Tag Archives: Mental health

Holistic Health, Mental Health

Overcome Smartphone Addiction

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The Problem

Have you gone through an extended period without using your smartphone or having Internet? To most people, being completely disconnected from the rest of the world sounds like a nightmare. In our digital age, online addiction and smartphone addiction is a real issue as people are checking it constantly throughout the day, relying on notifications to stay entertained, and going into shock when they don’t feel it in their pockets. While hard to break, smartphone addiction can be helped with enough self-discipline and online addiction support groups who can help bring a community to detoxifying from the dependence. With practice and time, the physical and mental strains that come from a heavy dependency can wane so a healthier lifestyle can come to the forefront.

How Does Addiction Start?

Most people fail to realize the smartphone addiction is a real problem that is affecting millions of people around the world. It’s getting into the way of our daily activities, conversations, and intimate moments with the never ending buzzing. With the rising demand for mobile phones and the necessary use of it to keep up with the news, social media, and communicating with others, battling addiction with smartphones will be faced by many. Include the rapid advances that today’s smartphones have to access information at all time high speeds, and addiction is sure to develop. Approximately 72% of people in a recent study stated that they are rarely more than five feet away from their smartphones at any given time during the day! Experts call this issue by the name nomophobia, which describes the incredible fear that being away from your phone will cut you off from your friends, family, and the rest of the world. 

Smartphone and online addiction is also a problem that often stems from other underlying emotional and psychological issues. It can be a side effect of major mental disorders like depression or OCD, also known as obsessive-compulsive disorder! Using a smartphone too much – whether you are an adult or adolescent – can create a dependency. This addiction typically leads to high levels of stress, loss of focus, and even anxiety disorders.

Online Addiction Consequences

There’s no issue with using your phone at a healthy level. However, if you are spending more time talking to your Instagram followers than your actual friends, it might be the right time to take a step back and reflect on managing what could be an addiction. Smartphone addiction, especially among children, is completely changing the dynamic that we communicate with each other throughout the day. Face to face human interaction helps a young child and even teenagers to develop emotionally in a way that phones can’t match up to. Speaking, listening, and displaying gestures with a real human helps a child to see the other person’s emotional reaction and decide the appropriate response. Yet, texting, talking or browsing Facebook threads on a smartphone does none of this. Meanwhile, grown adults are no less likely to become addicted and end up feeling excessively tired on a daily basis from staring at a screen.

How To Fight Addiction

Battling a smartphone or online addiction is not easy in any sense. To be successful, you have to acknowledge you have an issue as the first step. This type of addiction, unlike being drawn to physical drugs or alcohol, is difficult to pinpoint as we all use our smartphones so often each day. However, watch out for a few key symptoms that characterize an addiction. One that many people may have experienced is phantom cellphone vibration, describing the feeling our body has become conditioned to anticipate when we carrying our smartphone around. Even if no new texts, emails, or calls are actually coming through, our minds begin to imagine the same sensation as a heavy dependence becomes established. The most basic step that some experts suggest for weaning time spent on your phone is literally setting alarms specifying how often you can check it. Start with 15 minutes and move up to eventually an hour. When your alarm sounds, spend one minute going through all your notifications and then reset the timer. This will build restrictions in your lifestyle and help reduce your habit of checking them so often. Another trick is to seek online addiction forums, who speak about keeping addiction apps like Facebook or Instagram in hideable folders on your phone. This way, you’ll be able to prevent getting distraction from endless videos, pictures, and focus on more important tasks.

Final Takeaway

Going through any kind of addiction is tough without implementing a supportive community base, enough discipline, and temptation preventions. When it comes to battling online addiction and smartphone dependency, the process takes the willingness to plug in more into the real world and interact with the humans who are actually physically around you. While it will feel painful at first to detach from the addicting buzzes and “like” notifications, your body, mind, and relationships will thank you as you begin to function more normally as a human being. You’ll also appear much more engaged, friendly, and open when you’re around others who are talking to you or desire to strike up a conversation!

 

Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health, Women's Health

High Functioning Addicts In Stress

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Thousands of students graduate from college and begin full time careers each year in the professional workforce. Most are excited and unaware about the levels of extremely high stress workers can go through to manage performance expectations and pressing deadlines in their industry. After months to years of difficult work and anxiety from life wearing on their mental health, many people become vulnerable to alcohol dependency as a method of stress management.  One recent health study found that almost 8.7 percent of professional workers from the ages of 16 to 64 consumed alcohol in extreme amounts during a one month period. It also found that at least 8.6 percent used illegal drugs as well to cope with their mountains of stressful work. A high percentage of the wealthy and student population also turn to drugs to fit in a desired social group or to seek a thrill from an otherwise mundane lifestyle they feel stuck in. Over time, harsh consequences come with self-medicating for stress using alcohol and illicit drugs.

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Wealth, College, and Addiction

Not all substance addicts are obvious, as they can come from all walks from life. Often, living in constant stress to finish heavy workloads, having disposable income, and consistently making impulsive choices leads to alcohol dependence and drug abuse over time. On a college campus, I’ve witnessed many students start their taste of alcohol with a few mild drinks here and there for stress management. Drinking alcohol is considered socially acceptable and doesn’t have the same stigma attached to it as addiction to harsher drugs like marijuana or cocaine. Since many wealthy individuals also have a lot of spending money and unwarranted financial freedom, they easily fall into a vicious cycle of purchasing drugs out of spontaneity and seeking social support. When money is a given freely from a family name, it becomes difficult to find one’s personal passions and discover genuine friends who don’t just value their wealth. Combined with stressful assignments and social pressure, these factors lead to low self-esteem and boredom which spark the fire of alcohol dependence and harmful self-medicating with drugs. Substance abuse is a long term problem and no one is completely safe to preventing it seeking trained help.

Stressful Careers and Addiction

No matter their age, many workers unexpectedly turn to alcohol dependency to manage their stress and anxiety. People in professions like advertising, music, general labor, cooking, and especially bartenders are all up to two times more likely to die to substance abuse. An estimated 10 percent of all healthcare professionals are also prone to abuse drugs with sectors ranging from pediatricians to anesthesiologists. That’s a scary statistic to think about, as these are the professionals the mainstream population turns to for aid with their own health related issues. With the rising acceptance and romanticizing of alcohol dependency in the media, there is no room for wondering why the number of alcohol and drug related fatalities are climbing on an annual basis.

High Cost of Healthcare

High Functioning Addicts

If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulty with a drug or alcohol addiction, first make sure to recognize that it is a significant problem. Almost a fifth of all young adults who frequently consume alcohol as a form of self-medicating are considered a highly functional addict. High functioning alcoholics are hard to identify since they can mask it easily. Some tell-tale signs of one, especially if they’re a student, is if that they imbibe alcoholic drinks on a daily basis, become more confident at larger social gatherings, drink alone for no reason, desire to black out, run into legal consequences for their behavior, or often joke about having an addiction to others. Chronic drinking can lead to a negative change in how they look physically, think mentally, or interact with people who may not agree with their destructive lifestyle. Although some lucky high-functioning alcoholics might never experience severe problems with their repeatedly harmful choices, they need to be exposed to some form of an addiction recovery program to know how they could be sabotaging their future.

The Next Steps

If you feel that you have an alcohol dependency problem to deal with stressful work, explore the resources that are out there to learn more about how to implement positive habits. While making changes are hard, healthy choices and a better lifestyle can reinforced after enough consistency, dedication, and faith is applied over time. Just as the saying goes, “We miss 100% of the shots we don’t take”, one will never improve and see results if they don’t put in the effort to reevaluate their life themselves. Start being proactive and pursue holistic, group, or exercise based recovery through a program that fits your lifestyle. The best part is that by joining a rehab program that fits your needs, you won’t have to sacrifice any of the activities that you love. Make the leap and you’ll never want to turn back!

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Sobriety and New Age Alcoholics Anonymous

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If you find yourself feeling like you can’t get out of the rut starting your recovery journey, you will definitely experience some days where staying motivated alone will feel extremely difficult. Being independent in the battle for long term health is the worst way to get over an addiction to very strong substances like drugs or alcohol. Having a close knit peer support system who can guide you and keep you motivated throughout your addiction recovery is crucial to prevent any relapses from happening in the future.

Traditional methods of peer support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous have been around for many years as the go-to opportunity to talk amongst a group of people who can understand and listen to your struggles. In the past few years, we have been quickly integrating our lives with the internet and social media. Public forums, online messenger, and even video chat groups has allowed the peer support method to evolve into a powerful online community to help keep people motivated, learn more about their “triggers” to avoid sinking to temptation, and staying consistent to ensure long term success. People from a variety of lifestyles and backgrounds pursuing this accessible resource and are finishing it with success as a stronger person than ever before.

Peer Support Impact

It’s a long journey that is required to recover from addiction without any consistent support from other people around you. Although people who are within a peer support group may come from different walks of life and each have a variety of needs, everyone depends on each other as a line of support. Every person involved in the group is aware of what life is like as an addict in our current society, the difficulty of dealing daily temptations, and dealing with feelings that occur during recovery like sadness, guilt, and remorse that comes recovery. Most people try to rebuild their sense of self -confidence, their relationships with any friends and family, and their professional careers for the future. Being part of an active support group increases your likelihood to stay in recovery and finish it strong. You will gain needed emotional support with understanding mentors and informational support from educational seminars that teach important recovery skills. You will also acquire an important sense of belonging, as well as tips for interacting with other people that don’t revolve around consuming drugs or alchohol.

A Variety of Services

No matter where you start in your recovery journey, there are a variety services available for to help you gain sobriety and ensure relapse prevention. Peer support groups are great at being adaptable and could be individualized to your pre-recovery, recovery in progress, or post-recovery time line. For example, a peer support group can be initiated before a person enters their rehab treatment to help them develop an organized mindset for making lifestyle changes. If they’re already enrolled in a specific treatment program, support groups can also accompany it and provide an important link to a community of people going through the same experience. If treatment is done, a person has the option to still join to increase their chance of preventing relapse in the future. Even if you feel like pursuing a support group is expensive or do not exactly wish to open up to a room full of strangers, the support system that develops is foundational to your overall success as a patient. Throughout each stage, while participating in each meeting, members of peer support groups will be building their leadership abilities that will be vital to use in the future.

Online Support

There is definite evidence that having a peer support group provides enormous benefits to the body, mind, and spirit. If you have a very busy schedule and can’t find enough time to attend Alcoholic Anonymous type events in person, you might want to take a look at joining online programs to digitally stay on track. No matter how large the forum is, chances are you will find someone who shares similar troubles and can form a meaningful bond alongside you as you grow. New Age Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are now increasingly popular for people to bond over remote locations and global time zones. The online community provides a safe space to discuss personal failures, goals, and experiences to develop into a healthy person again. Facebook and Reddit has many forums and groups that are open to their members for free, and welcome them with open arms. A lot of colleges throughout the country also run discussion forums for their students to join on a weekly basis. You can also easily Google search for online AA groups that suit your lifestyle and personal goals to help you best succeed!

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Teen Mental Health

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These days, the dialogue about mental diseases like anorexia, depression, and addiction among teens has been brought up more than ever before thanks to school education programs, awareness conferences, and the movies and shows developed from the mainstream media. Television series like the new “13 Reasons Why” is a prime example of what factored into this resurgence, as it depicts a teenager who struggles with depression from her environment and being angry at her peers. While it’s based on a fake story line, the issues it shows are extremely realistic since many kids go through social pressure, stress from school, and adapting to puberty. Studies show that at least one of every eight teens in the U.S. are diagnosed with depression, which is shocking. That means that out of a normal sized class of 32 students a high school, 4 of those students will be going through depression at the time. Depression can build up to a boiling point for many reasons, but it’s a given that adequate treatment is crucial for the health and safety of someone if they have it.

Forming Depression

Depression can be caused for a great deal of reasons, from feeling extremely insecure compared to others, experiencing emotional or physical abuse from a friend or parent, feeling consistently hopeless, or not being accepted by the people around you. For a teen, being teased in school or flunking tests, feeling left out from friends, and being extremely dissatisfied with their body, social status, etc. all play a role. With these events bringing constant stress, depression can develop and spiral into an abyss of negative emotions and idleness for an individual.  

Spotting someone with depression may be difficult, but it’s generally agreed that a change in personality and behavior will be apparent. Look out for red flags like seeing someone being less interested in activities they once enjoyed, sleeping a lot more, eating a lot more or less, and not being able to focus at school or at tasks. They could also have bad memory, underperformance, or may even turn to addictive substances to get through the pain. That’s definitely a dangerous plan and could lead to much more harmful consequences in the future.

Getting through Depression

There’s a lot of professionals who can help a teen with their profession. Spending time with them to hear their fears, stress, and hopes will help you gain their trust to pursue help and hopefully start a rehab program. Make sure to let know that their emotions are okay to experience, but their idleness and reluctance to change at the moment is not. After some time, you can move on to approaching the topic of seeking therapy and telling them that it will be a positive impact to their health and future years.

Receiving Treatment

It all comes down to what their lifestyle and personality is like to choose what therapy will work best. However, helping them acknowledge the problem is the most important step so they can take action on it. If they are extremely stubborn at this stage, you may even have to resort to taking a medical test which shows concrete proof of depression being active. One example is doing a blood test to identify genetic markers associated with depression. With the test’s help, doctors can get to the cause of their problem way quicker and reach a much quicker diagnosis as well. From there, they can recommend what type of therapy to take and changes they can make to their sleeping habits, nutrition, and physical activity to aid the process.

Persistence is Key

Depression is a great mountain to climb, but with a team of help and dedication to getting better it can be tackled. Instead of taking no action or turning to unhealthy addictions to cope, asking for help will bring quicker results and better health overall. Combined with using holistic therapy that includes aromatherapy, massage therapy, meditation, better nutrition, and more exercise, awareness of the body can be increased so the person can prevent spiraling into the illness again in the future.

Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health

My personal experiences with decreasing anxiety and living in the present moment

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Feeling contemplative today

As a young adult who is attending college, life can be rather hectic as you move from day to day with no breaks. School work can pile up and before you know it, you’re swamped with assignments and exam pressure with no time to yourself. I know this from past experiences and having the same issues many other college students face, the question of what truly is important in this time, and if you don’t give yourself a chance each day to answer that question then you could find yourself slipping into an unhealthy place.

There are days where I am so busy I don’t even allow one thought into my brain that isn’t focused on the task at hand or jumping to the task ahead thinking about what I need to do. This is a very stressful way to live from day to day and can eventually lead to a negative outcome for many college students. They seek a way to escape the present moment that they are in instead of truly cherishing it for what it is and connecting their senses with the world around them. This can lead to different types of substance abuse, ranging from alcoholism to the use of hard drugs and many more. This is definitely not the right answer to dealing with college stress and there are many other positive ways to cope wit these pressures.

High Cost of Healthcare

To help cope with anxiety there are some techniques you can practice to become more mindful in your day to day life.

One relaxation technique to handle stress is awareness meditation. This means you sit or stand still in a place that is comfortable and safe for you, and allow your most and mind to relax and almost go numb. This is a way to get in touch with the senses of your body and tap into having present moment awareness, it is almost like you are hitting the reset button during the day and giving yourself a chance to relax and ease the anxiety. Having time like this is a necessity through college life, personally I used to become way too caught up in exam pressures and never gave myself a chance to zone out and feel each emotion strongly, if you are stressed let it pass through your body and be ok with it, when this sensation passes during the meditation process you come out of it in a much more relaxed state. This is a way to detox the body of negative emotions instead of masking them with the mind-numbing use of substances. It is good for your overall physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Another method I use personally to cope with some of the college pressures is exercise. If your stressed go to the gym and get a good workout in and sweat. Working out releases endorphins which can release tension and overall anxiety. Not only this, it also improves your confidence and gives you belief in yourself that you can handle whatever is on your plate. Many times I have done this before studying for a large exam and my mental state has good clarity and I feel confident in my ability. Therefore I seek the present moment and the challenges it brings, instead of trying to shy away from them and finding a coping method to hide them.

beauty portrait

Being mindful in our day to day lives is key to our overall happiness. Don’t let any sort of stresses push you to the point where your anxiety is almost unbearable. Take time out of your day to reflect and reset and focus on what truly matters in the present moment.