What Is Inhibition? 3 Types and Its best Role in Mental Health

Inhibition stands a extreme complaint characterized by a slowdown in intellectual processes, emotions & movements. It manifests itself in a decrease in the rate of speech, weak emotional reactions and slowness. Patients are sedentary, lack initiative, and are unable to maintain a conversation with difficulty; they answer questions after a pause. Inhibition is diagnosed using a clinical interview, observation, and a study of the dynamics of mental activity and reaction speed. Treatment methods include medication or psychotherapy & psychocorrection.

General characteristics

Inhibition is a slowness of mental and physiological processes. In the scientific community the terms bradypsychism and bradypsychia are used to describe it. The most typical external signs are slow reactions, drawn-out speech, and an inability to engage in joint activities or communication that occur at a normal pace. Inhibited people often remain alone, seem unsociable, and are withdrawn for no reason. The most severe variants of the disorder are observed with apathy and stupor, when patients do not react to anything.

Here three categories of reserve: ideational, motor & complex. The symptom is called ideational when the inhibition is most pronounced in speech and thinking. People show moderate or slightly weakened motor activity, but when trying to have a conversation, inhibition occurs – they do not have time to follow the course of the conversation, track the change of topic, answer the questions asked. Those around them get the impression that the thought process and speaking take a lot of energy from the person.

Motorized delay remains demonstrated towards a greater extent by slowing down of movements. It is categorized by physical weakness, relaxed posture & lack of coordination. People constantly feel the desire to lean on something stable, sit down & lie down. The speech rate is slightly reduced and communication difficulties arise only. When conducting an intellectually complex or emotional conversation. With complex retardation, the mental and motor spheres suffer: patients speak quietly, with long pauses, move slowly, or remain practically motionless.

Causes of sluggishness

Many people are familiar with the condition when routine tasks seem overwhelming, there is a constant feeling of lack of time. Such mild periodic inhibition has physiological causes, for example,  lack of sleep . It is short-lived, disappears on its own after a good rest. Less often, slowness of psychomotor reactions is pathological, develops as a symptom of a mental disorder, neurological disease or intoxication of the body. In such cases, people remain inhibited regardless of fatigue, need special treatment.

Physiological states

The reasons for a person’s slowness are the peculiarities of the functioning of his nervous system and situational factors, for example, leading to asthenia or reducing motivational-volitional abilities. Physiological factors of inhibition act constantly or periodically, but do not cause social and personal maladaptation: a person continues to lead a habitual way of life, adjusting it to his slowness. Possible reasons of this type:

• Lack of sleep. The body is unable to adapt to a sleep deficit. Its lack at night (for example, with insomnia ) is always compensated during the day by the development of drowsiness, absent-mindedness, and slowness. At the physiological level, inhibition processes in the brain prevail. After a sleepless night, inhibition occurs during the day, regardless of where the person is or what tasks he or she is solving.
• Fatigue. Slow reactions, weakness, drowsiness can be caused by the body’s need for rest. When mental and physical energy reserves are depleted, the body switches on “saving mode”. Slowing down the pace of all types of activity helps to spend the remaining energy more slowly. After a period of rest, the usual speed is restored. If this does not happen, chronic fatigue syndrome is likely to develop .
• Stress. The reaction to stressful influences is determined by the characteristics of nervous activity and can develop as inhibition or hyperactivity. Some people become more active and restless in response to stress, while others become passive and insecure. The second type of reaction is called “rabbit stress”, and is characterized by sharp disorganization and slowing down of activity.
• Complexity of the task. Reasons for selective inhibition are lack of skills, lack of knowledge to perform a specific activity. A person does the task slowly or does nothing at all when the task is complex and unclear. For example, a student at the board who missed the previous lesson and did not do his homework looks inhibited.
• Unwillingness to perform an activity. The speed of thinking decreases when it is necessary to perform a task that is subjectively assessed as uninteresting, insignificant, meaningless. Achieving the final result is possible only through the application of willpower, but it is not always enough. As a result, a person hesitates, gets distracted, puts off work for the future.
• Phlegmatic temperament. Congenital causes of slowness are the prevalence of inhibition and inertia of the nervous system. People with such features are called phlegmatic. They may seem inhibited, especially for those who have dominant CNS excitation, and the speed of all processes is high.

Peculiarities of upbringing. Slowness, prevalence of inhibited personality traits can be the result of upbringing in a family with a measured strict daily routine, lack of opportunity to demonstrate independence. In both cases , the child grows up dependent on parents unable to adapt to changing conservational situations. When he gets into an unfamiliar situation, he becomes confused, indecisive, slow.

Somatic and mental illnesses

The implementation of mental operations, complex motor acts is ensured by the work of different parts of the brain. With organic and biochemical changes in the central nervous system, persistent pronounced inhibition may develop, independent of lack of sleep, fatigue or situational causes. It requires treatment, in combination with other symptoms of the disease, it disrupts a person’s social adaptation – it interferes with the performance of professional activities, limits the ability to communicate with relatives and friends. The most common causes of pathological inhibition:

• Vascular diseases of the brain. Acute and chronic disorders of cerebral circulation lead to deterioration of nutrition of brain cells, hypoxia. Slowness, absent-mindedness are most characteristic of patients with atherosclerosis , hypertension , vascular thrombosis.
• Parkinson’s disease . One of the key symptoms of the disease is hypokinesia – a decrease in spontaneous physical activity. Patients can remain motionless for hours, their movements are constrained, they turn around only after a pause, they are slow. Characteristic walking with small steps, a mask-like face , viscosity of thinking, and confusion of speech.
• Epilepsy . A decrease in the rate of mental processes occurs with the growth of epileptic dementia. The thinking of epileptics is viscous, slow, concrete. Speech is often impoverished, slow, but accelerated speech production with a large number of stereotypical repetitions and patterns is possible. Inhibition remains additional evident in the knowledgeable sphere.
• Schizophrenia . Bradypsychia in schizophrenia is formed on the basis of emotional-volitional disorders, poverty of motivation. Patients are uninitiative, behave detachedly. Slowing of thinking is accompanied by a decrease in the speed of motor-speech activity, difficulties in verbalizing thoughts.

Depression . Motor and mental retardation are part of the classic triad of symptoms of endogenous depression, but can also manifest in other depressive disorders. Popular unimportant formulas of the ailment, lethargy, slowness, and stiffness of movement are observed.

Anxiety disorders . A high level of anxiety causes a state of psychomotor inhibition. Causes are emotional overstrain, stiffness of thinking, concentration of attention on a disturbing situation.

Hypothyroidism . Thyroid hormone deficiency reduces the rate of metabolic processes in the central nervous system. Patients experience lethargy, apathy, depression. They become slow, hypochondriacal, tearful. They perceive new information worse and remember it poorly.

Intoxication

Toxic poisoning of the body develops with parasitic diseases, alcohol, drugs and medicines. In most cases, there is a violation of the exchange of neurotransmitters of the central nervous system, which leads to a change in the speed of biochemical reactions and neural transmissions, which is manifested by an acceleration or deceleration of the pace of mental activity, inadequacy of emotions, behavior. Inhibition appears when the following substances enter the body:

• Opioids . Mild intoxication has weakly expressed signs. In instance of modest annihilating, a person becomes complacent, inactive, sluggish. Due to the influx of dream like fantasies maintaining a conversation is difficult. Speech is quiet, unintelligible. Vegetative symptoms: constriction of the pupils, pale skin, dry mucous membranes, low blood pressure.
• Sedatives, sleeping pills. Intoxication with these drugs is characterized by inhibition, drowsiness, and lack of coordination of movements. Emotional instability thru rapid transitions from laughter to crying is often observed. With mild poisoning, the mood improves, a feeling of joy develops, which gradually gives way to anger and tearfulness. Moderate intoxication is always accompanied by slowing of thinking, speech, and movements.
• Cannabinoids. The state of acute intoxication proceeds with a pathological change in the direction of thinking: it becomes illogical, inconsistent, incoherent. The pace is often accelerated, but sometimes pathological inhibition develops, which is manifested by a feeling of “freezing thoughts”, an inability to comprehend what is happening. At the same time, the mood remains elevated.
• Parasite toxins. In chronic parasitic infestations, the nervous system is exposed to small doses of toxic substances for a long time. Poisoning develops, the main symptoms of which include fatigue, a feeling of exhaustion, and insomnia. Childhood patients are often diagnosed with anemia , they look sleepy, apathetic, and sluggish.

Diagnostics

Inhibition, fatigue, weakness are common reasons for people to see a neurologist . Less often, the initial examination is carried out by a therapist or psychiatrist. First, a clinical interview of the patient, observation and examination are carried out. In order to objectively confirm the presence of inhibition , a pathopsychological examination is carried out , psychophysiological tests are carried out to determine the reaction speed. To clarify the diagnosis, instrumental studies of the brain and its vessels, blood tests for hormone levels may be prescribed. The standard diagnostic complex includes:

• Clinical interview. During the interview patients complain of slowness, memory loss and decreased intellectual abilities. They say that they have become worse at coping with professional duties and everyday activities, and cannot maintain a conversation. Possible additional symptoms include drowsiness, headaches and absent mindedness. Children are capricious, tearful without any particular reason, and lack interest in games.
• Research of thinking. Pathopsychological tests are conducted to assess the speed of the thought process: associative experiment, selection of antonyms, etc. The results indicate a slowdown in the rate of cognitive functions, a decrease in the number of ideas, and “getting stuck” on one thought. Intellectual activity is characterized by inertia and low mobility.
• Causal the reaction speed. When diagnosing inhibition, psychophysiological methods are used that measure the reaction time to a stimulus (sound, light) and the parallel changes in the bioelectrical activity of the brain, heart rate, heart failure and respiratory rate. In inhibition, a significant increase in the time of a simple visual-motor and auditory-motor reaction, depression of the alpha rhythm on the EEG , and slow breathing are detected.

Treatment

The methods of primary therapy depend on the cause that provoked the inhibition. The treatment program uses various methods: drug correction , psychotherapy, targeted stimulation of intellectual functions and motor activity. All activities are aimed at restoring physiological brain processes responsible for the dynamics of psychomotor activity, as well as training mental and physical skills.

Taking medications

Drug therapy is prescribed to most patients, aimed at improving the metabolism of nerve cells and tissues, protecting them from damaging factors, and slowing down their death. Restoring active blood supply increases the functioning of various parts of the brain. As a result, mental activity is activated, and symptoms of inhibition are reduced. Patients are prescribed neuroprotectors and nootropics.

Psychotherapy and psychocorrection

Psychocorrectional classes are aimed at increasing the speed of cognitive functions. They include such exercises as selection of associations, generalization of concepts, analysis of logical sequences, solving intellectual problems. The rightness of the results & the speed of completing tasks are taken into account. During psychotherapeutic sessions, methods of social adaptation of a person with inhibition are mastered. The specialist gives recommendations on the choice of a professional field, helps to master behavioral and speech skills that compensate for slowness.

Lifestyle correction

To improve brain function and increase the flow of oxygen to tissues, patients are advised to adjust their daily routine, be sure to include moderate physical activity in the fresh air – walking, active games, sports. To activate thinking, daily intellectual activity is necessary  reading books, learning foreign languages and  creative activities. This advice is especially relevant for older people who have completed their professional activities.