Stress is simply a fact of nature — forces from the outside world affecting the individual. The individual responds to stress in ways that affect the individual as well as their environment. Hence, all living creatures are in a constant interchange with their surroundings (the ecosystem), both physically and behaviorally. This interplay of forces, or energy, is of course present in the relationships between all matter in the universe, whether it is living (animate) or not living (inanimate). However, there are critical differences in how different living creatures relate to their environment. These differences have far-reaching consequences for survival. Because of the overabundance of stress in our modern lives, we usually think of stress as a negative experience, but from a biological point of view, stress can be a neutral, negative, or positive experience.
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Posts Tagged ‘phobia’
What is stress?
February 6th, 2010Phobias Glossary of Terms
February 6th, 2010The following are health and medical definitions of terms that appear in the Phobias article.
Acrophobia: An abnormally excessive and persistent fear of heights. Sufferers experience severe anxiety even though they usually realize that, as a rule, heights pose no real threat to them.
See the entire definition of Acrophobia
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How can people cope with phobias?
February 6th, 2010How can people cope with phobias?
Ways that phobia sufferers can work to overcome their fears include talking about their fears, refraining from avoiding situations they find stressful, imagining themselves facing their fears (visualization), and making positive self-statements like, “I will be OK.”
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How are phobias assessed?
February 6th, 2010How are phobias assessed?
Many providers of health care may help diagnose phobias, including licensed mental-health therapists, family physicians, or other primary-care medical providers, specialists whom you see for a medical condition, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers. If one of these professionals suspects that you may be suffering from a phobia, you will likely be asked a number of questions to understand all the symptoms you may be experiencing and you may need to submit to a medical interview and physical examination.
What are the effects of phobias?
February 6th, 2010What are the effects of phobias?
If left untreated, a phobia may worsen to the point in which the person’s life is seriously affected, both by the phobia itself and/or by attempts to avoid or conceal it. In fact, some people have had problems with friends and family, failed in school, and/or lost jobs while struggling to cope with a severe phobia. There may be periods of spontaneous improvement, but a phobia does not usually go away unless the person receives treatments designed specifically to help phobia sufferers. Alcoholics can be up to 10 times more likely to suffer from a phobia than those who are not alcoholics, and phobic individuals can be twice as likely to be addicted to alcohol than those who have never been phobic.
What are the causes and risk factors for phobias?
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What is a phobia? What are the different kinds of phobias?
February 6th, 2010A phobia is defined as the unrelenting fear of a situation, activity, or thing that causes one to want to avoid it. The three kinds of phobias are social phobia (fear of public speaking, meeting new people or other social situations), agoraphobia (fear of being outside), and specific phobias (fear of particular items or situations).
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