Posts Tagged ‘anxiety’

Self Concept, Stress and Health

Apparently, stress is keenly felt by a person who suffers from a problem of personal and social maladjustment. He feels uncertain and confused of who and what he really is inadequate and inferior in his functioning as a person and insecure in his relationship with other persons. All of these feelings stem from a low self esteem.

Though such “spectacles” of self-concept, they have views the world with indifference and suspicion resentment and mistrust. The works he hears and the actions he sees from other are given some negative meanings. Eventually, he easily feels threatened. As he mulls over his interpretations, his general functioning is affected.

A person tends to be over conscious and extra sensitive and defensive. Among his favorite defense mechanisms are rationalization scapegoating , denial, regression, or repression. Another source of maladjustment and stress is the discrepancy between his real and ideal selves. Social adjustment a sense of persona, worth and feelings of belonging are all correlated with proximity of real and ideal selves or self-satisfaction This was corroborated and discovered that adolescents with a high discrepancy between real and ideal selves felt themselves unable to meet parental expectations and were tense ,distractible anxious, restless, unhappy, and oversensitive.

Self- concept is also related to success or failure in career life. Researchers and clinicians have known for years that if in a given situation a person devalues his self perceives himself as helpless and certain of failure , this perception would virtually ensure failure in that situation. The likelihood of yours failure at some task will greatly increase If you imagine yourself as failing even before the task in question had begun. Conversely, If you imagine yourself succeeding at your task, your probability of success will be greatly enhanced.

Just as self- perception affects stress reactions and task behavior; it can greatly affect the eventual onset of disease. In of the more intriguing aspects of the role of a devalued self image in disease emerges from the study of cancer. According to W.W. Meissner of the Harvard Medical School, cancer patients are relatively “selfless” individuals. They often display signs of great sacrifice and self-effacement. Finally most exhibit feeling of “hopelessness” and helplessness” which is typical before the onset of cancer.

Based on his clinical observations, they concluded that one of the major personality correlated of cancer was a severe degree of poor self expectation coupled with self dislike, Similarly Simonton observed that a very pessimistic outlook on life characterized many cancer patient. More importantly, those with the lowest self-perceptions eventually succumbed to the disease, whereas those patients who maintained optimism and the conviction that they could “win” over cancer survived. Such level of self-esteem may be related to other psychosomatic ailment like asthma, peptic, ulcer, skin disorders, obesity, etc.

The Stress Today

Today’s stress is much different than the stress, tension, and anxiety, experienced by your fore fathers.

When we come onto this plane the mind and the soul become entwined. For most of us however the mind is the boss and the soul is at the whim of the mind. The mind is the Beast. The soul is who we really are, the mind is supposed to be our  servant.

Inner Stress is actually just a preconceived idea that some person, place or thing is not performing the way you have it pictured in your mind. Stress, tension and anxiety are caused both from the outside and the inside. It is this inner stress that we will be discussing in this article. Read more…