ATOMIC MEME: Stress Management and Treatment

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Treating Stress-Related Illness
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Participatory medicine
Deciding if medications for anxiety and depression are right for you

Because symptoms associated with chronic stress can have serious health consequences, engaging with your health care provider to develop a health care strategy that's right for you is important.

There are many options for treating anxiety and depression, which can be associated with chronic stress. Some questions to consider asking your health care provider include...

Managing Stress
Some coping tips

Identify what makes you stressed. For example, keep a journal of your “stress triggers.” Write down how your thoughts and behaviors change when you’re stressed.

Working on thoughts

Consider the thoughts that scare you or make you more anxious. Are they realistic? Are they unhelpful or unproductive?

This site provides some general information on the relationships between stress and health. Your individual situation is unique. Your health care provider is best suited to work with you on a health care strategy that fits your needs. Content on this site was written by Dianne Rees, JD, PhD (last updated December, 9, 2009) and is not sponsored by third parties.

Video Games as Therapy
Although video games have gotten a bad rap and we may be hiding our love of them, video games have proven useful in treating conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a tool for PTSD treatment, a video game might be used to gradually expose a person to stressful stimuli, under the supervision of a therapist, until they're no longer so overwhelming.

In one study of video games used to teach stress coping techniques, researchers found that playing video games can actually decrease levels of the stress hormone, cortisol.

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