the tension and anxiety that keeps your mind churning after a long, stressful day.

These musical compositions, played on a variety of instruments, will massage your mind, cleansing you of worries and concerns, allowing you to settle down, wind down, relax and sleep the night through.

Also included are 14 minutes of soft-spoken suggestions designed to help you identify and release pent-up energy and tension in your body; in your arms, legs, chest, and stomach.

The combined result is an effortless, deep and restful good-night’s sleep.

 

Get Peaceful Sleep now as MP3 downloads for only $15.95  You can have them on your IPOD in 10 minutes!

Click Here for physical CD mailed to you for $15.95 plus shipping

 

Hear Samples (each sample is 1 minute)

1. Sleep Meditation 14:27 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	2. Magic Garden 8:59 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
3. Night Song 10:46 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	4. By the Lake 10:28 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
5. Night Rain 10:41 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	6. Brand New Day 11:17 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
7. Cool Morning 9:49 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Lack of Sleep Increases Risk of Dying

That sleepless night that makes you grouchy and tired the next day can be a killer — literally. New research shows that getting less than 5 hours of sleep a night increases your risk of death from cardiovascular disease. In a study of 4,600 men and women aged 35 to 55, researchers at University College London and the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom found that women who slept less than 8 hours per night had a higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than men. Differences in hormone levels may play a role.

According to data recently published in the journal Sleep, women who slept less than 5 hours per night had significantly higher levels of the inflammatory markers that are indicators for heart disease. Compared to women who were able to achieve a full 8 hours of sleep, risk levels increased dramatically with every hour of sleep lost. Even women who received 7 hours of sleep a night showed much higher levels of risk indicators than those who slept 8 hours.

A growing body of research indicates that sleep is a vital component to good physical and mental health. Chronic insomnia is also known to increase anxiety and contribute to depression, particularly in women. Another study reported in Sleep indicates a relationship between postpartum depression and the lack of sleep common to new mothers. In the Norwegian study, 60% of new mothers reported sleep problems with 16.5% showing symptoms of depression.

Researchers found that postpartum depression not only aggravated insomnia, but that complaints about sleep problems often interfered with the diagnosis of postpartum depression. Researchers found that many women who continued to report sleep problems two months after delivery were suffering from postpartum depression. However, because tiredness and lack of sleep are common complaints of new mothers, those suffering from postpartum depression often remained undiagnosed and untreated.

Researchers emphasized the importance of doctors discussing sleep problems with new mothers. Chronic lack of sleep that affects daytime functioning, results in a general lack of energy or that impacts other aspects of a new mother’s life could indicate postpartum depression. Depression screening is recommended to new mothers who continue to experience chronic insomnia. Treatment by a board certified psychiatrist can help women overcome postpartum depression, find solutions to chronic sleep problems, and enjoy their roles as new mothers.

Talk Yourself to Sleep

Using talk therapy to help insomniacs fall asleep produced better results than commonly used sleep medications, according to a new study released this week. In a Canadian study of 160 chronic adult insomniacs, researchers at Laval University in Quebec, Canada compared talk therapy to the popular sleep aid zolpidem, which is sold both generically and under the brand name Ambien. Because long-term use of sleep medication carries the risk of dependency, researchers are searching for drug-free alternatives to help chronic insomniacs fall asleep and sleep longer.

Insomnia is a common sleep problem that can lead to depression and high blood pressure. Medications like Ambien are frequently prescribed to help people sleep, although they are generally recommended only for short-term use. Common side effects of zolpidem and Ambien can include morning drowsiness, hallucinations, sleepwalking, sleep driving, binge eating, talking during sleep, and drug dependence.

During the initial six weeks of the trial, weekly group therapy sessions and nightly medication achieved similar results, improving both the ability t0 sleep and the length of sleep periods for about 60% of study participants. However, during the six-month follow-up period, study participants who attended refresher talk therapy sessions slept better and longer than those who took drugs. Participants were instructed to only sleep in bed and to avoid reading, watching TV or worrying when they went to bed. They were also encouraged to get up at the same time every morning and to go to bed at the same time every night. If they were unable to fall asleep within 20 minutes, they were instructed to get up and return to bed only when they became sleepy again.

“The best long-term outcome was obtained with patients treated with combined therapy initially, followed by [talk therapy] alone,” wrote study researcher Charles Morin. “Although the present findings are promising, there is currently no treatment that works for every patient with insomnia.”

The study found that bimonthly individual therapy sessions provided the most effective talk therapy. Study participants who were able to discuss with a therapist the personal issues that were causing them to lose sleep were able to break the cycle of chronic insomnia and achieve the most productive and longest sleep.

What You Do Before Bedtime Matters

We don’t fully understand the mechanism of insomnia (defined as difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep). But some theorists believe untimely central nervous system arousal plays a large part. Our brains are always on, however when we think hard about something, our brain is more activated or aroused than when we are not consciously thinking about something (acting on autopilot). Caffeine to too close to bedtime can increase brain arousal as can bringing work home and doing stressful work before bed. We don’t know how long it takes for the mind to wind down after doing stressful work, but I compare it to lighting coals on the grill, getting them red hot then white, cooking your food, then having warm coals smolder long after you eaten your meal.

Unfortunately people can reinforce the nervous system arousal by getting into bed, watching the clock and worrying about how they are not falling asleep. This anxiety about the insomnia can produce more of a stimulating affect on the brain than the original stressful activity.

I usually talk with patients about their bedtime routine, emphasizing the need to have a wind down period before bed and a preparation period. So for example, think about what time you to be asleep. If this is 11pm, then you need to start preparing for bed around 10pm. Preparation can’t be finishing up those last stock trades or worse yet, getting off the treadmill. Preparation would be things like brushing your teeth, bathing (warm bath with dim lighting or relaxing shower), thinking about what clothes you will wear, etc. Because these activities are routine, your mind can rest and wind down. By 10:30 you could plan to be lying in bed with the expectation to be asleep within the next 30 minutes. Some people meditate or read a passage to help them fall asleep.

Leaving an hour in your evening to prepare for bed usually doesn’t happen. Usually what I see is a person will consider their bedtime to be 11pm, they calculate that if they go to bed by this time, they can get 7 hours of sleep. Then 10:50pm they are peeling away from the television and quickly jumping in the shower (or waiting until the morning), they slide into bed by 11:10 and watch the clock while they think about that intense Sopranos episode, which then leads to thinking about their boss and how their coworker is undermining them, etc. They may drift off to sleep by 11:45 – 12. There goes the 7 hours as the alarm is set for 6am.

Does this sound familiar? How do you prepare for bed? I welcome your input on what makes you fall asleep.