Stress
- Stress Overview
- Stress Causes
- Stress Symptoms
- When to Seek Medical Care
- Exams and Tests
- Stress Treatment
- Self-Care at Home
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Stress Overview
Everyone is familiar with stress. We experience it in varying forms and degrees every day. In small doses, stress can actually be beneficial to us. It is only when the stress becomes too great, affecting our physical or mental functioning, that it becomes a problem.
- In small doses, stressors can help give us increased energy and alertness, even helping to keep us focused on the problem at hand. This type of stress is good. People may refer to the experience of this type of stress as feeling "pumped" or "wired."
- As the level of pressure gets too great, stress eventually surpasses our ability to cope with it in a positive way. Often, people describe themselves as being stressed out, burned out, or at wits end. At this point, it is important to find positive and productive ways to deal with the stress and, more importantly, to address the person or situation that is causing the stress.
- Everyone reacts to stress differently. Each of us has a different level of pressure and anxiety that we can handle without a bad outcome. Only you can assess your level of tolerance to stressful situations. The best treatment for stress is to prevent getting into situations that are likely to overwhelm your ability to cope. This is not always possible because the stressors may often come from outside sources that are beyond your control.
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Stress - Physical Symptoms
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Fibromyalgia Overview
Fibromyalgia is an illness that causes chronic pain in muscles and ligaments. Although this disorder affects about 4 million Americans, the vast majority of them are women in their mid-30s to late-50s.
In addition to muscular pain and stiffness, this ailment can also cause fatigue, sleep problems, depression, and an inability to think clearly.
Fibromyalgia Causes
While there is no known cause for fibromyalgia, recent research has revealed some new facts about the disease. One of the new discoveries is that people with fibromyalgia process pain differently. The level of chemical in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) called substance P, which transmits pain impulses to the brain, is three times higher in people with the disease than in those who do not have the condition. This likely causes someone with fibromyalgia to experience pain more intensely.
Other researchers believe fibromyalgia is caus...
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder »
The formal diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was not introduced into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until its third publication in 1980.
