People Who Feel Compelled to Perform Rituals Over and Over Again May Be Suffering From

anxiety

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Are obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors interfering with your daily life? Explore the symptoms, treatment, and self-help for OCD.

Soapy hands under faucet, scrubbing clean

What is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

Information technology's normal, on occasion, to get back and double-check that the iron is unplugged or worry that you lot might be contaminated by germs, or even take an occasional unpleasant, violent idea. But if you suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors become so consuming they interfere with your daily life. OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and ritualized, repetitive behaviors you feel compelled to perform. If y'all accept OCD, you lot probably recognize that your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are irrational—merely even so, you experience unable to resist them and break free.

Like a needle getting stuck on an quondam tape, OCD causes the brain to get stuck on a item idea or urge. For example, you may check the stove 20 times to brand sure it'southward really turned off because y'all're terrified of burning down your house, or launder your hands until they're scrubbed raw for fear of germs. While you don't derive whatever sense of pleasure from performing these repetitive behaviors, they may offer some passing relief for the anxiety generated past the obsessive thoughts.

Yous may attempt to avoid situations that trigger or worsen your symptoms or cocky-medicate with alcohol or drugs. But while information technology can seem like there'southward no escaping your obsessions and compulsions, there are plenty of things you tin can do to interruption free of unwanted thoughts and irrational urges and regain control of your thoughts and actions.

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OCD obsessions and compulsions

Obsessions are involuntary thoughts, images, or impulses that occur over and over again in your mind. Yous don't desire to take these ideas, but you tin't stop them. Unfortunately, these obsessive thoughts are oftentimes disturbing and distracting.

Compulsions are behaviors or rituals that you feel driven to deed out again and again. Unremarkably, compulsions are performed in an endeavor to make obsessions go abroad. For example, if you're afraid of contamination, you lot might develop elaborate cleaning rituals. However, the relief never lasts. In fact, the obsessive thoughts commonly come dorsum stronger. And the compulsive rituals and behaviors oft end upwards causing feet themselves as they become more than enervating and time-consuming. This is the vicious cycle of OCD.

Near people with OCD autumn into one of the following categories:

Washers are agape of contamination. They ordinarily have cleaning or hand-washing compulsions.
Checkers repeatedly check things (oven turned off, door locked, etc.) that they associate with harm or danger.
Doubters and sinners are agape that if everything isn't perfect or done but right something terrible volition happen, or they will be punished.
Counters and arrangers are obsessed with order and symmetry. They may take superstitions almost certain numbers, colors, or arrangements.

OCD and hoarding

Hoarding used to be considered a category of OCD. While estimates advise that upward to 25 percent of people with OCD feel compulsive hoarding, it can besides be a sign of a split status, hoarding disorder.

Hoarders fear that something bad will happen if they throw anything away and hoard things that they don't need or employ. However, at that place are distinctions betwixt OCD-related hoarding and hoarding disorder.

OCD-related hoarders tend not to accumulate so many possessions that their homes go unmanageable. Hoarding for them is usually unwelcome and sorry—a way to manage intrusive thoughts

Someone with hoarding disorder, on the other hand, experiences both positive and negative emotions. Acquiring possessions provides pleasure rather than merely satisfying a compulsion and they being surrounded by their things provides comfort. The distress in hoarding disorder stems more than from the consequences of hoarding—the clutter and unsafe environment—along with the anxiety of having to discard possessions .

Read: Hoarding Disorder: Help for Hoarders

OCD signs and symptoms

Merely because you lot have obsessive thoughts or perform compulsive behaviors does Not mean that you have obsessive-compulsive disorder. With OCD, these thoughts and behaviors cause tremendous distress, have upwardly a lot of time (at least ane hour per mean solar day), and interfere with your daily life and relationships.

Most people with obsessive-compulsive disorder take both obsessions and compulsions, but some people experience just one or the other.

Common obsessive thoughts in OCD include:

Fear of existence contaminated by germs or dirt or contaminating others.
Fearfulness of losing command and harming yourself or others.
Intrusive sexually explicit or fierce thoughts and images.
Excessive focus on religious or moral ideas.
Fright of losing or not having things you might need.
Order and symmetry: the idea that everything must line up "merely right".
Superstitions; excessive attention to something considered lucky or unlucky.

Mutual compulsive behaviors in OCD include:

Excessive double-checking of things, such equally locks, appliances, and switches.
Repeatedly checking in on loved ones to make certain they're rubber.
Counting, borer, repeating certain words, or doing other senseless things to reduce anxiety.
Spending a lot of time washing or cleaning.
Ordering or arranging things "just so".
Praying excessively or engaging in rituals triggered by religious fearfulness.
Accumulating "junk" such as old newspapers or empty food containers.

OCD symptoms in children

While the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder usually occurs during adolescence or young adulthood, younger children sometimes accept symptoms that look similar OCD. However, the symptoms of other disorders, such as ADHD, autism, and Tourette'due south syndrome, can also look like obsessive-compulsive disorder, and then a thorough medical and psychological examination is essential before whatsoever diagnosis is made.

OCD self-assist tip 1: Identify your triggers

The kickoff step to managing your OCD symptoms is to recognize the triggers—the thoughts or situations—that bring on your obsessions and compulsions. Record a list of the triggers you lot feel each day and the obsessions they provoke. Rate the intensity of the fright or anxiety you experienced in each situation and then the compulsions or mental strategies you used to ease your anxiety. For case, if you lot have a fearfulness of existence contaminated past germs, touching a railing at the mall might generate a fright intensity of 3, whereas touching the restroom flooring in the mall might generate a 10 and require xv minutes of mitt washing to ease your feet.

Keeping track of your triggers can help y'all anticipate your urges. And past anticipating your compulsive urges earlier they arise, you tin can help to ease them. For example, if your compulsive behavior involves checking that doors are locked, windows airtight, or appliances turned off, attempt to lock the door or turn off the appliance with actress attention the showtime fourth dimension.

Create a solid mental picture and then make a mental note. Tell yourself, "The window is now airtight," or "I can meet that the oven is turned off."
When the urge to cheque arises later, yous will find it easier to re-label it as "only an obsessive thought."

Identifying and recording your triggers as well provides an important tool for learning to resist your OCD compulsions.

Tip 2: Learn to resist OCD compulsions

It might seem smart to avoid the situations that trigger your obsessive thoughts, but the more you avoid them, the scarier they feel. Conversely, past repeatedly exposing yourself to your OCD triggers, you can learn to resist the urge to complete your compulsive rituals. This is known as exposure and response prevention (ERP) and is a mainstay of professional person therapy for OCD.

ERP requires you to repeatedly expose yourself to the source of your obsession—and and then refrain from the compulsive behavior you'd normally perform to reduce your anxiety. If you are a compulsive paw washer, for example, that could mean touching the door handle in a public restroom and then not allowing yourself to wash your hands. Equally y'all sit with the feet, the urge to launder your hands will gradually brainstorm to become away on its own. In this fashion, y'all'll acquire that you don't need the ritual to go rid of your anxiety and that you have some control over your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.

Tackling your biggest fears directly off might be likewise farthermost, so ERP exercises start with you against lesser fears and so working your mode up the "fear ladder." Confront those situations that generate a low fear intensity and one time you're able to tolerate the anxiety yous can move on to the next, more hard exposure challenge.

Building your fear ladder

Think about your terminate goal (to be able to use a public restroom without fear of contamination, for instance, or to bulldoze to work without stopping to cheque if yous've hitting something) and so break down the steps needed to reach that goal. Using the information you lot recorded in identifying your triggers, make a list of situations from the least scary to the most scary. The get-go step should brand y'all slightly anxious, merely non and then frightened that y'all're too intimidated to effort it.

Hither'southward a sample fear ladder:

Goal: To drive to piece of work without stopping to cheque if you've hit something
Fear intensity	State of affairs
x	Drive all the way to work without stopping to check if y'all've hit something
8	Don't phone your spouse to check they got to work safely
6	Leave the house, lock the front door and walk away without checking
iv	Turn off the stove and leave the room without checking
2	Put milk in the refrigerator without checking the top is secure

Using your fright ladder

Piece of work your way upwards the ladder. Start with the showtime stride and don't move on until yous outset to feel more comfortable doing it. If possible, stay in the situation long enough for your anxiety to subtract. The longer you betrayal yourself to your OCD trigger, the more you'll become used to it and the less anxious yous'll feel when you lot face information technology the next time. Once y'all've done a step on several separate occasions without feeling too much anxiety, you lot tin can move on to the next footstep. If a step is too hard, break it downwardly into smaller steps or get slower.

Every bit you're resisting your compulsions, focus on the feelings of feet. Instead of trying to distract yourself, allow yourself to feel anxious as you lot resist the urge to engage in your compulsive behavior. Yous may believe that the discomfort y'all're feeling will proceed until y'all engage in the compulsion. But if you stick with it, the anxiety volition fade. And you'll realize that yous're not going to "lose command" or have some kind of breakdown if y'all don't perform the ritual.

Exercise. The more than frequently y'all practice, the quicker your progress will exist. But don't rush. Go at a pace that you can manage without feeling overwhelmed. And remember: you volition experience uncomfortable and broken-hearted every bit you lot confront your fears, but the feelings are only temporary. Each fourth dimension you lot betrayal yourself to your trigger, your anxiety should lessen and y'all'll first to realize that yous have more than control (and less to fearfulness) than you thought.

Tip three: Claiming obsessive thoughts

Everyone has troubling thoughts or worries from time to time. Simply obsessive-compulsive disorder causes the brain to go stuck on a detail anxiety-provoking thought, causing it to play over and over in your head. The more unpleasant or distressing the idea, the more than likely you are to try to repress it. But repressing thoughts is almost incommunicable and trying commonly has the reverse result, causing the unpleasant thought to resurface more frequently and become more bothersome.

As with resisting compulsions, you lot can overcome agonizing, obsessive thoughts past learning to tolerate them through exposure and response prevention exercises. It's too important to remind yourself that just because you have an unpleasant thought, that doesn't brand you a bad person. Your thoughts are simply thoughts. Even unwanted, intrusive, or violent thoughts are normal—information technology'southward just the importance you attach to them that turns them into damaging obsessions.

The following strategies can aid you run across your thoughts for what they are and regain a sense of control over your anxious mind.

Write downward your obsessive thoughts. Keep a pad and pencil on you, or blazon on a smartphone. When y'all begin to obsess, write down all your thoughts or compulsions.

Continue writing as the OCD urges continue, aiming to record exactly what y'all're thinking, fifty-fifty if you're repeating the same phrases or the same urges over and over.
Writing it all downwardly will help you run into but how repetitive your obsessions are.
Writing downward the same phrase or urge hundreds of times volition assistance it lose its power.
Writing thoughts downwards is much harder piece of work than simply thinking them, and then your obsessive thoughts are likely to disappear sooner.

Create an OCD worry period. Rather than trying to suppress obsessions or compulsions, develop the habit of rescheduling them.

Choose 1 or ii x-minute "worry periods" each twenty-four hours, fourth dimension you lot can devote to obsessing.
During your worry period, focus simply on negative thoughts or urges. Don't try to correct them. At the end of the worry menstruum, accept a few calming breaths, allow the obsessive thoughts go, and render to your normal activities. The rest of the day, all the same, is to be designated free of obsessions.
When thoughts come into your caput during the day, write them downwards and "postpone" them to your worry period.

Claiming your obsessive thoughts. Use your worry period to challenge negative or intrusive thoughts past asking yourself:

What's the evidence that the thought is truthful? That it'south not truthful? Have I dislocated a idea with a fact?
Is in that location a more positive, realistic way of looking at the situation?
What's the probability that what I'm scared of will actually happen? If the probability is depression, what are some more than probable outcomes?
Is the thought helpful? How will obsessing about it help me and how volition it hurt me?
What would I say to a friend who had this thought?

Create a tape of your OCD obsessions or intrusive thoughts. Focus on ane specific idea or obsession and record information technology to a tape recorder or smartphone.

Recount the obsessive phrase, sentence, or story exactly equally it comes into your mind.
Play the tape back to yourself, over and over for a 45-infinitesimal menstruum each day, until listening to the obsession no longer causes you to experience highly distressed.
Past continuously confronting your worry or obsession y'all will gradually go less anxious. Yous tin then repeat the exercise for a unlike obsession.

Tip 4: Attain out for back up

OCD tin become worse when you experience powerless and lone, then it'southward important to build a strong support system. The more continued you are to other people, the less vulnerable you'll feel. And just talking to an understanding person near your worries and urges can make them seem less threatening.

Stay continued to family and friends. Obsessions and compulsions tin can consume your life to the point of social isolation. In plow, social isolation will aggravate your OCD symptoms. It'southward important to invest in relating to family and friends. Talking face-to-face about your worries and urges can brand them feel less real and less threatening.

Join an OCD support group. You lot're not alone in your struggle with OCD, and participating in a support group can exist an constructive reminder of that. OCD support groups enable you lot to both share your ain experiences and learn from others who are facing the same problems.

Tip v: Manage stress

While stress doesn't crusade OCD, information technology can trigger symptoms or make them worse. Physical exercise and connecting with another person contiguous are two very effective ways to calm your nervous organization. You lot can as well:

Quickly self-soothe and relieve anxiety symptoms past making utilize of one or more than of your concrete senses—sight, odour, hearing, touch, gustatory modality—or movement. You might try listening to a favorite piece of music, looking at a treasured photo, savoring a loving cup of tea, or stroking a pet.

Practice relaxation techniques. Mindful meditation, yoga, deep animate, and other relaxation techniques tin can help lower your overall stress and tension levels and help you manage your urges. For best results, endeavour practicing a relaxation technique regularly.

Tip 6: Make lifestyle changes to ease OCD

A healthy, balanced lifestyle plays a large part in easing anxiety and keeping OCD compulsions, fears, and worry at bay.

Practise regularly. Practice is a natural and effective anti-anxiety treatment that helps to control OCD symptoms by refocusing your mind when obsessive thoughts and compulsions arise. For maximum benefit, try to get thirty minutes or more of aerobic activity on most days. Ten minutes several times a day tin can be every bit effective every bit one longer menstruation especially if you pay mindful attention to the movement procedure.

Become plenty sleep. Non just can anxiety and worry cause indisposition, but a lack of sleep can also exacerbate anxious thoughts and feelings. When you're well rested, information technology'southward much easier to keep your emotional remainder, a key gene in coping with feet disorders such as OCD.

Avoid alcohol and nicotine. Booze temporarily reduces anxiety and worry, but information technology really causes anxiety symptoms equally information technology wears off. Similarly, while it may seem that cigarettes are calming, nicotine is actually a powerful stimulant. Smoking leads to higher, not lower, levels of anxiety and OCD symptoms.

Treatment for OCD

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the most effective treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder and by and large involves ii components:

Exposure and response prevention, which requires repeated exposure to the source of your obsession, as explained above.
Cognitive therapy, which focuses on the catastrophic thoughts and exaggerated sense of responsibleness you feel. A large part of cognitive therapy for OCD is teaching you salubrious and effective means of responding to obsessive thoughts, without resorting to compulsive behavior.

Other OCD treatments

In improver to cognitive-behavioral therapy, the post-obit treatments are also used for OCD:

Medication. Antidepressants are sometimes used in conjunction with therapy for the handling of obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, medication alone is rarely effective in relieving the symptoms.

Family Therapy. Since OCD oft causes bug in family life and social adjustment, family unit therapy can assistance promote understanding of the disorder and reduce family conflicts. It tin can also motivate family unit members and teach them how to assist their loved one with OCD.

Group Therapy. Through interaction with boyfriend OCD sufferers, grouping therapy provides support and encouragement and decreases feelings of isolation.

Is unresolved trauma playing a function in your OCD?

In some people, OCD symptoms such as compulsive washing or hoarding are ways of coping with trauma. If you take post-traumatic OCD, cognitive approaches may not be effective until underlying traumatic problems are resolved.

How to aid someone with OCD

The way you react to your loved one's OCD symptoms can accept a big impact on their outlook and recovery. Negative comments or criticism can brand OCD worse, while a calm, supportive environment can help improve the result of treatment.

Avoid making personal criticisms. Call up, your loved one's OCD behaviors are symptoms, not character flaws.

Don't scold someone with OCD or tell them to stop performing rituals. They can't comply, and the pressure to terminate volition but brand the behaviors worse.

Be as kind and patient equally possible. Each sufferer needs to overcome problems at their own pace. Praise any successful attempt to resist OCD, and focus attention on positive elements in the person's life.

Practice not play along with your loved one's rituals. Going forth with your loved 1's OCD "rules," or helping with their compulsions or rituals will merely reinforce the beliefs. Support the person, not their compulsions.

Keep communication positive and clear. Advice is of import so you tin detect a rest between supporting your loved one and continuing upwardly to the OCD symptoms and non farther distressing your loved one.

Observe the humor. Laughing together over the funny side and applesauce of some OCD symptoms tin can help your loved one become more detached from the disorder. Just make sure your loved one feels respected and in on the joke.

Don't let OCD have over family life. Sit downward as a family and determine how y'all will piece of work together to tackle your loved i'south symptoms. Try to keep family unit life as normal every bit possible and the home a low-stress surround.

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Source: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/obssessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.htm