Psychology for all

People with anxiety disorders regularly have intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations. Occasionally it is a normal part of life for everybody. There would be feelings of anxiety and panic interfere with daily activities, are difficult to control, are out of proportion to the actual danger and can last a long time. Anxiety disorders involve repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear or terror that reach almost to the peaks within minutes. Symptoms for the anxiety may start during childhood or the teen years and continue into adulthood.  Anxiety disorders may interfere with other anxiety disorders like social anxiety disorder (social phobia), specific phobias and separation anxiety disorder. A person can have more than one anxiety disorder, sometimes this may result in a medical condition that needs treatment. Symptoms   Common anxiety signs and symptoms include: Feeling nervous,  Restless or t...

What is critical thinking?  Critical thinking includes the ability to engage in reflective & independent thinking. It is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do? or what to believe? Some of the features related to critical thinking includes: # To understand the connections between the ideas.  # Identify, construct and evaluate arguments. # To identify the relevance and importance of ideas. # To detect inconsistent and common mistakes in reasoning # To solve problems systematically  # To justify one's own beliefs & values Critical thinking is not about knowing so much information. A person should be able to reduce the consequences from what they know, and how to make the use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information. And a person who has good memory and who knows a lot of facts, may not be good at critical thinking. Critical thinking should not be confused with arguments or being critical to other peo...

What is occupational stress?  Occupational stress is referred to as ongoing or progressive stress on employees due to the responsibilities,  conditions, environment and other pressures of the workplace. These types depend on the individual employee, their job role, the company culture and many other factors. Causes of occupational stress  Long working hours  Heavy workload  Job insecurity  Over supervision Lack of proper resources  Discrimination  Harassment  Poor relationships with colleagues  Boring work at office  Tight deadlines  Changes within the organizational settings Symptoms of occupational stress are: The signs and symptoms of occupational stress are under three categories physical, psychological and behavioral. Physical symptoms include: Headache  Heart palpitations  Fatigue  Muscular tension  Sleeping difficulties Gastrointestinal upsets, such as constipation  Physi...

Stress management deals with a wide range of techniques and psychotherapies to control individual stress levels, especially in severe conditions by improving everyday functioning. Effects of stress Stress shows negative effects on the physical & psychological well being of an individual. It also shows a positive effect on personality that includes motivation & ability to deal with stressful situations. Causes of Stress Things that cause stress are called stressors. These are of three types - physical, emotional,  social  Physical stressors affect the physical well being of the individual. These include accidents, hunger, lack of sleep, Sickness. Emotional stressors affect both physical and emotional well being of an individual. These mainly include worry, fear,  grief, depression, anger. Social stressors arise from relationships with other people - peers,  family, teachers,employees etc.  Stress related illness   ...

Internet users spend around 135 minutes every day on social media. Around 60% of users admitted to being addicted to social media, whereas 56% are afraid that they will miss something if they don't stay connected with their social networks.  Social media like facebook , twitter , instagram activate our rewarding centres in the brain.  About 68% of people say that they share posts to give others a sense of who they are and what they care about. And 78% say that they share because it helps them to stay connected with the people. People like posts on social media to maintain relationships, they can also create reciprocity effects sometimes. Advantages of social media  One can reach a large audience and connect with them directly. It can be used  to  explore various cultures and diversities by sitting at one place. Social media advantages businesses in many ways: # To know about their customers  # To provide better customer ...

What is OCD?   People are more prone to suffer with this OCD due to the current corona situation, this may cause fears. OCD is the pattern of wanted thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead to repetitive behaviors (compulsion). Persons with this disorder may try to ignore or stop their obsessions, but they may increase distress and anxiety. Similarly they may feel active to perform compilation acts to ignore or get rid of bothers some thoughts or urges. Symptoms   Symptoms of OCD include both Obsession and compulsion. But people may have either obsession symptoms or compulsion symptoms.  Obsession symptoms OCD obsessions are repeated, persistent and unwanted thoughts, urges or images that are intrusive and cause distress or anxiety etc.  Examples of obsession signs and symptoms include: Fear of contamination by touching objects others have touched Doubting and tolerating uncertainty Needing things orderly and symmetric...

What is social loafing?  Social loafing is a tendency to work less by an individual when they work with teams on a particular task rather than individual work. True potential of an individual is lowered to when they become part of the team. All members of the team may underperform due to forming a team for a task with equal work distribution, when compared to how they work alone. In this scenario those who are not underperforming tend to work more because of their co-workers. This would happen when there are more number of individuals in a team, it sometimes may lead to failure of the work assigned to the team. Ways to avoid social loafing   Reduce the number of individuals in a team, the smaller the number of individuals, the harder it is to hide from each other or team lead. Set clear objectives to work for the assigned tasks so that are specific, quantifiable, easy to measure that helps in progress and improve commitment of the team. Accountability is a key to m...