Psychoworld.sk – human psychology news

Many experts believe smoking is only about 10% physical addiction and a whopping 90% psychological addiction. Your body will recover fairly quickly from nicotine withdrawals (the worst symptoms usually abate in three days or less), but your psychological dependency on cigarettes can be much more difficult to defeat.

One way to combat this is to do a bit of self-analysis before giving up cigarettes.

Make a list with two columns. Label column one “Why I Started Smoking” and label column two “Why I Want To Quit Smoking.”

In column one, list all the reasons you can remember as to why you started smoking in the first place. Was it peer pressure? Rebellion? Did you think it made you look cool? Did it make you feel like a grown-up? Really try to remember the exact reasons why you started smoking and write them all down.

Now look over that list. Do any of those reasons still apply in your life today? Probably not.

If you’re like most people, you will see that your reasons for becoming a smoker are no longer valid, are often just silly, and are easily outweighed by the risks to your health and your family’s well-being.

So let’s move on to column two… Why do you want to quit smoking?

This one may seem obvious, but it can be a bit tricky. You really need to take some time and think hard about this. Don’t just list the obvious health reasons. You’ve been reading the Surgeon General’s warnings for years with little effect, so you need to come up with reasons that truly have meaning for you.

The things most people write down will NOT help you quit smoking…

- I don’t want to get lung cancer.
- I don’t want to have a heart attack or a stroke.
- I’d like to live long enough to see my grandchildren grow up.

Those are all good reasons to quit smoking, certainly… but they deal in “possibilities” rather than in specifics.

Sure you MIGHT get lung cancer, you MIGHT have a heart attack or a stroke, you MIGHT die young and miss out on seeing your grandchildren grow up…

…or you MIGHT NOT! You’re not likely to break a strong psychological addiction based on what MIGHT happen. Your mind will work hard to convince you that it won’t happen to you! Instead, list health problems that you are already experiencing.

Your list should point out things in your life that you are actively unhappy about and are STRONGLY MOTIVATED to change. In order to break your psychological addiction, you need an arsenal of new thoughts and desires that are stronger than your desire to smoke!

Here are the types of things you want to put in column two…

Why Do I Want To Quit Smoking?

1. Health Reasons

- I get so out of breath when I exert myself even a little bit. Just vacuuming the house makes me pant and gasp.

- My feet are always cold. This could be due to high blood pressure and poor circulation associated with smoking.

- I have a nasty wet cough and I have to blow my nose way too often. Mucus build-up is the body’s reaction to all the toxins and chemicals in cigarette smoke and could be a precursor to serious respiratory disease. Even if I don’t get cancer, I don’t want to be one of those people who has to tote oxygen bottles around everywhere.

- I’m always tired. Could it be that my body is using up all its energy trying to eliminate the toxins and chemicals from cigarettes?

2. Vanity Reasons

- Smoking causes premature aging and drying of the skin. I don’t want to look like a wrinkled up old prune!

- My fingers, fingernails and teeth are all tobacco stained. Disgusting! How embarrassing.

- When I get on the elevator after a smoke break at work, everyone wrinkles their nose and tries to edge away from me because I reek of cigarette smoke. I feel like a pariah. It’s embarrassing to always be the big “stinker” on the elevator. I feel like I have no self-control.

- My breath is awful. Kissing me must be like kissing an ashtray. I spend a fortune on breath mints.

3. Financial Reasons

- If I save all the money I used to spend on cigarettes, I’ll have enough to take a vacation in Cancun (or some other warm tropical place) every winter!

- I could use the money to pay off my credit cards!

- I could donate money to my favorite charity or sponsor a child. My cigarette money could make the world a better place!

4. Family Reasons

- My family can stop worrying about me.

- My spouse will have to find something new to nag me about. Just kidding, honey!

- My children will be proud of me and (hopefully) they’ll never start smoking themselves, having seen firsthand what a nasty destructive habit it is.

5. Cleanliness Reasons

- The walls used to be white. Now they’re a nasty dirty-looking brown. I need to repaint… again!

- I stink, my car stinks, my house stinks, everything I own reeks of cigarette smoke. I can’t even lend a book to a non-smoking friend because they can’t stand the smell of smoke permeating the pages!

Do you see yourself in any of the items listed? You may have many more reasons of your own. Find as many compelling and emotional reasons to pursue smoking cessation as you can think of and write them all down. To quit smoking, you need YOUR reason to kick the nicotine habit.

If you can re-train your mind to think of smoking as a silly and self-destructive thing to do, then you’re almost sure to succeed. And if you need something to do with your hands… try knitting!

Forget child abuse: more and more Korean children abuse their own mothers, swearing at, hitting and kicking them.

Most are boys, from preschoolers to those in fifth and sixth grades in elementary school and junior high school students. Anything can set them off, from being ordered to stop playing computer games to being told to eat. The language they use is foul, including threats to kill their mother, and some spit and even beat their mothers black and blue.

Samsung Medical Center’s child psychology unit in Seoul saw 585 of 1,010 patients over the last two months for behavioral disorders and emotional disturbance. The major reason for admission was extreme defiance of their mothers and behavioral problems.

Why do these children turn on their mothers? Experts say the phenomenon is uniquely Korean.Mothers are the victims but also the cause. What is common to children who use violence against their mothers is excessive intervention by the mother in the life of their children.

“Children who beat their mother in most cases come from families where the relationship between mother and father is closed,” psychiatrist Park Jin-saeng said. “When the father is the sole breadwinner and the mother is completely in charge of taking care of and educating the child, the mother often tends to control her child’s everyday affairs, starting from study to friends and even the color of socks he or she wears.”

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For decades, religion and psychotherapy – like oil and water – did not mix. Clinical psychologists kept spirituality and religion out of their practice, while some religious people looked askance at psychotherapy.

Not anymore.

Mental health professionals and religious workers are breaking out of their traditional ways to adopt holistic approaches – looking to see what they can learn, unlearn and cull from one another to better serve people who come to them for help. Also evident is mutual respect.

At the third national conference on spirituality and mental health, sponsored by Pasadena-based Pacific Clinics 400 people in caring professions and ministries spent a day together to talk about the importance of spirituality and religion in mental health.

In one well-attended session, the Rev. Siang-Yang Tan, a professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, talked about spiritually oriented psychotherapy.

Whatever spiritual intervention that therapists might choose – Scriptures, prayer or silence – must be relevant to the disorder under treatment, said Tan, a clinical psychologist and senior pastor of First Evangelical Church in Glendale. ‘We have to be careful, because religious and spiritual interventions can be misused or abused,’ he said. ‘You have to use it carefully, ethically, professionally and gently.’

He also spoke of the new movement called positive psychology, being developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Its direction is toward the ‘positive sides of human experiences,’ emphasizing virtues, character strengths and learning to be grateful, he said. More about the conference here.

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There’s nothing like a good 40-hour a week job to stifle creativity. Creativity needs room to flow and seep into the many folds of your brain matter, flowing in circles and inlets of energy but never quite regimented into a set path or a daily grind.

Inspiration and creativity go hand in hand. Without inspiration, there is little creativity. But, where does inspiration come from? Dare we suggest that inspiration comes from that place beyond our conscious ego, what transpersonal psychologists refer to as the transpersonal self?

How does one coax the transpersonal self to make an appearance and lubricate our creative joy back into physical reality? Is it true that in order to be creative we must embrace messiness and chaos in our lives? Or is there some orderliness we can obtain that implies creativity and a union of the subconscious with the conscious drive of man in physical reality?

One could be surprised how rituals and routines influence our daily lives. Find more on creativity and rituals.

Creativity Through Rituals. Rituals And Self Development. Routines And Rituals.

Forget fearing old age, it seems as women grow older those on lower incomes are more likely to fear the threat of violence, a Queensland University of Technology nationwide study has found.

QUT Associate Professor Jan Lovie-Kitchin, from the Faculty of Health, said the study looked at older women’s perceptions of vulnerability and their expressed need to learn to protect themselves against violence.

Professor Lovie-Kitchin said being able to live free of fear and with the confidence to participate in social life beyond the home was an important part of improving the quality of life for older women.

“Fear of violence needs to be recognised as a barrier to older people’s social connectedness and the health and wellbeing of older women specifically.”

“Older women might experience feelings of exposure to danger because of their smaller size and lesser strength,” she said. “But they could also feel vulnerable because of their limited finances and lack of knowledge which might force them to depend on people they don’t necessarily trust. Read more about the study.

Active Aging. Older People And Fear. Social Connections Of Seniors. Problems Of Old People. Women And Violence.

Craving Desire For Food Eating and Psychology Craving And Psychology Calories Craving Food Temptation And Psychology Desires For Food

The term “craving” hardly does justice to that four-alarm fire raging in your brain. Must….have….warm brownie still gooey in the middle. Must….eat…. entire container of Super Fudge Chunk. Can’t…stop…scarfing down chocolate kisses.

It seems like there’s nothing to do but either fight off the cravings or give in to them. Mostly, we give in, figuring it’s hopeless—a simple biological fact of life.

But research from the University College of London shows that the yen for chocolate and other tasty treats may be an acquired habit. In humans, hunger and eating are strongly influenced by context.

Psychologist Leigh Gibson, a professor at the university’s Health Behavior Unit who studies appetite and food choice, rounded up several dozen student volunteers to find out whether people could be “trained” out of their cravings. Here are the very surprising results of the study.

Will you take a look or a brownie?

Craving Desire For Food Eating and Psychology Craving And Psychology Calories Craving Food Temptation And Psychology Desires For Food

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We experience anger when we feel frustrated about something we can’t have and/or when we feel we have been treated unfairly or unjustly. It is a natural normal human emotion that can arise from others (when we are treated unfairly) or from ourselves (with unmet or unrealistic expectations).

WHAT IS ANGER?

Anger is an energy system that mobilizes us for self-protection. If it is expressed adequately, it helps us survive and stand up for ourselves and our rights.

Yet, some people either have no anger, are afraid of it, see it as evil and/or have repressed it to a point where it is not useful to them.

Those people have a problem I call “anger avoidance.” At all costs, they try to avoid their anger and the anger of others.

People with anger avoidance vary in their intensity of distancing themselves from their anger or the anger of others.

People who disown or are frightened of their anger or the anger of others are also highly susceptible to depression and physical symptoms. In the earlier years of psychology, many psychologists, especially psychoanalytic theorists, believed depression was primarily repressed (or disowned) anger.

If you don´t think you need a professional counseling right now, feel free to look at some ideas, which might be helpful here.

My personal advise for you however is: do not over- neither under- estimate your anger.

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People who experience emotional ambivalence — simultaneously feeling positive and negative emotions — are more creative than those who feel just happy or sad, or lack emotion at all, according to a new study.

That’s because people who feel mixed emotions interpret the experience as a signal that they are in an unusual environment and thus respond to it by drawing upon their creative thinking abilities, said Christina Ting Fong, an assistant professor at the University of Washington Business School.

This increased sensitivity for recognizing unusual associations, which happy or sad workers probably couldn’t detect, is what leads to creativity in the workplace, she added. “Due to the complexity of many organizations, workplace experiences often elicit mixed emotions from employees, and it’s often assumed that mixed emotions are bad for workers and companies,” said Fong, whose study appears in the October issue of the Academy of Management Journal.

“Rather than assuming ambivalence will lead to negative results for the organization, managers should recognize that emotional ambivalence can have positive consequences that can be leveraged for organizational success.” Read more.

Money and happiness. Buying happiness. Don´t worry – be happy – buy it! Money and happiness. Buying happiness. Don´t worry – be happy – buy it!

The old saying “money can’t buy happiness” has been proved wrong by researchers at The University of Nottingham. A study into lottery jackpot winners – those who have won more than £1 million – found that a resounding 97 per cent of interviewees were just as happy, if not happier, following their big win.

And it seems that money can even buy you love. Although 15 per cent of winners classed themselves as single in their previous lives, this dropped to 12 per cent post-win. Marriage is also on the cards for many winners – 68 per cent of respondents were married pre-win, jumping to 74 per cent afterwards.

Winners and non-winners completed a questionnaire designed as the ultimate happiness test, and their answers were compared. A Satisfaction with Life scale was used to determine subjective well-being; with respondents asked to rate how much they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “In most ways my life is close to ideal.” Marital status, health, type of house and typical holiday destination were also noted, measuring how lifestyles changed following a big win.

Just three per cent of the winners polled said they were less happy than before they hit the jackpot, citing new pressures in their lives. None missed working, found that the money caused arguments in their households or that it led to separation from their partners. Read more.

Money and happiness. Buying happiness. Don´t worry – be happy – buy it! Money and happiness. Buying happiness. Don´t worry – be happy – buy it!