Stress Disorder

Life in general stresses people out. That’s just the way the world works – there are lots of daily things that can cause stress like bills, car problems or getting your kids to school on time and making sure they have lunch. But one of the biggest types of stress out there is job stress – stress that develops because something in your job makes life difficult for you. Job stress can be very hard to cope with but there are ways to do it and still be able to relax and enjoy your work.

Recent studies have shown that 40% of workers feel that their job is very or extremely stressful. 25% view their jobs as the number-one source of stress in their lives. 29% reported feeling extremely stressed at work and 26% reported that they were frequently burned out at their jobs due to stress. 80% of workers feel some sort of stress on the job and reported that they need help in learning how to deal with it. 14% reported that they felt close to striking a fellow worker due to job stress but didn’t. ¼ reported that they have felt like screaming at their boss and 65% says that job stress has caused difficulties in other areas of their lives. 12% of people admitted that they have called in sick due to job stress and 19% say the job stress load has caused them to actually break down and cry.

And in this economy people are also coping job stress in unique ways – they worry now about their hours being cut or their jobs being lost altogether. And there is also the added job stress that comes when someone gets laid off and everyone else is forced to take on their workload because the company can’t afford to hire someone to do it.

What Does Job Stress Affect?

People don’t realize just how much stress can affect their lives, especially job related stress. 62% of people suffering from job stress reported that they deal with daily back pain. 44% reported eye irritations. 30% of workers have reported hurting hands and 34% have admitted to having severe difficult sleeping due to stress. People who have job stress usually report the above symptoms as well as an upset stomach, headaches, low morale, teeth grinding and a short temper. Their performance at work suffers because of it as well and their job morale usually takes a nosedive.

There are soldiers who come out of a battle situation and will end up with post traumatic stress disorder. When this occurs, a combat stress treatment plan must be put in place so that other issues do not come up that harm the patient or others. When the stress that people have is from job stress or family stress, the symptoms are usually not as severe as those who require combat stress treatment. Often, those that have the need of combat stress treatment have nightmares and flashbacks to the events that have traumatized them. These nightmares and flashbacks interrupt their everyday lives and make it difficult for the veterans to function in society without receiving help. Fortunately, more is known today than ever before about the different methods that work in combat stress treatment.

Medications and Counseling

Usually in combat stress treatment the combination of medication and counseling are effective in relieving the symptoms that the patients are experiencing and allowing them to function in every day life. However, there are cases where the trauma and symptoms are more severe, requiring that the patients go through a combat stress treatment program at a hospital or residential environment. Usually a hospital or residential environment is required only when the person is a danger to himself or others, thus allowing him to get some counseling and medication in place in an environment that is safe for him to be in.

There are some anti depressant and anti anxiety medications that can help people to calm their nerves and focus more effectively so that they can go about their every day lives. There are also some medications that can be used in combat stress treatment that are effective in blocking the recurring nightmares that some patients have nightly, thus disrupting their sleep. Often the medication options have to be switched until the right one is found in the combat stress treatment program for a particular patient.

Another method of combat stress treatment is to use varying methods of psychotherapy and support groups. There are cognitive therapies that are used to replace the negative thoughts that the patient might have with healthy thoughts so that they are not a danger to themselves or others. There are also some eye movement therapies that are used in combat stress treatment plans to help the patient to better deal and work through the memories that appear in the form of flashbacks in the daytime.

Stress can be caused by a variety of different issues in a person’s life. There are some people who go to war and end up having combat stress which needs treatment. There are other people who experience traumatic events in their lives, either in childhood or as adults which needs post traumatic stress treatment. In other cases, it is the build up of stress from every day life that has led to overwhelming stress in peoples’ lives since they do not have the tools to deal with it. In any of these cases, the best treatment for stress has to be determined by the doctor and psychotherapist who are working with the patients.

Types

Again, the best treatment for stress depends on each patient and the situations that are occurring in that person’s life. However, there are different treatment options that can be the best treatment for stress for many people. For some, the best treatment for stress is to join a support group where there are other people who suffer from panic attacks or other issues that are directly related to the stress in their lives. For others, there needs to be a combination of the support group as well as individual counseling sessions with a psychotherapist to work through the deeper issues underlying the stress. Depending on the method of therapy, the psychotherapist will usually find out what the current issues are, give the patient tools to help them deal with those issues, and then delve deeper into the underlying causes of the stress. Sometimes the best treatment for stress is a specialized type of psychotherapy, such as guided eye movements to help people who are dealing with memories that intrude on every day life.

Usually psychotherapy is combined with medication in the best treatment methods for stress. If there is a crisis time for the patient, there are some anti anxiety medications which are sedatives which are often prescribed to calm them down so that they do not experience a panic attack. These sedatives are also often used in the interim two week period of time that it usually takes for the long term anti anxiety medications to build up in a person’s system and take effect. Sometimes the best treatment for stress for a particular person is an anti depressant medication, although these usually have more side effects to them. By using several methods at once, the root causes of the anxiety and the current symptoms of the anxiety are treated in the best treatment for stress.

For people who are dealing with anxiety, finding the best treatment for stress is imperative. Often these people will suffer from panic attacks which can make them feel like they are dying, having a heart attack. They can be terrifying and escalate the feelings of anxiety since now the people have to deal with the fact that they could have one of these attacks at any time. This can sometimes lead to the person becoming socially isolated, unwilling to risk the embarrassment of such an attack while out in public. Stress disorder treatments can help people to get their anxiety under control so that this does not happen. In addition, the stress disorder treatments can help prevent people from turning to other methods of calming their anxiety, such as turning to alcohol or drugs to do so.

Types of Treatments

There are two main types of stress disorder treatments that are used today. One is medication and the other is psychotherapy. Usually both methods are combined, at least for a time, so that the people can better function in their lives. Psychotherapy is usually done one on one, but after a time, group sessions can also be valuable to the patient in stress disorder treatment. By becoming involved in a group where other patients also deal with the same types of anxieties, each member feels supported and is in an environment where it is safe to talk about the disorder. Having that safe environment is vital to stress disorder treatment since the world at large cannot possibly understand what living with these types of symptoms is like on a daily basis. In the group situation and in one on one psychotherapy, the person is able to learn tools to use when feeling overwhelmed so that the feelings do not lead to panic attacks.

Medications are another type of stress disorder treatment which is used today. There are some anti anxiety medications that are used on a temporary basis to get the patient out of a crisis mode and into a more stable one as the other, long term anti anxiety medications have time to build up in their systems. These emergency medications are called benzodiazepines and they are highly addictive. Usually they are only used for a few weeks while the person adapts to the other medications and starts psychotherapy. There are also some anti depressant medications that are used in stress disorder treatment, but these often have more side effects that go with them.

There are many people who deal with depression and think that they should be able to deal with it themselves without the help of a professional. This often leads to more symptoms that are harder to treat, rather than going to a medical professional for help when the patient becomes suspicious of a problem in the first place. There are depression stress treatments available today through medications and psychotherapy which give patients more choices in their healing. These stress disorder treatments are usually combined with each other to give the patient the full measure of tools at his disposal to help him function and enjoy every day life.

Choices

Every patient is different so the depression stress treatment also has to be tailored to the individual. There are many different anti depressant drugs that are used in depression stress treatments. Some of the first choices that are tried in drug therapies are called the SSRI class, which helps with the serotonin levels in the person’s system. The second choice in these types of drugs are called TCA’s, which tend to have much more severe side effects than the SSRI class, which is why they are typically only tried if the first class does not work. There are others that have even more severe side effects in depression stress treatment. These are called the MAOIs, and they are usually only prescribed as a last resort.

Usually these anti depressant medications have a build up time, meaning the effects will not be seen right away in the depression stress treatment plan. In order to cope in the meantime, patients will also go through some sort of psychotherapy so that the issues that are underlying the depression can also be dealt with. In these sessions, the patient is able to talk about the depression and the psychotherapist can give him tools to use when the symptoms seem their worst. In severe cases, the depression stress treatment will require that the patient go into a hospital or residential treatment program for a time so that they can get past the suicidal thoughts that they are having and allow the medication to take full effect. There are also some other depression stress treatment, but these are usually only used if other methods do not work. One of these is called electroconvulsive therapy, in which mild electrical currents are passed through the brain to cause a mild seizure which seems to help with the depression.

Post traumatic stress treatment requires special care on the part of the doctors and psychotherapists who are treating the patients. A person who has post traumatic stress disorder has gone through a particularly traumatic event or series of events in his life. Most of the time, the memories of the events push themselves back into the person’s mind in every day life, even after the events have long since ended. When the memories push in, the person often feels as if he is experiencing the traumatic events all over again, which interferes with the person’s ability to function in daily activities. It often takes a variety of stress treatments to help this type of patient, as depression and other disabling problems might also be a part of their symptoms.

Medication and Psychotherapies

There are different types of medications that can help in post traumatic stress treatment. There are anti anxiety medications that help to relieve the anxious feelings that the person might be having and help to diminish panic attacks if those are some of the symptoms they are dealing with. There are also some medications for post traumatic stress treatment that help to eliminate the nightmares if that is part of the patient’s symptoms. Often, the person who has post traumatic stress disorder will have to also work on breaking an addiction to alcohol or drugs since they turned to those instead of medical help first to solve their problems.

There are different psychotherapeutic methods that are used in post traumatic stress treatment. There is cognitive therapy in which the destructive thought patterns that the patient has are recognized and changed to positive, healthy thoughts. This often takes time since the underlying causes of the trauma have to be worked through and then examined to see how they affect the person’s life before being able to change them. There is also exposure post traumatic stress treatment which uses exposure to the thing or event that caused the trauma in the first place to learn to safely deal with it in a controlled environment. Finally, there is also eye movement desensitization and reprocessing in which the person’s eye movements are guided to help them process the memories of the events. All of these methods can be useful in post traumatic stress treatment, especially when combined with the medications for a time to allow the person to heal while they function in every day life.

Anxiety stress treatment plans vary from one patient to another. There are different underlying causes of stress and the stress causes different physical and mental symptoms for each patient. These symptoms and underlying causes have to be examined to choose a specific anxiety stress treatment that will work in the long run for each patient. There are some patients who have gone through a particularly traumatic event or series of events in their lives who require specialized treatment because they suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. These treatments may mimic other forms of treatment, but the psychotherapy that is used with it is often different in the focus. Other anxiety stress treatments may require the use of medication and psychotherapy, while still others will do just fine with one or the other.

Seeking Help

When a person has been dealing with anxiety over a long period of time, the mind and body become less and less able to handle the stress that is encountered on a daily basis. The patient will often find that anxious thoughts and phobias start to take over their lives so that they are not able to function well at their jobs or with their families. When this occurs, it is time to see medical help for anxiety stress treatment.

Psychotherapy is a great starting point for anxiety stress treatment. In psychotherapy, the patients can examine the underlying causes of the stress in their lives and learn different methods of dealing with those stressors in the future. This type of anxiety stress treatment does not necessarily provide instant relief to the symptoms that the patients might be facing, and indeed, the symptoms may get worse for a time as the underlying causes are examined and dealt with, but it does seem to provide long term help for patients who need anxiety stress treatment.

In order to help the patients to deal with the anxiety of the moment while going through psychotherapy, there are medications that are used in anxiety stress treatment. There are medications which are sedatives that are prescribed during particularly troublesome times to help the patients to get through them. These can be addicting, so they are usually only prescribed for short amounts of time while the other anti anxiety or anti depressant medications have time to build up in the system. There are side effects for all of these types of medications, so determining the right one for a particular patient can take time.

For people who deal with a lot of anxiety in their every day lives, finding an anxiety stress treatment plan that allows them to function and enjoy each day is vital to their welfare and the welfare of their families. These stress treatments usually require a mix of psychotherapy and medication, at least until the major symptoms that the people are experiencing are under control. These stress treatments are modified according to the types of stress that the person is under. If the person is going through a particularly stressful time in his life, a different treatment is needed than if the person has gone through a traumatic experience that has caused post traumatic stress disorder.

Methods

There are different types of medications that are currently prescribed by doctors as stress treatments for patients. For patients that are going through a particularly stressful time period, the doctor might prescribe a type of benzodiazepine, which is a sedative that the patient can take as needed. This type of sedative is habit forming, however, and the doctor will usually only prescribe it in two week prescriptions so that the doses are carefully monitored. Typically, these are used as stress treatment when there has been a tragic event in that person’s life that prohibits them from functioning as they normally would be able to do each day. The down side of taking these medications as a stress treatment is that they can cause some side effects such as drowsiness or balance issues.

Another type of medication that is used to control stress in treatment is buspirone. This type of medication takes some time to get into the system so the results are not seen for a couple weeks’ time. Since this is the case, the benzodiazepine is often prescribed for the first two weeks while the buspirone is built up in the system. There are also some side effects that can occur with this type of medication for stress treatment such as lightheadedness or nausea. However, if monitored correctly, many patients have found success with stress treatment through the use of these types of drugs.

A third type of medication falls into the category of antidepressants. These drugs are used in stress treatment and also take a few weeks to build up in the system. The down side to taking these medications is that it will sometimes take trying many different types before one is found that works the best for a particular patient.

There are times when a person will become stressed from a job or from family situations which can make different parts of his body and mind break down. There are stress level tests that can be done to determine if these physical symptoms are because of the stress or if the symptoms are there because of actual heart problems. Sometimes excess stress in a person’s life can cause symptoms in his body that feel like a heart attack. Instead, these symptoms are caused by a panic attack which makes the person feel like he is dying. The stress level tests are important in these cases because they can help to rule out any heart issues and determine what kind of stress treatment should be embarked on by the doctor and patient.

Types of Tests

When a patient comes in with chest pains or other symptoms that point to a heart problem, the most common stress level test that is given is the exercise stress test. Just hearing about the exercise stress test can make some people anxious, but in reality, the test usually does not last more than twelve minutes at the most and usually only lasts about seven minutes. The exercise stress level test requires the patient to get onto a treadmill or an exercise bike while hooked up to an EKG monitor. The person’s heart statistics are taken before the test begins and are taken throughout the test as the intensity of the exercise is increased. The technician checks in with the patient to see how he is doing throughout the test, making sure that he does not have any pain or dizziness that could indicate the test should be ended. Once the stress level test is over, the doctor is given the results of the EKG, blood pressure readings and heart rate readings so that he can determine the next course of action.

There are other stress level tests that are done which do not require exercise on the part of the patient. There is a test that uses either the drug dobutamine or adenosine to simulate the exercise that is done with the exercise stress level test. These drugs each cause the heart to beat as if was exercising without requiring the patient to actually do so. In this way, the doctor can still get an accurate reading of the heart when it is under different levels of stress to determine if the symptoms are from a heart condition or from stress in general.

Although the most common method of stress testing is through an exercise stress test, there are now ways that the doctors can see what is wrong with the heart through chemical stress tests. These chemical stress tests are often more specific and can give the doctors a better picture of what is going on with the heart than by just performing an exercise stress test. However, all types are useful and the type that is used is usually determined by what information the doctor needs to know and the condition of the patient. These stress level tests determine what the heart does when given different levels of stress through exercise or through drugs that cause the heart to act as though it is exercising.

Three Types

There are three types of chemical stress tests that are used today. The first type is one that is used to give doctors a clear picture of the heart’s tissue when at rest and when exercising. This chemical stress test is called the nuclear stress test. A harmless amount of radioactive material is injected into the person before the test which allows a special camera to photograph the tissues in the heart. In this way, the doctors can see what the heart’s tissues are doing when it is at rest and also when it is exercising, whether the exercise is being done by the person or if the exercise is simulated by other drugs. This test is often done after the regular exercise stress test has turned up inconclusive results as to the problem area of the heart.

Another type of chemical stress test is the echocardiogram. In this test echo technology is used to simulate pictures of the heart so that the doctors can look at the walls and other structures in the heat to pinpoint the blood flow issue. This test is also beneficial for doctors to use after other tests have shown that there is a clear problem with the patient’s heart but it is unclear what part of the heart is affected and needs to be fixed in some way.

The final type of chemical stress test is through the use of either the drug adenosine or the drug dobutamine. These drugs can help to trigger the heart into acting as if it is exercising even when the person is lying in the bed. These are useful drugs to use to test the heart when the person is unable to exercise for the exercise stress test.