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Ataque de nervios: An idiom of distress recognised among many Latin American groups. Common symptoms include uncontrollable crying, trembling, heat in the chest rising into the head, seizurelike and fainting episodes, and a sense of having lost control. They frequently follow a stressful event affecting the individual or the individual's family.

Brain fag: A term initially used in West Africa to refer to symptoms experienced by young people that they relate to the stress of study, chiefly difficulties in concentration, memory and thinking. Additional somatic symptoms are usually centred on the head and neck, and include pain, tightness and blurring of vision.

Dhat: A folk diagnostic term used in India by men, relating to sexual dysfunction and associated feelings of weakness and exhaustion.

Hwa-byung: A Korean folk syndrome attributed to the suppression of anger, with symptoms of insomnia, fatigue, indigestion, anorexia, generalised aches and pains, and a feeling of a mass in the epigastrium.

Shenjing shuairuo (neurasthenia): In China, a condition characterised by physical and mental fatigue, dizziness, headaches, concentration and sleep difficulties. Other symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, sexual dysfunction, irritability and disturbance of the autonomic nervous system.

Susto ("fright" or "soul loss"): A folk illness prevalent among Latin Americans which follows a frightening experience. Symptoms may appear any time after the fright and include appetite and sleep disturbance, lack of motivation, muscle pains, headaches, abdominal pain and diarrhoea.

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