Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Cyber Bullying

Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others. Most people have heard of this type of bullying before but I feel I need to talk about it. While posting something that embarrasses or humiliates a person on someones Facebook or Myspace might not seem like a big deal, it can actually lead to alot of problems. Once you post something on the internet its there forever. Sometimes you can take it down ,but whoever has had access to it could have copied it. The problem with cyberbullying is that sometimes its hard to find who is doing it ,and that the effects are about as bad as face to face bullying. Victims have lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, cyberbullying back, being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed. What seems like a joke to you could have a huge effect on another person. Before you post something embarrassing or offensive think about what your doing.

Ways to deal with Stress and Depression

Symptoms of stress can be mental, social and physical. These include exhaustion, loss of appetite, headaches, crying, sleeplessness, and oversleeping. Escape through alcohol, drugs, or other compulsive behavior are often indications. Feelings of alarm or frustration may accompany stress.Here are some ways to help you deal with stress:

  • Look around and see if there really is something you can change or control in the situation.
  • Remove yourself from the stressful situation for a few minutes.
  • Don't overwhelm yourself by worrying about all of your work. Handle each task as it comes, or selectively deal with matters in some priority.
  • Get enough sleep, lack of sleep can just increase your stress or make it worse.
  • Work off stress with physical activity, whether it's jogging, tennis, gardening.
  • Try to be positiveGive yourself messages as to how well you can cope rather than how horrible everything is going to be. "Stress can actually help memory, provided it is short-term and not too severe. Stress causes more glucose to be delivered to the brain, which makes more energy available to neurons. This, in turn, enhances memory formation and retrieval. On the other hand, if stress is prolonged, it can impede the glucose delivery and disrupt memory." All Stressed Up, St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, p. 8B, Monday, November 30, 1998

For other tips and more information check out this site:http://www.studygs.net/stress.htm

Effects of Stress

There are many types of stress but the type I will be talking about today is Biological Stress. There are 3 stages of stress. The first is Alarm. This is the point where the body recognizes what is causing stress. During this stage adrenaline will be produced in order to bring about a response. Resistance is the second stage, if your stress persists it becomes necessary to attempt to a way to cope with the stress. Exhaustion is the 3rd stage, at this point initial autonomic nervous system symptoms may reappear (sweating, raised heart rate etc.). If stage three is extended, long term damage may result. The result can a be a number of obvious illnesses such as ulcers, depression, Diabetes, trouble with the digestive system and even cardiovascular problems along with other mental illnesses.There are several ways of coping with stress, such as controlling the source of stress or learning to set limits and to say "No" to some demands that bosses or family members may make. Coping with stress will be covered in my next post.

Bullying

Bullying is the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coereion such as manipulation.Victims of bullying can suffer from long term emotional and behavioral problems. Bullying can cause loneliness, anxiety,depression and can lead to low self-esteem. Most bullying can be prevented. Schools all over the country run types of anti-bullying programs. Bullying can occur in almost any interaction between humans. This could be social groups, social classes and even between countrys. Because bullying is so common taking steps to prevent it is vital. School shootings are usually a result of bullying. In over 2/3 of the cases the attacker felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others prior to the incident. The main thing im trying to say here is dont be a bully. When you bully someone you can cause them alot of problems in thier later years, and cause them to lash out at others who they may have some sort of power over.