What is Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a prevalent mental health problem that is characterized by o unpleasant behaviors, recurrent thoughts, and an obsession or compulsion. OCD may affect both men and women, as well as children. Some people experience symptoms as early as adolescence, although it generally begins in early adulthood. Routine chores can be difficult for someone with OCD to do. OCD may be upsetting and interfere with your life greatly, but therapy can help you keep it under control.

What are the signs and symptoms that indicate that one might be having OCD?

Obsessions, compulsions, or sometimes both may be present in people with OCD. These symptoms can have an impact on many parts of life, including jobs, education, and personal relationships.

Symptoms of Obsessions

Obsessions are anxious thoughts, desires, or mental pictures that occur repeatedly. Typical symptoms include:

• Apprehension about germs or contamination
• Permitted or taboo ideas about sex, religion, or damage
• Aggressive thoughts about others or about oneself
• Having everything in perfect symmetry or order

Symptoms of Compulsions

Compulsions are recurrent activities that an OCD sufferer feels compelled to perform in reference to an obsessive and intrusive thought. Compulsions that are common include:

• Cleaning and/or handwashing in excess
• Arranging and organizing things in a certain, exact manner
• Checking on items frequently, such as checking to verify if the door is locked or the oven is turned off
• Obsessive counting

Compulsions do not apply to all rituals or habits. Everyone does it from time to time. However, an OCD sufferer will generally:

• Possesses desires, ideas, or images they feel powerless to control
• Hesitate to experience these bothersome ideas and emotions.
• Feels a great deal of discomfort, maybe accompanied by dread, disgust, doubt, or the belief that something must be done a specific way.
• Spends a lot of time focused on these obsessions and participating in obsessive thoughts and compulsions, which disrupts their personal, interpersonal, and professional activities

Who are usually on the radar of having OCD?

It is noteworthy that Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) generally begins while you are a teen or young adult. OCD frequently manifests in boys earlier than in girls.

OCD risk factors include:

Family background

A larger risk exists for those who have a first-degree family with OCD. This is particularly valid if the relative experienced OCD as a young kid or adolescent.

Brain architecture and operation

According to imaging studies, the brains of OCD sufferers vary in a few specific areas. To fully understand how the changes in the brain are related to OCD, additional research is required.

Life Events

OCD may be more prevalent in persons who have experienced bullying, abuse, or neglect, and it occasionally develops following a significant life-changing event, such as delivery or a loss.

Personality and traits of an individual

People having a personality with more adherence to being tidy and methodical are usually at an increased risk of getting OCD. Also, thorough individuals with higher arbitrary qualities may be more prone to acquire OCD. People who are typically worried or have a strong feeling of responsibility for both themselves and others may be much more predisposed to developing OCD.

Trauma and Child abuse

Child abuse is one type of childhood trauma. OCD and childhood trauma have been linked in certain research.

Ways to diagnose Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

The very initial approach is to discuss your symptoms with your healthcare professional. Your doctor should examine you and inquire about your medical background. He or she must confirm that your symptoms are not being caused by a physical issue. Your healthcare practitioner can suggest that you seek additional assessment or treatment from a mental health professional if it appears to be a psychological disorder.

The diagnosis of OCD can occasionally be challenging. Its signs are similar to many other psychological illnesses, such as anxiety disorders. It is also feasible that one suffers from OCD in addition to another mental illness.

It is with noting that OCD is not always present in people with obsessions or compulsions. Normally, OCD would be diagnosed as one of your symptoms if you:

• Have no ability to control one’s ideas or conduct, even when one is aware that it is excessive.
• Invest at least one hour each day in these ideas or actions.
• Don’t enjoy yourself while engaging in the actions, but instead by performing them, you can momentarily feel less anxious as a result of your ideas.
• Have serious troubles in your everyday life due to these beliefs or actions

How is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) treated?

Usually, a combination of psychotherapy, medication, and self-help strategies is used when it comes to treating and managing OCD.

• Psychotherapy: You may address your anxieties and obsessive thoughts with the support of psychological therapy, which is often cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), without “making them right” by engaging in compulsions. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a kind of psychotherapy. It teaches you many approaches to thinking, acting, and responding to compulsions and obsessions. Exposure and Response Prevention (EX/RP) is a specialized kind of CBT that can be used to treat OCD. EX/RP progressively exposes you to your obsessions or phobias. You develop wholesome coping mechanisms for the distress they generate.

Read Blog : How to use exposure therapy?

Read Blog: CBT- A revolutionary psychotherapy with case study.

• Medications: Some antidepressants are used in OCD medications. To assist lessen OCD symptoms, serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are usually utilized. SRIs frequently require greater daily dosages in the therapy of OCD than in treating depression and might even take time to begin working, but some patients see more rapid recovery.

• Self-help strategies: Self-help strategies such as practicing mindfulness, joining a support group, doing exercise, and improving your routine are used to manage the symptoms of OCD. Researchers have provided empirical evidence that self-help strategies if used properly can help an individual take hold of their OCD efficiently.

We will be focusing on some of the most effective self-help techniques in this article.

Course: To know more about OCD, enroll in our course- Managing OCD with Mindfulness & CBT

10 Self-Help Techniques to catch hold of Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms can be debilitating and interfere with daily life. It’s simple to feel powerless. Even when everything is going smoothly, OCD can ruin your day. It can take a tremendous amount of time and effort to deal with obsessive and compulsive habits, as well as the worry that goes along with them.

Although the primary treatments for this chronic ailment are medicine and therapy, self-care is a trump card with a wealth of additional advantages. There are routines and practices you may employ to ease the symptoms and moderate your OCD stress, even if you are just discovering how to treat OCD.

Some tips and strategies to take care of the self are:

• Practice being aware through mindfulness

High anxiety and the prevalence of intrusive thoughts are two essential symptoms of OCD. Using mindfulness to minimize both sensations usually helps. Various studies found the amazing benefits of mindfulness practices for patients with OCD, depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.

Being mindful is having the capacity to absorb your experience as its whole without passing judgment or feeling the desire to flee. Anytime, everywhere, you may engage in mindfulness practice. Simply being aware of and observing the thoughts and feelings will also do. Well, you will have to admit that these thoughts and feelings exist and will dissipate, and moreover, you don’t have to react to your sentiments for all of them to fade away on their own.

Don’t anticipate it to be simple straight immediately. It might be challenging to acknowledge your ideas without acting on them, especially if you have OCD. Find a who fits your needs. Your OCD mindfulness practice will eventually become simpler and more natural.

You can engage in the following mindfulness techniques if they suit you:

1. Loving-kindness Meditation
2. Prana Vikshana (breath observance)
3. Body scan meditation
4. Guided slow-breathing meditation
5. Yoga

Read Blog: 14 most effective exercises for mindfulness

Watch video: We have created this playlist to help you get started with mindfulness and meditation

• Take adequate sleep and try to set up a sleeping routine

Sleep is an anxiety-reducing remedy. Unfortunately, as they experience insomnia at higher rates than the general population, persons with OCD often struggle to get quality sleep. You may experience intrusive thoughts that keep you up all night, depriving you of the rest you need to combat anxiety the following day. Thankfully, there are steps you may do to control your OCD distress and improve your sleep. For example:

1. Establish a nightly ritual to signal your body that it is time to rest.
2. You should minimize your digital time before night.
3. Consider drinking chamomile herbal tea.
4. Pay heed to what tactics are effective for you and create your nighttime routine appropriately.

Watch video: Scientific method to sleep

• Exercise Daily

Managing OCD stressors is successful with exercise. It helps to redirect your attention when intrusive ideas and compulsions develop. The amount of exercise recommended by experts is 30 minutes each day, but it doesn’t have to be done all at once. In actuality, three 10-minute focused exercise sessions are far superior to one 30-minute distracted stretching. It’s possible to exercise while thinking about something upsetting, but as you keep practicing mindfulness you could discover that painful feelings and thoughts slip under the radar more readily.

• Speak and stay connected with your loved ones and pals

Sometimes the symptoms of OCD might be so severe that they control your daily life and make you stay away from your loved ones. Make sure you give priority to time spent with the individuals you care about since isolation can exacerbate OCD symptoms.

Speaking with understanding friends regarding your OCD difficulties is OK and may even be beneficial. Be really mindful not to ask again and over for confirmation. Although it initially looks innocent, obsessive reassurance soliciting is a prevalent tendency in OCD sufferers and it prevents you from managing your symptoms on your own.

• Recognize and identify your triggers

Recognizing what causes your obsessive thoughts is the first step you can do to make your condition better. Start by keeping track of the everyday triggers you experience, then begin to categorize them according to their severity.

For example, When you touch a hand railing in a mall, you can believe as if you have microbes and should wash your hands. You feel the urge to wash your hands lasting for 20 minutes since it triggered the fear of catching some disease. Understanding your triggers way before can enable you to better manage your cravings and anticipate them.

• Identifying Black and White Thought

You will frequently revert to your path to development. It should not, however, imply that you really are a total failure. You always have another opportunity because you are in this for the long haul. It’s not necessary to be very harsh on oneself. Making errors when learning new techniques and experimenting with new approaches is common, especially with battling OCD. Don’t allow a huge setback to derail you, even if it happens. Recognize that everyone makes errors, and that progress won’t happen overnight.

• Observe and celebrate even the smallest successes

It takes time to know how to survive with OCD. You’ll have both accomplishments and failures like with any other aim. Yes, working on your OCD is crucial, but it’s as important to take a step back and recognize your accomplishments as you go along.

• Follow your treatment plan exactly and say no to alcohol

Trying to deviate and ditch your treatment plan may backfire and do more harm than good. Stick to the prescribed therapy, medications, and also self-care strategies to make the utmost benefit out of your treatment plan.

Although it might be tempting, using alcohol and drugs to overpower OCD only serves to provoke it. Alcohol may seem to reduce your anxiety, but before it exits your body, it actually increases it. The stimulant in cigarettes, nicotine, is no different. Try to stay away and avoid alcohol, drugs, and other such stimulants as far as possible.

• Learn more about OCD

Many individuals lack a better understanding of their issues. Some people even struggle with accepting their OCD. The ideal strategy is to first accept your predicament before educating yourself about it to learn why it occurs and, more significantly, what steps you can take to change it.

• Join a community or support group

It might occasionally appear and feel isolating to have OCD. Joining a support group is one of the valuable steps toward your recovery. It provides you ample opportunities to share your experiences and discover other people’s triumphs.
You can connect with others going through similar issues by joining an OCD support group. You discover a secure place to express your ideas while also learning how others deal with their issues.

Click here to enrol in the online course Managing OCD with Mindfulness & CBT