PTSD – A Debilitating Mental Condition

PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) is a debilitating mental condition. PTSD sufferers may feel like they can never return to their normal self because of an inability to move past the distressing incident that triggered the trauma. Traumatized people whether affected by PTSD or not, have a higher tendency towards using alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and towards developing Eating Disorders, OCD, and Dissociative Disorders.

In earlier times, beginning with the Civil War, PTSD was known as -Da Costa’s syndrome.- The anxiety disorder has also been known by alternate terms such as -battle fatigue- or -shell shock- owing to its link with military service. Now, it is understood that PTSD is not just a wartime disorder but can develop in anyone who has experienced or witnessed a very traumatic event. Events of this nature include kidnapping, rape or sexual abuse, plane/car crash, medical procedures, or neglect in childhood.

C-PTSD (Complex post-traumatic disorder) arises from continued exposure to a traumatic happening or sequence of traumatic events. In this case, the patient experiences long-lasting issues in social and emotional functioning.

Symptoms of PTSD

Provided below are some of the symptoms of PTSD that help in diagnosing the disorder. From the symptoms, it is easy to understand how much the disorder can affect a person’s health and happiness.

Avoiding places, feelings, thoughts or activities that remind the person of the traumatic event
Frightening thoughts
Nightmares
Outbursts of anger/irritability
Hopelesness and/or severe depression
Difficulty concentrating
Emotional numbness
Substance abuse
Stomach problems, headaches, chest pain, dizziness
Reduction in interest in life and usual activities
Finding it difficult to fall asleep or to get back to sleep after waking up in between
Hypervigilance
Detachment from people

Effective Treatment- Comprehensive and Individualized

Different kinds of treatment are available for post-traumatic stress disorder namely Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), trauma focused CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy), family therapy, group therapy, attachment therapy, exposure therapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy and medication management.

Treatment for PTSD which can be quite a debilitating condition should be comprehensive- involving the client’s support system, body, mind, and spirit and should be highly individualized.

PTSD – Castlewood, a residential eating disorder treatment center in St. Louis, Missouri, provides comprehensive eating disorder treatment and anxiety treatment.

Mental Maths Activities That Are Beneficial

Considered a complex subject, most students find it intimidating and for most of them, as they age, it becomes more complicated. Though this is the case, it is an important part of life as it equips them with the necessary skills to face real life.

Easy Answers
Mental maths should be introduced from kindergarten grades to students who have a lower capacity of understanding maths. This should be done with easy to answer questions. If it is in a class setting, then the students should be presented with simplified math equations and the first one to get the right answer should shout it out. As this progress, it will eventually reach a point where the entire class shouts out the right answer as a team. As they age and get more equations correctly, then more complex math should be introduced. In this instance, students can use time tables, basic algebra and division facts. For instance this could be something that Y plus four equals 10 and the students should answer what Y is.

Complex Math
A large percentage of maths used in day to day life is mental math tricks. For instance, someone working at a store should figure out what 60% of $20 is, a driver is supposed to figure out how many hours he will drive to cover a 230 mile trip among others. This proves that math is an important part of life and as such, it is ideal to ensure that students solve mental maths equation every day. However, when carrying this out, it is important to ensure that it is age appropriate. For seventh graders 60% of $ 230 is ideal while for fourth graders 10% of 100 is appropriate. Students should be given the time to read the equation and work it out before providing the answers.

Story Problems
This is another important mental maths activity to indulge in. It should be on situational stories and students should be encouraged to work them out mentally. Also known as multi-mental math they are the best. This is attributed to the fact that they require more thought for the answer to be processed as well as mimicking the manner in which maths is used in real life situations. However, it is important to outline the equation in a manner that is easy to understand. Though challenging, these simple mannerisms when employed in the right manner, help students develop an instinctive accuracy handling mental maths.

Working On Both Softball Drills And Mental Conditioning Drills Make You A Better Player

There is no denying that every softball player has only one main goal and that it is to be recognized as one of the best softball players in their generation. This might seem so hard to reach at first but if you have the determination to reach your success then you will become willing to do everything. It is always said that softball drills will help you to increase your skills and abilities needed in the game. But, physical strength is not the only important thing in this sport. Your mind has also an important role in becoming an effective softball player.

This is the reason why it is not enough to practice different softball drills without increasing your mental abilities. You should know that having an alert mind will help you to make quick decisions when you are in the middle of the game. Some of the mental skills that you need to increase are your concentration, focus, decision making, analytical thinking and plan making.

Thus, when you are having your training, you should incorporate some conditioning drills which can help you improve your mental abilities. Focus is very significant in playing the game regardless of your position. The best way to increase your focus is to practice the muscle eye movement and direction. You should also learn to anticipate the future action of your opponent so that you can prepare three back up plans as counter part of their action.

Softball is a pressurized game. You will feel the pressure once you step inside the field. Much more if you are the star player because you will aim to perform better so that your team will win in the game. Yet, you should not let the pressure to affect your performance. You should act naturally even if you feel nervous. Just focus on what you are doing so that you can do the appropriate action required in a certain game situation.

Actually pressure is a normal part of every game but you should learn how to minimize the pressure. Also, do not let your attention to be disturbed by the audience. As long as you have the air of confidence, you have nothing to worry about.

There are lots of conditioning drills which you can incorporate in your training. These conditioning drills are proven effective to make every softball player to be alert throughout their practice game. A good coach will let his players to develop not only their physical aspect but also their mental abilities. After all these two things work hand in hand in order to dominate the game.

Searching the internet can help you learn some of the effective conditioning drills that will test your mental skills. As a matter of fact, the internet is a better source than books because this can give fresh and new ideas on softball drills as well as mind conditioning activities to make the level of your performance better than before. But of course, you have to make the right choice to make sure of your success in the end.

Save Money How Outsourcing Your Medical And Mental Health Billing Can Save You Money

Outsourcing your mental health and medical billing can save you money whether you are a professional that has been doing it yourself or whether you have hired staff to do it.

Outsourcing your billing vs. Do-It-Yourself billing

Many mental health professionals start out their practices doing their own mental health billing. It is not a bad practice for someone in private practice to learn how to do their own billing in order to have a better understanding of the whole business. But is it really cost effective to continue doing the billing yourself after you have some clients and understand the billing process?

One thing a professional needs to figure out is how much is the professionals time is worth? If you average $100 per client session, your time should be worth at least $50 per hour. If you can hire someone to do your billing for a fraction of that, it makes far more business sense for you to spend time learning inexpensive ways to market and build your practice with paying clients, rather than to personally take care of the administrative hassles involved in billing insurance companies.

Once you find an effective biller who uses the best technology, you can get paid faster with much less time spent on billing. You can spend time building your practice and in the long run will make far more money than doing the billing yourself. To build a successful practice, you are far better off developing an efficient system for working with a good biller than to continue doing the billing yourself.

Outsourcing your billing vs. hiring your own staff:

Hiring your own staff is expensive and time consuming. You are likely to need extra office space to accomodate your billing staff. Hiring staff will require you to spend time and money on payroll and payroll taxes, as well as requiring you to comply with additional laws regarding employees/employers. To find and keep an experienced biller you will need to pay the biller far above minimum wage, and then staff retention may still be an issue.

When you use an effective, efficient medical billing service, you get the benefit of the billers specialization and experience. Your billing service learns things from other clients, not just from you and is independent enough to require little training on your part. You can hire a billing service as a “business associate” paying per claim, per service, or as a percent of what is collected. You can control your costs.

Mental Fatigue And Exhaustion

Stress and physical exertion contribute to fatigue and exhaustuon and if this is not checked it can devlope into chronic fatigue syndrome the pace of daily life has and impact on the body and the emotions.

1. Supta baddhankonasana using a bolster and folder blanket to support the head and neck and a strap to keep the feet close to the body.

2. Supta virasana with as much support as is needed placed under the spine neck and head to allow the back and knees to release keep the chest open and up and the soulders relaxed and back.

3. Virasana with parvatasana extending the palms towards the celling .

4. Adho mukha virasana with the head and trunk supported on a bolster and or blanket.

5. Pascimottansasana withe the forhead supported on a stool to aviid straining the back.

6. Standing Maricyasana using the wall and the stool for support.

7.Janusirsasana with the head elbows and knee supported on bolsters and using a strap.

8. Maricyasana i stitting on a support to aid the lift of the spine and turning the chest.

9. Bharadvajasana !chair! using the chair to increase the turn. Keep the leet on the floor. parallel to one another, to stabilize the hips. Turn from the waist, moving a little more with each exhalation.

10. Tadasana standing against a walL Use the wall to aid balance, keeping the feet parallel and together and the heels against the walL Lift the chest, keeping the face and eyes 50ft.

11. Adho Mukha Svanasana with the head supported on a bolster to calm the brain.

12. Ardha Halasana with the legs supported on foam blocks on a stool, and the brain quiet.

13. Viparita Karani using a wooden block and a bolster to support the lower back and hips.

14. Savasana with the head and neck supported on a folded blanket. and bandaged eyes.