How to Get Rid of Panic and Anxiety Through Self-help

By Mark B

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In our lives, we all want peace and happiness. We hope for a happy and pleasant environment around us all the time. However, to have all this we must be living in an ultimate world. However, we all know that our world is not ideal and tensions, panicky situations and anxieties arise every now and then.
However, we should not be afraid of them and whenever these situations arise we must be armed to deal with them in the most efficient manner possible. For this, we must first be able to examine our emotions and accept them as they are. Understanding the emotions can help you to learn to control the emotions without allowing the devastating feelings and emotions take control. As the last step, we must try to transform all such negative emotions like anxiety and panic into encouraging ones.
Anxiety has often been connected with worry and both are understood as the same emotion. Nevertheless, this is not true because although both are forms of fear but anxiety is related more to time and resources constraints whereas worry is a result of an anxiety that something we plan will not work out well.
Anxiety occurs because sometimes we need to complete a tight-string project and we fall in a rush. The project is of greatest importance and because of shortage of time or any other contributing factor you will not be able to terminate it to perfection or on time.
Often worry also results from the same reasons. Nevertheless, the major difference here that we must recognize is that it may not just be a result of lack of resources but may be also due to some problem with your child or spouse or any other personal issue. Worries are a result of our personal attachments with certain beings or things.
Since childhood, all these feelings are absorbed by our mind. We see the way people react to certain situations and emulate them. While some people behave in appositive manner to situations other don’t. Whichever affects us more determines how we behave to those situations.
To throw away all these anxieties and worries one must follow a proper system and diet. In helping you to reduce anxiety and panic situations, the below mentioned points will go a long way.
1.Regular exercises like an early morning walk, jog, or aerobics.
2.Try yoga. It helps in getting better your blood flow and reduces hyperventilation.
3.Whenever a panic situation arises, try to concentrate with deep breathing.
4.Try meditation as a solution searching method.
5.Follow a healthy low fat and high vitamin diet.
Following the aforementioned routine and steps will help you in freeing yourself from negative thoughts and emotions and creating a positive atmosphere around you. Try these positive countermeasures to anxiety whenever it strikes.
1.We must accept that whatever is happening to us has no purpose to harm us. We must give whatever we do, our best shot but it is useless to worry about the results. Once you have given it, your best shot there is no reason why you should fail, so why panic.
2.We must have self-belief in ourselves. We must tell ourselves that nothing is impossible unto us and that we can face all the problems of life without giving up on them.
3.We should never think low about ourselves. Like everyone else, we are all humans and have equal rights to life. We should never worry about what others think about us because at the end of the day you are your best judge.
4.You must be reminiscent yourself at all times that life is meant for being lived every moment and not for worrying every moment what the next will bring about.

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How Female Hormonal Changes Can Contribute to Anxiety and Panic Attacks

By Mark B

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Some women are more sensitive to hormonal fluctuations than others. For many women, anxiety issues appear for the first time during periods of hormonal change. For other women, hormonal changes intensify previously existing anxiety symptoms. 

Anxiety is one of the most common symptoms of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS), post-childbirth, and perimenopause (the period of time before the onset of menopause). It may take the form of panic attacks, nervousness, sweating, intense fear, anxiety combined with depression, or other overwhelming symptoms. 

Here are several periods of hormonal change that can intensify or trigger anxiety in women. 

Puberty — Developing girls experience hormonal changes as they prepare to begin their reproductive years. 

Monthly menstrual cycle — Often girls and women experience PMS the week before their period. 

Following childbirth — The severe drop in certain hormones following childbirth can cause dramatic physical symptoms and a temporary feeling of depression or anxiety; in some women, it is prolonged.

Perimenopause — Perimenopause is the period of time when the body is approaching menopause. It may last from two to ten years. During this time the menstrual cycle becomes irregular as the hormone levels keep fluctuating, causing some women to experience PMS-like symptoms.

Although many of us may use the term “going through menopause” to describe this period of time, it is actually called perimenopause. Many women experience panic attacks for the first time during perimenopause. Other symptoms such as insomnia, hot flashes, rapid heartbeat, and sweating are also common. 

With surgical menopause (hysterectomy), you’ll likely experience perimenopausal symptoms after the surgery, even if you did not experience symptoms prior to surgery. Symptoms can be prolonged and are due to the dramatic and sudden decrease of certain hormones as a result of the hysterectomy.  

In non-surgical circumstances, menopause occurs after a woman has no periods for twelve consecutive months. It lasts only one day. Many women report feeling better than ever mentally and physically after menopause, due to the fact that hormone levels stabilize.

Hormonal Change Triggers the Fight Or Flight Response

Due to the fact that hormonal change causes physical and psychological stress, it triggers our “fight or flight” response. The fight or flight response is the body’s inborn, self-protective response to perceived danger. 

When we perceive that we are under stress, our bodies send out a rush of cortisol, adrenaline, and other brain chemicals to prepare us to “fight” or “flee” the danger. 

The fight or flight response triggers the physiological changes that we associate with anxiety, such as rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, sweating, muscle tension, narrowed mental focus, heightened emotion, and many other symptoms. 

These are the same physical sensations that many women experience when their hormone levels fluctuate. In other words, most of the symptoms women experience during times of hormonal change are really fight or flight reactions. While these physical sensations are not dangerous, they can be very intense and overwhelming.

Our fight or flight response mechanism can become “hypersensitive” with the various hormonal changes in our bodies that take place from puberty to menopause. Many of us are in a constant state of stress due to our lifestyle and thought patterns, which also causes hypersensitivity.

In other words, our bodies may be stuck in the “on” switch of fight or flight. What normally wouldn’t trigger symptoms, now initiates symptoms and perpetuates an ongoing cycle. 

Fight or flight reactions in and of themselves are harmless. However, when our thoughts convince our rational minds that these symptoms are scary and dangerous, we create an anxiety cycle.

Anxiety consists of more than fight or flight reactions acting by themselves. Unproductive thoughts play a critical role in creating and perpetuating the anxiety we experience.

 

Our thoughts convert fight or flight reactions into anxiety, and a self-perpetuating cycle begins. Soon we find ourselves limiting our behaviors because of anxiety as well, which further entrenches the vicious cycle.

When a person is under stress, unresolved emotions and issues commonly come to the forefront. Because hormonal change is a major stressor, it can bring up internal conflicts and self-doubt in many areas of our lives. All of a sudden, we may find that the negative self-talk that we successfully pushed to the background of our lives during less stressful times is now playing center stage. 

During periods of hormonal change, we may also feel uncertain about our changing roles (e.g. maturing from girl to woman, becoming a mother, becoming a mature woman past childbearing years), which can add to our internal conflict. 

When we fail to successfully resolve internal conflicts and the unhelpful thought patterns that contribute to them, we create a breeding ground for anxiety. Combined with fight or flight symptoms, it’s no wonder that these unproductive thoughts create and perpetuate the anxiety cycle! 

What can you do if hormone-related anxiety affects you?

Here’s some great news! The same tools that you can use to overcome anxiety due to other reasons can help you to conquer anxiety related to hormonal changes too.

Research shows that cognitive-behavioral techniques that help you change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, lifestyle changes, relaxation techniques, and nutritional strategies (all found in our Conquer Anxiety Success Program) can help women dealing with hormonal changes.

These types of strategies not only help women regain a sense of control over their lives, but actually achieve improved physical and emotional well being! Here are a few tips to get you started:

– Focus on reducing preventable stress in your life that triggers the fight or flight response — stop the yo-yo dieting; increase sleep to eight or nine hours a night; exercise regularly; don’t skip meals; cut back on your frantic schedule; and decrease stimulants, such as caffeine. 

The body isn’t designed for constant stress. When we are bombarded with stress, our ability to cope can become overwhelmed because the elevation in stress hormones makes the fight or flight switch remain “on.”

– Learn how to train your body to respond differently to stress so that you can automatically turn the false alarm “off” when the fight or flight response is triggered. Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, yoga, meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation can help you achieve this goal.  

– Most importantly, learn how to change how you think. Our thoughts are what convert the harmless fight or flight response into a vicious cycle of anxiety. Remember, just as our thoughts hold the key to creating anxiety, they also hold the key to eliminating it!

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Preventing Panic Attacks and Keeping Your Anxiety in Check

By Mark B

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Anxiety is a normal reaction to things that tend to frighten you or when you feel uncertain or overly stressed. Often anxiety brings sweating, muscle tension and an increased heart rate with it. Anxiety increases when you have financial problems, work problems or family problems.

Here are a few methods that you can use to control your anxiety levels and also use in preventing panic attacks as well:

1. Learn a Variety of Breathing Exercises

When you start to have a panic attack your breathing gets faster and it can develop an irregular pattern. When you are calm, your breathing slows down and its rhythm returns to normal. One thing that helps keep anxiety under control is deep relaxing breaths. By learning a few deep breathing methods you will be taking important steps to controlling your anxiety. Take a long slow breath and count to ten then slowly exhale. Practice doing this until it becomes second nature.

2. Take Action

One of the best responses to a raising anxiety level and preventing panic attacks is to take action and try to calm yourself down. First you will want to identify the exact cause of your stress and, if you can, write down what it is that is bothering you. When your anxiety has subsided, look at the problem that caused your stress and try to come up with ways that you can keep the problem from arising again. By taking responsibility for your anxiety and trying to solve your problems, you might find that it will go away completely!

3. Learn to Let Go

Instead of focusing on the things that scare you or cause anxiety, learn to look past them and focus on the things that keep you calm. Some call this “finding a happy place.” Listening to certain music, prayer, exercise or even simply relaxing with a good book are all methods of letting go.

4. Improve Your Self Esteem

Anxiety is often rooted in self doubt or insecurity. By thinking positive and learning to recognize your strengths you can play to those strengths and greatly reduce the insecurities that have been plaguing you. This is also an area when therapy can prove to be very helpful in the curbing of anxiety and panic. Learn not to criticize yourself but, instead, to tell yourself that the next attempt will be better.

5. Find a Support Group

Sharing your feelings with people who understand what you are going through is also a wonderful way to work through your stress and anxiety. There are plenty of anxiety and panic attack support groups available if you are interested in joining one. Finding encouragement from others who have anxiety problems can help you to realize that you are not alone, which will help you keep it under control.

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Symtoms of Anxiety and Panic Attacks

By Mark B

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If you suffer from…* Palpitations* a pounding heart, or an accelerated heart rate* Sweating* Trembling or shaking* Shortness of breath* A choking sensation* Chest pain or discomfort* Nausea or stomach cramps* Derealization (a feeling of unreality)* Fear of losing control or going crazy* Fear of dying Numbness or a tingling sensation* Chills or hot flashes…then you’ve experienced firsthand some of the possible symptoms of a panic or anxiety attack. If you are reading this page because a loved one suffers from these symptoms and you are trying to understand or help, it’s hard to appreciate what they go through.Just try to imagine what it feels like to experience one, if you can.Here is a typical example:Standing in a supermarket queue, it’s been a long wait but only one customer to go before you make it to the cashier. Wait, what was that sensation? An unpleasant feeling forms in your throat, your chest feels tighter, now a sudden shortness of breath, and what do you know—your heart skips a beat. “Please, God, not here.”A quick scan of the territory—is it threatening? Four unfriendly faces queue behind, one person in front. Pins and needles seem to prick you through your left arm, you feel slightly dizzy, and then the explosion of fear as you dread the worst. You are about to have a panic attack.There is no doubt in your mind now that this is going to be a big one. Okay, focus: Remember what you have been taught, and it is time now to apply the coping techniques. Begin the deep breathing exercise your doctor recommended. In through the nose, out through the mouth.Think relaxing thoughts, and again, while breathing in, think “Relax,” and then breathe out. But it doesn’t seem to be having any positive effect; in fact, just concentrating on breathing is making you feel self-conscious and more uptight.Okay, coping technique 2:Gradual muscle relaxation. Tense both shoulders, hold for 10 seconds, then release. Try it again. No; still no difference. The anxiety is getting worse and the very fact that you are out of coping techniques worsens your panic. If only you were surrounded by your family, or a close friend were beside you so you could feel more confident in dealing with this situation.Now, the adrenaline is really pumping through your system, your body is tingling with uncomfortable sensations, and now the dreaded feeling of losing complete control engulfs your emotions. No one around you has any idea of the sheer terror you are experiencing. For them, it’s just a regular day and another frustratingly slow queue in the supermarket.You are out of options. Time for Plan C.The most basic coping skill of all is “fleeing.” Excuse yourself from the queue; you are slightly embarrassed as it is now that it is your turn to pay. The cashier is looking bewildered as you leave your shopping behind and stroll towards the door. There is no time for excuses—you need to be alone. You leave the supermarket and get into your car to ride it out alone. Could this be the big one? The one you fear will push you over the edge mentally and physically. Ten minutes later the panic subsides.It’s 10:30 a.m. How are you going to make it through the rest of the day?If you suffer from panic or anxiety attacks, the above scenerio probably sounds very familiar. It may have even induced feelings of anxiety and panic just reading it. The particular situations that trigger your panic and anxiety may differ; maybe the bodily sensations are a little different. Or maybe it happened to you for the first time on a plane, in the dentist chair, or even at home, while doing nothing in particular.If you have ever had what has become known as a “panic attack,” take comfort in the fact that you are by no means alone.A panic attack always comes with the acute sense of impending doom. You feel you are either about to lose your mind or one of your vital bodily functions is about to cease functioning and you will end your days right there among the canned goods and frozen food.You are by no means alone; you’re not even one in a million. In America, it is estimated that almost 5% of the population suffer from some form of anxiety disorder. For some, it may be the infrequent panic attacks that only crop up in particular situations-like when having to speak in front of others, while, for other people, it can be so frequent and recurring that it inhibits them from leaving their home. Frequent panic attacks often develop into what medical physicians refer to as an “anxiety disorder.”One of the first steps to regaining control of your life is getting helpful information. This site will give you that, and more.The beginning of your recovery starts here. What you will learn is that there is a very good chance you are about to end the cycle of panic attacks in your life. You will learn not only to regain the carefree life you remember once having, but will also gain new confidence in living. Your answer to living free from “panic” or “anxiety attacks” is at hand.This site demonstrates that the panic and anxiety that you have experienced will be the very key to your courage and success.Begin the road to recovery by browsing through the site. While many of you may have read almost everything you can possibly read relating to panic and anxiety I assure you this site offers something very effective.Did you know…?The key difference between someone who is cured of panic attacks and those who are not is really very simple. The people who are cured no longer fear panic attacks. I’ll try to show you how to be one of these people as well.What if I told you the trick to ending panic and anxiety attacks is to want to have one. That sounds strange, even contradictory, but let me explain.The trick to panic attacks is wanting to have one-the wanting pushes it away. Can you have a panic attack in this very second? No!You know the saying that “what you resist, persists.” Well that saying applies perfectly to fear. If you resist a situation out of fear, the fear around that issue will persist. How do you stop resisting–you move directly into it, into the path of the anxiety, and by doing so it cannot persist.In essence what this means is that if you daily voluntarily seek to have a panic attack, you cannot have one. Try in this very moment to have a panic attack and I will guarantee you cannot. You may not realize it but you have always decided to panic. You make the choice by saying this is beyond my control.Another way to appreciate this is to imagine having a panic attack as like standing on a cliff’s edge. The anxiety seemingly pushes you closer to falling over the edge.To be rid of the fear you must metaphorically jump. You must jump off the cliff edge and into the anxiety and fear and all the things that you fear most.How do you jump? You jump by wanting to have a panic attack. You go about your day asking for anxiety and panic attacks to appear.Your real safety is the fact that a panic attack will never harm you. That is medical fact. You are safe, the sensations are wild but no harm will come to you. Your heart is racing but no harm will come to you. The jump becomes nothing more than a two foot drop! Perfectly safe.

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Drug-free Approach to Anxiety and Panic Attacks

By Mark B

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It’s quite normal to feel anxious when handling certain situations such as making big decisions or sitting exams, but for some, anxiety attacks occur when handling situations that most of us would just take in our stride.

These can cause so much distress that sufferers cannot live a normal life

Of course there are many drugs and prescription medications that your doctor will be able to provide, but many people prefer natural methods of coping with anxiety attacks.

Here are some top tips for coping with panic and anxiety attacks:

* Breathe slowly and deeply through your nose, not your mouth. It is no longer thought safe to suggest re-breathing into a paper bag; this could cause oxygen starvation.

* Try this exercise: stand near to a wall, put your hand on it and hold your breath, then push as hard a possible, keeping your breath held for as long as possible. This tightens your muscles and can reduce anxiety.

* Most people feel less anxious in the outdoors. Listening to the birds, watching the sea, a river, or even just a pond or a tropical fish tank can be very soothing. A walk in a park or garden smelling the flowers can help relaxation and fight stress. You may even find that a screen-saver using a natural scene is helpful.

* Make a list of your problems, then crumple the paper into a ball and either stand on it, or burn it.

* Yoga is a great stress-buster, which can be practiced by anyone. It will improve mental and physical ability, and boost self-confidence. But you need to go to a class for maximum benefit and to learn the correct techniques.

* Is a poor diet contributing to your anxiety attacks? Caffeine, sugar and diet sodas all contribute to raised blood sugar. Eat less saturated fats, as anxiety attacks are more common in the overweight.

* Find a hobby you enjoy. A creative hobby is better still. The concerns of day-to-day life can melt away when you throw your heart and soul into a hobby you enjoy. Spend time alone and at peace.

* Relax with a good film or a good book. Either can transport you away from the stresses of the world.

* Aromatherapy involves inhaling essential oils, or in some cases applying them direct to the skin. Essential oils can be added to a relaxing bath. Lavender, one of just two essential oils that can be applied to the skin undiluted, has a very relaxing effect. While aromatherapy can be practiced as a self-help therapy, you would be wise to consult a qualified practitioner in the first instance to produce a blend specifically for you.

* Acupuncture targets specific points in the body to promote healing, and has been proven beneficial for anxiety disorders. Unlike aromatherapy this isn’t a self-help technique as you will need to consult a licensed practitioner. Be sure this person is registered with a reputable professional body and will observe good hygiene practices.

* Talking things over with someone trustworthy may bring closure to unresolved worries and resentments. But be careful who you talk to – ideally a completely disinterested third-party, or at least someone completely divorced from the situation that’s causing you anxiety. Counselors or Cognitive Behavioral Therapists are highly recommended to help reduce the occurrence of panic attacks.

* Many herbal products have benefits for panic and anxiety symptoms. Consult a qualified herbalist – this is not an area where self-help is advised.

Before implementing any change in physical activity or diet, check it out with your medical doctor. If he or she is unsympathetic to anything other than medication, consider getting a second opinion preferably from an integrative medicine physician.

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