Posts Tagged ‘stress’

What Do Children Do When They Are Exposed To Feared Social Situations?

Friday, June 10th, 2011

When children are asked this, about a third have anxiety symptoms and do what they are supposed to. About 15% admit that they pretend they are sick to get out of it. Another 10% just cry.

Social Anxiety Disorder can be very disabling. They are often “loners” but don’t really want to be. These children have poor social skills. They are very lonely. When this is looked at, 75% of children with Social Anxiety Disorder had no or few friends. Half were not involved in any after school activities. Half said they did not like school and 10% refused to go to school.

There are quite a few different other anxiety disorders which are often found with Social Anxiety Disorder. Here is a thumbnail sketch of each:

Separation Anxiety disorder – This is a fear of being separated from your parents which is far more than one would expect for the child’s developmental stage. About 6% of children with Social Anxiety Disorder have this, too.

Generalized Anxiety disorder – These are people who worry all the time over nothing – themselves, others safety, their health, the world, and everything else you can imagine to a far great extent than the average. They often have many physical signs of anxiety – headache, abdominal pain, cramps diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness, and many others. About 10% of children with Social Anxiety Disorder have this, too.

Panic Disorder – Sudden onset of all sorts of physical signs which make most people think something horrible is about to happen, but it is just the brain giving you a rush of adrenaline for no good reason. About 2% of children with Social Anxiety Disorder have this, too.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – After something horrible happens to a child, sometimes they will keep thinking of it over and over, avoid things that remind them of that horrible thing, and being very nervous.

Phobias – An unreasonable fear of all sorts of things. Being in crowds, the dark, dying, and heights are common ones. This is very common in Social Anxiety Disorder. In a recent study, 87% of children with Social Anxiety Disorder had at least one ver distressing phobia. The top ten were : getting shots, having blood drawn, high places, seeing blood or scrapes, darkness, insects and bees, thunder and lightening, doctors, loud noises and water.

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Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

What signs and symptoms do children and adolescents have?

You can see signs of Social Anxiety Disorder as early as a year old. Children with this problem are less interested in exploring new things. Rather than becoming excited by new things, they are much more likely to be scared. As pre-schoolers, they are shy around strangers and may not speak well to people outside of the family. More children with Social Anxiety Disorder than you would expect have some mild to moderate speech and/or language problem. Others are shy and also have some disfiguring medical problem which makes them more noticeable. However, most have no language or physical problem. Children with this problem almost never are thought to require assessment at this point.

Here are the “top ten” most feared social situations:
* Reading aloud in front of class
* Musical or athletic performances
* Joining in on a conversation
* Speaking to Adults
* Starting a Conversation
* Writing on the blackboard
* Ordering food in a restaurant
* Attending dances or birthday parties

Less Common ones are:
* Answering questions in class,
* Working or playing with other kids,
* Asking the teacher for help,
* Gym Class,
* Pictures,
* Inviting a friend over,
* Eating in a cafeteria with kids,
* Walking in the hallway,
* Answering the phone and eating in front of others.

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Social Anxiety Disorder Causes

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Usually to have Social Anxiety Disorder that is severe enough to come to my attention, the cause is a combination of two things, genetics and environment.

Genetics – Anxiety disorders are inherited. Many children will have one or even two parents with an anxiety disorder, but not necessarily Social Anxiety Disorder. Many people think that this inheritance is in part expressed through something called Behavioral Inhibition.

Behavioral Inhibition is a tendency to react negatively to new situations or things. Some infants and children will be very happy and curious about new people and things. However, roughly 15% of children will be shy, withdrawn, and irritable when they are in a new situation or with new people or things. Other children are just fearful in general. Often these children and irritable as infants, shy and fearful as toddlers, and cautious, quiet, and introverted at school age. Children who are consistently this way are much more likely to have biological parents with anxiety disorders. They are also more likely to develop Social Anxiety Disorder later in childhood or in adolescence. For example, if a child is not fearful and does not avoid social situations, there is only a 4-5% chance they will get Social Anxiety Disorder as teenagers. However if a child is fearful and avoids social situations when they are little, about 20-25% will have Social Anxiety Disorder as teenagers (1). At the moment it is thought these traits of Behavioral inhibition is what is inherited. This tendency towards being fearful and socially avoidant runs in families and can lead to Social Anxiety Disorder.

Environment – By this I mean everything other than genetics. Some of the environmental causes of Social Anxiety Disorder are: a Speech or language problem, a disfiguring physical illness, abuse, neglect, being raised by very nervous people and having certain extremely embarrassing experiences – vomiting during show and tell, having diarrhea in class, tripping on a stage and falling on someone during a performance at school, etc.

In most cases it is a combination of both genetics and environment. It takes a big genetic load (both parents have multiple anxiety disorders) to cause Social Anxiety Disorder in the absence of any environmental problem. Likewise, it takes a huge environmental cause (massive abuse and neglect) to cause an anxiety disorder when there is no family history of nervousness.

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How To Overcome Social Anxiety in Children?

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

This is one of the most common psychiatric illnesses. Up to 14% of adults have this. About .1% of children have this disorder or one in a thousand. The official criteria for it are as follows:

1. A marked and persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others. The individual fears the he or she will act in a way (or show anxiety symptoms) that will be humiliating or embarrassing.
2. Exposure to the feared social situation almost invariably provokes anxiety, which may take the form of panic, crying, tantrums, freezing, or shrinking from social situations with unfamiliar people.
3. If they are an adult or teenager, the person realizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable.
4. The feared social or performance situations are avoided or else endured with intense anxiety or distress.
5. The avoidance, anxious anticipation, or distress in the feared social or performance situations interferes significantly with the person’s routine, academic functioning, or social activities.

It is important to teach children how to overcome social anxiety because it can make a huge impact on their development of becoming a happy and successful adult. It has been reported that about 40% of the symptoms of social anxiety can be developed before a child turns 10 and almost 95% before they become 20 years old. Children need every resource available to reduce this statistic, because if something isn’t done to correct their social anxiety when they are young, it might carry with them into their adult years.

It may be tempting to think that a child will just grow out of excessive shyness, self consciousness and be able to overcome social anxiety. If the problem is ignored and the child never receives help to overcome social anxiety, they can close themselves off from opportunities that are a result of social interactions. On the other hand, if a preadolescent child can learn how to overcome social anxiety, they can expand their potential greatly.

Many parents and teachers have chosen the BoostKids program because it is designed to increase self esteem and confidence in children, which can combat a child’s social anxiety. The program can be used to give children the assistance they need to overcome social anxiety and receive the benefits that are the result of being a well rounded individual, by teaching them social skills that will help them address social situations with confidence.

It makes no difference what a person ends up doing in their life because every one of the happiest and most successful individuals in the world have confidence in themselves. Self confidence is one of the essential keys to development. When a person is confident, they create opportunities for themselves that further aid their development.

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How to Spot Anxiety and Stress in Children

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Anxiety and stress in children is a common problem. As with adults, children respond differently to anxiety and stress depending on their age, individual personalities and coping skills. When it comes to anxiety and stress in children, younger grade-schoolers may not be able to fully explain their feelings whereas older kids may be able to say exactly what’s bothering them and why (though that’s no guarantee that they’ll share that information with mom or dad).

In most cases, fear and anxiety and stress in children change or disappear with age. For instance, a kindergartener who experiences separation anxiety may become a social butterfly who bounds into school in the later grades. A second grader who is afraid of the dark or is afraid of monsters may grow into a kid who loves ghost stories.

Once parents determine whether the stress or anxiety in their child is something temporary or a more deeply-rooted anxiety disorder, they can then find ways to handle stress and anxiety in children.

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Overweight Kids Experience More Loneliness and Anxiety

Monday, November 30th, 2009

As childhood obesity rates continue to increase, experts agree that more information is needed about the implications of being overweight as a step toward reversing current trends. Now, a new University of Missouri study has found that overweight children, especially girls, show signs of the negative consequences of being overweight as early as kindergarten.

“We found that both boys and girls who were overweight from kindergarten through third grade displayed more depression, anxiety and loneliness than kids who were never overweight, and those negative feelings worsened over time,” said Sara Gable, associate professor of human development and family studies in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. “Overweight is widely considered a stigmatizing condition and overweight individuals are typically blamed for their situation. The experience of being stigmatized often leads to negative feelings, even in children.”

MU researchers used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to examine the social and behavioral development of 8,000 school-age children from kindergarten entry through third grade. The researchers evaluated factors that have not been studied previously: age at becoming overweight and length of time being overweight.

“Girls who were consistently overweight, from kindergarten through third grade, and girls who were approaching being overweight were viewed less favorably than girls who were never overweight,” said Gable, an MU State Extension Specialist. “Teachers reported that these girls had less positive social relations and displayed less self-control and more acting out than never-overweight girls.”

The results indicate that larger than average children, especially girls, experience social and behavioral challenges before they reach the 95th percentile of the Body Mass Index and are classified as being overweight. More research is needed to develop alternative approaches for categorizing children’s weight and creating effective intervention programs, Gable said.

“Most appearance-based social pressure likely originates in the eye of the beholder,” Gable said. “Therefore, intervention and prevention efforts should be designed for everyone. All kids should learn what constitutes a healthy weight and healthy lifestyle.”

MU researchers will continue to use the ECLS-K to study the implications of being overweight for children’s development.

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10 Easy Tips To Help You Reduce Stress And Anxiety

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

If you’re like me in anyway you sometimes get desperate for a solution to your nervous problem.  After all anxiety and stress can pile on the mental and phyiscal pain until all we want is to make it all stop, like now.  This of course is tricky business but after a decade of struggling with this I’ve learned that in order to achieve more peace in your life you have to do things, and repeat them often.

Here are ten ways to do just that:

1. Identify Your Anxiety Triggers: We all have a set of things, people, places, or situations that set off our anxiety.  Find out what your triggers are then when your not anxious think about why these things set you off.  Take the time to analyze the sources of your anxiety and mull it over.  This will take away the mystery and reduce the fear of your anxiety triggers.

2. Stop Adding Anxiety To Your Life: If you smoke, do drugs, eat poorly, behave anti-socially, etc then you are part of the problem.  Don’t hurt yourself and also expect good things to happen at the same time.  Remove all the unhealthy things from your life that you do frequently and you will see a positive change.

3. Practice Stress Management: We sometimes blame all of our problems on anxiety, but the reality is that we can be very proactive in reducing our anxiety by simply making an effort to reduce stress period.  Stress management includes things like exercising, eating right, not consuming caffeine, meditating, and sleeping right.

4. Make Time For Yourself: This doesn’t mean sitting in front of the tube either.  Set aside some time for a hobby or activity that you enjoy that will engage your mind and allow you to have fun at the same time.  This can include simple things like listening to music, writing a journal, gardening, talking to friends, hiking, etc.

5. Accept: This one is perhaps the hardest to do.  One of the big things that has killed me over the years is the lack of control that I feel I have over myself from time to time.  The bottom line is that we can’t always be in control and letting go will give you a chance to rest.

6. Avoid Unnecessary Stress: If there is a particular person or activity that you know will stress you out AND you can easily avoid it then avoid it. This doesn’t mean that you should not expose yourself to things you fear – it’s just to say that if your not feeling well don’t push it.

7. Don’t Blow Things Out Of proportion: Keep things in perspective.  We may not all be hypochondriacs but most of us are probably borderline alarmist.  That is something goes even a little sideways and we get very afraid and worried.  It’s hard, but always look at things with a logical eye.  Then once you find some peace in that logical thought exploit the hell out of it.  Repeat it over and over if you have to – just stay grounded in what can actually happen and not what you imagine might happen.

8. Stay Connected To Other People: Anxiety tends to make us want to hide from the world, but this is the opposite of what you should do.  Surround yourself with those you love and trust and make a serious effort to spend time with them.  It will not only distract you but help your loved ones help you.

9. Educate Yourself: It’s so cliche, so cliche, but knowledge is power.  With it you can better understand yourself, your situation, treatment options, your mind, and your life so much better.  This will lead to more confidence, reassurance, and ultimately more peace of mind.

10. Anxiety Does Not Kill: Try to internalize this message.  Make it a mantra, an affirmation, something always in your mind.  Because when you truly accept this anxiety will still bother you to no end, but at least you won’t have to stop what your doing, or worse yet not do certain things just because it’s there.

I know that you already know this, you just have to believe it.

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Don’t Add To Wife’s Job-Search Anxiety

Friday, July 24th, 2009

My wife seems to be trapped by her fear of looking for work. She used to do freelance projects, but she has never had to find a permanent position from scratch. Her idea of conducting a job search is to stay home and complete online applications.

Because of my job, we recently moved to a new city where she doesn’t know anyone. If I suggest making phone calls or visiting potential employers, she breaks down. Although she is normally a strong, confident woman, this seems to be a very emotional issue for her. I have tried to build up her self-confidence, but nothing seems to help. Do you have any suggestions?

Your well-intentioned employment coaching may actually be increasing your wife’s anxiety, so try taking a slightly different tack. Instead of proposing specific job-search strategies, just encourage her to begin exploring her new surroundings.

She could start by investigating professional associations, civic organizations or any other group that interests her. She might also look into volunteer opportunities. By simply leaving the house and meeting people, she will begin to build a network of contacts.

To calm her nerves, she might join a job seekers’ support group, where she can compare experiences with other members. As a novice applicant, she can also boost her confidence by learning about effective résumé writing and interviewing techniques.

Finally, to assess the job market in her new hometown, your wife should consider a temporary return to freelancing. Project work will not only show off her skills but also allow her to evaluate potential employers. And she might just land a job without having to do an actual job search.

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Reducing Workplace Stress By Breaking Bad Habits

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

As you learn to manage your job stress and improve your work relationships, you’ll have more control over your ability to think clearly and act appropriately. You will be able to break habits that add to your stress at work – and you’ll even be able to change negative ways of thinking about things that only add to your stress.

Eliminate self-defeating behaviors

Many of us make job stress worse with patterns of thought or behavior that keep us from relieving pressure on ourselves. If you can turn around these self-defeating habits, you’ll find employer-imposed stress easier to handle.

* Resist perfectionism. No project, situation, or decision is ever perfect, and you put undue stress on yourself by trying to do everything perfectly. When you set unrealistic goals for yourself or try to do too much, you’re setting yourself up to fall short. Do your best and you’ll do fine.
* Clean up your act. If you’re always running late, set your clocks and watches fast and give yourself extra time. If your desk is a mess, file and throw away the clutter; just knowing where everything is saves time and cuts stress. Make to-do lists and cross off items as you accomplish them. Plan your day and stick to the schedule — you’ll feel less overwhelmed.
* Flip your negative thinking. If you see the downside of every situation and interaction, you’ll find yourself drained of energy and motivation. Try to think positively about your work, avoid negative-thinking co-workers, and pat yourself on the back about small accomplishments, even if no one else does.

Find Ways to Dispel Stress

* Get time away. If you feel stress building, take a break. Walk away from the situation. Take a stroll around the block, sit on a park bench, or spend a few minutes meditating. Exercise does wonders for the psyche. But even just finding a quiet place and listening to your iPod can reduce stress.
* Use a shoulder wrap to eliminate those knots in the neck
* Talk it out. Sometimes the best stress-reducer is simply sharing your stress with someone close to you. The act of talking it out – and getting support and empathy from someone else – is often an excellent way of blowing off steam and reducing stress.
* Cultivate allies at work. Just knowing you have one or more co-workers who are willing to assist you in times of stress will reduce your stress level. Just remember to reciprocate and help them when they are in need.
* Find humor in the situation. When you – or the people around you – start taking things too seriously, find a way to break through with laughter. Share a joke or funny story.

Adapted from Quintessential Careers

What managers or employers can do to reduce stress at work. It’s in a manager’s best interest to keep stress levels in the workplace to a minimum. Managers must act as positive role models, especially in times of high stress. All of the tips mentioned in this article are twice as important for managers to follow. If someone that we admire remains calm, it is much easier to remain calm ourselves – and vice versa! There are also organizational changes that managers and employers can make to reduce workplace stress.

Improve communication

* Share information with employees to reduce uncertainty about their jobs and futures.
* Clearly define employees’ roles and responsibilities.
* Make communication friendly and efficient, not mean-spirited or petty.

Consult your employees

* Give workers opportunities to participate in decisions that affect their jobs.
* Consult employees about scheduling and work rules.
* Be sure the workload is suitable to employees’ abilities and resources; avoid unrealistic deadlines.
* Show that individual workers are valued.

Offer rewards and incentives

* Praise good work performance verbally and institutionally.
* Provide opportunities for career development.
* Promote an “entrepreneurial” work climate that gives employees more control over their work.
* Have a supply of Shoulder wraps that employees can use while at work

Cultivate a friendly social climate

* Provide opportunities for social interaction among employees.
* Establish a zero-tolerance policy for harassment.
* Make management actions consistent with organizational values.

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Reducing Workplace Stress By Improving Emotional Intelligence

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Even if you’re in a job where the environment has grown increasingly stressful, you can retain a large measure of self-control and self-confidence by understanding and practicing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage and use your emotions in positive and constructive ways. It’s about communicating with others in ways that draw people to you, overcome differences, repair wounded feelings, and defuse tension and stress.

Emotional intelligence in the workplace has four major components:

* Self-awareness: The ability to recognize your emotions and their impact while using gut feelings to guide your decisions.
* Self-management: The ability to control your emotions and behavior and adapt to changing circumstances.
* Social awareness: The ability to sense, understand, and react to other’s emotions and feel comfortable socially.
* Relationship management: The ability to inspire, influence, and connect to others and manage conflict.

The more emotional intelligence you have, the more stress you can avoid in the workplace. Fortunately, emotional intelligence is not something we’re born with; it’s something we can learn and develop.

The skill set that enables you to acquire these capabilities can be learned but requires the development of emotional and nonverbal ways of communicating that include:

* Learning to recognize your particular stress response and become familiar with sensual cues that can rapidly calm and energize you.
* Staying connected to your internal emotional experience so you can appropriately manage your own emotions. Knowing what you are feeling will not only add to your self confidence and improve your self control but enhance your understanding of others and help you build more satisfying relationships.
* Learning to recognize and effectively use the nonverbal cues that make up 95-98% of your communication process including eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, posture, gesture and touch.  It’s not what you say but how you say it that impacts others –for better or worse.
* Developing the capacity to meet challenges with humor. There is no better stress buster than a hardy laugh and nothing reduces stress quicker in the workplace than mutually shared humor. But, if the laugh is at someone else’s expense, you may end up with more rather than less stress.
* Learning to navigate conflict by becoming a good listener and someone who can face conflict fearlessly with the expectation that differences resolved will strengthen the relationship.

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