7 Strategies to Overcoming Anxiety and Panic Attacks

You Can Overcome panic attacks and anxiety!

That is great news to those who suffer day in and day out, year in and year out. I have and I know that you can too.

THE SYMPTOMS

For me it started with heart palpitations. My thoughts immediately steered to fear. Then my throat would become dry so I could not swallow. Then my body would feel weird. Dizziness and blurred vision. By this time I was convinced that I was about to die. I kept waiting for the symptoms to get worse and they did. I use to suffer from panic attacks so badly that I had to go to the hospital by ambulance. I was so embarrassed when the doctor checked me and told me that there was nothing wrong with me. When I had to go grocery shopping I would get a funny feeling in my stomach before I left the house. Once I got inside the grocery store I felt like I had to run out or else I would become overwhelmed. I dreaded the thought that I might have a panic attack in public. I had to talk to myself and prayed up and down each and every aisle of the store. I knew that if I ran out, my family would not have food and I would have to start all over again. The people in the store had no idea the personal torture I was experiencing. People at church had no idea how hard it was to sit in a large crowd.

AWARENESS

When the symptoms started, I had no idea what was happening to me. One day I was watching T. V. and some people were on a show talking about the symptoms and the light went on, "That's me! That's what I have been experiencing". That was the beginning of my healing! Knowledge is power. I thank God that He allowed me to turn to the channel and hear those people talking. I also helped me to know that I was not alone. I suppose that those of you who suffer from the effects of anxiety are glad to hear that you are not alone.

Steps to Overcoming

1) READ

Read as much as possible about anxiety and understand what are some of the causes.

2) PROFESSIONAL HELP

Go to a counselor or therapist to get to the bottom of the anxiety. The physical discomforts are trying to get your attention - Pay attention to a greater dis-ease within. Pray for God to send you to the right person. He will.

3) RELAXATION

Listen to a tape or CD for RELAXATION This was one of the things that helped me tremendously. I needed to reprogram my mind with positive and true statements that were life giving and empowering. CD's and cassette tapes can help you overcome anxiety and panic attacks. Breathing correctly is a part of relaxation.

4) EXERCISE

Physical exercise has tremendous value. It releases chemicals that generate good feelings, called pheromones. It's good to feel good!

5) HEALING IN GOD'S WORD

Meditate on scriptures that enhance your trust in God. One scripture that helps me when I really let it sink in is: Matthew 5:25-34. Am I not more than a bird to God? You better believe it and so are you! Birds don't work or store up food yet God takes care of them. Wow! The next time you see a bird think about that!

6) MAP YOUR JOURNEY

Create a time line by drawing on a sheet of paper when your first signs of discomfort started. Write down what major events happened at that same time. Note the year/date. Go back as far as you can. This process helps you to take a bird's-eye view of your life. When I did this exercise, I found that the first time I experienced a full panic attack was in 1984 and I had just made a major move from someone very dear to me. I also discovered that there agoraphobia before any panic attack ever appeared. Doing this will help you understand what's been going on and what triggers extreme anxiety. (You may need to use than one piece of paper).

7) God's Power to Heal

Remember, God still heals. We must let go of all the disappointments of the past, and betrayals. God is not like any human being with whom we have had a relationship. God faithful and just. Jesus walked this earth so you can talk to Him about yours trials. Pray as the early disciples did, "Lord, increase my faith". FAITH is the opposite of anxiety. Faith not only pleases God but keeps us trusting in God's fatherly care. I am a witness!! Praise God!

If just one person is helped by this article, I will have accomplished what God set me out to do help someone along our earthly journey.

Pray for me. I will pray for you.

By Glenda Thomas

How are Anxiety and Weight Loss Related?

There are a number of things in life that can cause a person to lose weight. Many causes relate to a number of different physical health problems, such as types of terminal illness or sicknesses that are not always easily treated, or mental health problems, such as depression or stress. While the weight loss that is caused by physical health problems are easy enough to figure out and even treat, the weight loss that is due to mental health problems can be more difficult to treat because there is no physical reason for the individual to be losing weight.

People suffering from depression can often have a change in appetite that will either greatly increase their weight or more commonly cause a loss in appetite, which often causes a loss in weight. Intense anxiety, however, more often causes a significant loss of appetite in a person, which can then cause them to lose a lot of weight. Anxiety is a stress on the body, especially when a person finds that they are more anxious about life than they should be. When most people are anxious or worried, they can have a difficult time in thinking of anything else other than about what makes them feel anxious or worried. The appeal of food goes away and they can't bring themselves to eat because they are too tense to eat. They are distracted and their health becomes something that is no longer a great concern. Being this tense and not eating proper meals, or miss eating altogether, can be quite detrimental to a person's health. If this is allowed to go on for too long, some people will lose so much weight that they will begin to suffer other medical problems caused by the lack of proper nourishment.

There are many reasons as to why someone would become so anxious about something, much in the same way that depression can be a result of many different things; it depends on the person, their personality, what they have been through, their genetics and what their life is like. Any of these factors can easily be what is contributing to a person's anxiety and to their loss of appetite. Anyone who is so anxious and worried that they have lost their appetite to the point where they are beginning to lose weight should seriously consider contacting a therapist. Online therapy is becoming more popular for people to use these days, especially people who worry about other people finding out that they are seeing a therapist. The online therapist can communicate with the patient and find out why the patient is so distressed that their interest in food is gone. When the issue is found, the online therapist or counselor can then work with the patient to help them get over their anxiety and worries. In many cases, the therapist is successful in helping the patient deal with what is bothering them, and the patient begins to have more of an appetite as their issues are dealt with.

By: Jennifer Baxt

Home Remedies For Anxiety

Who have not undergone any kind of anxiety and panic disorder? Most probably, you will not find any one who will tell he/she has not! Anxiety is one sort of birthright, you can say, for everybody. Up to certain extent, it's OK to have anxiety; but if you cross the limit, problem pops up and you may need to visit medicos to cool you down. If you have chronic anxiety problem, it would be nice knowing some home remedies for anxiety. Some knowledge in this aspect will reduce your chances of frequenting doctors. As a matter of caution, majority of home remedies for anxiety and panic disorders may not have sufficient scientific background and experimenting with them may always not give intended results. It is not advisable to use home remedies for anxiety without being prescribed by an expert physician. However, few well known home treatment for anxieties are given below for your reference, further investigation, and using them after getting approval from your family physician.

A Few Examples of Home Remedies for Anxiety

Remedial measures to be implemented against anxieties largely depend upon causes of the disorders. You must dig out main cause for your discontent and then try concentrate solving the issue rather than blaming the near and dear ones. One of the best home remedies for anxiety is to getting into involved with some family affairs or some social causes. Never sit alone. To achieve immediate relief, many people use Niocinamide and other similar drugs as part of their home remedies for anxiety. Using of such drugs, at least for the first time, must be consulted with a doctor; else, it may harm you later.

Taking vitamin B6 and B12 daily for 7-8 days during peak anxiety period to control blood pressure and panic disorder is quite common amongst the older members of my family who always believe practicing home remedies for anxiety. I also found no harm using such vitamins to check anxieties; they work well. Few other prominent practices that are widely followed as best home remedies for anxiety are daily exercising for at least half an hour, taking bath with cold water, playing with kids, watching movies, sleeping for at least 7-8 hours, listening music, and attending religious ceremonies, etc.

All of the home remedies for anxiety may not equally affect you all and you must find out what applies you best. Main theme of all the home remedies for anxiety is to stay busy, stay occupied by whatsoever means may be. Of course, long term physical and health conditions that one may lead also help greatly fighting facing anxiety and panic disorders. If you have already developed syndromes of anxiety or want to avoid developing such behavior in future, you may consider leaving smoking, drinking, and all sort of caffeine to enhance effectiveness of home remedies for anxiety that you may employ separately to reduce your panic disorders.

Develop a healthy food habit to fight Anxiety

Clinically and physiologically, experts say that if you lack certain vitamins and minerals in your body, you may risk facing panic disorders. So, going by their words, if you have already living with anxieties, you may consider using appropriate vitamins and other mineral compounds after due consultation with your doctor as part of your enhanced home remedies for anxiety. Even without seeing a doctor, you may consider occasional usage of calcium, vitamin C, B-complex, and other vitamin supplements. After all, your body requires them all and simultaneously they can work well as part of your home remedies for anxiety.

By Aashu S

How to Handle Mouth Ulcers

Recurrent mouth ulcers are a source of worry for many people worldwide. It is an apparently simple condition that causes much more pain than is expected. Because of its relative commonness in some societies, it has gotten itself a variety of names such as canker sore, aphthous stomatitis or aphthous ulcer. Commonly, mouth ulcer, canker sore or whatever name you wish to call it, involves painful open sores that will exist in the mouth, believed to be due to the breaking off of the overlying mucous membrane.
In most reported cases, mouth ulcers starts off with a sort of tingling or burning sensation at the spot where the future mouth ulcer will occur. After a few days, a blister forms in the mouth with the top quickly sloughed off resulting in a red spot or a bump, which will then be followed by an open ulcer. The mouth ulcer appears as a white or yellow oval with an inflamed red border. Sometimes a white circle or halo around the lesion can be seen. The grey, white, or yellow colored area within the red boundary is due to the formation of layers of fibrin around the ulcer.
When at this final stage, a mouth ulcer, in common cases can be as wide as 3mm, while in extreme cases it could be as large as 1cm (in extremely rare cases, though). The main ulcer body can be really painful when agitated especially with the presence of food in the mouth. This is perhaps the most unacceptable part of the disease. Also, mouth sores are often accompanied by painful swelling of the lymph nodes below the jaw and this fact tends to make people confuse canker sores for toothache, initially.
Several reasons and factors have been cited as the cause of mouth ulcers, though none seems to be conclusive yet. Some evidence points to the role of infections like herpes, cytomegalovirus and yeast as the cause of mouth ulcers. However, several other viruses that have not even been conclusively identified are also being researched for their role in the cause of mouth ulcers.
Moreover, a person's immune system seems to play an important role in the cause of mouth ulcers, in some people. This process is known as an autoimmune reaction, in which in the response to certain allergies, such as to chemicals in toothpastes and/or mouthwashes, a person's immune system causes the formation of blisters in the mouth which then open up to result in ulcers. Although, no studies have been able to isolate bacteria or viruses enough to establish definite roles in mouth ulcers, some studies have shown a rise in a person's immunity against herpes and cytomegalovirus when that person suffers mouth ulcers.
Mouth ulcers may last a couple of days or in some cases, up to about 4 weeks, with the pain and discomfort persisting throughout. They may disappear without treatment, though this rarely occurs.
There are several ways to prevent and manage mouth ulcers. However, the best prevention of the disease unarguably requires sound dental hygiene which eliminates the presence of harmful microbes in the mouth, and to avoid/reduce spicy, acidic or salty foods and drinks, which tend to predispose to it.
Medically, there are only a few treatment options available to choose from. In most cases, your doctor will have to inject a small amount of a type of cortisone called triamcinolone into each ulcer. This will get rid of the ulcers rather quickly, but it will not prevent them from recurring. However, the best home remedy you can employ is to pour salt on the surface of the main ulcer. This could be really painful though, but it relieves you of the continuous, daily pain that accompanies mouth ulcers.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of an oral paste known as amlexanox (Aphthasol). When applied, this paste reduces the swelling and discomfort of mouth ulcers. Moreover, clinical trials reported in recent journals, have established the efficacy of several treatment options for mouth ulcers. Some of these include the use of prednisone to suppress immunity (reducing autoimmune responses that are believed to cause mouth ulcers in some people), pentoxifylline, a drug that increases blood flow to the mouth, thalidomide to reduce blood flow to the area affected by the ulcer, acyclovir to kill herpes, and colchicine, a gout medication.
As you can see, there are several options available when you really need to battle that troublesome sore in your mouth. You only need to choose the option most suited to you or contact your physician immediately you feel you have a canker sore or mouth ulcer, for advice.

By Michael Russell