Parenting Teens Blog

October 30, 2010

Teen RSI – Repetitive Stress Injuries

Filed under: Teen Health — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 9:45 pm

RSI or repetitive stress injuries have nothing to do with mental stress like some may believe because of the name. Yes, constant mental stress can cause serious mental issues, but RSI is about physical stress and it happens if a certain part of the body is constantly under a lot of repetitive stress. RSI can result in pain spots, inflammation, swelling and tissue damage.

RSI is most common for working habits than for sport related injuries, but it can also happen in certain sports like tennis. The current issues are teens and computer work as this is the most common cause lately of RSI.

Repetitive movements like constant typing or holding the computer mouse each day for several hours can lead to serious inflammation and chronic pain and tissue damage. The biggest problem is with stress being constant and repeating the strain on the joints can cause permanent damage without chance of recovery. Besides keyboard use and mouse, teens also tend to get RSI from message texting on their cell phones.

But it’s not all about movements and repetition, genetics and nutrition, the healthy life style have a major role to play as well. Some symptoms known for RSI are numbness, pain in the area affected, soreness, stiffness in the neck, fatigue, weak arms and hands and clicking sensation with sudden movement.

Any of these signs should be followed by an urgent appointment with your doctor as the early treatment is the only chance of full recovery without permanent consequences. Repetitive stress injuries will get worse over time and they will lead to more problems that will eventually cause us issues with every day chores.

The best medication is prevention, so make sure that if you are using a computer that you hold your posture, purchase anatomic chairs and don’t spend more than 30 minutes without breaking the repetition of your movements. As far as the spot injuries go you should leave that to your physical examiner as every team sport requires frequent medical exams. But if you feel any of the symptoms be sure to check up on that.

When you go to the doctor he will assess the situation and the seriousness of the RSI progress. But like we said, there are several things that influence the development of RSI so besides getting an X-ray and physical examination your doctor will also check your medical history, family health, allergies and any medication that you are taking as they may also be the cause of the symptoms.

If it turns out that you have repetitive stress injuries you will either use anti-inflammatory medication or even be sent to a rehabilitation program and physical therapy, all depending on the progress of RSI.

Like we said, prevention of repetitive stress injuries is the best medication, so take care of your health.

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October 28, 2010

Dealing With Social Phobia

Filed under: behavior problems — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 9:01 pm

Social Anxiety or Social Phobia is a serious anxiety issue that usually teens develop, but this is an issue that can continue through adulthood if not treated. Social Phobia involves impossible feelings of being shy and is followed by a fear of social interaction with strangers. This can severally influence a person’s social life and the possibility of forming a serious relationship.

Teens that have social phobia usually have no problems communicating with family members, close friends from early childhood, they have issues with new people, group events, and especially speaking or performing in front of a public.

These extreme feelings of shyness and fears of being embarrassed will get in the way of anyone’s life, and if a teen lives through these traumas they can cause major consequences. Teens with social phobia can never enjoy social activities; in most cases they will try to avoid each and every last one of them.

Teens with social phobia are lonely, depressed, disappointed and they offer feel sorry for not being able to participate in a social event, they wish to do it but they simply can’t gather the courage.

This is rather a tricky issue when it comes to school as teens with social phobia have issues with interaction during the class. A highly intelligent teen can appear stupid or ignorant because he or she is ashamed to answer a question or take part in a class discussion. Some may be even too frightened to ask a teacher for help.

Social phobia can also prevent teens from many other events a teen should simply enjoy in those years, like playing a team sport, auditioning for a play, joining a project with his classmates.

Social phobia is developed in early childhood like most types of phobias. It is normally a combination of things that causes teen social phobia like genetics, learned behavior, other experiences and events can all contribute to developing of social phobia.

A teen with social phobia cannot overcome this issue on his own, professional help and treatment is needed in order to get the teen to open up and try to interact with others. With proper treatment teens with social phobia can manage to cope with their fears and they can develop confidence and self esteem needed to engage new people and join social events and gatherings.

But treatment will be hard if not impossible if the person with social phobia doesn’t have a true wish to overcome those fears. It is important to encourage your teen if he or she suffers from social phobia and get him or her to face fears and try and change for the better, as the alternative may mean the life of solitude.

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October 26, 2010

Dealing With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Filed under: PTSD — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 7:45 pm


PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder usually develops after a major trauma or a stressful event. Any type of traumatic experience as a robbery, car accident, death of a loved one, rape, abuse, or even a natural disaster like an earthquake cam cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

A person doesn’t necessarily have to be the one to actually experience any trauma; some people who have simply witnessed any of these events develop PTSD. It happens because some people react different than others; a person witnessing a car accident may feel intense fear that will later develop into PTSD.

PTSD can develop instantly, but in most cases it develops gradually after some time. It doesn’t matter when it happens the symptoms of Post traumatic Stress Disorder are the same. Here are the basic PTSD symptoms, with this you can recognize if you have PTSD.

- In most cases people with PTSD constantly relive the event that caused the trauma; this is the number one symptom, the most common symptom of people with PTSD. That can be anything from dreams, flashbacks to mental images.

- Another symptom that is very usual for people with PTSD is to avoid places or people or things that remind them of the trauma. Also most of them hate talking about the event that started all of it.

- Some people with PTSD develop emotional numbness where they literally don’t feel a thing about the once dearest things to them, as well as people. They detach themselves from the rest of the world and sometime seek solitude and loneliness.

- Other on the other hand may be ultra sensitive showing the signs of a nervous breakdown. Feeling jumpy and anxious all the time as well as having constant trouble sleeping or developing insomnia.

Unfortunately Post traumatic Stress Disorder is not a thing that goes away on its own, that rarely happens, which is why getting treatment as soon as you recognize PTSD is critical, or you or the person with PTSD will have a hard time leading a normal life.

The best course of action is to hire a professional therapist that specializes in dealing with PTSD as having PTSD patients are hard to work with and they require a special kind of approach that will allow the patient to gain trust.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be treated, in many cases people get out of treatment stronger than they were before the trauma took place. The most important thing is to seek professional help if one or more signs of PTSD show up, also it is always advisable to talk to a professional counselor after witnessing or being in a trauma causing event.

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October 24, 2010

How to Improve Your Self Esteem

Filed under: Teen Inspiration — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 7:45 pm

The love we feel for ourselves and generally how we feel about ourselves has a great influence on our overall happiness and our ability to function in a relationship. If we have confidence we are more likely to achieve something. Generally, self confidence is needed for us, of course being over confident can lead to bad things, but self esteem help us accept who we are and helps us live our life the way we’re supposed to.

Improving self esteem can be hard for some, but anyone can do it with some help. The first step in improving your self esteem is to think better of yourself. Yeah it can be hard, especially if you feel depressed, but if you focus on your shortcomings and underachievement’s you will never achieve anything good, and we all want to achieve something.

A challenge I used to do is write 10 things I enjoy in life each day, things that make me happy, things about myself that I like. That can greatly boost your confidence and your self esteem.

One thing that will also help you feel better about yourself is to have realistic goals. Aim for real things, aim to accomplish something, not to achieve perfection. If we set our goals too high we are bound to fail sooner or later. So setting realistic goals will help us achieve them and it will boost our confidence.

Another thing you need to focus is how you deal with failures. Don’t let them get you down; a failure is a place to learn. Mistakes can be your opportunities. If you make a mistake once you can learn and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Generally trying new things and experiment is a good thing to start with. It can be scary at first if you are not used to that sort of thing but you never know what you might like until you try. Developing a skill or finding something that fulfills you will not fall out of the sky, you have to work for it.

Of course it’s always good to do a reality check. Some things can be changed, some can’t. Learn how to recognize reality as we already said. Trying to change the impossible will not improve your confidence.

Exercise, have fun, go out, socialize, do anything that feels good. Jog or walk in the park, do yoga, read books, start a blog, write a poem, grow flowers, do anything that makes you feel better about yourself.

Self esteem is important to all of us, things are much easier if we think and feel good about ourselves. So if you have issues with your confidence and your self esteem these tips can help you improve it.
 

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October 23, 2010

5 Simple Steps That Will Help You Set Your Goals

Filed under: Teen Inspiration — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 6:49 pm

Setting goals is very important; it helps us identify what we want and how to achieve that. When we have a goal it is much easier to focus towards success as a goal is used as motivation, as a stepping stone builder and as a place to start with. Having a goal can benefit everyone, being that a small goal or a life long goal. So here are 5 simple steps that will help you set and achieve your goals.

-    The first step is about the actual goal. When you think of a goal, think of something realistic, we are not talking about fantasies here, we are talking about specific and actual realistic goals. If you have a specific goal it will be much easier to achieve it. If your goal is to get rich there are countless ways to do that, but if your goal is to get rich by inventing something that is a different story. A specific idea and a specific goal is the first step to achieving that goal. Start from a broad goal like getting rich and work towards the question how you can achieve that or how you like would to achieve that.
-    A goal usually requires some changes to be made and some habits to be set. Like if you want to lose 10 pounds by the end of the year and you plan to do that by jogging each morning. It may be hard to get up an hour earlier in the beginning, but after a few weeks your body and mind will get used to the idea and it will be much easier to work towards your goal. So stay consistent in your first weeks until the habit and routine kick in.
-     Motivating yourself by reminding yourself constantly what is your goal and why you want to achieve that goal is an essential step in reaching your goal. Motivation is the better half of success, without motivation it will be extremely hard to achieve your goal.
-    You have to set the difference between your own personal goals and the desires of others that have been forced on you as your goals. It is ok to want to please someone, but that is not your goal. Try to distinguish the difference between your parents wanting you to go to Stafford and your true wish to go to a local college near home. Think it through, but make a clear difference between what you want and what other people want for you.
-    Embrace your mistakes and learn from them. That’s right, you will have failures, you will make mistakes on the way to the end line, but the difference will be whether you learn from them or avoid them.

We all need goals in life, for some of us they are a great way to keep track of who we are and where we are going. For others they are simply a light beacon to keep us directed. But each person with a goal is a person with success in mind, and striving to have a goal is the first step and achieving a goal, any goal.
 

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