Psychosomatic Disorders, When Thoughts Cause Physical Illness

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Stress is a common thing that happens to everyone. However, be careful if stress is allowed because it can cause various health problems, including psychosomatic disorders. The disease can appear or even exacerbate certain symptoms or physical complaints, such as pain.

Psychosomatic consists of two words, mind (psyche) and body (soma). Psychosomatic disorder is a disease that involves the mind and body, where the mind affects the body until the disease appears or becomes worse. The term psychosomatic disorder is used to express physical complaints that are suspected to be caused or exacerbated by psychic or mental factors, such as stress and anxiety.

Whereas in psychological terms, psychosomatic or "functional" disease is a condition that causes pain and problems in body function, although no abnormalities found in physical examination, nor investigations such as X-rays or blood tests.

How Does Mind Influence Disease?

As is known, the mind can cause the appearance of symptoms or changes in a person's physical. For example, when feeling fear or anxiety, can cause signs such as heartbeat to be fast, palpitations, nausea or vomiting, tremor, sweating, dry mouth, chest pain, headache, abdominal pain , rapid breathing, muscle aches, or back pain. Physical symptoms are caused by increased electrical activity or nerve impulses from the brain to various parts of the body. In addition, the release of adrenaline (epinephrine) into the bloodstream can also cause the above physical symptoms.

Until now, how exactly the mind can cause certain symptoms and affect physical illness, such as skin rash or high blood, is not known clearly. Nerve impulses that travel to parts of the body or brain, allegedly can affect certain cells in the immune system, causing symptoms of the disease. But the whole thing is still not understood correctly.

Psychosomatic disease

When the mental factors produce symptoms of the disease, but the disease itself can not be found or detected physically, or complain of illness that does not match the symptoms, these conditions are grouped in psychosomatic disorders. Psychosomatic complaints are sometimes difficult to recognize, either by the sufferers themselves or by the physician, as they do not show specific signs and symptoms. But one thing is certain, this disorder can cause real problems for patients and people around him.

Certain diseases are proven to be exacerbated by a person's mental state. For example in psoriasis disease, peptic ulcers, high blood pressure, diabetes, and eczema. The condition of the disease is not uncommon to relapse or the more severe when the sufferer experience stress or anxiety. But the physical condition is apparent and in physical examination will be detected by the doctor.

In contrast to psychosomatic disorders, symptoms that appear and signs of physical abnormalities found in the sufferer is not always clear, and undetectable by the doctor. However, the complaints and effects of the disorder are felt by the patient. This is what causes psychosomatic disorders sometimes difficult to detect.

How to Overcome Psychosomatic

Psychosomatic disorders can be overcome or alleviated by several methods of therapy and treatment, such as:

• Psychotherapy, one of them with the method of behavioral cognitive therapy.
• Relaxation or meditation practice.
• Transfer technique.
• Acupuncture.
• Hypnosis or hypnotherapy.
• Electrical therapy, ie by transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS).
• Physiotherapy.
• Drugs, such as antidepressants or painkillers prescribed by a doctor.

In the method of behavioral cognitive therapy, psychosomatic disorder sufferers will be asked to find out what things can aggravate the symptoms. This therapy can help alleviate excessive thinking, as well as handle feelings and behaviors related to the symptoms of the disease experienced.

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Psychosomatic disorder is a type of disorder that should be handled by a psychiatrist, and not infrequently psychosomatic disorders require a combination of psychotherapy with medical drugs. Although not physically visible, this psychosomatic complaint poses a real problem for the sufferer. If you or someone you know is suspected of having a psychosomatic disorder, you should consult a psychiatrist for further testing and treatment.