~Quiz Time~

1. What happens when you are upset or afraid?
a) I often use positive “self-talk” to comfort or calm myself down
b) I often let my emotions take control of me or feel “out of control”

2. What’s your level of confidence?
a) I have a lot of confidence in myself and my ability to handle difficult situations
b) I’m often afraid that I’m not going to be able to handle difficult situations

3. How do you view life?
a) I am optimistic and hopeful about the future
b) I am afraid of what the future holds for me

4. How do you react to change?
a) I embrace change and often welcome it
b) I hate change and often dread it

5. What is your faith like?
a) I have a strong faith in God or a Higher Power
b) I do not believe in God or a Higher Power

6. What is your support network like?
a) I have a lot of friends and family who support me
b) I don’t have much support from others









If you answered b for any of the questions, you may be more vulnerable to stress.




Quiz taken from: http://www.hisprostatecancer.com/stress-3.html

How do we deal with stress?

There are three broad methods you can follow to treat stress, they include self-help, self management, and medication. Self help for treating stress ·         Exercise more often as exercise has been proven to have a beneficial effect on your mental and physical state. ·         Cut down on consuming alcohol and drugs and if your consumption of coffee and other drinks which contain caffeine is high, cut down on it too ·         Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables as that you will have a healthy and balanced diet ·         Make sure you have time every day to relax for a while by yourself to calm down ·         Every day, try to do a few breathing exercises to slow down your system and help you relax ·         Express your thoughts or worries to your family or friends ·         Mediation, massage or yoga have been known to help people with stress ·         If your stress gets very bad, you should go and consult a doctor so he can advise you on what to do   Stress management techniques Stress management can help you to... ü  remove or change the source of the stress ü  alter the way you view stressful events ü   lower the impact that stress might have on your body ü  teach you alternative ways of coping with stress You can find out some stress management techniques when you read self-help books or attend a stress management course. You can also seek the help of a counselor or psychotherapist for therapy sessions. Many therapies which help you relax, such as aromatherapy or reflexology, may have beneficial effects.   Medicines Doctors will not usually prescribe medications for coping with stress, unless you have an underlying illness (eg. depression or some type of anxiety). Remember that there is a risk that all the medication will do is mask the stress, and not help you deal and cope with it. Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145855.php

Why do we feel stressed???

What is stress?

Stress is a physical response to situations that would make you feel threatened or upset your balance. When you sense danger, be it real or imagined, a process known as stress response kicks in.

The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. When it works properly, it can help you stay focused, energetic and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life by giving you extra strength to defend yourself or gives you the impulse to slam on the brakes of your car to avoid an accident.

The stress response also helps you rise to meet challenges. Stress is what keeps you on your feet during a presentation at work or keeps you going when you are studying for an exam and you feel like watching television.

Despite of the benefits of stress, beyond a certain point, it stops being helpful and starts causing great damage to your health, mood, productivity, relationships and quality of life.

The Body’s Stress Response

When you sense a threat, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones 'wake' the body for emergency action.
Your heart will pound faster, your muscles will tighten, your blood pressure will rise, your breath will quicken and your senses will become sharper. These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction time, and enhance your focus.


Source: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm

Pain~

Here is a video about what happens in your body when you feel pain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: YouTube

Why do we feel pain?

Here are some questions that you may ask when you experience pain:

    Þ            Why do people feel physical pain?

     Þ            How does it even work?

     Þ            Does everybody feel pain the same way?

 As much as we hate the feeling of pain, it actually does play an important role in our lives.

 
Without it, we would not be able to sense an injury, and we would be in danger of harming ourselves even further.

Here is a more detailed explanation about pain, why we feel it and why and how our body reacts to it.

 

Pain is an evolved defence mechanism that alerts us to an injury, hence allowing us to protect our bodies and not damage ourselves any further.

 

Anyone who has accidently put their hand on a hot stove knows that the instinct to pull away from the hot stove is as overwhelming as it is quick. This is known as your pain reflex.

Pain comes in all shapes and sizes — and intensities.

 

What are the different forms of pain?

 
The most common form of pain is what's called nociceptive pain. It is typically the result of a physical injury. When you stub your toe, burn yourself or experience a cut, you are activating the nociceptive pain receptors.

Another classification of pain is neuropathic pain. It is caused by damage to any part of the nervous system. It is due to this sort of injury that you experience sensations like tingling, electrical shocks or pins and needles. It is also the same pain you feel when you hit your funny bone.

In addition to these two forms of pain, other forms of pain include psychosomatic pain, breakthrough pain, incident pain, pain asymbolia and insensitivity.

 

How does pain work?

There are essentially four mechanisms that make pain work: Our nerve fibres, pain receptors, the spinal column and the brain.

Our bodies are equipped with different sensory nerve fibres that can respond to different physical stimuli like a person's touch or running water. Depending on the extent of the physical contact, our nerve fibres will produce different chemical responses that will influence how the sensations are interpreted.

When we physically hurt ourselves, we activate nociceptive pain receptors. These nerve fibres' only function is to set the alarm for the pain receptors. The nociceptive pain receptors are engaged, for example, when we accidentally kick a table leg.

Once engaged, the nociceptive pain receptors send impulses through the nerve into the spinal cord. After this, the signals make their way to the brain. This all happens within less than a second. These impulses move through our bodies at a rate of about one meter per second.

"Once the pain signal reaches the brain it heads directly for the thalamus, which in turn dispatches it to other areas for ongoing neurological and conscious interpretation. For example, the cortex is responsible for figuring out where the pain came from, and how it compares to other kinds of pain. The thalamus, in addition to acting as a messenger, also facilitates an emotional response — which can result in anger, frustration — or even crying."

 

How you feel pain can be influenced by a number of circumstances, including mood, fears, expectations, past experiences, etc.

 

For more information, you can check out these websites below:

http://pain.about.com/od/whatischronicpain/a/feeling_pain.htm

 

http://www.thepaincenter.com/why-do-we-feel-pain-and-why-does-our-body-react-to-it.html

 

http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/pain.html

 

 

 

Source: http://io9.com/5946522/why-do-we-experience-physical-pain

When we touch something hot or cold

When you touch a hot object: what will you most likely do? You would probably drop it immediately or move your hand away from the source. What if it was something cold? That would probably send some chills down your spine. 

This is, again, because of your nervous system. You react so fast, that you don't even think about it happening. The nerve sends a impulse from the burning area to the burning spine. The sensory neurons enter the dorsal part of the spinal cord cell via the dorsal root of the spinal nerve. The cell bodies of these sensory neurons are located in a dorsal-root ganglion that lies just outside the spinal cord near its dorsal side. The axons of the sensory neurons then enter the spinal cord and synapse with inter neurons within the gray matter of the spinal cord. The inter neurons in turn synapse with motor neurons, the axons of which exit the cord ventrally via the ventral root, and conduct information to the muscles. In this reflex, a strong signal from the appropriate sensory cells both fires the flexor muscles and inhibits the motor neurons to the extensor muscles, and the hand is pulled back.. This crucial motor response is well under way before the signals responsible for the conscious sensation of pain (which exit the reflex pathway in the spinal cord) ever reach the brain.

Here's a tip when you touch something hot:

You know the feeling - you accidentally or unwittingly touch something which is very hot and the tip of your finger 'lights up' with an intense stinging pain. The moment you get burned, touch the tip of the offended finger to your ear-lobe. You will find that if you do this quickly enough, the stinging will go away almost instantaneously and there'll be no lasting pain or damage!

When your finger tip touches something hot, kinetic energy is transferred to your finger tip which is poorly conductive. It will, therefore, linger there for a few moments and the immediate pain you feel is that energy firing off pain receptors.

What happens when you touch your ear lobe? Well, have you ever noticed that your ear lobes always feel slightly cooler than the rest of you? That's because the fatty tissue and cartilage in there is a particularly good conductor of heat. So good in fact that if you can manage to make your reflexive response to the pain in your finger tip be to quickly touch that finger to your lobe, the laws of thermo dynamics mean that the heat will be conducted away very quickly, due to the conductivity differential between finger tip and ear lobe, stopping those pain receptors from firing, and even preventing the destruction of healthy cells by heat which would have otherwise lingered in your poorly conductive finger tip for several moments longer!

So, the next time you catch a finger in a flame, touch a hot pan on the stove, you know what to do - just whip that finger STRAIGHT to your ear lobe!

Sources: http://www.biog1105-1106.org/demos/105/unit9/media/reflexarc.pdf

             http://www.tipking.co.uk/tip/6016.html

How does your brain contribute in your nervous system?