According to the National Institute of Mental Health, research has demonstrated that both ‘behavioral therapy’ and ‘cognitive therapy’ can be highly effective in treating anxiety disorders. Behavioral therapy involves using techniques to reduce or stop the undesired behavior associated with these disorders. For example, one approach involves training patients in relaxation and deep breathing techniques to counteract the agitation and hyperventilation (rapid, shallow breathing) that accompany certain anxiety disorders.

Through cognitive therapy, patients learn to understand how their thoughts contribute to the symptoms of anxiety disorders, and how to change those thought patterns to reduce the likelihood of occurrence and the intensity of reaction. The patient’s increased cognitive awareness is often combined with behavioral techniques to help the individual gradually confront and tolerate fearful situations in a controlled, safe environment.

Proper and effective medications may have a role in treatment along with psychotherapy. In cases where medications are used, the patient’s care may be managed collaboratively by a therapist and physician. It is important for patients to realize that there are side effects to any drugs, which must be monitored closely by the prescribing physician.
Can People With GAD Also Have Other Illnesses?
Research shows that GAD often coexists with depression, substance abuse, or other anxiety disorders. Other conditions associated with stress, such as irritable bowel syndrome, often accompany GAD. Patients with physical symptoms such as insomnia or headaches should also tell their doctors about their feelings of worry and tension. This will help the patient’s health care provider to recognize that the person is suffering from GAD.

Litter. Seat belts. Smoking. Women’s rights. Civil rights. No matter how petty or profound the cause, it takes a group of people who are willing to take action and stay the course until the culture advances.

If current health care policies and trends continue, studies show that by 2011, our nation will be spending more than $2.8 trillion on health care, nearly a fifth of our nation’s GDP. In today’s global economy, subsidizing expensive interventions that treat sickness rather than prevent it, is a burden no one can afford.

If we are serious about improving the quality and decreasing the cost of health care in this country…if we are serious about change…we must enlist the power of prevention.

These ten tips can help you reduce symptoms from seasonal nasal allergies:

1. Avoid outdoor activity between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. when pollen counts are the highest.
2. Schedule outdoor activities for the afternoon or after heavy rains, when pollen levels are lower.
3. Avoid grasses like Timothy, Johnson, Bermuda, Orchard, Sweet Vernal and Kentucky Bluegrass, which are known to produce allergenic pollen.
4. Avoid smaller flowers with little color, as they tend to cause more allergy symptoms. Brightly colored flowers that attract bees and other insects or hummingbirds are generally not allergenic.
5. Dry your freshly washed clothing in a household dryer- hanging clothes outside can allow pollen to collect on them.
6. Wash your hair after you have been outdoors if the pollen count is high that day.
7. Wash pillowcases regularly with hot water to remove pollen.
8. Keep doors and windows shut during the allergy season to help keep allergens out.
9. Maintain the air filters in your home and clean them often, especially during allergy season.
10. Carefully clean bookshelves, vents, windowsills and other areas where pollen can settle.

Why does it seem so hard to stop smoking?

Smoking causes changes in your body and in the way you act. The changes in your body are caused by an addiction to nicotine. The changes in the way you act developed over time as you bought cigarettes, lit them and smoked them. These changes have become your smoking habit.

When you have a smoking habit, many things seem to go along with having a cigarette. These might include having a cup of coffee or an alcoholic drink, being stressed or worried, talking on the phone, driving, socializing with friends or wanting something to do with your hands.

Immediate reasons to stop

• Bad breath and stained teeth
• Bad smell in clothes and hair and on skin
• Lower athletic ability
• Cough and sore throat
• Faster heartbeat and raised blood pressure
• Risk of second-hand smoke to people around you
• Cost of smoking

Long-term reasons to stop

• Toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke
• Risk of lung cancer and many other types of cancer
• Risk of heart disease
• Serious breathing problems
• Time lost working or having fun because you’re sick
• Wrinkles
• Risk of stomach ulcers and acid reflux
• Risk of gum disease
• Risk of damage to babies of pregnant women who smoke
• Setting a bad example for your children

How can I stop smoking?

You’ll have the best chance of stopping if you do the following:

• Get ready.
• Get support and encouragement.
• Learn how to handle stress and the urge to smoke.
• Get medication and use it correctly.
• Be prepared for relapse.
• Keep trying.

What is high blood pressure?

Imagine that your arteries are pipes that carry blood from your heart to the rest of your body. High blood pressure (also called hypertension) occurs when your blood moves through your arteries at a higher pressure than normal.

What do the numbers mean?

Blood pressure is really two measurements, separated by a slash when written down, such as 120/80. You may also hear someone say a blood pressure is “120 over 80.”

The first number is the systolic blood pressure. This is the peak blood pressure when your heart is squeezing blood out. The second number is the diastolic blood pressure. It’s the pressure when your heart is filling with blood–relaxing between beats.

A normal blood pressure is 120/80 or lower. High blood pressure is 140/90 or higher. If your blood pressure is between 120/80 and 140/90, you have something called “prehypertension.”

How is high blood pressure diagnosed?

Blood pressure is measured by putting a blood pressure cuff around your arm, inflating the cuff and listening for the flow of blood. Your doctor will measure your blood pressure at more than one visit to see if you have high blood pressure.

How often should I have my blood pressure checked?

Even in children, blood pressure should be checked occasionally, beginning at about age 2. After age 21, have your blood pressure checked at least once every 2 years. Do it more often if you have had high blood pressure in the past.

What problems does high blood pressure cause?

High blood pressure damages your blood vessels. This in turn raises your risk of stroke, kidney failure, heart disease and heart attack.

Does it have any symptoms?

Not usually. This is why it’s so important to have your blood pressure checked regularly.

How is it treated?

Treatment begins with changes you can make to your lifestyle to help lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease (see the box below). If these changes don’t work, you may also need to take medicine.

Even if you must take medicine, making some changes in your lifestyle can help reduce the amount of medicine you must take.

Lifestyle changes

• Don’t smoke cigarettes or use any tobacco product.
• Lose weight if you’re overweight.
• Exercise regularly.
• Eat a healthy diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables and is low in fat.
• Limit your sodium, alcohol and caffeine intake.
• Try relaxation techniques or biofeedback.

What is depression?

When doctors talk about depression, they mean the medical illness called major depression. Someone with major depression has symptoms like those listed in the box below nearly every day, all day, for 2 weeks or longer.

If you’re depressed, you may also have headaches, other aches and pains, digestive problems and problems with sex. An older person with depression may feel confused or have trouble understanding simple requests.

Symptoms of depression

• Feeling sad, hopeless and having frequent crying spells
• Losing interest or pleasure in things you used to enjoy (including sex)
• Feeling guilty, helpless or worthless
• Thinking about death or suicide
• Sleeping too much, or having problems sleeping
• Loss of appetite and unintended weight loss or gain
• Feeling very tired all the time
• Having trouble paying attention and making decisions
• Having aches and pains that don’t get better with treatment
• Feeling restless, irritated and easily annoyed

What causes depression?

Depression seems to be related to a chemical imbalance in the brain that makes it hard for the cells to communicate with one another. Depression also seems to be hereditary (to run in families).

Depression can be linked to stressful events in your life, such as the death of someone you love, a divorce or loss of a job. Taking certain medicines, abusing drugs or alcohol or having other illnesses can also lead to depression. Depression isn’t caused by personal weakness, laziness or lack of willpower.

How is depression diagnosed?

If you’re having symptoms of depression, be sure to tell your doctor so you can get help. Don’t expect your doctor to be able to guess that you’re depressed just by looking at you. The sooner you seek treatment, the sooner the depression will lift.

Once you tell your doctor how you’re feeling, he or she may ask you some questions about your symptoms, about your health and about your family history of health problems. Your doctor may also give you a physical exam and do some tests.

The fact is that both D.O.s and M.D.s are fully qualified physicians licensed to prescribe medication and perform surgery. Is there any difference between these two kinds of physicians? Yes. And no.

D.O.s and M.D.s are alike in many ways:
• Applicants to both D.O. and M.D. medical colleges typically have four-year undergraduate degrees with an emphasis on scientific courses.
• Both D.O.s and M.D.s complete four years of basic medical education.
• After medical school, both D.O.s and M.D.s obtain graduate medical education through such programs as internships and residencies. This training typically lasts three to six years and prepares D.O.s and M.D.s to practice a specialty.
• Both D.O.s and M.D.s can choose to practice in any specialty area of medicine-such as pediatrics, family practice, psychiatry, surgery or obstetrics.
• D.O.s and M.D.s must pass comparable examinations to obtain state licenses.
• D.O.s and M.D.s both practice in fully accredited and licensed health care facilities.
• Together, D.O.s and M.D.s enhance the state of health care available in America.
D.O.s, however, belong to a separate yet equal branch of American medical care. It is the ways that D.O.s and M.D.s are different that can bring an extra dimension to your family’s health care.
D.O.’s are Osteopathic Physicians who are fully educated and licensed to practice all aspects of medicine. They are Osteopathic Physician who are certified to specialize in Family Medicine and all of the other medical specialties and sub-specialties.
They treat patients and prescribe medicine in offices and hospitals across the country and int he U.S. armed services. They use all of the resources of modern medicine to prevent, detect, and treat disease, but they offer their patients something extra.
Osteopathic Family Physicians provide disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies to you and your family through all of life’s stages, from infancy to end-of-life.
Osteopathic Family Physicians hold the following principles as central to their practice of medicine:
-You are a person who is a unification of body, mind and spirit.
-Your body, when properly treated and maintained, is capable of self-regulation, self-maintenance, and self-healing.
-If all of the parts of your body are functioning optimally you will maintain the highest possible level of health, that is, structure and function of the body are interrelated.
Because Osteopathic Family Physicians have an appreciation for the interrelationship between body, mind, and spirit they can provide you with the most holistic and comprehensive medical care available.
Their appreciation of the relationship between structure and function and use of OMT allow them to diagnose and effectively treat conditions that elude non-osteopathic clinicians.
Your Osteopathic Family Physician treats you , the whole person, not just a disease or its symptoms.