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Extra-curricular activities, demands from the environment, and absent parents can cause stress for the child. In this article, we present the most effective psychological treatments for anxiety disorders in childhood.
Fear is an emotion that is part of the normal development of each individual; it is usually of moderate intensity and tends to fade over time. However, in childhood, negative emotions related to fear can be maladaptive and cause anxiety. Knowing what anxiety treatment involves in your child can be of great help.
Anxiety disorders in childhood show data that should not be overlooked: about 18% of children suffer from anxiety. The most frequent disorders are separation anxiety, especially in children under the age of 12, specific phobia, and generalized anxiety.
On the other hand, anxiety disorders in children are more common in women and are usually related to depression.
Anxiety generates symptoms that interfere with the child’s daily life, negatively affecting different contexts: school, family, and social. The most frequent physical symptoms are tachycardia, headache, intestinal disturbances, nausea, and sleep disturbances.
Symptoms of anxiety are accompanied by a strong preoccupation with various situations that often result in avoidance and escape behaviors. These behaviors are very difficult for parents to manage because they generate negative reinforcements.
Parents often give in to the avoidance of the child, thereby exacerbating the problem. On the other hand, let’s see what the treatment of anxiety in the child consists of.
There are several treatments to treat anxiety in children. First of all, it is advisable to consult a psychologist, as the psychological intervention is free of side effects and has proven to be very effective.
Drug therapy should only be considered if psychological therapy has failed or if anxiety is excessively disabling.
In this case, priority must be given to antidepressants, which impair cognitive processes such as memory and learning less than anxiolytics. It is also possible to use benzodiazepines, useful for calming anxiety in association with appropriate behavioral measures.
As for cognitive-behavioral therapy, multiple treatments are recommended, which include several strategies. Here are the most useful ones:
Relaxation exercises. Most used for generalized and separation anxiety. They have two phases: In the first, the child’s minimum ability to perform the exercise is verified. These are standing still for 5 seconds, maintaining eye contact for 5 seconds, demonstrating imitation skills, and following simple instructions.
Once the child is shown to be able to cope, he will be explained how anxiety works and he will be taught relaxation techniques. These can be of various types: infant massage, relaxation games (robot-rag doll), and techniques based on imagination in which stories are told, the child stiffens a part of the body and then relaxes it.
Self-instructions. The child learns to replace the cognitive components that generate anxiety with coping verbalizations.
Kendall’s Coping Cat Program (“The Cat That Gets It Alone”). It is a cognitive-behavioral therapy that consists of two parts. In the first, the child learns to recognize the symptoms and thoughts related to anxiety and develops a coping plan (“FEAR” Plan).
Parents are taught to reinforce coping behaviors and eliminate grievances and blame. In the second phase, the skills learned are put into action through imaginative and live exposure to more feared situations.
Conclusions on the treatment of anxiety in the child
Psychological treatments have been shown to be very effective in dealing with anxiety in children and adolescents. However, it is always best to prevent anxiety disorder.
Sometimes children are subjected to excessive stress: family ups and downs, absence of parents, school or extracurricular activities are some factors that contribute to the development of an anxiety disorder.
It is essential that parents learn to scale their expectations by setting limits based on simple, realistic, and correctly formulated requests.
Reducing expectations of the child and setting concrete and stable limits offer safety. On the other hand, it is essential to dedicate quality time to the child to play together, look after him or listen to him.
In this regard, parents should avoid using cell phones, talking about work problems, and arguing with each other in the presence of their children.
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Keeping the immune system in good condition and strong defenses allows us to prevent the development of certain diseases and stand up to those that begin to manifest in our bodies. To keep your body in perfect condition and strengthen the immune system in a natural way, Vitae offers you a food supplement with purified beta-glucans from yeast, vitamin D3, vitamin B, and Zinc. This food supplement will help you maintain the normal functioning of the immune system. It will reduce tiredness and fatigue so that your body increases its defenses and will protect the cells of your body against the damage caused by oxidation.
Next, we will tell you how to increase immunity home remedies so that these measures have a greater effect. Remember that with a strong immune system, you will be much healthier in all aspects.
How to increase immunity home remedies?
Food is the basis for maintaining a strong and healthy immune system. For this reason and in order to raise the defenses in a natural way, it is important to incorporate foods that provide us with the necessary nutrients to strengthen the immune system and that favor the defense cells of the body more efficiently. These are some of the best foods to boost your defenses:
Products with Omega 3: tuna, salmon, sardines, walnuts, chia seeds, and flaxseed.
Foods rich in vitamin C: orange, tangerine, lemon, pineapple, mango, melon, watermelon, strawberries, kiwi, tomato, broccoli, cabbage, etc.
Foods with vitamin A: carrot, spinach, chard, beet, or egg.
Foods rich in vitamin E: olive and sunflower oil and nuts such as hazelnuts, peanuts, pistachios, or almonds.
Products containing zinc: chicken, turkey, red beef, oysters, wheat germ and whole grains, pumpkin seeds, and fish.
Foods with selenium: rice, chicken, cheese, wheat flour, sunflower seeds, etc.
Natural probiotics: natural yogurt and kefir.
In addition to introducing these foods into your diet, it is important to avoid processed foods, refined sugars, alcohols, and caffeine, as they are very harmful and weaken the body.
Vitamins to raise the defenses
Keeping the body with good levels of vitamins is essential to strengthening the immune system naturally. But what are the vitamins most necessary to keep the immune system strong? These are the following:
Vitamin C: it is the most essential, as it directly helps the proper functioning of the immune system. The star fruit where you can find this vitamin is in the orange. However, you can also consume it through food supplements.
Vitamin B3: This vitamin is water-soluble. That is, it dissolves in water, so a great property can be lost if you cook food that contains them. Therefore, taking it through food supplements will allow the mucous membranes to be in normal conditions, one of the main functions of type B vitamins.
Vitamin D: this type of vitamin helps to absorb calcium since it is fat-soluble, and together with phosphorus, it allows us to maintain strong bones, a great defense of our immune system. Vitamin D is produced in the body through sunlight, although you will also find it in small doses in some foods and as a supplement.
Taking care of your body, leading a healthy life, and avoiding, as far as possible, everything that is harmful to your body will allow you to maintain a strong immune system with high defenses and ready to fight everything.
Why the immune system is weakened
The immune system is the body’s defense method that is activated to prevent attacks by bacteria, viruses, fungi, or other pathogenic organisms. The skin is our first defensive barrier, but there are some more, such as white blood cells and immunoglobulins. Any imbalance in the immune system can directly affect the performance and functioning of our body, as well as our health. Therefore, it is necessary to keep it strong and take the necessary measures so that the defenses do not weaken.
Although we have sophisticated defense methods, there are certain factors that can affect and weaken our immune system. These are the main causes of a weakened immune system:
Inadequate nutrition: it is the basis of health. The deficit of proteins, vitamins, or minerals, as well as the excess of carbohydrates, directly affects the functioning of the immune system.
Low activity: sedentary lifestyle is directly related to diseases such as diabetes or being overweight, which has a very negative impact on immunology. Lack of movement or no moderate physical activity, at least twice a week, is a quick way to weaken your defenses.
A bad rest: not sleeping the recommended hours (between 7 and 8 a day) and not having an optimal rest and good sleep hygiene causes the defenses of the immune system to lower their guard and are not as effective against the attack of diseases.
Stress: although it is a natural response that favors the release of adrenaline, an overload of tension can transform into more serious pathologies such as anxiety, depression, or even thrombosis. Maintaining stressful situations for a long time can affect the depression of the immune system and weaken it.
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Many times, when you cut yourself or accidentally injure yourself, your doctor may recommend stitches because the wound is too far apart and is not able to heal properly on its own. Currently, there are different types of suture threads: nylon, silk, vycril, linen … In fact, there are sutures, such as vicryl silk, that dissolve by themselves and it is not necessary to remove either a doctor or yourself the stitches, but there are others and very common that do require to be removed after a while when the wound has healed.
A healthcare professional should always remove the stitches, be it a doctor, nurse, or other specialists, but go to your doctor if you cannot. It is necessary to remove the stitches now and you have no idea how to remove stitches.
How to remove stitches – step by step
If you have decided to remove the stitches by yourself or with someone’s help, you mustn’t do it without knowing how to do it. A doctor should do this process to make sure everything is going well. However, if there is no possibility of going to this, you can follow these steps to remove the stitches.
Get sharp-tipped or surgical scissors. Never use knives as they tend to slip and can injure you.
Sterilize the tools you are going to use. To do this, place the scissors together with some metal tweezers in a pot of boiling water to eliminate all kinds of bacteria and other germs and prevent them from entering your body. The tweezers should look similar to those used to remove eyebrow hair, but make sure they don’t slip to make the process easier for you.
Bandages and an anti-inflammatory and/or antibiotic cream are important if the wound has not healed properly and begins to bleed. Although this is rare, these supplies should be kept on hand.
Before removing the stitches, it is vitally important that you sterilize the area where they are. To do this:
Apply alcohol or chlorhexidine.
At the end of this, sit in a place where there is a lot of light so that you can see the stitches clearly and you can begin to remove them.
Using the pliers, lift the first knot and cut the thread next to the knot. Make sure not to pull too much on the thread when you are holding it with the tweezers, just enough to be able to put the tip of the scissors in and cut.
Once cut, stretch the thread that you are holding with the tweezers little by little without using almost force and you will see that the thread begins to come out of your skin.
Repeat these steps with the remaining sutures and you’re done.
Clean the wound with a cotton ball moistened with water or a little alcohol.
If you notice that the wound begins to bleed when you remove the first knot, do not remove the rest and go to your doctor since it may not yet be time to remove the stitches. After removing the stitches, you need to pay attention to your wound to make sure it is healing as it should. If you notice any strange changes, go quickly to the doctor.
How to remove ingrown stitches – step by step
It may be the case where the stitches are ingrown. This is rare and should not happen if you follow your doctor’s instructions and the stitches are removed after the days indicated by this, because if too many days go by, the skin begins to heal over the stitches, leaving these little to little bury in it. If this happens, you must go to your doctor since removing them becomes a painful process, sometimes even difficult. However, if for some reason you or someone close to you have to do it, the steps to follow to remove the ingrown stitches are as follows.
Acquire the utensils mentioned above.
Sterilize the scissors and tweezers that you are going to use.
Having bandages and an anti-inflammatory cream on hand is essential in these cases, as the wound may bleed or ooze interstitial fluid. If it has become infected, it may even ooze purulent fluid.
Disinfect the wound as many times as necessary. First, wash it with soap and water and then use some disinfectant to apply it on it.
Sit where you can see the points clearly and pick up the first knot. With the knot raised, cut the thread close to the knot. The stitches may be too red and there is no possibility of cutting the knot as it should be. In these cases, it is essential to see your doctor since it may be necessary to open the skin a little and even the muscle, in severe cases, to remove the stitches.
Once cut, stretch the thread that you held with the tweezers and pull it to remove it, without using too much force. Faced with this situation, this step can hurt, so if you notice great pain, stop what you are doing and go to a doctor to cause a bigger problem.
If you have managed to remove it, repeat these steps with the remaining stitches.
Clean the wound very well and disinfect it again.
It would also be advisable that, when you have removed the stitches, you go to a doctor as soon as possible to ensure that everything is going well. The wound will finish healing correctly. In these cases, you have to take special care and observe an alarming change in the wound.
Do removing stitches hurt?
In general, removing the stitches does not hurt. It should not hurt in any case. If, on the other hand, you have removed the first stitches yourself and you have felt pain, it would be better for you to go to your doctor as it is probably due to having left the stitches for longer than indicated or the presence of an infection. Remember not to overstretch the knotted thread when removing the stitches, as otherwise, it may hurt and make you more injured. Think that if everything is being done well, the point should come out on its own without using too much force.
You do not know the time. What has to happen to remove the stitches? Generally, stitches should be removed between 7 and 14 days after they have been placed. Depending on the location and type of damage, they will be removed sooner or later.
Always follow the doctor’s instructions and do not exceed the days indicated by him to remove the stitches. Otherwise, problems such as infections in the scar or burial of the stitches under the skin could appear. You would have the stitches ingrown or infected, which will make the removal process of these points difficult. You may even feel pain when performing the extraction. If you exceed the indicated days, the scar that will remain will surely be more visible and larger.
How to care for a wound after removing stitches
The treatment of the wound after removing stitches is particularly important to do so follow these tips.
You can put a bandage on the wound to avoid exposing it too much and allowing it to continue to heal properly.
Apply a disinfectant daily to ensure that no type of infection appears, although if it has been closed correctly, it is not often that this happens.
Do not scratch the wound and in case you have to dry the area where it is located, do not rub it, make small pats on the scar to dry it.
Apply sunscreen to protect the scar from UV rays, as they are harmful to it.
If the wound is completely closed, you can buy a cream with vitamin E, as it can help it heal faster and better.
Check that it is not opening.
There are doubts about whether it is better to leave the stitches or the recent scar open or covered. The reality is that it would be convenient to alternate this when you are at home. You can leave them in the air and when you go out to the street, cover them to protect the wound with stitches or the recent scar already without stitches. In the same way, that you can do when these are removed.
Our busy modern lifestyles can leave little time for taking care of ourselves. The combination of full-time work and commuting often means that there is hardly any space left to pursue a healthy lifestyle. But if you can find the time, the benefits are huge.
As well as improving your physique, the BBC reports positive effects on the bones, heart, and respiratory system.
Team sports are especially beneficial, as they combine all the great physical effects of regular exercise with something even more special. Players learn valuable skills, such as compromise and increased focus. Athletes need to be highly motivated in order to commit to training schedules and give their best to the team. In fact, according to the Guardian participating in team sports can make someone a better student as a result of this increased focus. Hockey is a perfect example of a team sport that encourages all these positive attributes as well as a sense of physical well-being and good general health.
Coaching a hockey team, whilst not necessarily being the most lucrative role in the world, can be a hugely rewarding one. Many coaches are older people who have previously had a highly successful sporting career of their own, but in spite of their wealth of experience, they can always benefit from a little extra help in performing the job to the best possible standard. If you are a coach interested in finding out more detailed information on field hockey drills, you may find it useful to review field hockey training videos from sportplan.net.
It is a good idea to offer meticulously planned training sessions to the players on your team, whatever their ages and ability levels. This will help to increase engagement levels throughout the team and keep the players keen and motivated. Taking advantage of the tried and tested plans available at Sportplan will keep your training sessions interesting and up to date, saving you lots of time and energy. You can choose from a huge library of tools and drills, covering such topics as roles and responsibilities or use the expert knowledge on offer to tailor your own plans to suit. It can help you to realize your full potential by becoming the best possible coach that you can be.