Anxiety

Anxiety & Tension video

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When it gets bad enough, anxiety takes on an existence of its own and everything gets affected by it. The stronger anxiety becomes, the harder it is to put into words so someone else can understand.

What helps?

The herb Skullcap is fantastic for anxiety. It is completely safe, it slows down a racing mind and has a beautifully calming affect on the whole nervous system.

Kava, in small doses, helps particularly when the social aspect of anxiety is bad and Passionflower relieves much of the uncomfortable physical pressure that builds up with anxiety.

The most relaxing of all herbs, Lobelia, is especially helpful when placed in combination with herbs such as the above to enhance and speed their effects.

These herbs and others are available directly but I would urge anyone with bad anxiety to find a good herbalist to help them as the first step. Going to visit with an experienced herbalist will mean that the herbs themselves, the right formula and the right dose will be better than anything available commercially.

Exercise

Exercise definitely helps reduce anxiety. Whatever form of exercise you do, you are contracting and stretching muscles that cannot help but be more relaxed at the end of it. The more anyone can physically relax the better they reduce their anxiety.

There are a number of landmark studies that show exercise outperforms pharmaceutical medications when it comes to helping with anxiety. A lot of people know this instinctively and self-manage their anxiety through exercise. This works up to a point but it's possible to overdo it too.
How do you know you are overdoing exercise? The recovery time takes too long and if you ignore that sign then the next thing to happen are injuries.

Relaxation

When I ask a person with anxiety what they know relaxes them these are some of the common replies

When I then ask that same person how much they are doing any of those things the answer is usually hardly at all.

This is an undeniable part of our nature. When we are stressed the last thing we think about doing is relaxing. This is because when you are anxious you have stress hormones such as cortisol and noradrenaline circulating in your bloodstream. These are not happy hormones, they are aggravating, alarming, get moving hormones (which is partly why exercise helps with tension, you are acting out the imperative of the body to do something about how it feels).

Fortunately for us, our natural state is peaceful, truly, it is much easier to relax than it is to get tense. Once you change the behaviour the chemistry of the body soon changes, regardless of how anxious you are when you start. However you do have to simply accept that at first you won't feel like doing things to relax yourself. That will come later.

People who have had anxiety for a while come to believe that they can't relax, that they have forgotten how to do it. This is not true, but it can be a powerful belief, the only answer is to practice relaxation until you have confidence in yourself again.

I know that for many people drugs for anxiety are an acceptable trade off; you feel less overall but that includes feling less bad. I do not think that drugs are very good at helping people with anxiety in any lasting way. Perhaps they may be useful as a short term measure, as a kind of tranquiliser, but as soon as they are taken for long enough to become addictive you have then given a person who is struggling with some part of their life another problem to deal with as well.

If someone is dependent on pharmaceutical medication for the treatment of anxiety then I suggest they wait until they have definitely improved from taking herbs etc. before they come off their drugs. Most medications that affect the mind are better to stop completely when the person is ready rather than the slow and tortuous process of withdrawal that is commonly recommended when they are not.

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