Cognitive Therapy Basics

When it comes to your overall mental health, stress is the biggest problem that most of face. It is also the biggest reason for many health problems that we face daily. Most of don’t even understand that stress can be the major cause of major health problems like heart problems. There are many different types of therapy that can be used to help with stress relief and music therapy is a relaxing and soothing one that can help with stress but also major and minor illnesses as well.

Music therapy services are available to adults and children with disabilities. Sessions are individually designed according to each person’s special needs. Using music and music activities, the music therapist works with each individual to address specific goals and objectives that are determined by the therapist.

With music therapy both individual and small group sessions will be conducted with regular progress evaluations. Music therapy can be done for clients with the following disabilities: Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Mental Retardation, Attention Deficit Disorder, Lowe’s Syndrome, and, Tourrette’s Syndrome.

Music Therapy may be commonly defined as the structured use of music and music activities geared toward helping individuals with disabilities meet both musical and non-musical goals. Music therapy goals may be based on behavioral, physical, cognitive, social, and emotional or language and communication. Music is a proven relaxation technique as well as a stimulant. Those who use music therapy often experience positive changes.

Music therapy is good for people of all ages may benefit from music therapy, from young children to elderly seniors. People with almost any disability have ability when it comes to music. Music Therapy clients participate through playing instruments, improvising and making up new songs, singing, or even just listening. The people that are involved in Music Therapy sessions may range from having a mild learning disability to having severe mental retardation.

Music therapists assess clients’ communication skills, social functioning, physical health and mobility, cognitive skills, and emotional well-being by how they respond to music. They design Music Therapy sessions for individuals according to their unique needs. In these tailored sessions, therapists use techniques such as music improvisation, receptive music listening, music performance on instruments and with the voice, and learning through music. That is just too cool. When you think of music in terms of therapy, it is very easy to forget how truly useful music can be. It really does sooth the savage beast within us if we let it.

Most experts agree that our modern life style is frequently to blame for the extra levels of stress in our lives: less exercise, a breakdown in family support and communication, more pressure at work; it is hardly surprising these facts aggravate the problem. This results in stress being among the top ten most common ailments suffered in the UK.

A certain amount of stress in life is beneficial, however, long term stress can have an adverse effect on our well-being. Consider this fact: a stressed person’s body will produce excess adrenaline, resulting in an increase in heart beat, along with higher blood pressure. Depression, low libido, anxiety, hair loss, eczema and irritable bowel, can all be attributed to stress, resulting in a figure as high as 90% of visits to the doctor being stress-related.

A stimulant gives you short term energy by inducing a stress reaction. In order for your body to have the energy to respond to its perceived state of stress, it is usual to eat or drink more, resulting more often than not in an increase in blood pressure. This is known as a ‘fight or flight’ reaction and originated in pre-history when stress was caused by something like meeting a sabre-toothed tiger round the corner and having the option of fighting it or running away. The action of running away or fighting would use up the extra energy generated by the stress and return the body to its normal, non-stressed state.

Modern stresses tend not to be resolved by physical actions such as running away. In the wenty-first century men and women are more likely to be stressed in a traffic jam, or when meeting with their financial advisor. So the body remains stressed for longer, with no way of resolving it. In a state of stress, the body stops repairing itself, so that it can concentrate on reacting to the perceived stress. For an occasional stressful event this isn’t a problem, but he long-term result is that the more you stress your body, the less your body repairs itself and the faster you will age.

Avoiding stress is all very well in theory, but many people have worries that they can’t resolve, and statistics report that one in every twenty people have such problems that they suffer from panic attacks.

Panic attacks can be described as an intense surge of anxiety creating physical symptoms such as irregular heartbeat, chest pains, choking, sweating, trembling or feelings of being smothered, which can be extremely frightening.

Conventionally, sufferers may be prescribed tranquillizers, but some of these can have unpleasant side-effects including appetite loss, headaches, vision disorders and even seizures. On completion of drug therapy, patients may suffer from withdrawal symptoms such as agitation, blurred vision, dizziness, irritability and others, so many prefer to try natural alternatives before resorting to drugs.

Certain every-day substances can act as stressors – for instance: caffeine (in coffee and some fizzy drinks), sugar (including that in alcohol) and cigarettes. These should be avoided.

Beyond eliminating the above stimulants, many people like to take a natural remedy. Possibly the simplest of these is the Bach Flower “Rescue Remedy”, readily available at most pharmacists.

Another natural alternative that has been used for relieving anxiety, stress and restlessness is Kava Kava, a staple Polynesian traditional medicine, shown in numerous scientific studies to effectively reduce both general and menopausal anxiety. It acts on the limbic system, the brain’s most primitive system, which is associated with control of the emotional state. If taken with other drugs possessing tranquillising/sedative effects (e.g. benzodiazepines, butryrophenones) necessitate medical supervision in order to establish the optimum dosage.

With Kava being banned in some countries, the individual should conduct their own research as to whether its use is both safe and legal.

In the UK, at the time of writing (2009) L-Theanine, an amino acid found almost exclusively in green tea, is growing in popularity as an alternative to Kava Kava. Green tea is the second most popular drink in the world (after water) and has long been known as a relaxing beverage. Scientists now believe that both its taste and relaxing properties are attributable to its L-Theanine content. It is available in the UK from Solgar. http://www.solgar.co.uk/modules/shop/view.asp?catid=1&Prodcode=E2706

Websites I have researched are unclear about safety and legality so a safer and more tailored approach is to visit a professionally qualified homeopath or herbalist; either will take a detailed case history and recommend the best individual formulation for your circumstances.

Please note that no-one taking medication prescribed by their GP should take any additional products without his supervision, nor should they alter any instructions or dosages for their medication.

Alternatively, a life coach or counselor could help you explore stressful issues and circumstances in your life, with a view to reacting differently and thereby reducing stress and panic attacks.

With the troubling times that have befallen us lately, the occurrence of anxiety or panic attacks are on the rise. Some top professionals have conducted studies that show at least 1 out of every 5 adults will be stricken with these conditions in any given year.
When you are looking for help with your panic attacks it can be very helpful if not only know what caused the attack, but when and where it o cured. Once an individual can recognize the preliminary symptoms it will be much easier for them to deal with. As you become more aware of the symptoms, your ability to stop one of these attacks will grow stronger.
When we try and analyze what is causing our panic or anxiety attacks, the following symptoms will help in the process:
1) A sense of tightening in the chest
2) Abnormal or erratic breathing conditions
3) A sense of fear that is not common
4) An overwhelming feeling of multiple problems to a singular situation
There are many forms and therapies that can be utilized to deal with panic or anxiety attacks. One of these things can be to change your focus to an event in your past that brought you pleasure. One other thing that works is to focus and try and control your breathing if it seems to be abnormal. Finally, it is a great idea to jot down what you think may have caused your latest episode to come to pass. These are merely short terms fixes to a sometimes long term problem and shouldn’t be used in place of professional advice.
Arguably one of the best things you can do when desiring help for panic attacks is to change your mental focus to something positive. Now I know this is easier said than done, but it can be very helpful if utilized. Most people don’t realize but your thoughts are very powerful things that can be very helpful in these situations.
As our world changes in what seems like for the worse, many more people are now experiencing anxiety or panic attacks than ever before. This is understandable given our current times, but we don’t have to sit back and feel helpless. Some people have recorded feeling totally overwhelmed while under an anxiety or panic attack. The good news is, there is a cure for this affliction. Just remember to take your focus off what’s enabling the attack and shift it toward something positive.

Anxiety is one of the most prevalent conditions of the mind today. One of the biggest problems with anxiety is its tendency to strike at the most inopportune moments. Being able to keep your anxiety levels in check will make you a more resilient and confident person.

Fortunately, if your anxiety is not at the rarest form, there are many ways to cope with it that do not need medical intervention, one of being cognitive behavioral therapy. Giving anxiety an all encompassing definition is difficult because of its different effects on different individuals. It does, however, share some common traits.

Anxiety is the feeling of fear we all experience (and I can test to that) when faced with threatening or difficult situations. It helps us to avoid dangerous situations, makes us alert and motivates us to deal with our problems. Everybody knows what it’s like to feel anxious-the butterflies in your stomach before a first date, the tension you feel when your boss is angry, or the way your heart pounds if you’re in danger. Anxiety rouses you to action. It gears you up to face a threatening situation. It makes you study harder for that exam, and keeps you on your toes when you’re making a presentation. In general, it helps you cope.

But if you have an anxiety disorder, this normally helpful emotion can do just the opposite; it can keep you from coping and can disrupt your daily life. Many people still carry the misperception that anxiety disorders are a sign of weakness; a problem that happens because you are weak. They say things like “Pull yourself together!” and “You just have a case of the nerves.” Wishing the symptoms away does not work, but there are treatments that can help and one of them to consider is cognitive behavioral therapy.

Anxiety disorders and panic attacks are not signs of a character flaw. Most importantly, feeling anxious is not your fault. It is a serious mood disorder, which affects a person’s ability to function in everyday activities. It affects one’s work, one’s family, and one’s social life. One of the most proven and tested treatments for anxiety disorder come from cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral therapy that focuses on behavior in response to those thoughts.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is based on the belief that people learn most of their unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving over a long period of time. Using a set of structured techniques, a CBT practitioner aims to identify how you are thinking and how this can cause problematic feelings and behavior. You will learn to challenge negative ways of thinking, which helps you react more positively. This can lead to behavioral changes and then to improved self esteem.

Treating nervous behavior doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg joining a special anxiety-based institute, or waste your precious time with psychotherapy. For one thing, analyzing to death your past may not get you anywhere. Rehashing your old memories may do more harm than good. You can go over and over again what happened to you as a child or young adult that forced anxiety and nervous behavior onto you, but it will not cure it. More often than not, knowing “why” is not enough. To get treatment for nervous behavior, one would have to look into their current thinking patterns and learn to change them, not analyze how they got them in the first place.

Treatment for nervous behavior:

One popular method to provide treatment for nervous behavior is cognitive based therapy. It is likely the only traditional method used by psychologists to treat nervous behavior, anxiety, and panic that actually works. It is the only method psychologists use to help change the thought patterns of the anxiety sufferer. Most other methods try to dig through the patient’s history. Digging into your history is definitely not a guarantee that that you will erase your personal history forever, or learn to properly deal with it. Cognitive based therapy will force you to question the way you think about the world around you. You will learn to react differently to your causes of stress, hopefully in a more positive manner.

While cognitive based therapy does usually require a trained psychologist to assist you, the effects it brings occur are on a much shorter time span than traditional psychotherapy-type sessions. So it won’t cost nearly as much as psychotherapy.  Nervous treatment shouldn’t take a lifetime to recover from, nor should it cost more than you could ever afford to pay.

Thankfully, there is a way that is even cheaper, and that’s the DIY (do it yourself) method. They are a few books on the market that allow you to give yourself all the benefits of cognitive based therapy, but without the psychologist and without the financial turmoil. Such books make you ask questions about your current predicament, and make you ask questions about the thought processes that put you in such predicaments.

Occupational Therapy (OT), helps people regain, develop and build skills that are important for independent living, health and happiness.  Fibromyalgia sufferers can experience physical, emotional, or other challenges that prevent them from living the life they once led.  Chronic pain and depression can make it difficult for FM patients to do everyday tasks or be as active and as independent as they’d like.  If you have trouble performing daily activities because of these limitations OT may be able to help you.

Most FM patients find there are certain things they do on a daily basis that seem to make their pain worse. These activities frequently involve the repetitive use of muscles or continued tensing of a muscle, such as the muscles of the upper back while looking at a computer screen. You need to note these associations and determine how you can modify or eliminate them. That’s where occupational therapy can help. OT is designed to help Fibromyalgia Syndrome and other chronic pain patients regain the independent lifestyle they once knew before the onset of their illness.  Occupational therapists are trained in both physical and psychiatric rehabilitation.

An occupational therapy program is customized for the patient by combining an evaluation of medical history, environmental issues and personal goals.  Therapy includes solutions for pain due to repetitive movements in the work place or elsewhere.  Job modifications, changes in ergonomics, and a reduction in work hours may be necessary.  Sometimes an occupational therapist can work with the patient’s employer or supervisors, educating them about FM and discussing contributing factors in the workplace.  You might be taught to conserve your energy, use appropriate splints if needed, and minimize tissue trauma.

Occupational therapy should help you maximize function through strengthening activities, retraining cognitive and visual-perceptual skills and helping prevent misalignment of the vertebrae.  If you have had a back injury, ergonomics encourages the use of proper equipment and lifting techniques.  For muscle pain, the proper positioning of body and equipment can help prevent everything from mild soreness to serious tears and strains.  For eyestrain, headache and fatigue, you might need adjustments in lighting, noise levels, posture and work positions can help relieve physical and mental stress.

An occupational therapist can help you identify what aspects of the way you carry out your daily routine is helping or hindering your healing.  Patients are also taught stress management, how to assert themselves, time management, and planning/pacing skills, in order to help to reduce stress, anxiety, and fatigue.  Occupational therapy can help you discover what job or home activities could be increasing your neck, back, or arm pain.  Your therapist can watch you at work and make specific recommendations for reducing the strain on your body and provide specific therapy and exercises to help improve range of motion and reduce pain.

Here are a few tips to optimize your workspace for comfort:  Allow enough leg room under your workstation and use a document holder so that your documents are at the same height and distance as your computer screen.  Your feet should be flat on the floor, your knees should be level with your hips, and good lower back support is a must. Avoid positions in which your body is twisted.  Sit about an arm’s length away from your screen and tilt the screen back a little.  Your arms should rest at your sides with your elbows at a right angle and your wrists need to be straight.  Cushioned grips and ergonomically-designed tools to reduce vibration, pressure and relieve stress are beneficial and something as simple as a pillow behind your lower back or a stool to raise your feet can provide relief.

Posture or movement training is often required for FM sufferers to undo lifelong bad habits which can cause or increase pain and to re-educate muscles and joints that have become misaligned.  The muscles in the back of your neck, between your shoulder blades and your upper and mid back experience chronic tension. Stretches and strengthening are crucial.  Lumbar (lower & mid back) support is even more so.  Fibromyalgia patients who have significant problems with foot pain resulting from poor posture or body mechanics may also benefit from special shoe inserts (orthotics) prescribed by a podiatrist.

If there are techniques we can use to better our quality of life by lessening our pain, why not do it?  We need to take advantage of every opportunity to make our lives better!  If we don’t, who will?

Unfortunately, many of us feel as if we are on the verge of burnout. We feel as if we have to worry about our children, our jobs, and our relationships.At times, we may feel as if we are spinning out of control.
It is as if we are engaging in a high wire act without a net. We become frustrated and angry with ourselves because we don’t think we’re achieving our potential. We can literally become lost in a sea of worry.
At one time, seeking therapy for such feelings of anxiety would have been considered socially unacceptable. A few decades ago, many people considered therapy to be an indulgence.
Mental health counseling had an incredible stigma attached to it. However, today we see celebrities including Brooke Shields, Anne Heche, Marie Osmond, and Jane Pauley who speak openly about seeking counseling for their problems.Cognitive Behavior Therapy is no longer considered the domain of the crazy and the weak.
Therapy can come in a variety of forms. It can involve face-to-face counseling, self-help books, CDs, and online forums. It has been said that there are as many as 100 therapy programs on the market today.
These programs share some common traits. First, they assess how the individual is thinking and identify any disruptions in thought patterns. It is important to get these thoughts out into the open in order to deal with them effectively.
Second, the programs attempt to figure out an individual’s basic beliefs and whether these beliefs are founded on reliable principles. Say, for instance, you become anxious about flying.
Through talk therapy, it is determined that this fear can be traced back to your concerns about your grandmother, who once had an unpleasant flying experience en route to Oklahoma.You might have been worried about your grandmother’s safety and that, in turn, has led to an irrational fear of flying.
The next step is to gather evidence in order to combat negative thinking. For instance, you might look for a statistic indicating how many crashes a given airline has during a year.
When you discover how infrequently accidents occur, your belief that flying is dangerous may be thrown out the window. The one sure-fire way to fight negative thinking is to counteract it with reliable facts.
Another technique you can use to combat anxiety is to develop coping mechanisms. In other words, in order to not let your worry get the best of you, you might try prayer and meditation, exercise, dancing, reading a good book, or soaking in a hot tub.
You should keep a list of relaxation techniques handy so that you can turn to them any time you are feeling particularly stressed out.You will have to get into the habit of relaxation. This can be quite difficult, especially for those with high-stress jobs. You may even consider taking a class in relaxation techniques. Once you utilize these techniques, you are likely to find yourself better able to concentrate better able to manage your feelings and better able to cope.
Literally millions of people have been assisted through cognitive behavioral therapy. While herbal remedies and prescription medications can alleviate symptoms, they do not address the root causes of anxiety. Until we begin to think positively, we cannot hope to attack the crux of our anxious feelings.
How do you find the therapist that’s right for you? To begin with, consult some of your trusted friends. Chances are someone in their families has been to a counselor within the past six months.
You’ll want someone who is easy to talk to, with whom you can share your innermost thoughts and feelings. If you try a therapist and you feel uncomfortable, by all means switch to someone else.Sometimes, finding the right counselor is a matter of trial and error.
Going through therapy can be a tough experience. You may have to delve into areas that you find to be uncomfortable. But it can be highly rewarding in the end.
You may find that you gain greater insight into your thought patterns, that you are better able to communicate effectively, and that you are feeling much less anxious. There is no reason to apologize for undergoing therapy. Seeking help is actually a sign of strength.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is often used to teach Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain sufferers how to cope with their illnesses.  It is said to help treat many conditions and diseases like FM, back pain, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.  It helps determine how well a patient manages their pain and teaches them how to take control of it.  Depression plays a key role in the inability to be proactive in our treatment.  So, our state of mind is very important when it comes to getting better.

Studies show that when FM patients effectively deal with the particular symptoms and over-lapping conditions of their illness and of their lives, they feel better. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) increases a patients’ belief in their own power to cope with the things they face and helps them develop ways for dealing with depression and stressful situations.

The goal of CBT is to make patients aware of self-defeating behaviors and emotions so that they can be changed consciously. Healthy, positive thoughts and emotions supersede the negative, resulting in a powerful influence on your life and lessening your pain.  Over time, the idea that you are helpless against the pain goes away and, instead, you learn that you can manage the pain.  Many studies show an improved quality of life and overall reduction in average pain scores.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has shown to be as beneficial as anti-depressant medications for patients with depression.  In one large study there were considerably higher results of reaction and remission from depression when cognitive behavior therapy was used in addition to anti-depressant medications than when either method was used alone.  CBT is used to change the patients negative feelings and social withdrawal.

Cognitive therapy is very helpful in defining and setting limits (something I know I have a problem with) and is vitally important for FM patients. Many “Fibromytes” live their lives in extremes. We push ourselves too far and suddenly we break-down. This reverses the way we view ourselves, we become demoralized, feel worthless, and give up our power to cope with the simplest tasks. One important goal of cognitive therapy is to help us find a middle ground. Patients learn to prioritize their responsibilities, and drop some of the less important tasks or delegate them to others. My biggest problem is just saying “NO”.  I want to please everyone and prove to them and myself that I can do whatever is asked of me.  When I reach my limits and cannot complete a task, I tend to go through a period of self-loathing.  Learning to say “NO” and other coping skills can ultimately lead to a more manageable life. We can learn to view ourselves and others in a better light.

CBT is also a useful treatment for anxiety disorders, including phobias, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. In CBT, patients learn to be aware of and change negative thinking patterns. It is a way to gain conscious control over unwanted thoughts or feelings which are, as a rule, connected to anxiety.  Those of us who suffer from panic attacks learn our bodies’ negative responses and actions during an attack and CBT helps us find ways to counteract the reason for the attacks.  CBT can also help improve quality of sleep so we can hopefully reduce some of our medications.

Cognitive therapy requires approximately six to twenty sessions that last one hour.  The cognitive therapy program may involve keeping a diary to look at all aspects of your daily activities, coping skills and mind-set.  This helps you learn what changes need to be made, limits that need to be set and a way to organize and prioritize activities.  Many of these things contribute to stress and can make your pain better or worse.  Setting limits keeps us from getting discouraged and helps us learn to take each task one step at a time.  CBT also helps us confront negative thoughts and emotions and we are taught how to reverse them.  It all boils down to self-perception:  self-loathing, worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness, negative self-talk, believing that other people view us the same way.  CBT helps us reverse those thought processes so we can pick ourselves up and keep going.  Patients will learn to find things we once enjoyed doing and make the time to do them with the help of learning how to schedule activities without being overwhelmed.

As we know accomplishing too much too soon can often cause a relapse of symptoms. We should respect these relapses and slow down. We should not consider them a sign of failure.  That’s just how Fibromyalgia works. Don’t be so hard on yourself!