Sleep. Insomnia

Sleep is vital for our health and mental wellbeing. We spend a third of our life in bed but sometimes there are some slumbering problems, which do not let us to have an everyday need sleep. Insomnia is one of sleep disturbances, which almost all of us had. It is the inability to sleep when it is the time to sleep. Insomnia could be due to a particular situations, such as the breakup of the relationships, worry about the test, the loss of a job, an exciting drama on TV just before bed time, or doing something violent for others, what may make us to feel guilty and worry about it during the bed time.

If we want to fall asleep on the time to sleep, we have to treat insomnia and the best way is to begin from stress reduction and good sleep hygiene. Psychologists studying sleep problems have a number of suggestions for overcoming insomnia.

The first one would be exercising during the day. It reduces the effects of stress, improves mood and deepens sleep. However, we should know that exercising early in the day helps us sleep, but exercising too close to bed causes wakefulness.

The second one could be relaxing before bedtime. It is helpful to stop all work-related tasks 90 minutes before going to sleep or to include taped relaxation exercises.

The third suggestion is to choose a regular bedtime and stick to it. That means that we have to go to bed and wake up at the same times each day, including on the weekend.

A good way is not to use your bed for all things doing: studying, reading, eating, watching TV or others activities. It should be used only for sleeping.

The next one is to reduce stimulants such as tea, coffee, cola, chocolate, cigarettes but a glass of warm milk at bedtime will help to fall asleep.

Eating a large meal within two hours is not a good decision although a little bit of food before bed can help to sleep. If we want to fall asleep in short time we should not nap during the day but a having a bedtime ritual, for example, at first we might read for a while, then have a shower, then change into pyjamas and go to bed, or reducing factors, which we may feel disturbing. It could be uncomfortable bed, extremes of temperature or external noise.

As we see, there are a lot of ways how to avoid insomnia and to prepare ourselves for sleep, which is very requirement for normal human functioning.

Influence

Everyone of us has met a person, who has had bigger or smaller influence on our personality. There could be people of inside or outside the family. A person who has made the biggest influence for me was Sister Caterina from the Missionaries of Charity.

Last summer I decided to give one month from my summer holidays for voluntary. I have chosen a monastery which helps for poor or sick people. Six sisters have been living in it but with one of them I had the best relationship.

If I spoke about her influential qualities, I would have to say that she had the richest the life of the spirit which I have ever seen. She was so nice for people who did not have their home and lived with sisters that even when others sisters used to objurgate them she used to intercede them. Sister Caterina saw goodness even in that people who were alcoholics, cripples and unacceptable for others. She was all heart. Sister had never gone through anyone who asked her help and everything what she did she did very committed.

Despite the fact that I have not seen her any more her influence has not gone. Now I always want to improve myself and an attitude to others and if I had not met her, I would have been egoist as before meeting. This sister was the best example of humaneness, which I expect to follow all my life.

In conclusion, our future depends on our behavior which is effected by the influence of other people and circumstance.

Phobias

A phobia is an excessive fear of a situation, for example driving, flying, seeing blood, or an object, for example animals such as rats, snakes, spiders, dogs. There are four main types of phobias: animal type(e.g.; spiders, dogs), natural environment type(e. g., storms, water), blood-injection-injury type(e. g., seeing blood, getting a needle) and situational type(e. g., enclosed places, flying, driving).
Medical and animal phobias typically begin in early childhood whereas situational and natural environment phobias begin later. Phobias have a strong effect on a person's life. Phobias cause a lot of distress and make it very difficult to function normally in social situations and at work. For example, a person with a fear of heights may not take a job in an office on a high floor of an office tower.
Many phobias are caused by experience of a traumatic event in the phobic situation(for example, a person has an accident and becomes fearful of driving) but there are number of individuals, who do not remember a specific time or event that caused their fear.
Simple and specific phobias can be treated using behavioral and cognitive theraphy procedures. In behavioral theraphy one meets with a trained therapist and confronts the feared object or situation in a carefully planned way and learns to control the physical reactions of fear.

To types of phobias

Coulrophobia is a fear of clowns. Like all fears and phobias, clown's fear is created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism. Some people believe that most people are afraid of clowns because it is impossible to recognize a clown's true emotions. Thanks to painted-on smiles, people can not distinguish if the clown is a happy as he seems. Although there are no official statistic, some experts believe that asmany as one in seven people experience some level of fear clowns. Symptoms can include shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausia and overall feelings of dread. Caulrophobia is most commonly caused by a traumatic experience in childhood. One famous person, who also has a fear of clowns, is JohnnyDepp.

Cynophobia is a fear of animals. Fear of domestic animals such as cats and dogs is the most common. Most others we can avoid by not going zoos, animals parks or circuses. Fear of domestic animals make life quite uncomfortable when friends, relatives and neighbours have pets of which you are phobic. And most pets act more responsibly towards you when you do not have a fear of them - because they can smell your phobia. But sometimes phobias like this can be very useful for your security.