Most people who develop agoraphobia do so after suffering from one or more panic attacks. Panic attacks can strike at any time, without warning, and can cause sufferers to believe that they are extremely ill or even dying. This unpredictability of having panic attacks can cause sufferers to associate the places they were in when they had a panic attack as being a trigger for the attack. Soon, public places in general will be associated with panic attacks and they will be avoided by agoraphobiacs. Generally speaking, sufferers of agoraphobia become home-bound, as this is the only real safe place they have.

Who Suffers from Agoraphobia?

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that about 3.2 million adults in the US are living with agoraphobia. Agoraphobia can affect any person, without regard to age or gender. It is almost twice as common among women as it is with men. Very rarely does agoraphobia develop without an associated panic disorder.

What Are the Causes of Agoraphobia?

No one knows exactly what causes agoraphobia. Most experts believe that it develops as a complication to another disorder, such as anxiety, panic or eating disorders or depression. But there is also speculation that it can also develop as a result of long-term use of sleeping medications (benzodiazepines) and/or tranquilizers. Other factors that may play a role include a history of drug or alcohol abuse, a traumatic childhood event, spatial orientation issues (being able to maintain balance using their inner ear balance system and visual cues) or a stressful event (as in post-traumatic stress disorder).

How is Agoraphobia Treated?

Treating agoraphobia is a two-pronged strategy. The first is to deal with the behavioral issues stemming from wanting to stay home. A gradual process (utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy) of getting the patient to step foot outside their “safe house” and start becoming more integrated in society is normally the first treatment that is begun. In parallel with this strategy, anti-anxiety (such as benzodiazepines like Xanax) or depression medications (such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft) are also prescribed. The medication helps to eliminate the panic attacks so that the patient can have confidence that the integration strategy will work. There are also alternative treatments being used (such as hypnosis) that help to provide a more natural, drug-free, treatment strategy.

The symptoms of agoraphobia can be frightening and debilitating. However, the majority of sufferers are able to find relief and begin a normal lifestyle once again. The key is to begin treatment as early as possible once the possibility of agoraphobia is recognized.

How do you know if you’re what’s termed “clinically depressed”? (Clinical depression, or major depression, is any long-term feelings of depression that the affected person cannot shake on their own.) A good indicator would be if you suffer from five or more of the following list of depression symptoms for more than at least two weeks.

Symptoms of Depression

• Feelings of guilt, helplessness, or worthlessness
• Feeling sad
• Loss of interest in normal activities
• Fatigue and loss of energy
• Change in sleep patterns, particularly the inability to sleep or excessive sleeping
• Crying spells
• Irritability and/or restlessness
• Significant changes in appetite
• Isolation from family and friends
• Trouble concentrating, remembering, or thinking clearly
• Increased use of alcohol or drugs
• Reckless behavior
• Thoughts of death or suicide
• Feeling of pessimism
• Unexplained aches or pains

Seeking Help

First of all, if you’re feeling depressed and are exhibiting any of these symptoms, talk to somebody. The best way to clearly see what’s happening to you is to enlist the help of family or friends. Don’t think that no one cares. They do. They just have issues in their own lives that prevent them from taking the time to see you and what’s happening to you. But they do care.

Second, seek out a health care provider. It is important to rule out any physical issues you’re experiencing that may be caused by things other than depression (such as side effects from certain medications). If it’s not depression, then the health care provider can create a plan for you to get you healthy.

If it turns out to be clinical depression, then your health care provider, with perhaps others, will outline a treatment plan that will help you overcome your depression and insure it doesn’t return.

The key thing to remember is to take action. While your depression symptoms will be telling you “What’s the use?”, know deep down that it matters and that you have to take the first step to recovery. Communicate your needs with others.

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological theory of human motivation. It states that it is unpleasant to hold contradictory beliefs. As such, a person will be motivated to change his beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, or behaviors that are in conflict.

To help you understand the term, let’s break it down. The word “cognitive” refers to the word cognition. Cognition is the mental process of thinking and using our reasoning and judging abilities. Cognition is what makes us uniquely human.

The word “dissonance” means conflict, or out of harmony. The two words together mean that there are thoughts that are in conflict with each other. In real terms, this means that you are feeling uncomfortable and are in all likelihood, feeling stressed.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Leon Festinger proposed the cognitive dissonance theory in 1954. He had studied a cult in which the members believed that they would be rescued by aliens prior to a flood that would destroy the earth. He particularly focused on those members who were still committed to the cult, even after the flood did not occur. Those members tended to re-evaluate the evidence to show they were right even though the events did not occur.

The re-evaluation by the cult members of their circumstances is known as cognitive appraisal. Cognitive appraisal is our act of thinking about our beliefs in light of new information. Cognitive restructuring is the mental act of changing the meaning of the new information in regard to our previously-held beliefs. This can also be called reframing. Finally, cognitive distortion refers to the disconnect that occurs between the reality of the situation versus our interpretation of it. Much like the example of the smoker above, a smoker may believe that smoking may help them keep off extra weight, which in their mind is a better condition than possibly contracting cancer.

Cognitive Therapy

So if you’re experiencing a disconnect between a belief you hold and the actions you take that contradict that belief, what are you to do? One of the ways of dealing with this situation is using cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is based on the premise that how we feel is based on what we think. In situations where the thoughts are magnified out of proportion to their seriousness, then cognitive distortion occurs. This distortion in thinking often lead to feelings of stress and in even more severe cases, depression or anxiety.

Cognitive therapy is intended to focus on the cognitive distortions in one’s life and work to adjust those distortions in a positive way. By relearning beliefs to coincide with a more realistic situation, then the stress and the dissonance one feels can be minimized or eliminated.

Taking the time to perform a cognitive appraisal of all those times you feel stressed is a primary method for preventing or managing the stress in your life. The key is to take the time to think about your stress and understand the underlying beliefs and feelings associated with that stress. You will be amazed at how easy it is to recognize distortions in your belief system when you do.

There are estimates that up to 90 percent of all visits to physicians are for complaints related to stress.

How do you think marriages, jobs, and families fare under all this stress?  Mental and physical abuse, addictions, depression and anxiety are all characteristics of stress and all are on the rise in our modern lives.

The key to beating stress is to stop it before it begins.  Taking time to consider your beliefs, and how they affect your response to activating events is key.  If you can’t stop stress before it begins, then learning stress management techniques that can help to minimize the adverse effects of the stress you do experience is a requirement.

The Body’s Response

The fight or flight response is the body’s protection system. At the moment a threat is realized, the body quickly prepares itself to either do battle with the threat (fight) or run away from it as fast as possible (flight). Physiologically, the stress response activates the body’s sympathetic nervous system, which results in the release of chemicals (hormones) into the bloodstream. These chemicals (adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol) are released by the adrenal glands, located on top of the kidneys. These chemicals are delivered to every cell in the body with the message of “get ready for action”. In an instant, the body reacts in the following ways:

• Increased mental activity
• Increased heart rate and blood pressure
• Increased breathing rate
• Increased muscle contraction
• Increased blood coagulation (which helps clotting)
• Increased blood sugar to nourish muscles
• Shunting of blood away from the digestive system to the muscles
• Increased sweat gland production
• Immune system suppressed
• Saliva dries up
• Pain perception decreases

When the stress response is activated, the autonomic nervous system is the part of the body’s nervous system that steps up and takes control of the body. It is largely an unconscious activity that is beyond our direct control. It is controlled by the hypothalamus, a pearl-sized portion of the brain that is considered our most “primitive” relic.

Today’s Version of the Stress Response

In our modern world, we are not confronted with many live or die scenarios where the fight or flight response is appropriate. However, our primitive hypothalami still interprets many of our everyday events as those live or die scenarios. Consequently, our bodies are continuously experiencing the same response as those of our ancestors with lions or bears chasing them, even if today it is simply a traffic jam where we are going nowhere soon.

Understanding that the hypothalamus controls our fight or flight response, largely independently of our consciousness, makes our ability to control stress in our lives that much tougher. But it can be done. By understanding the ABC Model and how our beliefs causes our consequences, as well as learning stress management techniques, we can begin to “teach” the hypothalamus what are really “live or die” scenarios in our modern world and begin to live with much less stress.

But that’s not true of all managers.  Some people are born to be good managers.  However, even good managers sometimes struggle with all the responsibilities.

I recently ran across the following article by Brian Tracy.  If you haven’t heard about Brian, you should check out his many books and programs relating to personal success.  He is an excellent motivator and a guru when it comes to setting and meeting goals.

Here is his article on managerial stress:

Dealing With Overwhelm

Too Much to Do, Too Little Time
The most common form of stress that managers experience is the feeling of being overwhelmed with far too much to do and having too little time to do it in. In fact, “time poverty” is the biggest single problem facing most managers in America today. We simply do not have enough time to fulfill all our responsibilities. Because of budget limitations, staff cutbacks, downsizing, and competitive pressures, individual managers are forced to take on more and more work, all of which appears to be indispensable to the smooth functioning of our company or department.

Become An Expert
The solution to this problem of work overload is for you to become an expert on time management. There is probably no other skill that you can learn that will give you a “bigger bang for the buck” than to become extremely knowledgeable and experienced in using time management practices.

Be Open to New Ideas
The most foolish manager of all is either the manager who feels that he has no time to learn about time management or, even worse, the manager who, while being overwhelmed with work, feels that he already knows all that he needs to know about the subject.

Never Stop Learning
The fact is that you can study time management and take time management courses for your entire business life and you will still never learn everything you need to know to get the most out of yourself while doing your job in the most efficient way.

The Keys to Time Management
The two indispensable keys to time management are: 1) the ability to set priorities; and 2) the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing at a time.

Since there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done, you must be continually setting priorities on your activities. Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “what is the most valuable use of my time right now?”

The Best Question of All
This question, “what is the most valuable use of my time right now?” will do more to keep you on track, hour by hour, than any other single question in the list of time management strategies.

Start With Your Top Tasks
The natural tendency for all of us is to major in minors and to give in to the temptation to clear up small things first. After all, small things are easier and they are often more fun than the big, important things that represent the most valuable use of your time.

However, the self-discipline of organizing your work and focusing on your highest value tasks is the starting point of getting your time under control and lowering your stress levels.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to get your time under control.

First, make a decision today to become an expert on time management. Read the books, listen to the audio programs, and take a time management course. Then, practice, practice, practice every day until you master time management skills.

Second, set clear priorities on your work each day, before you begin. Then, discipline yourself to start on your most important task and stay at that until it is complete. This will relieve much of your stress immediately.

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today. His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area. For more information, please visit Brian on the web at: www.BrianTracy.com

What to do?  They are many tactics you can use to help relieve office stress.  Remember our ABC Model?  You may not be able to change your activating events, but you can change your beliefs.  And your consequences will change as well.

Following are some tips you can use to help change your beliefs about your workplace stress.  Implement some of these tips, and you’re bound to have different consequences.

• Make a plan for the day.  Either start you day planning what you want to accomplish or do it at the end of the day before.  Having a roadmap will keep you from wandering on activities that don’t get you to your destination at the end of the day.
• When you’ve given the boss a full 8 hours of productive work, stop.  Really stop.  Don’t stay a few minutes more to finish up something, and certainly don’t take the work home.  As hard as it may be in this economic work environment, you need the time to unplug from work and rejuvenate yourself.  Give your family and personal activities your full attention.  You’ll be more productive the next day if you do.
• While at work, focus on only one activity at a time.  Multitasking is not productive.  It’s just doing many things poorly.  Actually this single item may be the biggest contributor to office stress.  Making progress toward completing several tasks through small incremental steps is not satisfying, and it keeps your mind continuously switching gears to get back in sync with each new activity.  Focus on one task, complete it, and savor the feeling of accomplishment.
• Use a to-do list.  Unload your subconscious mind of all the tasks it’s trying to remember to do.  Write it down.  There are several good time management programs around that can help you manage your workload.  Use something.  Anything.  But get it all down on paper or a computer.
• Work hard for a little while, then take a break.  Our minds can’t focus on a single task very long before wandering.  So instead of fighting that natural tendency, go with it.  Look outside, take a walk to the restroom, refresh your cup of coffee.  Do not read your email or browse on the internet.  These are each tasks that should be on your to-do list that you schedule specific time during the day to attack.  You’ll be sucked into either one if you start now and you’ll find yourself an hour later wondering where all the time went.
• When you do take a break, have something nearby that you can focus your attention on.  Family pictures, souvenirs from a recent vacation, even pictures for your next vacation all help to remind you of why you’re working.
• Finally, have something fun that can give you a little physical relief from the tedium of work.  Nerf waste basket hoops, squeeze balls, USB toys, or even a few chair exercises can help to give your mind a little rest and your body some new positions to experience, other than the one in your chair.

Office stress, especially on a long term basis, can cause numerous emotional and physical issues.  Don’t neglect the fact that your work environment could be causing issues at home or with others.  Take the time to evaluate your office environment to see if you’ve overlooked just how much stress you may be experiencing.

If you suffer from panic attacks, make sure you see a doctor to insure that your symptoms are not “the real thing”.  It makes it a little easier to go through panic attacks when you know you have been checked out and that there is nothing medically wrong with you.  Your doctor may even give you medication to help with the symptoms.  this is good for the short term, but it really doesn’t help for the long term.  If you don’t address the real causes of the attacks, then you’ll start having attacks simply because you’re afraid you won’t have your medicine around when your next attack develops.

If you want to try to eliminate the causes of your attacks, I’ve run across a product that gets rave reviews for not only it’s content, but also the sincerity of the help being offered.  This product is called Panic Away,and it’s available online.

Panic Away is a course that is designed to help you tackle the triggers to your attacks.  Joe Barry, the developer of the One Move Technique™, developed the course as a means to teach people to become free of medications and to return to having a normal life.

Sound like something you’d like to have?  Check out his website, read every word, and order his product.  You even get coaching sessions and numerous bonuses to help you apply the information presented in the course.

All at a reasonable price.  All in the privacy of your home.

Try it.  Remember there is an 8 week money back guarantee.  And you even have the opportunity to ask questions before purchasing the product.

All you have to lose are your panic attacks!

“Today’s economy is stressing people out, and stress has been linked to a number of illnesses – such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and increased risk for cancer.  This study shows that stress is also linked to weight gain.”

Some other findings of this study suggest that people who are already overweight get heavier with stress, but not for people who are lower weight.

There are also differences by gender. Women tend to eat more when stressed by financial problems or a difficult work environment, strained family relationships, and a feeling of being limited by life’s circumstances.

Weight gain for men tended to be more likely affected by work problems rather than family problems.  Examples include lacking decision authority or lack of skill discretion (the ability to learn new skills on the job and performing interesting work assignments).

“Our findings show that stress should be recognized as a threat to the well-being of adults, especially those who are already overweight.”

I’m not surprised at the findings.  Stress is such a negative influence in our lives that I would wager that most of the illnesses we suffer are a result of chronic stress.  I think it’s only a matter of time before more studies show the direct linkage.

I think the good news out of this study is that you first recognize that if you have a higher BMI (body mass index), then you need to be watchful of your eating patterns.  If you start to gain weight, take a moment to evaluate whether the stress in your life has changed, possibly increasing.  If so, take active steps to counteract the stress.  Take more walks, make sure you have healthy snacks around, and identify what activating event is causing your stress.

Knowledge is power.  Use it to your advantage.

Good stress is also known as eustress. The prefix “eu” means “good”. (Contrast that to “dis”, as in distress, being “bad”.)

For instance, let’s say that you are getting ready to make an important speech. All eyes will be on you and you want to do well. The stress accompanying this task causes you to focus on the speech and nothing else. As a result, you practice until you are comfortable with the words and relax to be able to deliver it.

The same goes for a big competition. Your nervousness leads to more intense practice sessions to get you ready. Your pulse quickens but it strengthens your resolve to do your best.

Any time that stress is related to physical activity it produces endorphins. Those who are involved in practices and big sporting competitions reap the reward of good feeling endorphins from the physical exertion. The endorphins make us want more of the same to keep us in that feel good mode.

Have you heard of the fight or flight response? It is what happens when we are scared or confronted by someone who may want to hurt us. Adrenalin is released. Our senses become more acute as the body prepares to hit the ground running or stand and fight.

In those moments, our basic instincts take over and we are primed for the best response in the situation. You hear about extraordinary situations where people have lifted cars off of their loved ones who were hurt in an accident. Or, someone thinks to use their cell phone to call from the trunk of a car when they’ve been kidnapped.

People wonder how someone can think of those things but it is the fight or flight response that occurs when we are in the midst of those harrowing experiences. This response extends to people like hostage negotiators who talk a kidnapper into releasing his hostages or the doctor who is performing emergency surgery to save a person’s life.

Good stressors abound in our lives but often go unnoticed in favor of the unhealthy stress. A dose of good stress can save our lives. Cultivate good stress in your life.