Archive for January, 2010

A guide to dealing with Seasonal Anxiety Disorder

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Seasonal Anxiety Disorder, also called Seasonal Affective disorder (SAD) is a prevalent among most people predominantly in countries who have four seasons. In the United States, it affects about 1/4 of the population. When you start to feel hopeless, fatigue, feel some sort of disturbance in your sleeping rhythm during the start of the fall season, you are having a seasonal affective/anxiety disorder.

This disorder is cyclical in nature. The distress is episodic occurring only in the fall until the spring season. Modern day discoveries reveal that people, especially women, who have a history of depression in the previous generations, are more likely to experience the disorder.

The change from one season to another brings major changes not only in the Earth’s environment but also in the psyche of its inhabitants as well. During the season, the endocrine glands undersecrete if not disrupt the melatonin, a sleep inducing hormone, production of the body which in result, makes you most of the time sleeping (also called the ‘winter blues’) aside from overindulgence in food.

Commonly, treatments for seasonal anxiety/affective disorder are the light therapy mixed with psychotherapy and anti-depressants. One of the simplest thing you can do to handle this anxiety disorder during the season is to expose yourself to direct sunlight (light therapy as mentioned). It’s a widely accepted fact that sunlight brings all the benefits such as the energy to be proactive. As much as possible, give yourself direct sunlight whenever there is any, do not make any sort of negative nostalgia during the day as it this piece of thought contributes to the whole thing.

Moreover, exposing one to direct sunlight increases the production of the serotonin hormone, deemed to be producing alertness. Also, you would need some planning on your diet during this season to keep up with you overall well being and manage your emotions better. Here are some useful forewarnings:

- Get enough physical exercise
- Supply your body with vitamin-d3 tablets
- As much as possible, eat less. The more you eat, the lousier you are during the season
- List as many physical things you want to do before the season, it’s best to stay active to help you deal with the anxiety disorder better.

Simple things to do during the season can definitely help you manage better the anxiety disorder. Stop worrying, stay active, eat less, and take vitamin supplements. Your overall vitality relies on your initiative.

Four Easy Ways to Face your Anxiety Needles and Pins

Monday, January 25th, 2010

You do not need to keep your ‘anxiety needles and pins’ if you do not have anything to stitch on, there are hundreds of things you can do to get rid of them.

Let’s start first by understanding how this happens. Anxiety by nature is a natural human reaction to threat and danger. When we perceive a threat out of anxiety, in most cases a unknown and unreal source, our body does full time work to cope up with the stress. The fight or flight mechanism, an action done by the adrenal gland, triggers all bodily processes and prepares the whole system for action. Further, it shuts down non-emergency responses in the body causing some neurotransmitter imbalances as the process takes place. Anxiety Needles and Pins, or the ‘tingling’ sensation from anxiety, is due to a compressed nerves in certain parts of the body such as feet and hands. It leaves the blood circulation disturbed and somewhat abnormal in its function at a given time and so its not just tingling / anxiety needles and pins but you may also feel burning sensation and sensory loss.

Now the most important thing to keep in mind in times of anxiety is to never lose control of yourself, otherwise you will be inviting more symptoms to take place and if this happens, it’s going to be traumatic. Worst of all, panic attacks such as anxiety needles and pins to mention one, is unpredictable and sudden. To cut the chase, it will disable you to function appropriately in social encounters. I’ve heard a lot of people gone hypochondriac or the paranoid feeling of being ill from one simple anxiety symptom alone. You do not want to make things worst so here’s what you can do.

1.) When it hits your arms, try to clench and unclench your fist a number of times and swing your arms in all directions. This is to normalize the blood flow. This is very helpful if it occurs that you can’t feel anything in your arms and having the tingling, needles and pins sensation. When you move your arms, you request your body to supply blood to the active body part and thus normalize blood circulation. This is why regular exercise, in the long run, helps a lot in maintaining not only physical health but mental health as well.

2.) If it occurs that you feel it in your legs, what you ought to do is to move around, perhaps jog a bit to recirculate the blood in your legs. Because there are compressed nerves in the area, you feel the tingling / ‘anxiety pins and needles’ sensation in your legs. Through leg commotion, you will do the same thing as mentioned in tip number one – recirculate and normalize the blood flow and supply.

3.) If it happens in the upper part of the body such as neck and face. Do the same – rock your head left to right and up and down. It’s just a normal way of saying to your body that I need blood in my neck and face, and so it will correspond soon.

4.) The first three ways are immediate rescue techniques for impeding further anxiety panic attack; they are useful in preventing a worst case scenario of an anxiety panic attack. However, if you do not pair your intervention with a long term approach, more or less, your bodily responses will be slower and lamer. You need to do a regular exercise and switch to a healthy diet for good blood circulation.

There are easy ways on how we can counterattack an anxiety symptom like anxiety pins and needles. They are doable, practical without the need of any high cost professional fees. Nonetheless, in thwarting the whole thing from happening, it is important to have the right attitude in everything and that is, self discipline in terms of food and exercise.

Break Loose from the Chains of Anxiety Back Pains

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

One of the most physically and emotionally limiting symptoms of unreleased emotions is anxiety back pains. This discomfort can impair your ability to be productive in the workplace, spend quality time with your family and loved ones and have a good time hanging out with friends. In short, its nothing more than a torture of the self that leads to chronic physical disability.

Things go wrong when the body’s natural limit is overwhelmed by factors such as routinary work, family and social life stress. Moreover, constant emotional stress and lingering worries all contribute to the stress of your skeletomuscular system that is not only limited to the back but extends to the upper back and neck as well. Studies show that people with mood disorders are more likely to suffer from anxiety backpains than those with not. Not disregarding the probable contribution of physical stress from hard labour and strenuous sitting routines in the office, anxiety back pains are in the eastern medicine perspective, a result of unbalanced physical and emotional activity.

When anxieties get severe, they radically affect all level of being. Starting from the physical plane, you will feel back aches for example; on the mental plane, you will experience hopelessness and consequently lethargy; and on the spiritual plane, it indubiously dumps your aliveness to the dustbin leaving you with little or no energy to deal with life.
If no action is taken to break loose from the string of endless agony, in the long run, you will be completely out of life, mad, and disillusioned. And you do not want any of these worst descriptions to occur to you.

It is all the time undoubtedly appropriate to take good care of yourself and take immediate action as soon as signs and symptoms are detected. There’s no reason for anybody to keep suffering when there’s too much available information online. Here are some things to consider.

Personally, you can try these things without the need of anyone

- Regular Stretching exercise for at least 5-10 minutes per day
- Meditation – helps clear out negative tendencies of the mind such as automated worry responses to situations that inevitably causes physical pathology and anxiety

If you want to do more extensive therapy, here are some good tips:

- Try Acupuncture – this helps regain the energy balance in the body. By puncturing certain points in the meridians/energy channels of the body, the body’s flow of energy is brought back to its normal balanced state.
- Chiropractic medicine – proven to reduce back and neck pains

There’s more to healing, approach your anxiety back pain wisely by gradually working on each fear factor daily. It’s not at all a fly by night symptom, you need some legwork to get over it, but it’s no doubt, worth the effort.

Anxiety Sore Throat and it’s Natural Remedies

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

In a nutshell, having severe anxiety is like living in hell. It plagues the masses. Anxiety sore throat is actually just one of the hundreds of damages from severe anxiety. Chronic fatigue, routinary and sedentary lifestyle causes the body to deviate from its natural cycle and produce physical symptoms such as sore throat.

In the east, particularly in the less publicly known subject of chakralogy, the body is deemed to be an open interrelated structure to which the universal energy called Prana, chi or ki flows endlessly until death. It is composed of seven fundamental chakras or energy centers that mediate the overall processes of the body in all planes – physical, emotional and subliminal.

More, the seven chakras or energy centers are located in seven separate areas in the body starting off from the base of the spine, to the navel, the solar plexus, the mid chest, the neck, the forehead and the parietal lobe of the head. These seven centers are believed to control the secretion of corresponding glands namely the pineal gland, pituitary, thyroid, thymus, adrenal, gonads and pancreas; which influences moods and feelings of a person. To dig in further, the behavior of the chakras are intensely affected by the past actions of the person having it. For instance, when someone fears public speaking for many roots (inferiority complex, etc.), one gets ‘butterfly in the stomach’ in western layman’s term. In chakralogy, the solar plexus chakra is weak in such cases and needs immediate attention and healing.

Further, in yogic treatment, the solar plexus is treated by having a vegetarian diet, practicing of yoga postures on a regular basis, and meditation. In anxiety sore throat, the weak chakra is the neck chakra. This is often seen in eastern medical thought as a constant repression in one’s feelings, ideas and aspirations towards the world and life in general. This is treated with the same set of practice with a different yoga posture complimenting the thymus gland of the neck.

However, there’s another thing to try aside from the yogic approach to healing anxiety sore throat. Here’s the list:

1.) Avoid if not stop smoking
2.) Avoid alcohol
3.) Avoid caffeine, fast food products, if possible switch to a fruit and vegetable diet regularly
4.) Drink enough water – 6-8 glasses will help. A dehydrated body is prone to anxiety symptoms such as sore throat
5.) Take herbs such as kava kava
6.) Start your day right with deep breathing and a few minutes of exercise, body stretching will do just to keep up your circulation level healthy
7.) Do not forget to take pauses. By this I mean, we as human beings need to pause from time to time. Set a ‘do nothing day’ if possible every couple of weeks, if not at least once a month. This will help your overall system greatly.

Remember that in dealing with anxiety sore throat, as it is a physical anxiety symptom, its best to keep your body healthy, stay hydrated and maintain a good outlook in life. Soon, if all interventions start to work, you will be more than happy to notice the changes.

Eliminate Anxiety Dry Mouth and Give Yourself More Convenience

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Anxiety dry mouth is a fear induced undersecretion of saliva in the salivary glands. With the maximum length of 10 minutes, anxiety symptoms are short lived but have long term effects in personal, professional, familial and social life.

Irrational fears or phobias are subtly linked to anxiety induced dry mouth. People suffering from specific absurd fears such as darkness, pain, spaces, water, hair, strangers, and so on, in the onset of the disorder will begin to breathe abnormally, oftentimes fast and rapid, and sometimes irregular. This inevitably affects the gland that produces saliva which in result causes drying of the mouth. You may feel thickness, rough, arid, and sometimes cracking of the lips, difficulty in swallowing and occasionally, burning sensation in the mouth.

During high anxiety moments, the body prepares all its armies for action. This primarily includes the adrenal glands, the amygdala – the whole endocrine system and partly, the nervous system. Consequently, makes rapid changes in the body.

Also called ‘cotton mouth’, drying of the mouth is less common and not so noticeable among sufferers because it is simply and not so highly and significantly distracting compared to extreme anxiety symptoms such as chest pain, palpitations, depersonalization and fear of losing control and dying. Anxiety dry mouth nonetheless, is a clear indicator that the individual is suffering, in this case, lesser in intensity, however still cannot be tolerated. Every single symptom can contribute to the growth and development of other pathological anxiety panic symptoms. If this scenario occurs to you more than your ability to bear with it, it can be really disturbing and annoying. So it is always better to take action as soon as possible.

The first practical thing to do when you have anxiety dry mouth is to drink sufficient water. Drink eight glasses or more on a daily basis. Bring water when going out, you will never know when and where anxiety strikes. Your water bottle is your emergency kit that you can depend on in times of dry mouth. Another thing to consider is to increase your dosage of water; this will certainly help your body’s maintenance of moisture and humidity, and in many ways prevents you from experiencing such discomfort. You can do this by taking regular sips of water during the day and drinking as much during meals. Also, it is notably helpful to avoid things that obviously causes drying of the mouth such as caffeine based products, be it food or beverages and/or tobacco, too salty and spicy foods, and too sweet (highly sugar-based) products.

Anxiety dry mouth can be easily eliminated if you take time in doing so. Drink as much water as you can, bring bottles with you when going out and take time to work on your mental health.

Handling Yourself with Care: Relief for Anxiety While Driving

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Considering the unpredictable nature of anxiety and panic attacks, it is best to equip yourself with the proper know how’s in times of emergency. A situational anxiety, anxiety while driving can be very dangerous especially when traveling alone. Most especially when traveling long distance, this situational anxiety is so fast and furious that can have a very detrimental effect, which in extreme cases, can lead you to:

- stop driving and not drive at all
- Unnecessarily hire someone (not to mention the cost)
- Trigger your other fears that can lead to full blown panic attack in slightly similar situations (pressure situations)

The first thing to keep in mind is to stay calm. Remember that our perception towards something subliminally affects our behavior toward it. If you are already anxious before getting on to the driver’s seat. You should stay out of the car for an adequate period of time and take time to do the following:

- Sit back, close your eyes and relax for a bit
- Try to breathe slowly as you can, this helps in the circulation of blood which in turn relaxes the muscle and the mind

After you’ve done this, you should plant a positive thought in mind that you can handle obstacles, emotional impediments and stress every time you drive. If you do this regularly, it will flourish and you will eventually change your viewpoint towards driving. There’s no overnight success especially in dealing with deep rooted fluky fears like anxiety while driving. You should take time to deal with it rather than ignoring it because you’ll never know when and where it will take place. It is always best to equip yourself with the proper knowledge beforehand.

Moreover, here are some simple steps to start your ferocious battle against anxiety while driving:

1.) Breathe in deeply while driving
2.) Putting on calm music such as nature music or the like will hasten the process
3.) Take time to move your body slightly. If you feel that the panic attack is most likely to occur, take time to move your head, shoulders, face, and neck. Intense concentration on the fear will worsen the situation. By moving your body, you will stimulate your senses with other things and divert your awareness.
4.) If you feel tension, get a grip on the wheel to release it. Suppressed and unreleased tension will trigger full blown panic attacks especially if you had already had an experience.

Also, one thing to be cautious about is to learn and accept the fact that anxiety is a multifaceted and vicious mental disorder but can be defeated by iron-willpower and uncompromising commitment to overcome it.

The answer lies in you really. The thing you need to do is just to keep on searching for the key and sometime soon, you will unlock the roomful of anxiety in you.

Acupressure for Anxiety: a Simple, Self-help Effective Treatment

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

If you have tried almost everything yet nothing seemed to work, perhaps its time to try Acupressure for anxiety. Acupressure has proven its worth in contemporary times as more and more doctors integrate their medical interventions with ancient healing methods like such not to mention the imminent alternative medicine industry of today. Acupressure has been used for ages in China, Japan, and India to cure many types of physical and mental illness.

This type of alternative therapy is based on the pretext that the human body since its kick-off, is a mere bioelectrical flow of one fundamental universal energy. The ancient healers of the East call this energy Prana in India, Chi in China and Ki in Japan. They believe that life was made possible because of this vital energy flowing all throughout the cosmos. Further, this energy is understood to be the underlying support for all somatic processes such as eating, drinking, sleeping, thinking, and so on.

In the human body, this energy moves through numerous channels called meridians. When a negative form of energy such as anxiety gets in the picture, it upsets its balance thus making us feel sick.

Acupressure is nothing more than applying pressure on certain parts of the body, particularly in pressure points along the meridians of the body. The method is perfectly capable of restoring the balance of energy in the body that is – increasing blood circulation, and reduce muscle tension and nervousness. When you chuck out your physical discomforts, you will regain your mental calmness. This is how acupressure works; it’s no more than a physical approach to a psychologically stimulated somatic suffering.

In times of stress and worry, here are some things you can do to get started:

• Clench your fist to find the skin crease of your hand to locate the acupressure point. Use your thumb (recommended) to press the point. Relax your hand while pressing the point, do this for a couple of times or thrice a day when you feel worrisome and muscle tensions in te body.
• You wrist crease inside the bound of the wrist bone is the acupressure point for this. Press the point with your thumbnail in a circular motion for about a minute or two until you get the hang of the pain. Do this twice to thrice a day to relieve your trouble thoughts.
• Use your index finger and thumbs to rub your ears. Do this for a number of times until you feel calm. The ears are made up of tissues that contain acupressure and reflexology points. Do this two to three times per day.
• In addition, it is best to couple the whole thing with breathing exercises. The most outstanding time to do this is in the morning.

Do this regularly and feel the immediate changes it will bring in your system.

It’s always different stroke for different folks. Acupressure may be the right tool for your anxiety. Take some time to learn this effective ancient self help therapy of the ancient east. Make these acupressure techniques an effective rescue remedy for your anxiety

Homeopathy for Anxiety: A counter Remedy for Over the Counter Drugs

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Homeopathy for anxiety is best for chronic stress disorders which normally is the cause of majot anxiety disorders in the west. It is a common public knowledge that pharmaceutical drugs can have devastating effects on one’s physical and mental well being. It can even further produce and develop other anxiety symptoms as what has been observed in the field of psychiatry in the 19th century (Prozac’s, etc.). Homeopathy on the other hand is tender, has no side effects and is non addictive.

Gaining its widespread attention in the early 1920′s when the influenza epidemic death rates raised to about 30%, homeopathy based hospitals had lower death rates. It was introduced in the new world in the 1820′s, homoeopathy accomplished more popularity with the support of several prominent doctors at the time. The basic tenet of homoeopathy is ‘like with like’ or the law of similars. Dr Hahnemann, the developer of the practice, believes that ‘a substance which will create the symptoms of a disease in a healthy person will actually cure the symptoms of the disease in a sick person’.

The catch here is homeopathic treatment for anxiety is permanent in its effectiveness. It deals not with the branches of the problem but the roots causing all the ramifications of fear and worries and on top of everything else, it treats the whole person and not just the symptoms. Further, homeopathy has been used for more than a couple of hundred years in treating not just anxiety but also phobias and depression as well.

Moreover, anxiety is a vicious cycle that varies in intensity from person to person. Often, it has a central theme that creates trigger factors among individuals and progresses overtime. Homeopathic Doctors try to unlatch the core issue of the person, once this is recognized; it is then dealt with the proper homeopathic treatment. This can be simply explained as – finding the right key to unfasten the padlock.

Homeopathic treatment for anxiety includes:

Aconitum napellus – for anxiety panic attacks
Argentum nitricum – for anxiety diziness
Arsenicum album – for hypochondriacs, anxiety fear of losing of the self, control and death
Gelsemium – for anxiety chills and hot flushes
Natrum muriaticum – for anxiety chest pains

Although there are many types of treatment for anxiety, it is best for you to discover what works for you. Homeopathy deals with the core problem not the surface. If you want to totally get rid of your anxiety, I highly recommend you try homeopathy. There’s more to check out with homeopathy. Have time to explore more about this fascinating alternative medicine, I’m sure its worth the time.

Learning Easy Breathing Techniques for Anxiety

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Anxiety and breathing has a give and take relationship, learning easy breathing techniques for anxiety is mediating and eventually stopping the flow of paranoid thought. It also keep you away from the dark vacuum of anxiousness that sucks every thought in and divulges you from the obsessive nature of anxiety and its preceding panic attack which normally leads to unpleasant situations.

You see, breathing directly affects the state of awareness both internally and externally. As the ancient sage analogy suggests, “the mind is like the surface of calm water, breathing is like stones thrown on the water. When you throw more stones onto it, it becomes disturbed and agitated. The lesser you stone you throw onto it, the calmer it is” Thus, the lesser and deeper breathing, the calmer the mind will be.

Normally, an average person breathes 13-17 times per minute, a pretty bad breathing frequency (that’s a busy individual with a hectic schedule). During a state of anxiousness, thoughts flow rapidly and randomly, in usual cases they are one whole universe of negative thoughts enqueued in a disorderly manner waiting to rush in and alter the normal state of mental awareness and modifying the normal processes of the body. Once you get totally sucked in, you lose awareness, get detached from reality (derealization), lose control, escape from yourself (depersonalization), and in some cases fear that you might die at that moment.

The truth is, you just need breathing! Here are some things you can do during such moments:

- Sit back straight, if possible do not lean
- Put your hands on your lap
- Close your eyes and breathe as slowly, discreetly, and deeply as you can (5-7 seconds or more during inhalation and exhalation)
- Breathe in through the nose and exhale through the mouth
- As you inhale, gradually push out your abdomen to allow more air to come in
- As you breathe out, focus on the air coming out and visualize the worries coming out of your body as well
- During the entire process, it’s good to withdraw from your senses as much as possible, the lesser the sensory stimulation, the higher your concentration is

The simple rule is, the lesser the breathing, the higher the concentration, the more physically and mentally relaxed you are otherwise its nothing more than invoking a more intense agitation.

Because of the fact that most people developed bad breathing habits due to bad past habits, its not startling that when during anxiety, particular people find it hard to breathe. Giving importance to overall health, learning to breathe better is a start off and learning the suggested easy breathing techniques will certainly aid you in times of crisis.

How to Stop Anxiety Nightmares

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Let me start by making an analogy that I think best describe the situation. When emotions are most of the time suppressed, they get stored in the subconscious’ bottle of the mind. Overtime, when the subconscious bottle is full, they burst out. The bursting out of emotions from the sublime subconscious mind results into a psychological tremor and intense physical discomfort.

On one hand, the subconscious mind is a super sensitive detector that copies all expressions (joy, excitement) and unexpressions in the waking stage such as self denial, unexpressed feelings, and many other psychological distresses. On the other hand, it is also like an infinite hard disk drive that stores all the data taken out from the events in the waking stage.

In normal cases, dreams (sleeping state) release emotional tension by expressing the most longed for desires which is suppressed during the waking state. It also defies logic and rationality as it tends to rumble and jumble all things in one basket. In abnormal cases, when someone is highly and intensely anxious during the waking state without having enough channels for release of tension, one will desperately not achieve emotional balance which in the end, produces a great deal of disequilibrium in the body and mind, or to put it wholly, no peace of mind.

Anxiety at night is a mere rumination of the your mind and body from your restrained rudimentary desires / longings. To put in perspective, anxiety at night is in all ways unpleasant, horrific, distressing and at worst, can cause emotional breakdowns.

Anxiety at night oftentimes occurs in the sleeping state. Completely in a different plane of consciousness, the individual feels confused and ardently frightened. Waking up from an anxiety at night is worst as it tends to put your vague sources fears into reality. One may feel unimaginably scared if not breaking down.

To help you out with this dilemma, here are some possible things you can do:

1.) Maintain a healthy lifestyle – exercise, eat fruits, vegetables, avoid fast food products and switch to alternative medicine whenever there’s not need for pharmaceuticals
2.) Take time to breathe fresh air in the morning. If it happens that you work at night, take sometime to do deep and slow breathing. Breathing always help relieve emotional worries.
3.) Learn to face and fight your anxieties. To make things concrete, whenever you feel that your anxiety is about to attack, face it rather than fleeing from it. Remember that your mental abilities are always stronger than any kind of fear. Human beings are able to transcend time and space with pure thought, there’s just a bit of prerequisite practice to achieve this.
4.) Do not eat too much and if possible, eat less at night. This will help you have digested food stuff before sleeping and prevents you from having such attacks.

You see, all four are perfectly doable. Learning how to conquer your fear with proper knowledge and action is the best way to deal and liberate yourself from Nocturnal monsters like anxiety at night.