Learning How To Overcome OCD Naturally

January 28th, 2010 Posted in Mental Health

Many people do not realize that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder. Understanding this bit of knowledge is the first step to overcoming the disorder naturally. Many people relate the disorder to excessive cleanliness or being a perfectionist. This is not a disorder, bur rather a personality type. Understanding this difference is crucial in learning how to overcome OCD naturally.

As mentioned, OCD is an off-shoot of anxiety. Everyone has a normal flight or fight response to fear, but with anxiety, the sense of fear is heightened to a point out of proportion to the actual danger. With OCD, this out of proportion since of danger is countered by a need for prevention, rather than fight or flight. The person with OCD will obsess about a possible danger, thought, or other scenario, and begins to create rituals which they believe will ward off the danger.

This ritual may be an action, thought, or urge. In their mind, what they are doing is absolutely essential to prevent some kind of danger. The ritual then begins to interfere with the everyday functions of life, such as going to work or going outside. Once the ritual begins to take up at least an hour a day, cumulatively, it is considered an actual disorder.

Once a person with OCD begins to realize that they are dealing with a fear, the process of overcoming OCD naturally can begin. Instead of fixating on why, for instance, you lock the dead bolt seven times, and turn the door knob three times to the right before locking it, focus on the cause of the ritual. Understand what is happening, and then try to change the way you are handling the situation.

Maybe instead of driving around the block 6 times to make sure there is no one down the street, challenge your mind. OCD is a cognitive disorder, and when your mind cannot produce the scenario it keeps trying to play out, you begin to break the compulsive habit. Stick your hands in mud don’t wash them for a whole day. Prove nothing will happen as a result.

Some case studies show that exposure and response prevention is key in how to overcome OCD naturally. Recognizing the disorder as a type of anxiety, and thus a product of fear, is the first step to success. Get all the knowledge you can about OCD, and you are well on your way to beating it.