Self-Care, Stress Management,Primary Care: From Salutogenesis and Health Promotion to Mind-Body Medicine

摘要

Stress is a major concern in medicine and the social and health sciences nowadays. In fact, not only are stress-associated ailments and diseases rapidly growing, that is, virtually everywhere in the modern world, but also the cost of treatment and "collateral damage," for example, in occupational health or the economy as a whole, seems to increase exponentially—for example, see [1, 2]. This may be due to a more recent phenomenon called "burn-out"; however, there is clear evidence that myocardial infarction, stroke, depression, anxiety,even some disease-prone immune processes, including proinflammation as a common disease denominator that is critically associated with stress [3], are continuously gaining recognition in medicine and bear clear relation upon stress and its (patho)physiology [4]. Thus, preventive and therapeutic options to reduce and prevent stress and, simultaneously, improve stress management skills are strongly needed. Mindfulness-based programs and other mind-body medical and cognitive behavioral strategies to (better) deal with stress are taught and evaluated at many places, including academic medical sites and universities [5]; however, their outcome is usually measured in terms of clinical improvements with disease states, inhibition of disease progression, or cure and relapse prevention.