Tips For Helping Someone With An Anxiety Disorder:
- Make no assumptionsask the person what they need.
- Be predictabledon’t surprise the person.
- Let the person with the disorder set the pace for recovery.
- Find something positive in every small step towards recovery.
- Don’t help the person avoid their fears.
- Maintain your own life so you don’t resent the person with the disorder.
- Don’t panic when the person with the disorder panics, but realize it’s natural to be concerned with them.
- Be patient and accepting, but don’t settle for the affected person being permanently disabled.
- Say encouraging words such as: “You can do it no matter how you feel. I am proud of you. Tell me what you need now. Breathe slow and low. Stay in the present. It’s not the place that’s bothering you, it’s the thought. I know that what you are feeling is painful, but it’s not dangerous. You are courageous.”
- Avoid saying things like: “Don’t be anxious. Let’s see if you can do this. You can fight this. What should we do next? Don’t be ridculous. You have to stay. Don’t be a coward.” These phrases tend to blame the individual for the anxiety.
Chamomile Can Act As A Mild Sedative Without Causing The Usual Drowsiness Associated With Sedatives
So it would be beneficial if one could obtain these benefits naturally without worrying about getting hooked. Its not surprising that some sufferers of anxiety use chamomile. Some anxiety and panic attack sufferers have reported that they found chamomile tea relaxing. Drinking one to four cups of chamomile tea daily is said to be helpful with anxiety.
Chamomile is also packed full of phytochemicals. The website of the United States Department of Agriculture contains some useful information about Phytochemicals. For instance, phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant chemicals that have protective or disease preventive properties. There are more than a thousand known phytochemicals. Research demonstrates that they may offer many health benefits.6 For instance, reducing inflammation aiding digestion and sleep colitis diverticulosis fever headaches and pain.
Caution: Avoid chamomile if you are allergic to marigolds, ragweed, daisies, celery or chrysanthemums. In the United States, chamomile is most commonly sold as a tea.
Do not take chamomile with sedative medications, blood thinners or alcohol. Also long term daily use may lead to rag weed allergy.
My take:
Thats exactly what I provide in my free newsletter. I will show you how to partake in an-all-encompassing approach to anxiety, panic attacks and agoraphobia. The newsletter is laid out in a step-by-step format. You can get started now, directly below.
References
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Surprising Facts About The Best Ways To Treat Depression
An Easy Way to Try Hydrotherapy
I recommend patients with depression to use brief whole-body exposure to cold water in the form of a cold shower. Patients can start a shower at a comfortable warm temperature and slowly cool down the water over a five-minute period down to 68°F, at which point you can sustain for two to three minutes.
You can use a thermometer to check the temperature. This can be performed once or twice a day and may be continued for weeks to several months .
Given its low-tech, low-cost use, shower hydrotherapy is worth a try as part of an overall naturopathic strategy for lifestyle, dietary and nutrient support. I have seen patients with both depression and anxiety benefit. I have also seen benefits for patients with migraines as well. Although mild cold stress seems to help the brain work better, please note that too much of a good thing may not be so good: animal research has shown that extreme cold stress may actually impair brain and cognitive function . So, check with your doctor for any contraindications, then start light, and maybe not join the polar bear club just yet. Nevertheless, those polar bear clubbers are clearly onto something good.
Peter Bongiorno ND, LAc is co-director of Inner Source Health in New York, and author of How Come They’re Happy and I’m Not? The Complete Naturopathic Guide to Healing Depression for Good. Learn more here.
References
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Is Cold Water Therapy Safe
Cold water puts your body under stress. This is how its believed to produce many of the positive effects, like boosting the immune system. But it also means it can be dangerous, and even fatal for some people. Cold water immersion can trigger:
- cold water shock an automatic response where your heart rate increases and you lose control of your breathing
- arrhythmias
- hypothermia, when your core temperature gets too cold
Building up sessions gradually can help your body to adapt to the cold and lessen the risk of cold water shock. Many of these problems are more likely if you have any underlying medical conditions, such as problems with your heart or asthma. If youre concerned about how cold water therapy may affect you, discuss it with your GP before trying it. Remember cold water therapy wont be suitable for everybody.
Panic Attacks Can Be Controlled
While alcohol can make your panic attacks worse, alcohol itself doesnât cause panic attacks on its own. In other words, even if you stop drinking alcohol, you are likely still going to have panic attacks â you simply wonât have alcohol triggering them. This means that cutting out alcohol can help â but often further action is required in order to take full control of your condition.
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Calming Step : Have A Script Ready
A panic attack can fill your head with racing, negative thoughts, which can keep the panic going and make you feel worse. But you can wield a powerful weapon against them: A script of positive thoughts.
Write down encouraging words you can read to yourself during a panic attack, Dr. Josell says. Your script should answer the negative thoughts. So if you feel like youre going to pass out, tell yourself you wont. If you feel like youre dying, tell yourself you wont die from a panic attack. The words you hear are powerful, and over time, they become your truth.
Ideally, write your script when youre feeling calm. Tuck it in your pocket or purse or type it into your smartphone notes so its easy to access.
If youre in the middle of a panic attack and dont have your script, you can fight negative thoughts on the fly. Try repeating in your mind or out loud phrases like, Im strong, and I can handle this, or This is only temporary, and it will pass.
Your script helps you deal with an attack that arises, but its a preventive measure, too. It can calm your fear of having another panic attack because you know youre in control. The more confident you are that you can manage a panic attack, the less likely you are to have future attacks.
Is It The Same As Having A Fear Of Intimacy
If you have a fear of intimacy it might be hard for you to get close to other people, whether in terms of emotional intimacy or being physically close with them.
All sort of things can cause and contribute to a fear of intimacy, including mental health conditions and how you were raised.
Its common for people with a fear of intimacy to put up walls in relationships to protect themselves. Maybe you have a habit of self-sabotaging relationships before you get too attached. Or maybe you refuse to talk about anything that will make you too emotional.
If you experience fear of intimacy, the vulnerable nature of sex could definitely cause you to feel anxious or sad afterward. Especially if you havent addressed the root causes of your fear.
If youre curious about whether youre experiencing fear of intimacy, this questionnaire was created just for you.
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What Causes Panic Attacks And Anxiety
First and foremost, either anxiety or a panic attack may arise as a consequence of an underlying medical condition.
It is very important to see a medical professional when you experience either in order to rule out potential medical reasons for these disorders and to learn how to control them.
In general, most panic attacks are a distressing result of the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. When you are stressed, the sympathetic nervous system senses an oncoming danger and kicks into overdrive.
Often, the deeper root of anxiety or a panic attack is usually an inability to handle distressing events due to poor long-standing coping mechanisms learned from the past.
You tend to develop your methods of coping from modeling those of your parents and family members. For example, if you saw your parents cope with anxiety by numbing themselves with alcohol or sedatives, you too may adopt the same poor coping mechanisms as an adult.
Or you may tend to repeat the methods of coping from your childhood when you either bore witness to or experienced dysfunctional childhood dynamics.
For instance, when you were a child, you may have hidden in a closet and cried when witnessing abuse or discord in the home, and you may continue to break down and use avoidance when things become distressing as an adult.
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Mood Improves With More Water Intake
In a smaller 2014 study , researchers explored how increasing or decreasing water intake affected mood in people with different water-drinking habits.
They found that people who usually drink lots of water felt less calm, less content, and more tense when their water intake dropped.
When researchers increased the participants water intake, people in the study felt more happiness, no matter how much water they normally drank.
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Water Depression And Anxiety
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
Can drinking plenty of water help alleviate depression and anxiety?
Several approaches can be taken to help manage mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Common approaches to managing mental health include: counseling, medications, removing stressors from your life, exercising consistently, getting enough sleep, proper diet, meditation, yoga, etc. The list goes on.
There is one simple remedy thats been right in front of you all along, that you may not have picked up on yet: Helping your depression and/or anxiety by staying adequately hydrated throughout the day.
Every system in the human body counts on water to function, and the brain is no exception. In fact, about 75 percent of brain tissue is water. Research has linked dehydration to depression and anxiety, because mental health is driven primarily by your brains activity. Long story short, dehydration causes brain functioning to slow down and not function properly. It is important to think of water as a nutrient your brain needs.
How dehydration contributes to depression
Depression is a complex mental illness that has many moving parts in the inter-functionalities between your brain and body. Though it would be overly simplistic to say that dehydration is a direct cause for all types of depression, dehydration and depression are causally connected in many ways in fact, one resulting symptom of chronic dehydration actually turns out to be depression.
Which Dog Breeds Have The Most Anxiety
Spanish water dogs, Shetland sheepdogs, and mixed breed dogs were the canines in which fearfulness was most common. More specifically, fear of surfaces and fear of heights were most prevalent in rough collie and mixed breed dogs. Large breeds and small breeds also differed in terms of anxiety-like behaviors.
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Focus On Your Five Senses
“Focus on your external reality, rather than the symptoms,” advises Bruha. “Use the five senses to ground yourself in the moment.” Be curious about your environment. What can you see, hear, touch, smell or taste?
This is where you can add tactile items to your kit: a fidget spinner, stress ball or a squishy toy.
Remedies For A Panic Attack
Counseling, specifically cognitive behavior therapy , is the most effective treatment for panic disorder. CBT is a type of counseling in which a therapist helps a person change the ways they think and how they behave. Counseling may be used alone or in combination with medication.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, also known as SSRIs, are often used for depression and are usually the first type of medication a doctor prescribes for panic disorder. Other medications used to treat panic disorder include serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors , serotonin modulators, tricyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors .
Benzodiazepines may also be prescribed, but theyre used less often because theyre more likely to be abused.
Physical activity has also been shown to be an effective remedy for the symptoms of a panic attack. There are other complementary and alternative treatments for panic attacks, too, but theres a lack of high-quality evidence to support their use, and they could interfere with medications. Be sure to discuss your treatment options with your doctor.
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Why Do People Think Cold Water Is Key
There are several reasons to think that cold water might provide mental health benefits. Immersing yourself in icy water triggers the release of stress hormones, such as noradrenaline and cortisol. This is likely why people say that a dip in cold water wakes them up, Dr. Tipton said.
Some studies have also reported increases in brain chemicals that regulate mood, such as dopamine, following a cold soak, which may explain the post-swim high people feel. In addition, putting your face in cold water can activate the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system, which prompts the body to relax after a stressful event. This may help people feel calm and tamp down inflammation. Several conditions, including depression, are tied to chronic inflammation, said Mark Harper, an anesthesiology consultant at Royal Sussex County Hospital, who is studying cold water swimming as a treatment for depression.
Some researchers also hypothesize that adapting to the shock of cold water may improve a persons ability to cope with other stresses. A small 2010 study showed that people who were habituated to cold water had a reduced stress response when they were subjected to another strain in this case, working out in a low oxygen environment. But enduring hypoxic exercise is not the same as enduring psychological stresses, however, and more work is needed.
Can Cold Water Swimming Help With Depression
While Tipton has been studying cross-adaptation in his lab, Dr Mark Harper, an anaesthetist at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, has been looking at the same principle at the Brighton seafront.
He became interested in the potential stress benefits of cold water swimming because anaesthetised patients also go through a large physiological stress during surgery, and minimising that response could help patients to recover.
While he has no current plans to test whether swimming in cold water could help improve surgical outcomes, it is nonetheless an interesting hypothesis.
Hes especially fascinated in one specific component of the stress response. Just as stress causes an adrenaline surge, preparing us to attack or to run, it also kick-starts the immune system in preparation for possible wounding or infection.
This protective response, called inflammation, is healthy when stressful events are rare and isolated, but it can become chronic when people experience stress every day.
Whats more, chronic inflammation has been linked to depression. One study of identical twins found that the twin with higher levels of inflammation was more likely to have developed depression when revisited five years later.
And a recent meta-analysis, pooling 36 studies that covered more than 9,000 patients, found that taking anti-inflammatory medication alongside antidepressants reduced depression symptoms, when compared to taking antidepressants alone.
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Breathwork In Any Environment
The above tips can be difficult to do in a crowded spot or if you don’t have the kit with you. Luckily, breathwork techniques can be done anywhere, anytime.
“Depending on your environment, you can try progressive muscle relaxation, meditation or square breathing,” says Bruha.
Square breathing uses four actions, each lasting for about four seconds.
Square breathing instructions:
- Breathe in through your nose while counting to four
- Hold your breath for a count of four
- Exhale slowly to a count of four
- Hold your breath for a count of four
Repeat these four actions, for as long as you want to.
How Much Should We Be Drinking
Nutritional therapist Karen says: There is no doubt that sufficient hydration is vital for your health, but the amount needed varies from person to person. A number of factors influence this, such as age, gender, diet, exercise, caffeine or alcohol consumption, and the presence of disease. Other than listening to your thirst, another way to judge your water needs is via urine colour. Ideally you want pale yellow urine be aware that if you are taking Riboflavin this can make urine bright yellow.
She also notes that many vegetables also contain a high water content, and can be counted towards your daily intake, including most fruit, cucumber, celery, lettuce, courgette, tomato, potato, cabbage, and even foods like salmon and eggs, if not over-cooked.
The connection between a healthy mind and a healthy body is intrinsically linked, and the key to keeping these both working in harmony, is balance. Listen to your body and reconnect with what thirst actually feels like starting with the eight glasses a day guide. Keep a log to identify how much you actually drink, and work through your anxiety with a trained therapist, or practise mindful meditation to strengthen your rational mind. We may be hyper aware of our health and the recommended dos and donts of healthy living, but everyone is different, and one size doesnt fit all. You can achieve a balance thats right for you.
You can find more information about nutrition and hydration on nutritionist-resource.org.uk
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