PsychSense: Sensible Psychological Solutions

Sooner or later most of us will be called upon to deal with some type of emergency or crisis. Do you have confidence that if such an event happened to you, you would be able to deal with it? If not here are a few hints to help you.

Do you suffer from regrets, or the “shouda’s”?  Do you look back on the choices you made in life and beat yourself up?  Regrets are a problem for many of us,  especially when we are trying to change  something about ourselves.  Our thoughts often go, “If I must change  that means I have been doing it all wrong, all along. Yuk!

Regrets can cause a lot of heartache and emotional distress making us vulnerable to crises.

I ran across what I think is a very article about regrets, that I wanted to share with you. Decreasing regrets will reduce your stress and expand your coping skills!

Lets face it, as much as we would like to, we can’t always avoid stress. Many times we are told to “reduce the stress in your life”; this is so much easier said then done! However, some factors have been identified that can help us deal with the inevitable stressors of live and protect against developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a Crisis. Research has shown that theses factors will help in making you more stress resistant.

1. Getting lots of physical exercise

2. Using active coping skills

3. Remaining positive in your outlook

The main cause of PTSD is exposure to a severe stress that results in fear and helplessness. The stress may be caused by intentional or unintentional human actions or nature. Intentional trauma is thought by some to be more traumatic then unintentional harm. A partial listing of possible stressors is below.

 Intentional traumas

•  War 
• Abuse, sexual and physical
• Personal assault
• Hostage
• Terrorism
• Kidnapping
• Victim Crime
• Witness to violence (murder/ suicide)

 Unintentional traumas and natural disasters

• Fires

• Accidents

I learned some tricks to deal with anxiety  quite by accident when I found  myself in a situation that was very stressful.  I was called on to testify in court for the first time, boy did I work myself up with my thoughts. Just before  I was to go on the witness stand , I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick from anxiety. As I came close to panic I realized that I needed to get a hold of my self as this was something I must do.

Here are 8 quick tips that will help you stay calm, communicate well, and provide psychological or Mental Health First Aid in and emergency or crisis.

Remember the story of the emperor’s new clothes?  Although this is a fairy tale, there are some important principles about human behavior that can be learned from it. One lesson is that if you want to believe something badly enough, you can convince yourself (and others) that it is true. This idea can be used to help you stay calm during a crisis. Here are some tips about making yourself believe in yourself.!  Fake  it till you make it!

This blog is an extension and elaboration of the concepts in my book Behavioral First Aid: Managing Emotions during Emergencies. Here we will discuss how to use words to calm others (and ourselves), mental health issues in general, and communication related topics. I love to talk about talking and here is my favorite quote reminding us how hard this really can be.

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” – Robert McCloskey

I will post on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Please join the discussion.