5 Tips for Overcoming Dental Fear

Some people continuously postpone their dental treatments, mainly because they struggle with fear of the dentist.
They cannot stand the white robe of the dentist, the tools and machinery existent in the office, so they prefer not to visit the dentist at all.
Quite often however, it happens that a simple decay will transform into a very complex oral health problem, and then the patient needs to pay even more money in order to get proper treatment.
The following are a few useful tips that will help you fight off dentist phobia:
1. Dentist Phobia: At your own pace.
Make sure to ask the dentist to allow you to arrive for the dental exams whenever it is convenient to you, and to give you a little bit of “comfort zone” time right before starting the treatment. Those few extra minutes will help greatly reducing the fear and the panic you feel when entering the dental office.
2. Dental Phobia: A certain degree of control.
When your dentist is performing a treatment, and you start to feel somewhat uncomfortable, raise your hand in order for the dentist to stop for a while. Discuss with your dentist, and ask him to agree with this type of signaling. This will certainly help you feel more in control when you are sitting in that dentist chair.
3. Fear of Dentist: Tell your dentist everything.
If you have gone through a traumatic dental experience in the past, let him know. Dental offices are much better equipped with modern technology and truly efficient pain relievers and your dentist can help.
4. Dental Anxiety: Alternative dental treatments.
Hypnotherapy and sedation dentistry are two methods through which pain can be controlled extremely efficiently. Talk to your dentist about these options, and see if any of these can be applied in your case. Especially Hypnotherapy helps relieving dental anxiety and panic attacks.
5. Dental Phobia: Try to relax.
If your dentist is a friendly professional, talking to him right before the dental treatment starts, could make you extremely comfortable. Then if you believe that music can distract you a little bit, plug in your earphones during the dental treatment and let yourself carried away by the tunes a little.

Source: January 12th, 2012
Dental Health Magazine
Categories: Dentists

Is the idea of stress-free work environment an illusion?

By Huzefa Mohamed, Success Columnist
Over lunch the other day, I was discussing with my friend Pascal about work and stress. He suggested the two had become so inseparable these days that with work usually come bundles of stress.

Explaining, he said if you’re not stressed at work, the perception is that you’re probably not working hard or maybe you’re not working sincerely, or worse still, you’re not working at all – just passing away your time.

My professor used to say that stress could either be good or bad. At the workplace, good stress helps improve productivity and performance. On the other hand bad stress is counter-productive because it impedes our performance.

I am very disturbed to see that the bad stress is now accepted as part and parcel of work. In the last two decades, the number of people reporting negative effects of stress at work has gone up more than five times. But, since everyone “suffers” from it, no one seems to be doing anything about it.

You need to understand the link between stress and your health. Bad stress exposes you to all kinds of illnesses – from the less serious common cold to the more severe heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes. It also leads to alcoholism, over-eating, drug addiction, smoking, depression, and other harmful behaviours.

In spite of these adverse outcomes of stress, most of us accept it as a price we must pay for survival and/or success. Is stress inevitable? Can’t we have a stress-free working environment? Can’t we enjoy our work, and experience no stress at all – good or bad? I believe you can.

De-linking your work from stress is vital for your health and happiness. According to my friend Pascal, it’s important that you spend your days doing something that you feel challenged to do, and appreciated. Without these and other key factors, you can be at risk for burnout.

The writer is a training consultant and author of ‘Winning the Battle’.
The Citizen

Stress may cause brain to shrink

If you’re stressed out from a divorce, a hard day at work or a fight with your girlfriend it might be causing your brain to shrink.
A study by Yale University researchers found that stressful life events can reduce gray matter in regions of the brain that regulate emotion and important physiological functions in healthy people to brain structure changes associated with psychiatric disorders, such as addiction depression and anxiety.
Past studies have only linked stress.
The effects of stress on the brains of healthy individuals hasn’t been clear.
The researchers looked at MRIs of more than 100 healthy people. They found the changes soon after stressful events occurred and said the findings may serve as warning signals of future psychiatric disorders and chronic diseases, such as diabetes or hypertension.
The study, which was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

By Andrea K. Walker / The Baltimore Sun

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