Natural Remedies For Anxiety?

[City Slicker]

Are you able to get a medical check up ? ie: blood work and urine etc to make sure your body isn't trying to tell you something.

Sometimes thyroid, iron levels, glycemic reactions etc lead to a feeling of overall fatigue as well as other physical things - might be good to rule tnisw out if you havent already.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Wow, 5 hours of exercise is a LOT! Lately I've been ok with walking/running 6 miles, so less than 2 hours of exercise needed.

 

[joeylittle]

I have an extreme reaction to extreme aerobic exercise. I can't tell whether the magnesium makes any difference or not, I just think it's good on general principle.

magnesium basically lowers your blood pressure. That's a huge oversimplification, but that's the idea. If you are already getting magnesium in your diet, you could actually be making your situation worse by supplementing with it. I love raw almonds, they are a staple of my diet. They are very high in magnesium. I also have low blood pressure naturally. When I added magnesium to help with anxiety, I got pretty exhausted about a month later, and then started having fainting spells.

I'm not saying magnesium is the culprit. But when you supplement, you do need to factor in what you are already getting into your diet and where you are actually deficient. You might try cutting out the magnesium supplement and see if your endurance improves.

Also, if this is helpful: GABA has some clinical to back it up, but it also is known that it doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier. So when you take it, it's working through your metabolism in a way that has been proven helpful for anxiety in a few studies, but there's a question mark as to why. There is also some research demonstrating that GABA can cross the blood-brain barrier at points where there is damage to the barrier itself.

But, there is a form of GABA that is synthesized with a carrier agent that does allow it to pass into the brain. It is called picamilon. It works using niacin (which is vitamin B3). You can read a good piece on GABA here: wikipedia entry for GABA I'm not enough of a chemist to be able to tell, but I don't think it will work just by taking GABA and B3, you need to take it in the synthesized form available in Picamilion

The thing I'd add to your regimen is breathing. Set your phone or a timer to go off once every hour (if you can) and for five minutes, just sit somewhere comfortable and count breaths in and out, going for long deep slow belly breaths and controlled exhales. If just doing that on your own sounds like hell to you, there's a great app called Breathe 2 Relax, and if you have a device that can run apps I recommend it. It's a nice visual you can focus on while breathing.

 

[Hope4Now]

So many good suggestions here, I'm not sure I should chime in! Because of chronic pain issues that interfere with my mobility most of the time, I cannot exercise, so had to turn to other things.

I was all excited about kava until I did a little research on it. Be careful...although I do drink the Yogi Kava Stress Relief tea, but now it makes me nervous because of all the warnings about liver function. It has a similar effect to alcohol but is not addictive. Apparently, though, it can cause liver damage. Not entirely clear how much of it you have to take, or whether there are other factors that contribute, but the studies scared me off of it.

I started on Prozac about six weeks ago, so am taking nothing but that and vitamins right now to try to see if the Prozac helps me (I'm not particularly depressed, but apparently it can help with PTSD symptoms). Before that, I tried a number of things...

I have done Nerve Tonic and Calms Forte. Not sure whether it's a placebo effect or not, but sometimes I get a little relief...they kind of skim the surface off the anxiety enough to let me do other things like meditation or mindful movement or grounding work (all of which I do but find challenging much of the time, but helpful if I can focus). (Oh, and by the way, when I first started meditating things came up that were really, really bad...I've just discovered recently that people with trauma that involves any sort of dissociation have to be careful about how they do meditation and grounding).

Valerian has worked better. It's generally indicated to help sleep, but I was taking it during the day. Ativan is pharmaceutical a derivative of it. But supposedly valerian doesn't have the same side effects and is much less likely to be addictive.

I also had some relief from herbals--took milky oats and tulsi in highish doses for several months along with a valerian tincture (but then couldn't afford them any more...). A good herbalist can be helpful.

Probably the single most helpful thing I have done is massage therapy and energy work. Unfortunately it is quite expensive. I had to cut way back because not enough money to cover it (hence the desperate attempts to find other avenues). I had around 6 sessions of acupuncture as well, which was really helpful, but I am needle-phobic and just couldn't continue that route, although acupressure is really good.

And, yes, mindful breathing is excellent. Susan McConnell (a well known somatic IFS therapist) wrote something on a blog that has really helped me when I am in extremis. It's a breathing exercise--breathe in for a count of three, hold for a count of three, breathe out for a count of three, hold for a count of three. If I can focus on it, it really helps. It has pulled me out of some pretty intense panic several times in the past few months.

I wish you the best.

 

[City Slicker]

Hyland's Nerve Tonic

Hmmm..gotta try that.

 

[sun seeker]

You might try cutting out the magnesium supplement and see if your endurance improves.

That's an idea. I have a neighbour with a blood pressure cuff, I could test it and see if that's the problem. Thanks, I'd missed that but it makes sense. It's hard to remember the sequence exactly but I think it was after I started drinking the nettle infusion (very strong tea, high in all kinds of minerals) with magnesium drops added to it that I started feeling this tired. Thanks for the tip.

Also, if this is helpful: GABA has some clinical to back it up, but it also is known that it doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier.

That's something I didn't know either. Thanks.

 

[ms spock]

Not that I am an expert or can even do them well yet, but DBT and CBT are two natural remedies for anxiety. You start to change and challenge your thoughts and through that your anxiety goes down A- LOT! There are people who are much better at it and understand it far more than I do, but it is really worth following up on it.

 

[sun seeker]

DBT and CBT are two natural remedies for anxiety

Yes. I don't have access to them though. It's a rural area and even to get access to the therapist I've got took some advocacy. There is no one else I can afford that I have not already tried. I do like her, but it's going to take a while.

 

[ms spock]

You can do it for yourself @sun seeker. So much is available online.

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/

There are groups online. There are message boards. There are also lessons that you can look at on youtube etc.

Maybe start a thread asking for the resources that people on this forum use?

Someone would know of a good CBT website.

 

[ms spock]

My head can be a bit crazy. In my media folder Mindfulness Videos there is "The Mindful Way Through Depression" I listen to that a lot to break the stuff going on in my head. It is 5 hours long so it takes time to get through it, but I do do the exercises at the end of the five hours.

Good luck.

 

[joeylittle]

I started drinking the nettle infusion (very strong tea, high in all kinds of minerals) with magnesium drops added to it that I started feeling this tired.

Nettle has magnesium. It's the third highest in mineral content: Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium. So really, you don't need Nettle tea and magnesium supplements unless you are getting no magnesium from your diet.
Here is a nice chart explaining magnesium content in foods and a recommendation for daily intake:
Link Removed

Really, if your diet is good and heavy in dark greens, nuts/seeds, natural proteins, and fruit/veg, you probably don't need much in the way of vitamin or mineral supplements.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I also have low blood pressure naturally. When I added magnesium to help with anxiety, I got pretty exhausted about a month later, and then started having fainting spells.

Thanks for sharing. When I supplemented with Magnesium, I was exhausted, but I attributed it to other factors.