Short and Long Term Consequences
Posted by admin on Jul 29, 2010
I used to look for treatments for my anxiety when really I needed to be making plans to cope with future change. I used to be anxious about money, but seldom did I take control of it to make sure we would have money for the next holiday, let alone cope with possible major changes in the economy.
What are the short and long term consequences of your current finances? Could you manage if you lost your job? How would you manage your mortgage and other commitments? Will you have any money to retire on?
I spent some time last week with a family man who was on a huge income but he had no money put away. He got his self esteem from “being worth spending money on”. He believed that he had to show he was worth it – worth the endless cappuccinos, the books he just had to have, the holiday he was taking the children on, the very expensive meals out and all the other things he spent his money on. He is anxious about his mortgage. Hmmm…
Anxiety, guilt and other trash
Posted by admin on Jul 7, 2010
I think back into my anxious and guilt ridden past and wonder why I didn’t get the message sooner that few of the agonies I was going through were justified. I suffered for years.
I used to like shifting houses and cities because I would leave my social mistakes behind and start with a clean slate. However why did I want to carry anxiety about my social mistakes around with me in the first place?
Anxiety is a call to action, a call to prepare or to make changes so that a possible difficulty in the future can be easily overcome. What I really needed to do was to move on in MY life and stop worrying about what other people might think of me, to mind my own business. My focus was on the wrong place. My focus should have been on gaining life experience and qualifications that would be useful in the market place and that I enjoyed doing. Instead, brought up in the church, my focus was on service and being a doormat for people to walk over and walk on me they did, making me acutely anxious along the way.
The best thing I ever did was to get a life away from the church and the controlling,confining, defining, defiling social environment.
Other people make me feel…
Posted by admin on Jun 25, 2010
Yet another person has made a comment that they feel bad because someone didn’t like them. I can understand their feelings, yet in more rational moments I realise that Eleanor Roosevelt was right when she said, “Noone can make you feel something without your permission.” We are all responsible for our own feelings and noone can make us feel anything unless we/our psyches/our internal conditioning allows it.
That last sentence is a hard one to swallow and I know it is one that would have set off anger within me when I was younger. For years I sought natural anxiety relief or remedies for bad feelings, never realizing that they were within me.
Almost all of us like to be liked and few of us cope well when people are nasty. However if we focus on the message behind the statement we can learn something useful if our egos are up to that level of introspection. If we find that we irritate a variety of people or if we realise that we are boring people on multiple occasions then we then have some options. I’ll go personal as an example.
When I was young I wanted to be more involved in a leadership position in a group, but the leaders banded together to see that it wouldn’t happen. I realised that I irritated them and they didn’t see me as a leader and I had to move on. While I was very hurt at the time it was, in the end, a good thing. They stopped me from becoming as self centered and self involved as they were. I had to get another life. I had to think about all the other things I could do. I got myself an education, moved out of that city and ended up doing much more interesting things that I would have if I had stayed in that place being patronised and put down by this group of controlling people.
If we take criticism as feedback then we can move beyond our immediate feelings of anxiety, anger, frustration, dislike or whatever they trigger in us. It’s not that we won’t feel like that from time to time, however we can use those feelings as a pointer to improving our current situation
Treatments for anxiety
Posted by admin on Jun 6, 2010
Most people when they think of treatments for anxiety tend to think in terms of pills or some type of psychological therapy. A few might think in terms of more natural approaches such as herbs for anxiety or perhaps using supplements to deal with some type of deficiency.
I think back to some of my most anxious times and of the occasions when my doctors wanted me to go on anti-depressant medication. At no time did any doctor or counselor ever tell me that anxiety was a call to action, or that it might be useful if I asked myself more useful questions to clarify just what that action might be.
At no time was I given any suggestion that the answers to my anxiety could come from within. Quite frequently I felt blamed for my anxiety but all of the treatments for anxiety were external and they only compounded the problems I had by increasing my sense of helplessness at my ability to do anything, and hopelessness that anything might improve.
I was furious when I discovered the well known theory of self-efficacy in health psychology. All the doctors and psychologists are taught about the importance of the patient having increasing levels of understanding and belief in what they can control in their lives, but they all took my money and left me feeling more and more powerless. Every one of them took my money and did the opposite of what I needed.
This is not to say that most of them weren’t well intentioned or kind. Mostly they were both of these things. They just weren’t very competent. And their focus was on the well known anti-depressant drugs which didn’t actually work in my case or their version of psychotherapy, which didn’t work either. And they left me with the sense that both of those results were my fault also.
The best of the treatments for anxiety was my decision to take charge of my own life. In as much as I was able, given all the things that were going on, I would take charge of what I could. Every symptom was there for a reason, I decided. I might not understand the reason, and I might never know some reasons, but I could know some reasons. I decided I would assume there was some type of cause and effect and it was up to me to find out what they were and then to do something about it.
Also I was going to assume that I would be changing some things about me.
Now 20 years down the track I reckon I made some good decisions, back then. Now I still use herbs for anxiety from time to time, but it isn’t very frequent. I usually take the action needed to make the anxiety go away.
How do we know to be anxious or not?
Posted by admin on May 14, 2010
Just what is it about developing anxiety that makes some things so horrendous you just want your natural anxiety relief to work RIGHT NOW but other times the anxiety is barely there at all? That has occurred this last week for me. I developed an eye condition that gave me excruciating pain and reduced my sight in one eye by about 90%. I was, of course, worried enough to get myself to doctors and hospitals to get some assistance with it, but I didn’t get and still am not overly anxious about the loss of sight. I have every belief that it will turn out well and that I will get all my sight back again.
So I am interested as to why some things can worry me, or others, absolutely sick, and other situations not much at all? If I could work out just why I can swim through this, bothered by the discomfort but not screamingly anxious then I would have something really useful. Of course I could still lose all the sight, but if this is the case, I haven’t had any anxiety over this possibility for a whole week, and that is something to appreciate.
I haven’t wondered before about why I’m not anxious about something. I’m not anxious about lots of things. I don’t get anxious about having a car crash when I go out shopping, though I know that is a problem for some. I don’t get anxious about my relationships at the moment. I know they will turn out for the best. Perhaps I will ponder on this during those hours I can’t spend at the computer because of this eye. I have to wear an eye patch while working and need to restrict my time at the keyboard because even though I’m not seeing with it using my other eye makes the inflamed one work as well.
Herbs for anxiety: Rosemary
Posted by admin on Apr 19, 2010
A herb that most people don’t think of as being useful for anxiety is rosemary. Rosemary is usually used for improving the immune system and helping the brain function well. It has been used for memory and to help people with Alzheimers. It is its use in bringing clarity of thought that can be helpful to those who are feeling anxious.
Mild to moderate anxiety symtpoms can leave you feeling like you couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag. Keeping a sprig of rosemary in a vase beside you or putting some essential oil on a tissue and bringing it to the nose occasionally can bring a sharp clarity to what you need to do to take charge of your life. You can’t control other people or circumstances but rosemary scent or aromatherapy does help you take charge, make the necessary decisions and do what needs to be done right now. It can help you be much more decisive.
I wouldn’t use this during a full scale panic attack – do be sensible. Use rosemary to get you going, not when your heart is racing already.
Use rosemary as a natural remedy for the anxiety that comes from not being able to take action.
Anxiety Cure: Does Molybdenum Work For Some?
Posted by admin on Apr 14, 2010
I came across an answer to one aspect of my anxiety quite by accident. I had been having panic attacks each morning for over four years. I put it down to the high stress I was living under at the time and did all the things recommended by the health professionals. None of it worked, though by doing what they suggested it did appear to others that I had less symptoms. However it didn’t reduce what was going on inside me.
I went to see a doctor about another matter. I wasn’t looking for an anxiety cure. He did a hair analysis and mentioned that I had a number of acute deficiencies, particularly molybdenum. I purchased this as a supplement immediately and took two capsules that night as recommended. The next morning I had no panic attack. Frankly this was amazing. After four years of heart racing, tight chest and all that stuff, I felt calm and in control as I awoke. That doctor hadn’t known about my panic attacks until I told him at my next visit that they had gone away. He made some comment about molybdenum being necessary for serotonin production.
I needed quite a lot of molybdenum for two years, then slowly reduced the quantity for another couple of years. I haven’t needed to take it for the last four years.
I have never heard of another case of panic attacks that resolved like mine did as a result of treating a molybdenum deficiency and this is not meant as a recommendation of anything other than to be open to other possibilities than just behavioral interventions. I firmly believe that anxiety is not only behavioral but chemical as well and we need to fill our bodies with good healthy food and occasional supplements to deal with any deficiencies.
If you want to check this out for yourself then find a doctor who will do a hair analysis to find out what supplements you actually need and use your own judgment also. Most doctors don’t understand hair analysis so you need to find one who does. (Google “hair analysis laboratory” and your country to find a company that does it. They sometimes know of doctors who will use hair analysis as part of their diagnostic procedures.) And don’t give up with the behavioral stuff – anxiety is part behavioral as well and I’m happy to use anything that works.
Natural Anxiety Relief Secrets: are they really out there?
Posted by admin on Apr 13, 2010
Anxiety can be mild and what the doctors call “self limiting” – meaning it goes away with time – and it can be all levels of severity to full blown panic attacks. But whether mild or severe what you really want to know is if there are any natural anxiety relief methods out there which really work?
The short answer is yes. However, as anxiety is a multi-faceted problem which has a multitude of causes there isn’t just one quick fix for all types of anxiety. That’s a pity – I always hoped there was. I didn’t want to have to suffer the horrible side effects from the doctor’s drugs, nor go digging through my psyche to sort it out.
But I have found out lots of things which help. In fact it can go away completely for long periods of time. So in visiting this site you will find lots of secrets for natural anxiety relief.