Pyscho-biologic Disorder Treatment
Caring for Clients with psycho-biologic disorders (ch 67)
Title: The Power of Stress and the Mind-Body Relationship
Abstract
The power of the mind is immeasurable. Perhaps the statement “The sky is the limit” is more folktale than society comprehends. There is no limit, accept for one’s self. Research shows that positive vs negative mindsets are directly linked to a person’s health status. Among these studies are a plethora of the American Psychology Association’s soft-science findings of cognitive “hardiness”, or resilience. Negativity may not be as easily avoided when accounting for the cause and effect theory, such as the physiologic response to stress. Depression may be onset by loss of a loved one, clinically dx chemical imbalances, and other hardships. On the other hand, people who are generally positive seem to come out of these spells faster and manage diseases with fewer episodes of severity. The focus being on internal locus of control vs external locus of control.
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The Power of Stress and the Mind-Body Relationship
Delving into the mind-body relationship is complex. There is a balance to be maintained which requires self-actualization and strong mental awareness. It is like a dance requiring two partners with individual roles that meld together as a work relationship. This choreography intertwines hard-science of the tangible, testable body functions and the soft-science of the unseen cognitive functions and how they directly affect one another. It is easy to see a body system malfunction and test for suspicioned disease, whereas a person’s thought pattern and their actual being is hard to put on a slide and view under scope. Physiologic responses to stress are visible within accelerated vital signs when the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated. The stimuli may not always be as evident when driven by anxiety or fear which stems from perception. Perception may not be measurable but the effects of stress (over time) certainly can be. The release of epinephrine and corticosteroids (which release glucose and fat in to blood) can cause heart disease. When the fight-or-flight response is activated and not followed by actions such as indicated: fight, flight to use the fat and glucose as fuel, it can stick the arteries, or be stored in the fat cells. Research shows that perception is more than a person’s opinion. Perception is a type of chemical reaction of one’s responses to life around them, as evidenced by the rise of cancer and heart disease in our society. The connection between the two, however, is much like a physical disease and can be altered through therapy. Pyscho-biologic Disorder Treatment
Perception is the way a person experiences any said situation, examples being scary movies. One person may enjoy them and firmly grasp that fiction movies are scripted and are of no real harm whereas another may be gripped by fear and the anxiety of “what if”.
Coping mechanisms come into play at this juncture. Coping mechanisms are a person’s unconscious tactic to protect themselves from feelings of inadequacy or defusing a sensation of a threat, such as avoiding confrontation. This leads to the afore mention of hardiness that a person may develop in response to handling stressful situations and then learning from them. Hardy characteristics are perhaps a sense of having control over sources of stress versus feeling helpless, being committed to something of meaning versus feeling alienated, and the perception that life’s events are challenges rather than threats. (Kobasa, 1979)
This mechanism can have a polar effect as well, and maladaptive coping can breed dysfunction such as alcoholism, drug, and/or sexual addictions.
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Psychosomatic
Psyche means mind and somatic means body. The medical term “Psychosomatic” has brought negative connotation along with it. Perhaps society conceives it is not legitimate if an illness is from the mind, but time and tests have delivered a more holistic meaning and positive responses through linking illnesses to stress. Psychosomatic disorders, or stress-related disorders, are now taken with seriousness and not disregard.
History of Disease Process 1
Studies show that stress affects the immune system by weakening it over time, causing susceptibility to illness. Examples include nursing students, searching for new employment, and the changes that accompany aging, and much more all bring about stressors in which cannot be avoided. The immune system is designed to attack cancer cells, invading microorganisms and other diseases with little warriors called white blood cells (WBCs). When stress is prolonged, WBCs decrease, leaving opportunity for infection, illness, and disease to overcome its host. Further linking the mind-body relationship, loneliness and poor immune function coexist quite frequently, yet among those whose share emotions with others tend to show improvement in immune responses. Pyscho-biologic Disorder Treatment
Anatomy and Physiology
The immune system and the brain communicate through chemical messengers called neurotransmitters and immunopeptides (cytokines). (Kluwer, 2018) These messengers take information through the down-up process (from the tissues of the body up to the brain for interpretation) and the up-down process responds with messages from the brain down to the affected body area. When a person kicks a chair, the pain message is sent up through nerves as an electrical impulse to the brain, which responds with prostaglandins and other chemicals to the area where the damage occurred. In the same fashion, when distress is experienced, chemicals are released from the brain and are poisonous to the body when prolonged circulation takes place, jeopardizing the body systems and leading to illnesses. The two may vary in their physical manifestations, but the process is ultimately on the same playing field…..Read More….