I don’t really follow the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) but I am aware of the names. Georges St-Pierre. Anderson Silva. Nick Diaz.
Nick Diaz.
The Stockton California native has been in the news lately. What for? It is one part social anxiety disorder, one part medical marijuana, and a whole lot of potential disciplinary action by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC).
I have to admit I have been bewildered trying to following this story.
I understand that Diaz lost to Carlos Condit in UFC 143 and then tested positive for marijuana use. The likely outcome will be a one-year suspension and a 40% cut of his purse given that this is his second failed drug screening.
This is where it starts to get a little hazy. Nick’s trainer Cesar Gracie says that he is not comfortable being around people and that he self-medicates with marijuana. Others report he has social anxiety disorder (SAD) and has a prescription for medical marijuana in the state of California but he did not apply for an exemption prior to UFC 143.
The general consensus is that Diaz is unpredictable during media appearances and has trouble communicating outside his comfort zone. After his loss to Condit in Las Vegas he talked of retirement. If given a year’s suspension that retirement might be something he is forced to do; at least temporarily.
The story reminds me of NFL football player Ricky Williams and his struggles with marijuana use and social anxiety.
All of this raises a number of questions:
- Will medical marijuana be routinely prescribed for social anxiety disorder in the future?
- Will athletes who use marijuana because of SAD be exempt from drug testing for the substance?
- Will Nick Diaz ever fight again?
I know I am raising more questions than giving answers, but that is because this is a new area of exploration. I believe there will be lots more to come on this topic in the future.
What do you think? Should Nick Diaz be allowed to fight under the influence of marijuana?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Feb 21st, 2012. 
Article by Michael
As you should know by now, anxiety is a healthy and normal emotion that everyone experiences. It is the body’s natural reaction to a stimulus that pushes the decision to either “fight” or “flight” during a situation. However, when anxiety attacks are irrational, chronic, severe, and start affecting the overall health of a person, whether it be emotionally, psychologically, or physically, it turns into a problem that must be dealt with right away. Do not be confused though because there is a rather thick line between healthy and unhealthy anxiety attacks and you will be able to tell the difference. Unfortunately, this is often overlooked by doctors who tell you there is nothing to worry about and you are perfectly fine.
Anxiety is a general term which houses various different classifications under its name. There are six main types of anxiety disorder and they all have different and unique characteristics: generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder
GAD is a chronic worry or fear over everyday tasks without even knowing why. People with GAD show symptoms such as fatigue, stomach upset, insomnia, sweating, and restlessness. If you have GAD you will often be worried that bad things will happen and have a feeling of anxiousness about day to day activities.
2. Panic Disorder
This is when you have unexpected and repeated panic attacks. You actually fear the panic attack itself and are afraid that another one will occur any moment without warning. Many people with panic disorder are likely to have agoraphobia; the fear of being in places where help or escape will be difficult to reach you. If you have agoraphobia, you may be afraid of being trapped in confined places such as an elevator, airplane, or overly crowded places.
3. Social Anxiety Disorder
This is the fear of being humiliated in public, or seen negatively by people. Being shy is what people often call this. It is okay to be shy; everyone is over certain things in their life. However, people with bad cases of social anxiety disorder may isolate themselves from people, public events and places, and will tend to be alone. The most common form of social anxiety is stage fright which everyone has.
4. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
More commonly referred to as OCD, this is a condition where a person has uncontrollable and undesired thoughts or behavior. People with OCD may have particular obsessions such as worries that they forgot to turn the light off, or wanting everything they do to be perfect. Some of the most common OCD symptoms are frequent hand washing, re-checking something numerous times, and hoarding useless junk in fear that something bad might happen if thrown away.
5. Phobias
A phobia is usually a senseless, foolish, and over exaggerated fear of simple things that usually present little or no danger at all. A person can have a phobia of anything there is, some of the most common ones being: dark, spiders, heights, swimming, snakes, and flying. People with phobias will most often try to avoid the things they are afraid of, but avoiding your fear instead of facing it only tends to worsen the phobia.
6. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
PTSD is a classification of anxiety that happens after a dramatic or life-threatening event takes place. People with PTSD can show symptoms such as avoiding situations or places that remind them about the event, isolation, flashbacks, nightmares, and frightening easily.
Anxiety disorder is a very common problem with millions of people worldwide! Want to learn more about the best products available? Visit http://anxietyreliefreview.com for honest and unbiased reviews of today’s most popular anxiety and panic relief products.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Feb 2nd, 2012.
What do 325 Facebook friends, one romance novelist, and a New Year’s resolution have in common?
They are the topic of an upcoming documentary called “Face to Facebook” about a woman who went on a year-long journey to overcome her fear of people and leaving her home.
Writer Arlynn Presser spent December 2010 isolated and mostly housebound because of panic attacks and anxiety. Although the 51-year-old had over 300 friends on Facebook, she realized that most of them were people she had never met. At the end of the year she made a resolution to spend 2011 traveling the world to meet these people she had only ever talked with online. Many she had met through the online Scrabble game.
Some did not agree to meet her, some unfriended her, but over the course of the year she was able to visit 292 of her 325 friends in countries around the world; quite an accomplishment for someone previously afraid to board planes and trains.
What can we take away from her huge accomplishment? Although her primary issue was panic disorder, people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) might find themselves in similar situations; you might have a lot of acquaintances (either online or offline) but not have made the effort to really get to know any of them.
How would you feel about making 2012 the year to turn some of those casual acquaintances into good friends?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Jan 17th, 2012.
Have you ever kept a personal diary about your feelings and problems related to social anxiety? Did it make you feel better? New research published in the APA journal Psychological Services suggests that going a step further and blogging about your difficulties online might be the key to improvement.
The study, conducted by Meyran Boniel-Nissim, PhD and Azy Barak, PhD, investigated the impact of blogging on 161 high school students in Israel. Students were included in the study if they showed some level of social anxiety, trouble making friends, or difficulty relating to others.
The teens were assigned to one of six possible conditions: four experimental and two control. Bloggers were required to blog at least twice a week for 10 weeks.
The conditions were as follows:
- Blogged about their social anxiety and had the blog open to comments.
- Blogged about their social anxiety with the blog closed to comments.
- Blogged about any topic and had the blog open to comments.
- Blogged about any topic with the blog closed to comments.
- Wrote in a private diary.
- Did not do any writing.
Results of the study showed significant improvement in self-esteem, social behaviors, social anxiety and emotional distress for those who blogged versus those who did not. Students who wrote about their social anxiety and those whose blogs were open to comments fared the best. In general comments from the community were supportive and positive.
I think there is another interesting point to be made about this research. Blogs about personal experiences with social anxiety can help more than just those who are writing them. There is a good chance some of the readers of those blogs, and most specifically the commenters, were probably also helped to read that someone else felt the same way as them. It seems as though putting that information out there is a win-win for everyone.
What do you think? Would blogging about your social anxiety make you feel better or worse?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Jan 10th, 2012.
Question by Ronald S: Could anybody who has experience with “panic or anxiety attacks” please describe what they are like?
I am having a difficult time understanding this.
I have heard that some people cant even leave far from home because they are afraid of having another “panic attack”.
Please anyone who has experience with this condition, would you please desribe them for me?
what is it like? what do they think about that makes them afraid?
What usually triggers them?
how long does it take to go away?
and what is the best cure for them? (Is there one??)
Also , what is usually the root cause of this condition??
How often, do they occur in the average sufferer??
Best answer:
Answer by katana
a long time ago i used to have cash register jobs and i was once a deli girl. I would get panic attacks when i would have a lot of frustrated customers in line all staring at me and I was glued to that spot behind the register with no way out to calm myself down. . at first i would wonder why it bothered me a little and after a while it just got so bad that i ran out of the store when people just stood there staring at me. this is what a panic attack feels like. You start to sweat, lose concentration, breath faster, get very red faced and than people say why is your face red. Which of course made it redder. And you feel very unfocused. And people notice all that and focus more on you and of course it makes it worse. So my way to get over my attacks is get a nursing position where i am not glued to one spot all day. I found out that moving around and constantly changing my scenery helps me be better focused and have less panic attacks.
Give your answer to this question below!
Filed under Panic Attacks by on Jan 8th, 2012.
Question by : Should I be honest about Social Anxiety?
I’m 27 year old male, I suffered from Social Anxiety since twelve years old. I spent 7 years in college and being unemployed (too scared looking for a job) for a year now. And I have sent job applications for the past two months and I will force myself to attend any job interview if the company where I sent my application asking for interview.
“Should I be honest and tell the interviewer about Social Anxiety if he/she ask me why I’m being unemployed for the past year, and I dont like dishonesty, I just want to tell everything about my condition (being suffered from Social Anxiety)”.
Best answer:
Answer by anon
yeah, but would tell him i had been overcoming it and then they wont be surprised later on if they notice.
Give your answer to this question below!
Filed under Social Anxiety by on Dec 29th, 2011.
Question by : Should I be honest about Social Anxiety?
I’m 27 year old male, I suffered from Social Anxiety since twelve years old. I spent 7 years in college and being unemployed (too scared looking for a job) for a year now. And I have sent job applications for the past two months and I will force myself to attend any job interview if the company where I sent my application asking for interview.
“Should I be honest and tell the interviewer about Social Anxiety if he/she ask me why I’m being unemployed for the past year, and I dont like dishonesty, I just want to tell everything about my condition (being suffered from Social Anxiety)”.
Best answer:
Answer by anon
yeah, but would tell him i had been overcoming it and then they wont be surprised later on if they notice.
What do you think? Answer below!
Filed under Social Anxiety by on Dec 22nd, 2011.
A recent study by researchers in Australia points to a possible relationship between difficulty with facial recognition and social anxiety.
In the study, 138 adults were given the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the social interaction anxeity scale. As part of the CFMT, participants were trained to recognize 6 different faces, and then given trials where they had to distinguish between the learned faces and other faces.
Results showed a small but significant correlation between facial recognition and levels of social anxiety. People with higher social anxiety were less able to recognize faces. This result was also not due to a difference in visual memory; it was specific to faces.
Although the study results suggest a relationship, it is not clear which comes first. Social anxiety? Inability to recognize faces? Or is it a reciprocal relationship in that each makes the other worse?
As noted elsewhere, results of this study suggest a possible link between social anxiety and autism. People with autism and asperger’s disorder have trouble recognizing faces. Could it be that we are actually looking at a continuum with introversion on one end and severe autism on the other?
If I was a betting woman (which I am not; I have been known to cash out after winning pocket change on a slot machine) I would say the odds are that is the case. It will be very interesting to watch the discussion and investigation unfold. Hopefully future research will answer these questions.
In the meantime, what can we do with this information?
If social anxiety causes poor facial recognition, then not much. But if poor facial recognition leads to increased social anxiety, then maybe we can work on our ability to recognize faces. However, research is still in its infancy as to whether this is possible.
Even if you can’t improve your ability to remember faces, you can at least make people feel less slighted if you fail to recognize them at an upcoming function. When first meeting people, simply mention that you have a terrible time remembering faces, so they should not take it personally if you fail to recognize them the next time you meet.
Do you have trouble remembering faces?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Dec 21st, 2011.