STRESS AND HOMOEOPATHY

STRESS AND HOMOEOPATHY
A.K.ARUN, B.H.M.S; L.M.H.I (Geneva)*

1 INTRODUCTION Stress, an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well-being. The word stress means different things to different people. Some people define stress as events or situations that cause them to feel tension, pressure, or negative emotions such as anxiety and anger. Others see the stress as the response to these situations. Stress is a common experience. We may feel stress when we are very busy, have important deadlines to meet, or have too little time to finish all of our tasks. Often people experience stress because of problems at work or in social relationships, such as a poor evaluation by a supervisor or an argument with a friend. Some people may be particularly vulnerable to stress in situations involving the threat of failure or personal humiliation. Others have extreme fears of objects or things associated with physical threats-such as snakes, illness, storms, or flying in an airplane and become stressed when they encounter or think about these perceived threats. Major life events, such as the death of a loved one, can also cause severe stress. Stress has both positive and negative effects. Stress is a normal, adaptive reaction to threat. It signals danger and prepares us to take defensive action. Fear of things that pose realistic threats motivates us to deal with them or avoid them. Stress also motivates us to achieve and fuels creativity. Although stress may hinder performance on difficult tasks, moderate stress seems to improve motivation and performance on less complex tasks. In personal relationships, stress often leads to less cooperation and more aggression.
If not managed appropriately, stress can lead to serious problems. Exposure to chronic stress can contribute to both physical illnesses, such as heart disease, and mental illnesses, such as anxiety disorders. The field of health psychology focuses in part on how stress affects bodily functioning and on how people can use stress management techniques to prevent or minimize disease.

2 HOMOEOPATHIC CONCEPTS OF STRESS

Homoeopathy is a rational therapeutical system with its holistic, integrated, multi-disciplinary and totalistic approaches the subject of stress in a convincing rational way. The subject “stress” is studied by several pioneers amply substantiates the basic concepts of homoeopathy.

3 HOMOEOPATHIC MATERIA MEDICA AND STRESS:

Hahnemann contributed human pharmacology and opened a new vista of understanding the drug effects at the human level. The exploration of the human mind yielded a wider database. The variable emotional feelings, intellectual aberrations, and also symptoms at the spiritual level were produced, thus synchronizing mind, body and spirit. Through the proving methodology, Hahnemann brought the illness at the forefront of our existence, at the humanistic experiential level. Could the potential action of a remedy be regarded as a stressor for a prover who gives variable expressions as a result of altered state of susceptibility? These expressions, if interwoven logically, form a synthetic whole to develop the conceptual image of a remedy where stressors, stress, strain and consequent expressions are explained rationally.

4 SOME HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDIES WHICH REFLECTS ‘STRESS’

Arg-nit is a ‘trapped’ person. Remains in tenseness. The hurried behavior coupled with anxiety leads to confusion and consequent mistakes. Impulsive, eccentric, whimsical nature and hidden irrational motives cause stress in others. Stressors for are blocked exits (crowds, closed places, bridges, tunnels, high places, aero planes, precipice etc.) or stressful events where he can’t find a way out his I.B.S. is stressful for his wife who doesn’t understand what to cook.
Arsenic Alb. drives everyone in all fields. His anxiety, domineering attitude and restlessness make others to dance as per his dictation. Insecurity inside drives him to seek security outside. Ars. is always strained. A fire brigade indeed!
Aurum represents high sense of duty, which compels him to work as an unstoppable machine `Robot’. He wants to be the best. He thinks that he has neglected his duty. This leads to anxiety of conscience----self-reproach----worthless feeling---- disgust of life -------suicidal disposition. His violent anger stresses the concerned and suicide done secretively makes the life of others stressful.

Carcinocin. is also workaholic. It has stress from two dispositions-performance and conscientiousness. He wants to do the work perfectly and ideally. The rigid moral values have to be maintained; they are not to be compromised. The sensitive, soft, tender mind gets affected soon, producing guilty feelings if mistakes are done by him. The responsibilities produce stress, the commitments developed out of duty-bound nature motivate for work. Being a gentleman, he can’t hurt others, he can’t square a person. He burns inside due to strain. Rejection, deprivation of love, reproaches, struggles; prolonged suppressions make him vulnerable to produce stress. Prolonged active stress leads to cancer like diseases. Unpredictable stress comes from humiliation, sexual abuse etc.

Lachesis is indeed a stressor for everyone in work area, in family or in society. His vigor coupled with jealousy, vindictiveness, revengefulness and possessiveness keep ‘nerves on edge’. Worse: whatever restricts or enforces. Better: whatever detents, expands, radiates, stimulates or releases. Lach. releases his stress through conversation (loquacity), creative ventilation, through seminal emissions.
Nux.Vom, the most workaholic of our materia medica, develops the stress out of his ambitious nature and resorts to stimulants that land him more in trouble; the vicious cycle is continued. Nux. can’t constraint himself from the stress and abuses others being short- fused. His violent anger produces stress in all - the boss, the subordinates and the family members.
‘Fragile’ ego is the cause of stress in Silicea. He can’t endure for long –neither the physical stress nor the mental one. He breaks down and goes into neurosis. Conscience with lack of grit play a major role in development of stress in silicea. He is a person of ‘caliber without fiber’. routinism, dependency, conservatism, and lack of determination make him defensive and withdrawing and he can’t capitalize; hence remain stressed.

Syphilynum is a stressor nosode. He is pervert, unstrung, hooligan, cruel, and liar. He makes things more complex and produces stress. He is an exploiter, a schemer in work area, but want of idealism and perversion ruin the business. He is anti-social and creates threatening situations.

Hahnemann expected higher purpose of life. Homoeopathy assists the vital economy to achieve the pleasant stress of fulfillment, eustress, without the harmful consequences of damaging stress, distress. Stress is a perpetual phenomenon, no one can abolish it. One has to master it, and homoeopathy, with its holistic healing, assists in mastering it! Definition of cure will be incomplete without harmony, without peace and without self-satisfying creativity.

5 HOMOEOPATHIC REPERTORY
Some rubrics are listed with its remedy. Examples are :

Ailments, anger from : Acon. aloe, Aur., Bell., Cham. Hyos., Ip. Lach. Nux.V., Op., Plat. Puls., Staph.,
Ailments, failure from business : Aur., Cimic., Hyos., Ign., Nat.Mur. ,Nux.V., Sep., Sulph., Verat.
Ailments, from disappointed love : Aur., Bell., Con., Hyos., Ign. ,Nat.M Nux.v., ,Ph .ac. , Staph.
Anger, weeping alternating with : Arn., Bell., Plat.
Anger, contradiction from : Aur. Bry., Ferr., Ign., Lyco. ,Nux.V. ,Sep.
Anger, despair with : Tarent.
Anxiety business about : Bry.,Car c.,Nux.v., Op.
Anxiety, crowd in a : Acon. ,Ambr., Arg.N., Puls., Stram
Anxiety Sucidal disposition with : Aur.,Plat., Puls., Rhus.T., Staph..
Delusion, laughed at and mocked at being : Bar.C., Ign., Nux.V. ,ph.ac. ,sep.
Delusion,being murdered he is : sulph
Delusion, poor; he is : bell. ,bry. ,nux.v., sep. stram.
Delusion, policeman physician is a : bell
Delusion, faithless, wife is : hyos. ,stram.
Fear, jumps, bed from : Ars. ,bell. ,stann
Sadness,when alone : Ars., aur., calc. ,dros., Mez. ,nat.M., Stram
Tearing, skin around nails : carc.
Weary of life, company in : Lyco.


6 REFERENCES:

1. Balch Phyllis A. -Nutritional Healing
2. Boerick William-Manual of Homoeopathic Materia Medica
3. Barthal H. –Synthetic repertory
4. Hahnemann Samuel –Materia Medica Pura
5. Kent J.T. –Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica
6. Kent J.T. –Repertory of Homoeopathic M.M.
7. Kulkarni Ajit & Tarkas P.I. –A Select Hom.Materia Medica Part I & II
8. Master Farockh J. –Prescribing Rubrik of Mind
9. Sarkar B.K. –Essence of Homoeopathy
10. Sankaran Rajan -The Sprit of Homoeopathy
11. Schroyens Frederik –Synthesis Homoeopathic Repertory, Ed - 9.1.
12. Vithoolkas George –The Science of Homoeopathy

*A Delhi based Homoeopathic Medical Consultant & Resercher,
Contact : docarun2@gmail.com , Web : www.drakarun.com