Excessive stress may increase to mental disorder

Excessive stress may relapse to mental illness says an expert in psychology.

 Stress is the body’s method of reacting to a condition such as a threat, challenge or physical and psychological barrier.

 The Federal Neuro-Psychiatrist Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, witnessed a 111 per cent increase in overall patient attendance and 59 per cent increase in number of new patients from January –November 2016.

  In absolute figures, according to the data, there was an overall 46 per cent increase in number of admissions in 2016 (867) compared to 594 in 2015, while the community clinic attendance went up from 1,793 to 3,510, a 95 per cent increase.

 Richard Adebayo, a consultant psychiatric and clinical psychologist, at Federal neuropsychiatric hospital, Yaba, Lagos in an interview with BusinessDay said  that relapses can have overwhelming consequences for people with mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, or an anxiety disorder.

“We know here that a patient can easily relapse into mental illness when they are undergoing severe stress.

 “Stress is one of the common causes of a relapse including  drug and alcohol misuse, lack of sleep or irregular pattern of sleep, lack of social relationships and support, poor understanding of your mental disorder in general. Addressing these factors may help you to prevent a full-scale relapse” Adebayo said.

 Adebayo added that understanding the psychological mechanisms of how stress can lead to depression and anxiety can help prevent it. This is especially important for people who have had an earlier episode of depression or who have a genetic tendency of coming down with mental disorders and would like to prevent relapse.

 “Stress is an everyday event that human being passes through due to excessive pressure and it can translate into deeper health implication on both physical and mental consequences either positively or negatively.

  Adebayo further explained that when an individual is undergoing stress, the body metabolism could be affected and the hormones get disrupted making the alert system in the body, the adrenaline and non-adrenaline to be on the hyper level because the person is always agitated.

 He added that some people use wrong coping strategy, when they are stressed up, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol. Many Nigerians falls in this category, thinking these wrong strategies will ease them of stress at home, work place.

 “These are wrong coping strategies, taking alcohol will not solve the stress but some people believe that is an escape route to forget problems.

  “Your kind of coping strategy when stressed is very important, but we should not adhere to wrong lifestyles.” Adebayo advised.

ANTHONIA OBOKOH