Psychological Problems Archives - Lisette Zeeuw M.Sc.

How can I Improve my Quality of Sleep?

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Lisette Zeeuw — 2 Comments ↓

Do you ever wake up feeling like you haven’t slept at all? Is your sleep not refreshing? This might indicate that you’re having a problem with your Quality of Sleep. In my recent post: “How to make an end to your Insomnia”, I explained how you can stop the vicious circle of insomnia.

In this post I’ll cover how to maintain good sleeping habits or “sleep hygiene”.

Even though we sleep one-third of our life, many people don’t know what they have to do to sleep well. In this article I’ll therefore explain how you can improve your Quality of Sleep.

Go to bed on the same time of the day, every day

Our body is quite sensitive to changes in schedules, especially with regard to sleeping schedules. Pick a moment on the day in which you are normally sleepy and stick to it. It can also help to start a sleeping ritual (for example, read something, take a hot shower or bath, dressing your pajama’s, brush your teeth etc.) in order for your body to get ready for sleeping. You will see how your body will prepare you for bedtime, by lowering your body temperature and closing your eyelids more and more. All this helps you in order to fall asleep better and more deeply.

Reject sleeping medication

Sleeping medication is highly addictive and has a lot of negative side effects. Sleep medication will leave you drowsy during the day, and it’s not effective in improving your quality of sleep in the long run. If you need sleeping aids, you could discuss melatonin supplements with your doctor. Melatonin supplements can reset your biological clock and can help you to fall asleep. They have no negative side effects, and are part of our natural sleep-wake system.

There are cases in which sleep medication is necessary,for example in the case of psychosis or temporary severe sleep disturbances. However, sleep medication should always be prescribed by a doctor and for a period of 2 weeks or less. If this is not the case it is better to stay away from sleep medication or to discuss your medication with your doctor again.

Leave your worries to a journal

When you go to bed with your head full of memories from the past day, it can be difficult to fall asleep. Also, you might dream restlessly. Journaling can be a great way to organise your thoughts and leave your worries behind. When you write something down you have to bring structure to what happened to you. This can already help you to make more sense of it and let it go.

Exercise during the day

It has been shown in various scientific studies that exercising during the day improves our sleep. Exercise helps in releasing the stress hormone cortisol from your body, which makes it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. Try to exercise at least 3 hours before going to bed, so you avoid having to go to bed excited.

Excercising helps to push out the stress hormone cortisol of your body, thereby improving your Quality of Sleep.

Make sure you get enough sunlight

We humans are like plants. When we don’t get enough sunlight during the day, we don’t feel well.This is caused by a lack of Vitamin D and melatonin. Melatonin is especially important for a good night of sleep, since it regulates when you get tired and if you can sleep throughout the night. Your doctor can give you information on vitamin D and melatonin supplements if necessary. Also, if you live in area with a lack of sunlight you can consider buying a day-light therapy lamp.

However, the best way to procure you gain enough sunlight is to be outside at least for 30 minutes a day. This even works if the sun is not shining because there is still more light intensity (lux) than when we stay inside. When you’re outside try to roll up you’re sleeves so the sun can touch your skin directly (obviously you can apply sun screen beforehand).

Avoid caffeine after 2 pm

Caffeine takes 8 hours to get out of our blood. This means that if you drink a cup of coffee around 8pm, your brain will be more active until 4am at night! This is why drinking caffeine after 2pm is not a good idea if you want to improve your quality of sleep. If you’re a coffee lover, try decaf coffee.

Do a relaxing activity before going to sleep

We have a tendency of not stopping nowadays, but your body needs some time to wind off before going to bed. You can read a book, take a bath, get a relaxing massage or do a relaxation exercise.

Winding off by doing a relaxing activity like reading can help us to calm down before going to bed.

Avoid alcohol or marihuana as an aid to fall asleep

Drinking alcohol or smoking marihuana to fall asleep is like putting a band-aid on a flat tire. It might help you temporarily to fall asleep, but during the night you will wake up more frequently and your REM-sleep will be interrupted. Therefore it is important to limit alcohol to one to two drinks per day and marihuana to one or two joints per week, or less, and to avoid drinking and smoking within three hours of going to bed.

Don’t eat heavy meals before going to bed

Heavy meals take a long time to digest. During digestion, the body spends energy on processing the meal, and moving it forward through the body. This process interferes with our sleep. The fatter and heavier the meal, the longer it takes. If you eat a heavy meal, avoid doing this within two hours of going to bed.

Get pets out of the bedroom

It is very cute to have your pet sleeping on your feet, belly, or back. However, having pets in the bedroom disrupts your sleep, and makes you wake up more often. If you can, try to keep your pets out of the bedroom.

Don’t try to fall asleep while listening to music or the television

Even though calming music or the television can help you to calm down, it interferes with your quality of sleep by preventing you to reach the deeper sleep stages. The deepest sleep stages are most important to help us recover during the night. Listening to some soft music before going to bed can be a good idea though.

Listening to some relaxing soft music before going to bed can be part of your sleeping ritual. Avoid music while going to sleep though

Practice a relaxation technique

Relaxation techniques are awesome! They help you to reduce anxiety and stress, and they’re a great help in calming down before going to bed. You can try to take deep and slow abdominal breaths, or do some yoga or meditation exercise.

Quality of sleep can be more important than quantity of sleep. That’s why I wrote this article. I hope you’ll find these tips helpful and that you will notice some improvement in your Quality of Sleep.

Please share the article with your friends and family :)!

What is Social Anxiety?

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Lisette Zeeuw — Leave a reply

Feeling nervous when you meet someone new, sweaty hands when you have to ask your boss something, being afraid to tell others what you really think: these are all examples of Social Anxiety.

Many people might have heard about Social Anxiety, but don’t know what it is exactly.Therefore, in this blog post I’ll explain what Social Anxiety is, how you can recognise it, and in which situations Social Anxiety is most common.

What is Social Anxiety?

Social Anxiety is the fear of being judged negatively by others. If you have Social Anxiety you’re highly self-conscious. This means that you’re constantly thinking about what others might think of you. Also, you prepare thoroughly what you’ll be saying in conversations, in order to cause a good impression. Furthermore you can prepare a meeting with friends for days or weeks.

Also, when you’re around other people you might have physical symptoms like sweating, trembling, blushing, or tightness in the chest. When you’re around other people, you might focus more on their “performance” then on the interaction with the other person. This can cause you to have problems concentrating, and you might actually give a worse impression because of this. If some of these symptoms are common in you, then you might suffer from Social Anxiety.

Symptoms of Social Anxiety

If you suffer from Social Anxiety you might recognize the following symptoms:

You’re anxious or really nervous when you’re around other people
You’re very afraid that other people might judge you and that they might think negatively of you.
You’re highly self-conscious in front of other people.
You’re anxious when you have to perform in front of others.
You can worry and/or prepare yourself for days or weeks before a social event.
You stay away from places or events with other people.
You blush, sweat, tremble, or feel tightness around the chest when you’re with other people.
You focus so much on your own performance during conversations with others that you have difficulties concentrating.

What happens when you have Social Anxiety?

It is quite common to experience Social Anxiety. Think about having to give a presentation, or introducing yourself to someone you don’t know yet. Most people would at least be a little bit nervous in this situation. If you have Social Anxiety, your presentation might go somewhat like this:

You walk on stage. You check the faces of your colleagues briefly because you’re already feeling overwhelmed. Now they’re still looking interested, but soon they might see what a failure you are. You look closely at your presentation cards, sure that you will forget everything once you open your mouth.

The only thing you can think about is that you’re going to make many mistakes and that everyone will notice. You start sweating and see how your hands are trembling. You’re sure that everyone will notice. You’re afraid of getting a blackout and not being able to say anything. Once you introduce yourself, you see that your colleague Karen is not paying you attention.

You say to yourself “you see, no one is interested in your presentation, you should have picked another subject”. When at the end of your presentation everybody’s clapping, you think they’re only doing this out of pity. They’ve all seen how you were stuttering. The only thing on your mind is that your boss might fire you, because of this horrible presentation…

Social Anxiety can affect you on many levels

As you can see, Social Anxiety can affect you on many levels:

You think that others will criticize you or think of you negatively. Even though others don’t say anything, you already think that they are criticizing you.

You don’t belief in your own capability. For example, in this story the main character didn’t belief she could give a good presentation, even though she had properly prepared it.

You have physical symptoms and think that everyone will notice. People with Social Anxiety are very worried about other people noticing their physical symptoms. They are afraid that others will see them as weird or strange.

You minimize positive feedback. If you get positive feedback you will usually not accept it, because you’re focussing more on your mistakes then on your general performance.

You maximize the negative consequences. You think that if you make a mistake, others will react really heavily in response. For example, you might think that they don’t want to see you anymore or as the main character in this story, that you will be fired.

In which situations do people with Social Anxiety feel anxious?

If you have Social Anxiety there are many different situations in which you might feel anxious or nervous. Especially situations in which you can be judged or in which you’ll be evaluated like the following:

Meeting new people
Being in groups
Speaking in public
Being the center of attention
Asking questions or giving their opinion
Talking on the phone
Talking to people of authority (professors, boss)
Being watched while doing something

Many people with Social Anxiety avoid social situations. They simply don’t go or they invent an excuse like “I’m feeling tired” or “I’m busy”. Sometimes this is not even a conscious decision. They feel that they’re unmotivated, but don’t recognize this feeling as Social Anxiety.

Common thoughts in people with Social Anxiety

I don’t match up to him/her. People with Social Anxiety commonly compare themselves to other people. They think that they’re less smart, less beautiful, or less funny than other people. These thoughts add to their anxiety.
Anything I say will sound stupid. This is a common thought in people with Social Anxiety. They fear, without reason, that they are unable to make a smart or nice comment and that others will see them as stupid or incapable.
They won’t like me. People with Social Anxiety usually think that others have really high expectations of them. They think that they have to “perform” perfectly, or else they won’t be liked. This level of perfection is hardly reached because of their high standards. That’s why these thoughts cause even greater fear in people with Social Anxiety
I’ll get nervous and everyone will notice. People who suffer from Social Anxiety have the thought that they’re transparent to others. That is, they think that others can see if they’re relaxed or nervous. Of course, others can notice when you’re feeling nervous or stressed, but people with Social Anxiety think that everybody will notice and that they will think negatively of them because of this.

How can Social Anxiety be treated?

Social Anxiety can be treated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, integrative therapy, or medication.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most effective psychotherapy for Social Anxiety. It helps you to challenge negative thoughts, to change your behaviour and to learn social skills, in order to feel less anxious and more confident. When treated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Social Anxiety has a good prognosis.

The integrative therapy that I use combines techniques of CBT with a profound and exhaustive analysis of the cause of your anxiety. You won’t only learn how to manage anxiety but we will also work on its causes. This approach makes sure that the anxiety is less likely to come back and it’s even possible to cure it completely.

A psychiatrist can prescribe you medication, like antidepressants (SSRI’s). This can help to reduce the symptoms of you anxiety and to give you more confidence. However, medication can cause you side effects, and after you stop taking them, usually their effect remits.

Social Anxiety is common in most of us.

If you suffer from it, even though it’s just every once in a while, it’s good to know that therapy can help you to feel more confident in social situations.

If you would like to know more about how I can help you to feel more confident, you can contact me through the contact page or call me on: + 34 616 341 631.

Also, please share your opinion about this post in the comments!

How to make an end to your insomnia

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Lisette Zeeuw — 5 Comments ↓

Insomnia is a huge problem for many people. Not sleeping well can really ruin your day. Unfortunately when people have insomnia they usually take the wrong measures. In this blog post therefore I will give you advice on what to do to stop your insomnia and how to improve your sleep quality.

Insomnia is what keeps us awake at night

Alyssa L. Miller via Compfight

Why do I have insomnia?
Insomnia can have many different causes. Pain, worries, stress and apnea are among the most common ones. Usually what happens is that poor sleep starts a vicious cycle in which: poor sleep leads to worries about sleep, which in turn leads to ineffective measures, which finally leads to poor sleep.

Poor sleep. We all have a bad night of sleep every once in a while. What changes poor sleep into insomnia are the thoughts we have about not being able to sleep.
Worries about sleeping. When you sleep wrong once, it is easy to start worrying that next time you won’t sleep well either. Also, you might worry about how you will feel the next day or about things that might go wrong because of your lack of sleep.These thoughts actually make it more difficult to sleep and raise your anxiety level. This leads many people into taking measures.
Taking ineffective measures.Unfortunately these are usually not the most effective ones. For example, many people start checking the clock to see how much time they have been awake, which makes them even more worried. Others might start taking naps during the day “to make up for the bad night of sleep”, which actually causes them to have more trouble sleeping at night, because they’re not tired anymore. These ineffective measures complete the vicious circle of insomnia since they cause poor sleeping.

The vicious cycle of insomnia

It is important to know that whatever the cause of your insomnia is, you can do something about it:

What can I do when I don’t manage to fall asleep?
If you cannot fall asleep there are several things you can do:

Create your own sleeping ritual. It is important to prepare your body for the night and give it a sign that you’re going to bed. So try to create your own ritual before going to bed. You could include brushing your teeth, stretching your body, reading a book. Do this ritual every day before going to bed and you will see your yawns becoming more and more frequent around bed time.

Use your bed only for sleeping. This is an advice that many people find logical but hardly anyone complies with. How easy is it to have breakfast in bed, to watch a movie, to read a book… However, all these activities create a wrong association in the brain: they tell our brain that our bed is for staying awake. That’s why it’s extremely important not to use your bed for other activities than sleeping.

Use the 15 minutes-technique. The 15 minutes-technique is one of the most effective techniques to stop insomnia. It is based on breaking the connection of bed-awake and changing it into the healthy connection of bed-sleeping. It consists of the following steps:
1. Try to fall asleep.
2. If you don’t fall asleep within 15 minutes you get out of bed and you go to another room.
3. Once you’re in the other room, you engage in a boring activity like reading the dictionary or the encyclopedia until you feel sleepy.
4. When you feel sleepy you go back to bed. You try to fall asleep.
5. If you don’t fall asleep within 15 minutes, get out of bed and start another (or the same) boring activity. When you feel sleepy you go back to bed.
6. Repeat the steps until you fall asleep. Most people fall asleep within 1 or two cycles of the 15-minute technique. It’s used in all effective Cognitive Behaviour Therapy programs for insomnia. Try it!

Do not check your clock. Most people who suffer from insomnia check the clock all the time to see for how long they’ve been awake and how much time they can still sleep. Don’t do this! Watching the clock activates our brain, (especially the digital clocks) and causes you to stay awake instead of falling asleep.

Do not check your clock when you can’t sleep: it will only make you become more awake!

Change your thoughts. When you can’t sleep it’s easy to start thinking about how annoying it is that you’re unable to fall asleep, how crappy you’ll feel tomorrow, and how bad this important meeting will go because of this. At night the frontal part of our brain is less active, which causes our worries to run freely, without control. When this happens try to tell yourself that even though it might feel this way now, tomorrow the world will look different. Also, be a judge of your thoughts and try to think about days that you have been sleepy. Were you really unable to do anything? Was it that horrible?

Improve your surroundings. Try to make sure your sleeping conditions are optimal. So make sure your bed is comfortable, your mattress is soft (or tough as you prefer), and your pillow gives you the right support. Make sure the temperature in the room is about 16-18 degrees, warmer or colder makes it difficult to fall asleep. Also, prevent daylight from coming into your room, it causes our body to wake up, even though we don’t want to. And last but not least, make sure you don’t hear noise in your room, wear ear plugs if necessary.

So as you can see, there are many things you can do if you suffer from insomnia.

Please let me know what you think about the tips and which ones work best for you! Also, if you have any tips please share!

How to gain control over your anxiety: 7 useful tips

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Lisette Zeeuw — 2 Comments ↓

Many people suffer from Anxiety at some point in life. The most common fears are: getting an illness, loosing your job, hurting or losing the people around you, underperforming at important events or not being liked by the people around us. Luckily, anxiety does not need to control us. In this post you will find 7 useful tips about how to fight anxiety:

Know your anxiety. Knowing what makes us anxious is the first step in reducing our fear. Try to keep a notebook of situations in which you felt nervous or anxious. Write down what happened, when it happened and what you thought. This will help you to find patterns in your anxiety.
Remember that anxiety won’t last forever. Anxiety is the reaction of our body to a situation we perceive as frightening. It prepares us to fight or flight from a dangerous situation. Many people think that if they don’t do anything to stop anxiety, it will go on forever. Fortunately however, our body cannot stay in the “fight-or-flight” mode for a long time. If we stay in the situation long enough our anxiety level will always go down!
The red line shows how most people think Anxiety works. The blue line shows that our Anxiety always goes down if we stay in the situation long enough.
Expose yourself to your fears. Usually when we´re afraid, we start avoiding the situations we fear. For example someone who’s afraid of getting an illness might avoid sick people,or going to the doctor. When we avoid we tell our brain that something dangerous is really about to happen, and we can never discover if the opposite is true. By exposing ourselves to our fear and staying in the situation long enough, our anxiety will go down.
Schedule worry time. Sometimes it can be difficult to stop worrying. The best thing you can do is to schedule 1 hour during the day in which you have to worry. During the rest of the day write down your worries in a booklet and save them for your worry time. It might sound strange to force yourself to worry but it´s the best way to gain control over our worries.
Tire yourself. Our body can only be anxious when we have the energy for it. One of the best ways to fight anxiety is to engage in exercise. Take the bicycle, go for a run or go skating. The more tired you are, the less anxious you´ll be.
Breathe properly.The way we breathe can greatly affect how we feel. When you feel anxious try to take deep and slow breaths. Try to raise your abdomen with every breath instead of your chest. This will increase the oxygen level in your body and make you feel more relaxed.
Change your diet. Reduce the amount of coffee, tea, energy drinks and cola you consume. They´ll make you more anxious, which is just what we want to prevent.

As you can see there are many things we can do to gain control over our anxiety. For more useful tips check out the tips from the Anxiety and Depression Association. Also, if you have any questions feel free to comment. I’ll answer them gladly :).

I’m curious about your experiences. What do you do when you feel nervous or anxious? Did the tips help you?