Anxiety, any solutions?
Anxiety, any solutions?
Author
Discussion

andymc

Original Poster:

7,617 posts

236 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Hi all
I used to have bad anxiety a few years ago and I (wrongly) self medicated with a few pints etc, I'm still getting mild attacks of late and wondered if anyone can point me in the direction of any coping strategies or herbal remedies? Ideally I'd like to try this before a trip to the docs, I'm currently on a long term prescription of Paroxetine

cheers
Andy

Anthony Micallef

1,128 posts

224 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
A friend of mine suffered from anxiety for 10 years and tried all different kinds of prescribed medication without success. He then tried this http://www.thelindenmethod.co.uk/ and hasnt suffered since.

vanordinaire

3,701 posts

191 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
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Techniques for controlling breathing really work. Sports, particularly martial arts teach you techniques which help. I tried Yoga and Tai-chi which helped a bit but didn't really suit me and I settled with Akido. Learn to control your body and your mind will follow.

Darko92

283 posts

140 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
It really depends on the type of anxiety you have, do you worry? do you get anxiety attacks or do you just generally feel on edge?

I've found that while medication does help, there is always a root cause to your anxiety. A "trigger". This is often very hard to identify and can be quite difficult as it involves re-living some painful/distressing memories. But once you do figure out whats caused it, you can begin to work on resolving it.


LordGrover

34,156 posts

241 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
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IANAD and have no experience of anxiety, but isn't addressing the cause of the anxiety better than treating the symptoms?
Is it work stress or family problems type thing (I'm not asking you to answer on an open forum), or is it a 'chemicals in the brain' type thing?

dave_s13

14,026 posts

298 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
I had a really funny do about 20years ago. Collapsed outside sainsburys and sort of fainted in and out of consciousness, thought I was gonna die etc. Pretty scary. Was then I'll for the couple of months and was left with getting panic attacks whenever I went out anyway. It was a fear of whatever happened again kicking off somewhere other than at home.

Took ages to sort myself out but did it with exercise. Started on the running machine we had in th garage then progressed to round the block and steadily got more confident going out for longer times/distances. Then took up Thai boxing and got quite good at that. Basically gives you a mindset of "I can run 13 miles and stand in the ring and fight someone, anything else is just peice of piss".

Been fine for the last 15 years now.

944fan

4,962 posts

214 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
I've been a long term suffer of anxiety. You could say a bit of a worrier. Used to regularly get butterflies in my stomach and episodes at work would trigger a mild panic attack (heavy legs, sweaty palms, racing pulse).

Forget herbal remedies, they wont do much for you. Exercise, yoga, breathing techniques, good diet are all good self help things to do but if its bad you should get some further assistance.

I tried anti anxiety drugs (sertraline) I didn't really get on with them. Few side effects but mostly I always felt like they were covering the problem. In the end I went for counselling. I used a fairly standard "Talking therapy" type counselor which is like your traditional "shrink". I found this helped a lot. It was mostly about identifying why I had these negative thoughts. A lot explored how I was raised and how my parent's parented me.

It was really interesting and understanding why I felt the way I did enabled me to change my perception of things.

I wouldn't say I am completely cured but I am better. For example before if something happened that made me worry I would carry it with me for days, even after the event. One thing the counselor said to me, which sounds obvious, was the some situations are stressful and worrying and it is ok to be worried. Instead of labeling it as your are anxious, or this is anxiety and its a problem, it was understanding that sometimes you are worried. Now I can be worried then forget about it afterwards.

There are different types of counselling. Talking therapies, CBT (which is where they teach you to change your negative thoughts) and others. You may need to try a couple and find which works best.

You can go to your GP and be referred. Depends on what your GP is like. Mine seemed overly keen to throw drugs at the problem. In the end I went private for the counselling and paid for it myself. Was probably abut £500 in all but worth it.

Its a horrible condition but there is lots that can be done to help. PM if you have any specific questions about it.


andymc

Original Poster:

7,617 posts

236 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
I have always been a worrier but around 15 years ago get really brutal panic attacks, doc prescribed ani-depressants and they helped, there's no stress in my life I just get "edgy" for an hour or two

Hoofy

79,994 posts

311 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Try Emotional Freedom Techniques. It sounds a bit lot woo but try it, anyway.

LordGrover said:
IANAD and have no experience of anxiety, but isn't addressing the cause of the anxiety better than treating the symptoms?
Yes.

Liquid Tuna

1,403 posts

185 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Anthony Micallef said:
A friend of mine suffered from anxiety for 10 years and tried all different kinds of prescribed medication without success. He then tried this http://www.thelindenmethod.co.uk/ and hasnt suffered since.
Has anyone else on here used this? The website promises 100% success, but it'd be great to hear from people who've actually done it.

Liquid Tuna

1,403 posts

185 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Liquid Tuna said:
Anthony Micallef said:
A friend of mine suffered from anxiety for 10 years and tried all different kinds of prescribed medication without success. He then tried this http://www.thelindenmethod.co.uk/ and hasnt suffered since.
Has anyone else on here used this? The website promises 100% success, but it'd be great to hear from people who've actually done it.
Ignore my question, have just done some online research and it's the same old story.

gifdy

2,078 posts

270 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
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You could try 'Mindfulness'. I know little about it but my other half tried it for stress/anxiety and has worked well for her. She's now a trainer and has used the technique with school kids with success. It even seems to calm our 7 year old down when she has 'spider dreams'.

It may be a trendy hip name for breathing techniques but if you can see past that then it would be worth trying.

Four Litre

2,174 posts

221 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Liquid Tuna said:
Anthony Micallef said:
A friend of mine suffered from anxiety for 10 years and tried all different kinds of prescribed medication without success. He then tried this http://www.thelindenmethod.co.uk/ and hasnt suffered since.
Has anyone else on here used this? The website promises 100% success, but it'd be great to hear from people who've actually done it.
I have! After years of suffering and shelling out ££££ looking for a fix, I came across his site. I swear it just dissapeared within a week. I did combine it with some excercise which i have continued but it literally gave me my life back. And no Im not on commision.

Its based around retraining yourself to break the habit (which is what you have developed) and telling yourself you dont suffer with anxiety. Pretty much pretending at first you dont. After a while of telling yourself you dont get anxious and pretty much pretending to be sombody else, you literally dont!!! I appreciate that this may not work for everyone, but I did have it very bad for a number of years, even considered the worst at one point as I started finding it hard to cope with anything.

You also realise its bad to keep talking about it especially with docs/family as all your doing is reliving the symptoms and constantly telling yourself you have a problem and just asking somebody else to fix you, which they can only do temporarily.

I recall one bit of info about soldiers returning from WWI/II saying the ones that got on with life were the ones that didnt talk about their problems and just buried it, pretended it didnt happen. Obviously Im not compairing anxiety to PTSD but you can see how it works.

Good luck and as I say - I certainly reccomend it, personally it pretty much saved my life. (no exaggeration).

P.S after year of talking about what could of caused it, really was something that develped and steadily got worse. So it wasnt that I was touched by Jimmy Saville and now had to find a way to cope with it, hence no real solution. Ive now been pretty much fine for the last 3 years+

Edited by Four Litre on Thursday 10th September 15:59

andymc

Original Poster:

7,617 posts

236 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
So would you guys recommend councilling?

Hoofy

79,994 posts

311 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Hoofy said:
Try Emotional Freedom Techniques. It sounds a bit lot woo but try it, anyway.

LordGrover said:
IANAD and have no experience of anxiety, but isn't addressing the cause of the anxiety better than treating the symptoms?
Yes.

Four Litre

2,174 posts

221 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Hoofy said:
Hoofy said:
Try Emotional Freedom Techniques. It sounds a bit lot woo but try it, anyway.

LordGrover said:
IANAD and have no experience of anxiety, but isn't addressing the cause of the anxiety better than treating the symptoms?
Yes.
If there actually is one. A lot of cases are just as a result of a historic situation that your body reacted to and has now started to react the same way for others, you are scared of the symptoms and hey presto, vicious cycle is repeated.

BGARK

5,638 posts

275 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Exercise (as hard core as you can handle), and keeping busy to the point where you are not giving your brain much time to think about negative stuff.

Hoofy

79,994 posts

311 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
Four Litre said:
Hoofy said:
Hoofy said:
Try Emotional Freedom Techniques. It sounds a bit lot woo but try it, anyway.

LordGrover said:
IANAD and have no experience of anxiety, but isn't addressing the cause of the anxiety better than treating the symptoms?
Yes.
If there actually is one. A lot of cases are just as a result of a historic situation that your body reacted to and has now started to react the same way for others, you are scared of the symptoms and hey presto, vicious cycle is repeated.
You're not really over the historical situation then. Your body needs reprogramming.

BBYeah

363 posts

212 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
I can't recommend Magnesium supplements enough.

My gf was suffering from really bad anxiety, waking up at night with panic attacks. She started taking "Solgar Chelated Magnesium Tablets" (you can get on amazon or from health food shops) and more or less straight away relaxed.

If you google magnesium and anxiety, you'll see lots of people saying how it helped them. It's quite common to be deficient.

It won't do any harm and even if it doesn't completely cure your anxiety, it should help and be good for you in other ways.

Other advice here like exercise + mindfulness is also a no-brainer, you can combine the two and walk or run mindfully, sort of like a ninja wink.

hajaba123

1,338 posts

204 months

Thursday 10th September 2015
quotequote all
andymc said:
So would you guys recommend councilling?
Yes