Top 10 Strange And Weird Addictions | Addiction & Recovery slideshows | Emotional & Mental Health center

Music Addiction

Music is the healer of the soul, some people tend to say. And when we can’t express our own emotions verbally, music is the way to go. Certainly, people who believe so are right, and music does not only give us power, but it gives us something to share, it helps to bind hearts. The health benefits of music are no secret to mankind, research has shown that musicians have better attention, better problem-solving skills and better analytical skills; just to name a few. And so, if music does so much good to us, should music addiction be considered as a problem? Until we figure out whether or not it truly is a problem, let’s try to understand music addiction from a scientific point of view. Research has shown that dopamine,a neurotransmitter in the brain; is involved in the reward pathway and the pleasurable feelings we experience when we listen to music, which makes us want to repeat this more and more.

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Photo courtesy of Laura by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/lvf/3582877416/
health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/10-strange-addictions.htm
http://www.popcrunch.com/15-most-weird-and-bizarre-addictions/
http://www.addiction-treatment.com/seven-rare-but-real-addictions/

Piercings Addiction

Just like tattoos, piercings are commonly considered as a part of self-identification, personality definition or a way to express one’s self. While some people who use piercings as a way to identify themselves, others would repeatedly go through such procedures as a way of seeking pleasure. Such people display masochistic personality features (where they find pleasure in the pain that is inflicted to them). When piercing one’s self goes beyond the proportions and when the behavior becomes uncontrollable, odds are the person who displays that behavior suffers from a deeper psychological conflict involved, and that needs to be dealt with.

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Tanning Addiction

This could be a common occurrence in beach lovers and sun freaks! It might sound unbelievable to conceive that some people might be addicted to tanning, but it is true. This could be due in part to the way people feel when they get a tan: there is a certain sense of self-satisfaction that comes from doing something good for oneself. From another point, this could be due to internal expectations of perfection that pushes people to keep going until they achieve the perfect skin. Tanning also relaxes and produces pleasure. When the UV light hits the skin, it produces melanin which has a slight “morphine-like” effect, making us more relaxed and more free.

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Plastic Surgery Addiction

Yes, you read that right! People could be addicted to plastic surgery, and this could stem from different sources. First of all, people who suffer from this addiction may have an internal sense of physical insecurity: they might not be satisfied with the way a part of their body looks (nose, lips, cheeks, breasts, buttocks, etc.) or might be convinced that that specific part is disfigured. In psychiatry, this is referred to as “body dysmorphic disorder”, commonly observed in females. An addiction to plastic surgery could also be caused by the fact that the person enjoys been inflicted pain (masochistic personality features). In any case, this requires a thorough psychiatric intervention.

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Tattoo Addiction

Tattoo addictions are quite similar to piercing addictions. Both tattoos and piercings are used as self-identification tools in today’s society. However, tattoos might carry a much deeper meaning, as people tend to engrave their skin with important dates, symbols or names of people that played a major role in their life or touched their life in a very special way. The tattooing process is a very painful one, and because of that we would not expect people to want to undergo such procedure repeatedly. Thus, addiction to tattoos could be a sign of an underlying internal psychological problem that requires further investigation.

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Dirt Eating (Geophagy) and Cravings For Non-Food Items (Pica)

It might sound despicable, but it is the sad reality. Pica - a psychological disorder in which a person feels the urge to eat dirt and non food objects such as paper, chalk, wood, etc. - is a true problem. If the person craves for soil items specifically, the disorder is rather called “geophagia”. Pica could be caused by a psychiatric disorder. The disorder could be observed in people with developmental disorders (such as autism), as well as in people with impulse control disorders (like obsessive-compulsive disorder). But suffering from pica does not always warrant a mental disturbance, it could also be a strong indicator of a medical problem like nutritional deficiencies (iron and zinc deficiencies in particular). People who are on a diet might also experience this unusual addiction.

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Reading addiction

Wanting to have a good read once in a while, or even being a book worm is no harm, perfectly fine. However, when you start spending all your days and nights reading books, using your personal free time to finish each story and neglect time spent with friends, resting time or dinner time because you rather sit and read; you probably have a problem. Book addiction might initially go undetected, because it can easily be mistaken for being studious, which is what every parent would want for their kids (or most parents, at least.) People who are addicted to books accumulate several books in their room and working space. They might jump from one book to another, without finishing the previous one. The addiction could be limited to one type of books (thriller, romance, etc.) or could combine several types.

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Animal Hoarding

Animal hoarding is an addiction in which the person affected keeps way too many animals as domestic pets, without having the proper house care and equipment to take care of them all. The chosen animals could be of different types or could be of the same (dogs only or cats only). While some people believe animal hoarding is cruelty towards defenseless animals, others support that it is a type of mental disorder and should be treated as such. Note that the main difference between a breeder and an animal hoarder is the fact that the breeder is indeed able to take care of his pets and sustain them.

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Hair Pulling Addiction

Generally, hair pulling is a behavior that appears as a response to emotional stress (and not as an attempt to be bald the natural way!) It is also known as “trichotillomania”, and a variant of it could include eating one’s hair after they have been pulled. In psychiatry, this is classified as an impulse control disorder, as the people who suffer from it have difficulties controlling their emotions and cannot delay gratification. The symptom is usually triggered by stress, and because the person affected is not properly equipped (mentally that is) to deal with such stress, he or she loses control and starts pulling his/her own hair. We do not know exactly why they have a predilection for hair, but the disorder could also present as nail biting.

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Workout addiction

Studies have shown that at least 10% of body builders and 10% of high performance runners are addicted to physical exercise. In that setting, an addiction to exercise could be due to the fact that they are overachievers and always aim at pushing their boundaries further and further. Exercise addicts sacrifice their work, personal time, relationships and even meals for exercise. They set exercising as their goal and it becomes their main focus. Exercise addiction could also exist in people who suffer from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which the person affected intentionally starves herself to satisfy an internal obsession (generally, they are obsessed with losing weight).