Saturday, April 23, 2011

The Treatment of Anxiety


The Treatment of Anxiety should be high on your list of wants if you are a sufferer. Anxiety is a debilitating illness which lowers the effectiveness of your immune system to ward off other illnesses.
High levels of stress can contribute to a high level of anxiety.
However, as it is impossible to avoid stress altogether, it becomes a necessity to manage our stress and tension levels using proven techniques. Treatment of Anxiety is fairly straightforward. The measures taken will also free you from stress and tensions.

There are several easy methods to manage our stress and anxiety levels.
 
Treatment of Anxiety - Help for the mind
 
1) Identify the factors which trigger your stress and anxiety and thereby seek ways of avoiding their occurrence in the first place. Grab a pen and paper. Think about all things that make you feel anxious or stressed and write them down. Rate them on a scale of 1 to 10,      1 having a small effect upon you but a 10 having a large adverse affect.  Then decide which factors to address on a priority basis. Should you avoid, run or fight this situation in future?

Each triggering factor identified may need a combination of solutions, counselling may be one of them. Treatment of anxiety in such cases will require your hard work and perseverance.
2) Reduce Anger: Manage your anger, as it is potentially a big trigger for increased anxiety. Do whatever you can to minimise your anger towards others; anger management classes, groups or books can help. Accept that you cannot change others and that everyone has their quirks, foibles and shortcomings, even you! 
3) Patience and Tolerance: Two of the well known positive traits that will help us to reduce anxiety levels. Though difficult to acquire these positive characters, add these parameters in your actions and thoughts. Again you need to accept the shortcomings of others. When someone doesn’t measure up to your expectations, ask yourself how you could help them.
4) Family and Work Relationships: How do you interact with others in the family and work environment? Develop a "give and take" attitude to eradicate differences and reduce anxiety levels. By using techniques of reducing anger and increasing patience and tolerance towards others, your interpersonal relationships cannot help but improve automatically.

Treatment of Anxiety - Help for the Body
 
Treatment of anxiety using natural methods should be utilised.
There are many anxiety relief measures available for you to utilise, without using drugs:

 
1) Give yourself a Well Balanced Diet
·         Ensure you get a well balanced diet: to include protein, vitamins, minerals fresh fruit and vegetables, wherever possible
·         Try not to over-eat, under-eat or binge on food. Little and often keeps the body running
·         Drink lots of fresh water. It keeps your system hydrated and can help avoid the uncomfortable feelings of dehydration, such as headache.

2)
Make time for relaxation.
Rests are very important in order for the body to function properly and to avoid getting “burnt out”. Ensure you take breaks from work. Any break is better than no break and if you can find a quiet space in which to relax then so much the better.
You could also take up relaxation classes, do yoga or breathing exercises, both of which will improve your anxiety condition.

3) Exercise:
It almost goes without saying that exercise will benefit anxiety sufferers as much if not more so than other people. There are numerous and plentiful suggestions to keep fit out there, so find an exercise program that suits you.


4)
Get enough sleep. Anxiety and worry can cause loss of valuable sleeping hours. And lack of sleep can also contribute to anxiety, so it’s a vicious circle.

Ensure you get enough sleep each night and make it a regular routine for long-term results.

5)
Avoid Stimulants.
I am going to list now a number of stimulants. The problem with these items is that they boost you up initially, but as their impact wears off, you come down with a crash. This can leave you feeling drained and more anxious than you were before. Many of them also cause more adrenalin than is required to enter into your bloodstream, which is the primary cause of many anxiety symptoms.
Avoid: Caffeine, Processed Sugar, Energy Drinks, Alcohol, Nicotine and Drugs.
If you have an addiction to any of these, seek help in breaking that addiction.
Do Not Underestimate the power of this final tip – It can produce life changing results!

 

Although each tip on its own will benefit you,
If you adopt all of these methods you will achieve the best results.
To learn how you can quickly regain control of your life using the most powerful techniques known to overcome anxiety & panic attacks simply click the banner at the top of this post

 


Getting Vitamins to Treat Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Yearly, over 2 million individuals have problems with fear and anxiety in the United States. Women of all ages typically surpass the men in these statistics. The obvious way to manage them and overcome fear and anxiety is simply by discovering what causes a panic attack. This will vary from one person to another, even though men and women still hunt for a proper anxiety treatment.
Several of the smallest factors can set off the overpowering concerns of anxiety. Understanding how to deal with these triggers is a vital factor to recovery.
Afflicted people could become eager to uncover something that can and will treat fear and anxiety. These kinds of overpowering emotions will take your life, and wear you out rapidly. Lots of individuals hide away to stay clear of general public sites to prevent virtually any stress and anxiety triggers.
They will often imprison themselves in their homes and the situation might get even worse without treating fear and anxiety. Whenever you have problems with fear and anxiety, you can get vitamin supplements as a natural strategy to address your problem.
Vitamin supplements may help, minimize and manage the symptoms which lead to your system to react the way it does. The most essential factor to keep in mind is that you’ll be able to cure anxiety symptoms. It normally takes some time to do, but you will find the reasons at the rear of your anxiety symptoms and then you can deal with them.
You supply your system the boost it must have to employ components that it could not be employing any time you get selected vitamin supplements. As an example, taking vitamin B decreases the likelihood of an attack by generating the element it must have to signal the human brain.
When you stress or become disappointed, irritated or nervous your system burns thiamine. Whenever you aid your system produce such parts, it is quicker to manage episodes of fear and anxiety.
You may get just about all the vitamin b you need if you take a daily nutritional supplement of vitamin B complex.
You can help relax your muscular tissues through taking calcium and magnesium, due to the fact they are simply both good through such moments.
Whenever you get vitamin C you supply your defense mechanisms a decent boost and this allows you to feel much better as well as decreases the likelihood of enduring an anxiety attack.
Vitamin supplements have their own specific power to naturally cause you to feel calm and stress-free. You will certainly feel healthier and this can help to prepare you and your system for virtually any episodes you might have in the future.
The quantity of diverse vitamin supplements you should take is dependent on how significant your anxiety disorder is. Although consuming vitamin supplements is definitely good for your system. If you are feeling healthy and pleased you will subsequently be more likely to be able to deal with anxiety symptoms.
If you want to know how to overcome anxiety commence by making the most of your health, to never letting you to ultimately get run down, than you’re going to be naturally encouraging your system to not want to become anxious.
Make sure that you are getting ample sleep, and attempt to stay positive continually. Although to make this happen may be simpler mentioned then done should you be worried about getting an anxiety symptoms.
Should you begin to strengthen your lifestyle with vitamins and a healthier lifestyle, then you must begin to observe great results in no time.

How to Cope With Insecurities and Anxiety About Your Relationship

Relationships can be the scariest thing sometimes. With insecurities, not even the strongest, most independent women and men can go unaffected when in a relationship. Anxiety just makes you fret about your insecurities. With these tips, they won't make your insecurities or anxiety go away immediately. But they may be able to help you shed light on why you feel this way.

1
Explore why you feel insecure and what do you feel insecure about. Also, if possible, explore where these insecure came from. If you're unsure, do some serious consideration. Insecurities don't sprout up overnight.


2
Talk it over with your significant other about your insecurities. They will never know these things if you never tell them.

3
Talk it over with someone else (friend or family) who you can bounce ideas off of

4
Find ways to eliminate your anxiety. Every person is different in how they deal. One person may love meditation, another may love being extremely busy all the time. Try to preoccupy yourself, it will be a great distraction from your insecurities and will give you a reprieve on your anxiety.

5
If you're having fears about losing your partner, explore the worst case scenarios. Does the relationship ending mean that the world also ends? No. It means the little world you had with that one person ends, but it is something you are able to recover from. What you're fearing is the pain and the potential rejection that comes from the relationship ending. It's natural to fear these things, but it's worth it to say it's possible to recover from it.

6
Examine yourself. It is possible that your mood can be affected by a bad day, or having a bad night's sleep? It's easy to get negative if we're already in that mindframe.

7
Be honest about the relationship. Actions speak louder than words. If you're insecure because of how your SO is acting towards you, then that's something to explore. Sometimes there can be a legitimate reason for why we're feeling a certain way.

How to Cope with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

One of the most important parts of having generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is learning how to cope with the persistent anxiety and some of the physical symptoms. This page can serve as a guide to coping with anxiety that will be frequently updated with new articles and information based on practical tips that work to cutting-edge research findings.

Understanding GAD

It is crucial to understand the elements of GAD as completely as possible to be able to cope with it effectively. The following articles are a good way to begin or increase your depth of understanding of GAD:
GAD Diagnostic Criteria This article will give you a great overview on the symptoms of GAD and how mental health professionals diagnose it.
Normal Anxiety or GAD? Many times people wonder whether if their experience of anxiety is normal or is of greater concern, and this article will help you know the difference.
Physical Symptoms of GAD Some of the most common symptoms of GAD are somatic (physical) symptoms, and this article can be your guide to the most common.

Coping Styles

There are a variety of coping styles people use when dealing with stress and anxiety. Some of these methods focus on tackling problems and issues head on, while others employ methods of avoidance or less desirable practice like self-medicating. The following articles can help you understand these processes in more depth:
Coping Styles for Anxiety There are some coping style basics that you can learn with this coping guide.
Problem-Focused Coping for Anxiety This is one of the most important forms of healthy coping that we can learn for anxiety and other life problems.

Coping Techniques

Beyond each major type of coping style are a variety of techniques that can also be used to decrease and cope with anxiety symptoms. Learning some of these for your “anti-anxiety toolbox” will be essential to maintaining a more peaceful life experience:
Mindfulness and GAD Mindfulness is one of the most effective ways to work on your anxiety and is a major buzz in the psychological world right now.
Anxiety and Better Sleep Finding a way to sleep better is crucial to being able to cope with anxiety, and this article details an important method to try.
5 Ways to Cope with Anxiety This article will show you some tips and tricks to try.

Professional Treatment

Finally, a major step of effective coping is finding professional help. Some styles of therapy will teach you how to apply specific relaxation techniques to your life, and other will focus on understanding what makes you anxious and why.
Types of Therapy for GAD There are a variety of therapeutic approaches to GAD, this article details the most popular and effective.
Best Treatments for GAD This article covers what research shows to be the most effective anxiety treatments.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for GAD CBT is one of the most popular and easy to learn treatment approaches to GAD.

10 Ways to Deal With Anxiety

10 Ways to Cope With Anxiety

Need help managing your worries? Follow this psychologist’s advice.

by Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D.
You’ve been in bed for an hour now and you still can’t get to sleep. Maybe you’re thinking about your job or your 401(k) or health insurance. Perhaps some problem with your kids has your mind spinning on its late-night hamster wheel of worry. Whatever the issue, you can’t get it out of your head, so you try to solve it then and there. Before you know it, another hour has passed. Now you start fretting about the fact that you can’t get to sleep. “I’ll be a wreck tomorrow,” you tell yourself. “I’ve got to sleep now.” Doesn’t do the trick though, does it?

We’ve all been there. But the good news is, there is something you can do to help―something more effective than the usual advice to “be positive” or just “stop thinking so much.” The latest research on anxiety suggests innovative, even odd, techniques for coping successfully with recurrent worries. I’ve seen these work for hundreds of patients. In fact, I’ve found that most people can get a grip on things if they take a few minutes to develop a different relationship with their thoughts and feelings. Here are 10 approaches to try.

1. Repeat your worry until you’re bored silly. If you had a fear of elevators, you’d get rid of it if you rode in one a thousand times in a row. At first, you would be very anxious, then less so, and eventually it would have no effect (except to make you sick of riding in an elevator). So take the troublesome thought that’s nagging at you and say it over and over, silently, slowly, for 20 minutes. It’s hard to keep your mind on a worry if you repeat it that many times. I call this the “boredom cure” for obvious reasons, but it sure beats feeling overwhelmed by anxiety.

2. Make it worse. When you try too hard to control your anxieties, you only heighten them. Instead, exaggerate them and see what happens. For instance, if you fear that your mind will go blank during a presentation, fake it intentionally in the middle of your next one. Say, “Gee, what was I just saying?” Notice how this makes no difference. It’s nothing to worry about, right? I did this at a lecture once and no one raised an eyebrow. (Perhaps they weren’t listening anyway!)

3. Don’t fight the craziness. You may occasionally have thoughts that lead you to think you’ll do something terrible (“I’m attracted to him. Does that mean I’ll have an affair?”) or that you’re going insane (a client of mine who is an attorney kept imagining herself screaming in court). Remember―our minds are creative. Little synapses are firing away at random, and every now and then a “crazy” thought jumps out. Everyone has them. Instead of judging yours, describe it to yourself like it’s a curious object on a shelf and move on.

4. Recognize false alarms. That fear of your house burning down because you left the iron on has never come true. That rapid heart beat doesn’t mean you’re having a heart attack; it’s your body’s natural response to arousal. Many thoughts and sensations that we interpret as cues for concern―even panic―are just background noise. Think of each of them as a fire engine going to another place. You’ve noticed them; now let them pass by.

5. Turn your anxiety into a movie. You can let go of a worry by disconnecting yourself from it. One way is to imagine that your anxious thoughts are a show. Maybe they’re a little guy in a funny hat who tap dances and sings out your worry while you sit in the audience, eating popcorn, a calm observer.
6. Set aside worry time. All too often we take a “Crackberry” approach to our worries: They show up unannounced, like constantly dinging e-mails, and we stop everything to address them―even if we should be doing something else. But what if you don’t respond right away? Try setting aside 20 minutes every day―let’s say at 4:30 p.m.―just for your worries. If you are fretting at 10 a.m., jot down the reason and resolve to think it through later. By the time 4:30 comes around, many of your troubles won’t even matter anymore. And you will have spent almost an entire day anxiety-free.

7. Take your hand off the horn. You constantly check the weather before a big outdoor event. You replay that clumsy comment you made, wishing you could take it back. And, yes, you honk your horn in traffic. When you desperately try to take command of things that can’t be controlled, you’re like the swimmer who panics and slaps at the water, screaming. It gets you nowhere. Instead, imagine that you are floating along on the water with your arms spread out, looking up to the sky. It’s a paradox, but when you surrender to the moment, you actually feel far more in control.

8. Breathe it out. You may notice that when your body is tense, you hold your breath. Focusing on breathing is a common but effective technique for calming the nerves. Where is your breath now, and where is your mind? Bring them together. Listen to the movement of your breath. Does your mind wander somewhere else? Call it back. Concentrate only on breathing in and out, beginning and ending, breath to breath, moment to moment.

9. Make peace with time. When you’re a worrier, everything can feel like an emergency. But notice this about all your anxious arousal: It’s temporary. Every feeling of panic comes to an end, every concern eventually wears itself out, every so-called emergency seems to evaporate. Ask yourself, “How will I feel about this in a week or a month?” This one, too, really will pass.

10. Don’t let your worries stop you from living your life. Many of them will turn out to be false, and the consequences of your anxiety―less sleep, a rapid pulse, a little embarrassment―are just inconveniences when it comes down to it. What can you still do even if you feel anxious? Almost anything.

Monday, April 18, 2011

How the Excessive Drinking of Alcohol Causes Anxiety

Anxiety causes feelings of apprehension and very real fear. An alcohol induced anxiety disorder cause by the excessive drinking of alcohol has prominent features of generalized anxiety and fear, panic attacks, and in more severe cases can cause phobias, or obsessive-compulsive behavior.

An alcohol induced anxiety disorder can last as long as you are drinking, and to aggravate the matter further, anxiety can also be a result of withdrawal from alcohol. In the case of withdrawal induced anxiety, research has shown that the anxiety will last approximately 4 weeks after you stop drinking alcohol. However, since each person has an individual nervous system, this time element will vary.

In general, alcoholics have injured or altered serotonin systems in the brain. Serotonin is a feel good chemical that the brain distributes, and alcoholics have a shortage or drought of this chemical in the brain. The damage to the brain's serotonin neurotransmitter is associated with several disorders, including general anxiety, anxiety attacks, anti-social behavior, and depression, depression being a hallmark symptom of excessive drinking.

According to research, excessive consumption of alcohol can cause numerous health hazards, one of which is your body's vitamin depletion from drinking due to poor eating habits and alcohol wiping out the vitamins in your system. This alone will make you more vulnerable to stress.

The Key

Chronic abuse of alcohol ís often associated with depression and depression causes anxiety.

Alcohol can increase anxiety in many different ways, four of which are:

-Alcohol affects our mood because it depletes serotonin in the brain. Serotonin, a feel good brain chemical, can cause anxiety and depression when in short supply.

-Alcohol causes dehydration which has symptoms of nervousness, shaking, dizziness, confusion and weakness.

-Our nervous systems have a reaction to excessive drinking. The nervous system will try to fight off the sedative effects of alcohol, which can lead to a state of hyperactivity. The hyperactive state can lead to sleep deprivation which can contribute to anxiety.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Anxiety can weaken bones

Beware- anxiety now comes with a new risk: it weakens your bones

Researchers from Deakin in Australia and Norwegian universities analysed data of over 8,000 men and women from central Norway and found a link between depressive symptoms and reduction in bone mineral density.

Participants underwent forearm bone mineral density scans, reports the Journal of Affective Disorders. 

Deakin researcher Lana Williams said, "It was found that depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms in men were associated with lower bone mineral density."

"There are several known risk factors for low bone mineral density, such as advance age, gender (women are at greater risk than men), familial predisposition, low levels of sex hormones, inadequate calcium intake and vitamin D deficiency," Williams said.

"It is possible that poor mental health could be another one of these risk factors."

Recently, the possible association between psychiatric illness - particularly depression - and osteoporosis has been the subject of a growing body of research.