| Resources for Life, Love and Relationships |
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Welcome to the May Issue of Resources for your Life, Love and Relationships.
Welcome to the May issue of the newsletter. I hope you enjoy the articles. At the end of the newsletter there is a link to forward it to friends and family. This ezine goes to Australia, Britain, Hong Kong and the list is growing.
This month I have included an article for aging friends afflicted with joint pain, an article on the symptoms of menopause, and information about panic disorder. Talking of panic--last week, I was mediating a conflict at a Bay Area business when the person I was interviewing said I had a spider on the shoulder of my jacket. Instantly, and I mean instantly, I leapt out of my seat and tore off my jacket. I do not like spiders close to me. This was a panic reaction: it was instant. Your brain does not seek your permission to react: it just does it. Although you cannot eradicate this kind of instantaneous reaction, you can learn to cope when they occur.
If you have difficulties, knowing how to cope then therapy is the way to go. Sometimes a simple phobia takes under five sessions to resolve, other more complicated longer-term patterns of avoidance are more difficult to eradicate. If you have a hidden phobia that you are ashamed of or a phobia that causes you a lot of avoidance behavior, do not do this to yourself, get treatment!
Back to the obesity topic:
Thank you those of you who gave me feedback about the changes you are making. It is good to hear that smaller plates for smaller quantities of food really do fool you into feeling full, even though consciously you know what you are doing. Also, I heard that another great snack is frozen mango pieces from Trader Joe's [apparently, you have to nibble them]. The strawberry season is beginning, eat them alone or try eating them with natural unsweetened yoghurt [and give sugar and cream a miss].
Remember, a gain of ten pounds a year comes from eating 100 calories more than you burn each day. Eat five hundred calories a day extra and the pounds multiply. Weight is easy to add, hard to lose. Check out the archives and my web site for additional articles.
Food: If you do not buy it, you cannot eat it, if you do not eat it, you will gradually emerge from the physical prison of overweight. Do that extra exercise whenever you can. Knee bends at the sink, tiptoe on stairs so you use your calf muscles, carry groceries, park far from the store ... lift weights and walk, walk, walk ...
Got Friends?
Your phone never rings. You are alone too much with nowhere to go nothing to do... You feel bored, lonely and down! Single or married, we all need a variety of friends. No one person can satisfy all our emotional needs: normal needs to know you belong and count for something. Some of the loneliest people I meet, are those who are unhappily married. Everyone assumes they have company. They do: but it's sometimes not be loving or friendly. If you feel lonely or estranged: build more friendships in your life and be open to friendships with people of different races, ages religions and cultures.
Friends are emotional gold. Over time, friends change: they move or we move, some die or are decimated by divorce, some develop interests that take priority over their friendships with us, while other friendships do not survive difficulties that occur in any relationship from time to time. Because of these reasons: growing new friendships is an important, ongoing part of maintaining a healthy emotional life.
The first requirement for friendship is contact. Or, as Professor Argyle at Oxford University wrote: propinquity is the basis for the formation of friendship. You cannot make a friend of someone you never meet. A situation where you have regular contact is important. [on-line friendships are a different topic for a future e-zine].
Where do you go on a regular basis? Work, church, school and neighborhood provide the most obvious opportunities to meet the same people over and over again. Other groups like 12-Step groups, other support groups, clubs and sport groups are also goldmines for meeting people. One of the best elements about 12-step programs is their potential for new members to meet fresh friends outside of their former addictive lifestyle. If you would like to make new friends, try joining groups, taking classes, attending lectures and/or volunteering.
Many non-profits rely on volunteer support. Go to Google and put in your city, volunteer groups, weekends, evenings ... [and so on: then click]. In seconds, you will have a list of opportunities to volunteer for a variety of charitable organizations and groups, many of whom focus on improving the environment. Not only do you meet people, you often get exercise as well. Once you meet these new people have a plan for follow up. One easy way is to say, "Next week I am planning to go to this [theater, movie, play etc] would anyone like to join me?" Don't give up. You may not connect with anyone in the first group you join. If you don't, plan to move on until you find a group that is sympatico to your interests and style. Sympatico does not mean similar it means you can fit in harmoniously with the group.
Wanting new friends is not a sign of failure, nor is it a signal there is anything wrong with you. Change affects all of us. So, if you would like to build new friendships join a group or a class and be ready to say: "One of my reasons for being here is to meet new friends." Scared of rejection? Shy about speaking up? Don't be, you are not the only person around who would like to create new friends and the odds are your invitations will find a welcome home.
Maintaining Painfree Flexibility
My father's hands had knobbly, swollen finger joints. About five years ago, my hands began to look like his. I could no longer close my hand into a fist and the swollen joints ached, especially at night. This was caused by osteoarthritis [OA] which results from simple wear and tear from excessive use or cumulative use over time. I asked my doctor if taking Glucosamine and Chondroitin would help. She said, try it for three months and see if it works for you. I did and it worked: the swellings diminished and the pain went away.
This month in the magazine, Arthritis Self Management, there was an article about these two dietary supplements. The article said that both substances occur naturally in our bodies where they function to produce cartilage: that's the shiny stuff that coats the ends of our bones and cushions movement. Glucosamine help to build cartilage and Chondroitin helps to make it elastic. They reported that both substances are safe and effective and that research had demonstrated that pain scores dropped substantially for people with OA who took this supplement. They suggest a 500mg dose of Glucosamine three times a day [total daily intake of 1500mg], and 400mg of Chondroitin three times a day [total daily intake of 1200mg]. [Tip: Costco sells Move Free and Trader Joe have their own label: both are good value for money]
Today, I look at my hands and I can see the difference. The painful swellings are gone from my finger joints and, although I cannot see the rest of my skeleton, I feel all my other joints have benefited.
Have you had a lot of wear and tear on your joints from years of playing sports, or are feeling that you are getting older and stiffer? If the answer is yes, check with your doc and see if you can benefit by taking these supplements.
Remember supplements vary in their quality and reliability. Look for the initials USP [United States Pharmacopoeia] on supplement containers. These initials indicate quality. You can also check out different brands at www.comsumerlab.com. This is an independent consumer lab that checks quality. Finally, if you suffer from arthritis, you might want to subscribe to the Arthritis Self Management magazine.
Last year, on holiday I ran out of pills: I got out of the habit of taking them and within three or four weeks, the painful swellings on my fingers had started to return. If your joints: fingers, knees, back or neck feels stiff and/or painful, check with your doc and see if these two supplements can work their magic for you too.
Phobias
and Fears
Spiders, snakes, heights, planes, rats, cockroaches, elevators and subways: why do they terrify some people and not others?
Innate fears are hardwired. Babies will not crawl from across a gap when the gap is covered by glass. People naturally shy away from poisonous snakes and precipitous cliffs. These fears relate to our instinct for self-preservation. Usually we recognize something is dangerous and stay away from it without panicking but, if we have had a nasty experience associated with a particular fear, we may experience acute anxiety if a similar situation occurs or threatens to occur again. When this anxiety is severe and overwhelming, it is a panic attack.
When I was small, I stepped the wrong way off the swimming pool steps and went under the water: I was terrified I would drown. For years, I was afraid to put my head under water. I finally learned to swim when I was nineteen and I was 38 before I mastered my fear of being under water.
When I was about nine, my brother pretended to push me over the barrier at the top of the Earl of Shaftsbury's tower in Shrewsbury, England. Everyone has an innate fear of heights, and my fear was intensified so I avoided heights. If I came across a steep drop by accident, I experienced feelings of panic until I retreated. I even hated being close to windows in skyscrapers. When I lived in Hong Kong, it took me a while to feel comfortable on the balcony of my 14th floor apartment and to this day, if I am on a ski life, I reassure myself that I will not fall out of it.
These two examples: of heights and drowning, illustrate how normal fears can be exaggerated into panic reactions. Often, the reasons why a panic reaction started and the situation that started it, is not as obvious, or is lost in time. The vital thing to remember is that panic reactions are learned and, that you can learn how to deal with them. Once learned, a panic reaction never entirely goes away. It may reactivate long after you think is has been extinguished. What changes with effective treatment, is the attitude you have towards your own innate responses. If you can cope once the panic emerges, you will be okay.
If you need to learn how to cope with a phobia or panic disorder, find yourself a therapist who has expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [CBT]. CBT is a research-based approach to treatment in which you will work actively with your therapist to understand the dynamics of your panic, self-reassurance techniques, and how to respond in ways that support your self-respect and self-confidence.
In September, I am giving an online workshop on How to Cope with Panic Disorder. If you would like to join the workshop, or know someone who has problems because of a phobia or panic disorder, please email me Sylvia@SylviaMills.com. Remember panic and phobias are treatable.
Quick and Easy Nutrition
Fruit:
The latest news is that dark colored fruits contain substances that reduce inflammation and damage to the brain. Eat a lot of fruit and not only your body benefits but also your brain. The number one fruit of value is blueberries followed closely by blackberries, raspberries, cherries and so on ...
Breakfast matters: mix fresh fruit with yoghurt, it slides down fast for those of you in a hurry and is tasty and delicious. If you like milk, make hot chocolate or drink the milk cold: it is a great source of calcium which is an essential component of healthy bone.
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
There are many kinds of psychotherapy and many types of therapists. Therapies vary from Psychoanalysis, which is a lengthy in-depth exploration of your internal world to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [CBT] is a practical, problem focused and solution motivated form of psychotherapy.
Research studies have shown CBT to be an effective treatment for depression, phobias, anxiety and addictions and for understanding and improving relationship based difficulties. CBT is used for sex therapy and anger management as well as increasing frustration tolerance and impulse control.
Take a problem behavior like alcoholism: which would you think is the more effective approach? To focus on achieving insight about the sources of this addiction? Or, to focus on changing the addictive behavior as a first target? Insight into self is incredibly important, but if you do nothing to change your drinking behavior, you become an alcoholic with insight. On the other hand, if you change your addictive behavior, people start to treat you differently and respond to you differently. The improvement in how others treat you is beneficial in aiding recovery and facilitates insight.
All psychotherapies can increase confidence and insight, provide you with a confidential sounding board for your problems and open up new options for thought and action that you may not have considered or taken seriously before. Is every therapy successful? No. You need to feel the therapist you are working with has a positive approach, is genuinely interested in you as a person, is respectful of you and can articulate their treatment plan.
In CBT, the therapist is not a "blank slate:" client and therapist work actively together to address specific problems. You set clear goals about what you want to achieve and learn skills to achieve these goals. You learn to understand how your thinking patterns anad beliefs affect your behavior and how to change the way you think. You learn healthier responses to troublesome situations. You learn how to self soothe, build healthier lifestyle habits and how to overcome negative self-beliefs. CBT also teaches you the mechanisms of fear and panic and how to master these reactions.
Since behaviors are the currency of relationships, cognitive behavioral therapy is an excellent tool for helping couple iron out misunderstandings and difficulties. How we think and how we feel is the stuff of how we relate to others. CBT includes knowledge of the person's history and their trials and tribulations. CBT is often short term: this means one or two therapy sessions a week for a number of weeks or months. For people surviving longer term abuse as children, insight oriented therapy plus cognitive behavioral approaches makes a productive format for teaching the skills necessary to compensate for poor parenting and improving self esteem and self image.
If you think, you have a problem you would like to eliminate; a relationship you would like to improve or a reaction you would like to understand: find a psychologist who has the skills and knowledge to help. Remember, there is no such thing as psychic surgery. Therapy is hard work. Change is difficult. Learning how to manage defensive reactions, handle relationships more effectively, overcome fears and improve your life course is tough so work with someone in whom you have confidence. Especially, if you have problems with depression, anxiety, panic disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction or phobia, CBT has proven effectiveness in reducing symptoms of these disorders.
Hot flashes and Cold Sweats
In the eighties, I presented my research on the relationship between stress and PMS at a national conference. While I was there, I heard another speaker report her research on hot flashes and night sweats and these were her findings: She found that the frequency of hot flashes depended on the ambient [surrounding] temperature.
If these symptoms are a problem for you, haivng this information may help. When you are in a room that is 65 degrees, you will have significantly fewer hot flashes than if you are in a room that is 70 degrees. Don't like hot flashes? Keep your rooms cool, stay out of the hot sun and wear light layered clothing so you can take off a layer to cool down when you feel a hot flash.
Night sweats are harmless but horrible. It is unpleasant to covered with a film of cold perspiration. One solution is to wear absorbent nightwear and spread a bath towel or bath sheet on your bed. When you wake: peel off the cold, damp nightwear, take off the towel, replace with dry gear and go back to sleep. Similarly to hot flashes, if you stay cooler you are likely to have fewer night sweats.
Hormones are powerful naturally occurring drugs. Night sweats and hot flashes occur as these hormones decrease and are symptoms of withdrawal. This is why hormone replacement therapy [HRT] "cures" these symptoms. Is hormone therapy the answer? It used to be until an important study on the link between HRT and cancer changed medical opinion. Talk to your ob/gyn to find out the best coping method for you and remember: live one day at a time and know these symptoms don't last for ever.
Additional Resources:
Advocare sells good quality health products. If you would like to read the information click on the link below and use this log-in number: 04034584. If you want to join the organization use the contact information on my web site.
My friend Lori Harvey is available to help you with real estate at LHarvey@FHAllen.com. She is an efficient, pleasant and knowledgable Realtor with great references and an great track record.
Want to have photos and old 16mm films archived on CDs. Contact Ben@Hess-solutions.com. This is his new venture I have seen his work and he is getting great results plus his productions are reasonably priced.
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Copyright Sylvia Mills, PhD, March, 2004. All Rights reserved.
Sylvia is a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association and Psychologist. She is available for consultations, presentations and psychotherapy. Mailing address: 870 Market Street, Suite 1220, San Francisco, Ca 94102. E-mail address: Sylvia@SylviaMills.com |
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