Anxiety is a complex mechanism that is triggered to help us deal with many of our day to day activities. Therefore anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations that people experience. However anxiety can become overwhelming and dominating, that is the exact point when it becomes what medics call ‘chronic anxiety’.

The most common symptoms of anxiety are severe headaches, sweating, dizziness, trembling, or muscle cramps, fear and embarrassment about yourself for no apparent reasons. Sufferers often wonder.. if there is any cure for anxiety.

Either you go through a very stressful situation at work, or on your way to the supermarket, anxiety and panic attacks may hit you at any moment, this is why a cure for anxiety is what you’re looking for. Anxiety can really affect someone’s social and intimate life. It’s incredibly important that you first learn how to cope with anxiety.

There are many methods and techniques that can help you overcome anxiety, such as medication which may be recommended to you by your psychiatrist in order to help you reduce your symptoms. Several other techniques may include therapy, relaxation techniques, acupuncture, light therapy etc.

Anxiety attacks will not be cured using medication. They only help the sufferer to reduce the levels of anxiety. The most common medications that are prescribed for anxiety sufferers are antidepressants. But are they the cure for anxiety? There are a few disadvantages when taking medication. The main one is that they are highly addictive and their bad side effects if taken on long periods of time.

When do you experience anxiety and panic attacks?

Is it in public places, public transportation, maybe when you go for a walk in the park, when you go to the supermarket, or is it when you’re going to work? Anxiety and panic attacks can be cured, no one has to go on with them for the rest of their life.

The cure for anxiety is at your finger tips, all you need is to find the right method that will work for you and try to distract your mind by doing something pleasant and leave the past behind.

As you might well know, anxiety is a serious illness but it can be cured. Go on and find out how to stop anxiety and panic attacks forever.

What To Do If You Want To Cure Anxiety

One of the most important things you want to do if you want to eliminate your anxiety reactions effectively is to believe in the fact that anxiety attacks is just a series of reactions and emotions. Be acknowledged that there is no need to feel insecure while you are getting panic attacks. Just realize that anxiety reactions is only not comfortable and does not create any real harm to you.

Just by having this mentality will allow your body to eliminate anxiety attacks consciously and after that subconsciously.

One of the most efficient tricks I have learned and put into use to get rid of my nervousness is the little-known method. By breathing using my method when you are having anxiety attacks will allow your mind, body and soul to slowly but surely relax and consequently the anxiety reactions attacks will stop on their own tracks. I will show you how to cure panic attacks by using the breathing method I’ve created below.

Firstly, when you are experiencing anxiety reactions attacks, you have to inhale as deep as you can. Then hold your breath for as long as 5 to 12 seconds and exhale slowly but surely. By practicing this breathing method will help a lot in stopping your nervousness.

Curing anxiety with tablets is not going to stop your anxiety attacks. In most instances, you need a more concentrated dose than your current doses of anxiety drugs in the future to contain the anxiety attacks that you have. Anxiety medications only stop the reactions, they don’t really cure anxiety. In Russia, a lot of the patients do not rely on medications to cure anxiety. Instead, the doctors prefer them to concentrate on the mindset and lifestyle first. Without any medication, most of the anxiety patients are able to cure anxiety.

With that being said, I hope you can get rid of the reliance to tablets when it comes to coping with anxiety. This might sound impossible in the early phase, but after you see a huge improvement in your anxiety conditions by using some natural methods to cure anxiety, you will be more convinced to drop the medications.

Stress is one of the major triggering causes to anxiety attacks. If you want to deal with anxiety it’s a very good advice for you to start getting rid of with stress first. By decreasing stress, the anxiety disorders conditions will come about less and before long you are already effectively coping with your anxiety conditions without using any anxiety drugs!

There are a lot of tactics to lessen the stress you’ve been accumulating inside your body. You can reduce and get rid of your worries by just taking up some interesting hobbies. It doesn’t have to be physical, although physical orientated activities most likely will give better results for anxiety attacks patients. For me the best hobbies are basketball, football, martial arts and jogging. Now pick yours!

Anxiety attack can be extremely frightening, be it the first one or an eleventh one, as anyone who has undergone it can vouch for. Firstly, the person thinks he is suffering a heart attack. But when it is diagnosed as anxiety attack, his first thoughts are to look for anxiety cures. Of course, numerous varied anxiety cures or treatments that can help are available. But the cure or the treatment depends mainly on the circumstances which are the primary cause of the anxiety.

Anxiety can stem from various root causes. So finding the right anxiety cure from among the vast variety is a bit tricky. Some people are lucky in that they only suffer a solitary anxiety attack which is never repeated in their life but most others are not so fortunate. They face repeated regular attacks of one of the different anxiety disorders. But once they become determined to seek anxiety cures, these cures are made available for the specific situation at hand. Most important is the root cause of the anxiety. This anxiety disorder may have its root in genetics, trauma or brain chemistry.

It cannot be said that all anxiety cures do not technically fall into the ‘cures’ category, but they definitely help the patients tackle the attacks more easily. The most popular methods of combating anxiety disorders are:

*Medications: There are many medications available at the doctor’s disposal that can relieve the anxiety symptoms. These cures are technically temporary, but they do help to relieve the symptoms to free the patient to tackle the issue basic to the cause of the problem.

*Therapy: This is a very beneficial branch of anxiety cures where the source of anxiety lies in some outside circumstances. Therapy also plays an important role in the treatment of many types of anxiety disorders since it enables the patients to handle the situation themselves and teach them methods of overcoming the attacks.

*Meditation: People with anxiety disorders who follow relaxation techniques of meditation, and learn exercises like deep breathing etc. are often able to curtail the attacks before they worsen. This definitely helps the person to better control his life in spite of attacks, though it cannot be deemed a complete cure.

*Herbal Remedies: Some wonderful herbs are there which lessen the severity of an anxiety attack and what is more important, they are not addictive. Hence many people find them extremely useful but due care needs to be exercised when using these in combination with other cures of anxiety. Herbal remedies may not go along well with other drugs.

Anxiety cures offer a ray of hope for sufferers of anxiety disorders. While the same cures may not be useful for everyone, they are tools which will enable the persons to deal with this particular illness better and help them to lead a normal life without attacks.

Anxiety and panic attacks are affecting more than 6 million people in the United States. It can can interfere with your daily life, and really make it hard for you to cope. Anxiety can also interfere during driving, usually panic attacks can hit while in the car. Speaking in public can become difficult and panic attacks may occur. If suffering from anxiety, you really need to know how to cope with it, and learn how to overcome anxiety and panic attacks.

I’ve listed some tips that will help you overcome anxiety panic attacks:

A balance diet will be the first thing to look for, to overcome anxiety panic attacks. All the food that you eat reflect on your mind and body`s health. In other words you have to consider the effect of diet on your real levels of anxiety. Certain foods and aliments may cause part of your anxiety, such as sugar or high carbohydrate food. However there are certain food that have a high calming effect, which will make you a lot stronger and stable.

Acidic aliments or drinks like alcohol, salt, sugar, dairy products can highly increase the levels of anxiety, meanwhile alkaline foods like fruits and vegetables make you a lot more stable and they even help you reduce your anxiety. A healthy diet will directly reflect on your mental health, that is why you have to be more prudent of what you eat. In short diet can help you overcome anxiety panic attacks.

Exercise often. Making regular exercises will make you strong, and reduce your anxiety tenfold. Basically stress is what affects you the most, your stress level causes muscle tension, that is why you might have back pains, chest pains or muscular spams. Besides regular exercise, breathing plays an important role, and will make you more stable, relaxed and less anxious.

Always try to distract yourself to overcome anxiety panic attacks. Keep busy, let the bad thoughts get out of your mind, you`ll need a little exercise to overcome your anxiety completely, just by mastering your thoughts. There are several programs that will help you achieve the best results and totally overcome your anxiety.

Panic away is one good method to stop your anxiety, by following the goldmine rules included in this course. Joe Berry is the creator of this wonderful program and it has helped thousands of people already, they totally cured of anxiety. The best part of Panic Away is that it’s totally natural, no medication is needed at all.

Panic away had a tremendous success since it has been launched back in 2007, the testimonials show that more than 30.000 people are already cured of anxiety and panic attacks.

Whenever you may feel anxious, distracting yourself can help you achieve lower stress and anxiety levels and forget your anxiety, it may not be cured, but at least you will reduce the horrible symptoms. Try watching television or keep on saying out loud calming phrases and re-assuring yourself that there isn’t really anything that you would need to worry about, or be scared of and you will definitely feel better.

Think positive. Educate yourself to think positively to overcome anxiety panic attacks. Never feed your negative approaches or thoughts, let them stay away from you. In fact anxious thoughts will trigger your anxiety and will lead to panic attacks. Always try to induce good positive thoughts that will make you feel stronger, believe that everything is under control.Think rationally and not negatively, if weird thoughts come up into your mind try to breath deep, and let your body relax, they will go away as fast as they came.

You need some expert guidance. You might find it hard or impossible to overcome anxiety panic attacks by yourself, however there are simple steps and techniques that will eliminate your anxiety completely, there are experts who can help you.

In fact ‘cure’ is a very strong word to deal with, people suffering from anxiety don`t want to find an anxiety cure, they are more likely to seek for the exact way to eliminate their illness and I`m sure if you`re reading this you or someone you love is suffering.

Even if people do not believe it, anxiety and panic attacks are extremely necessary, they would even be at risk without them. When anxiety becomes chronic or even before that, cures must be applied, otherwise the patient might be in danger.

It is wrong and misunderstood when people think that it cannot be cured, there are several natural anxiety cures that have been used by thousands of people already with a success rate of well over 98%.

The mechanism which triggers the panic attacks is disrupted , it causes irrational, inappropriate and sometimes extreme fear and worries which are both caused by an internal organ called the Amygdala, located in the lower part of the brain.

Therefore a chronic anxiety will never be cured with medication, in most of the cases, only the symptoms will be reduced. It is a mind-disorder so the most appropriate cure for this illness would be either therapy, a series of techniques that will eliminate the main root cause that triggers the anxiety.

Lets talk a bit about the Amygdala, which is one tiny organ in the brain, that functions exactly like an electrical switch. The Amygdala turns on and off whenever is needed, when this little organ gets stuck in the ‘ON’ position that is the exact point when anxiety disorders are developed.

Everyone experiences stress, however the levels vary from one person to another. Only chronic and severe forms will need an anxiety cure.

The Amygdala system is described in detail by Charles Linden a former suffer himself for almost a decade. He has researched for almost ten years the actual cause of anxiety and finally released the cure:

It is wrong when people think anxiety is caused by chemical imbalances in their brain, Charles says.

Reversing the Amygdala back to the ‘OFF’ state is what will cure anxiety completely. It is not that complicated, however most people do not have the knowledge and resources needed to do it.

Now… You may think there is no cure for anxiety, and you will feel this way for the rest of your life. I have suffered for well over 4 years, and I can tell you that you are completely wrong. You can feeling this way simply, quickly, naturally and permanently. Maybe you`ll ask yourself if the is any cure for anxiety.

The answer is The Linden Method, by Charles Linden. This method has helped over 112,000 people worldwide, and the number is growing. The method is easy to implement and quick. Literally it can cure anxiety in a matter of a few days. However patience is needed.

If you haven’t heard of The Linden Method, you didn’t find an anxiety cure that works!

When medication does not work, anxiety sufferers seek further help, such as natural treatments for anxiety. Panic is something normal, it is part of anyone`s life however it does become disturbing in severe forms of anxiety.

Therefore things change when anyone starts to experience panic attacks, or anxiety everyday. Not every anxiety sufferer has panic attacks, however over 80% do and most sufferers do not respond to medication. While this is a mind disorder, the chances to treat it completely using medication are reduced, or getting close to zero. This is the main reason most sufferers seek further help. Natural cures for anxiety proved to work better than medication.

Anxiety disorders can basically reduce the quality of your social and personal life. And if you suffer from anxiety you know well how it feels. Being a former anxiety sufferer myself, I do know very well how horrible panic attacks are. Here are a few methods to reduce your anxiety levels and panic attacks tenfold:

Relaxation. Learning to relax is the vital key to a healthy body and mind. Anxiety disorders are the body`s response to high stress and ongoing worries. Yoga techniques will help, however yoga methods do require lots of time to be mastered. Try to avoid things that may remind you of possible traumas you had in the past, and keep your mind distracted at all times. Listening to relaxation music does work as well, it`s highly recommended.

Exercises. People that don`t practice exercises at all, are more likely to suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, chronic stress or depression. The main reason for that is because exercises do not only keep your body in shape but they are true stress relievers, that will keep your mind healthy on the long run. Try to do exercises at least 10 minutes in the morning, right after you wake up and 10 – 15 minutes before going to sleep as well.

Getting enough sleep. The average human needs at least 6 hours of sleep every night, however people affected by anxiety disorders need a bit more. 8 – 10 hours of sleep will help you reduce you anxiety by 50%. Not only you will feel less tensioned over the day but you will be able to prevent future panic attacks if you get enough sleep.

All of these techniques are vital for a healthy body and mind, you will be able to reduce your levels of anxiety, however I can not guarantee that you will be able to cure yourself from anxiety and panic attacks completely.

It`s important to know that panic attacks can be treated using natural anxiety treatments, you can even do it from the comfort of your own home.

If you suffer from anxiety attacks, it’s very likely that you’ll also suffer many anxiety attack symptoms. These are physical symptoms that develop purely as a result of the constant anxiety your body is subjected to. And they can be incredibly damaging, because as an anxiety sufferer you’re hyper-aware of even the smallest changes in your body.

These symptoms go on to form a part of a very common vicious circle: you’re anxious, your anxiety causes physical symptoms, and the physical symptoms cause yet more anxiety. And then the cycle continues again, and again, and again, each time resulting in more and more anxiety. But there is something you can do, and that’s to educate yourself about these symptoms. By understanding what really causes them, and what’s actually going on inside your body at the time the symptoms strike, you’ll find that they cause you far less concern and you spend less of your time worrying about them.

I’m going to take a minute or two to go over some of the most common anxiety-caused physical symptoms, clearing up exactly why you suffer with them, and revealing the true, underlying causes.

First up, palpitations.

This is where your heart beats unusually fast for no reason at all, often with such force that you’ll be aware of your pulse at points throughout your entire body. Palpitations can also be much less severe, and simply cause a permanent “awareness” of your own heart beat, although the heart’s pace and rhythm will remain normal. Many anxiety sufferers confuse the sensations of palpitations with the symptoms of much more serious medical conditions like heart attack and heart disease, but the truth is thankfully much less terrifying. And that truth is that you have palpitations simply because, as an anxiety sufferer, you have considerably more adrenaline in your system than a non-anxiety sufferer. Your constant worrying and panicking leaves you permanently on the edge of panic, and the result is often palpitations.

Next up is another very common symptom among anxiety sufferers – headaches.

They can be mild or severe, they can be located almost anywhere in your head, and they can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks.Despite anxiety-induced headaches being unpleasant enough in their own right, anxiety sufferers often make them far worse by fearing that they’re the symptom of terrifying conditions and diseases – most notably, brain tumours and brain haemorrhages.

Once again, the truth is much less terrifying.

You develop headaches because of the constant tension in your neck. The tension typically begins high up in your back, and then slowly rises up into your neck, before finally moving into your head. If you suffer with unusually high levels of anxiety, it should come as no surprise that your constant worrying causes you to have far more tension in your back and neck than someone who doesn’t suffer with anxiety. So it should also not come as a surprise that you suffer with more than your fair share of headaches, since headaches invariably begin with muscle tension in the back and neck.

Okay, the next symptom is trembling.

The trembling caused by anxiety and panic disorder will most often be found in your arms, and more specifically in your hands and fingers. But it can also be a big problem in the legs. The involuntary movements in your arms, hands, and legs can be very scary, because the movement is completely beyond your control. In fact, the more you try to steady yourself, the more you’ll tremble.

As with the other symptoms I’ve covered, anxiety sufferers will usually decide that the trembling is being caused by some other terrible condition or disease. But also like the other symptoms, the explanation is usually much less terrifying. Your anxiety is with you around the clock, and so there’s a massive amount of excess adrenaline in your body, and it’s this excess adrenaline that causes your trembling.

Having too much adrenaline in your system causes you to permanently feel as if you’ve just experienced a genuinely terrifying moment. And so the trembling hits you, just as it would if you really had experienced something terrifying.

Another symptom I should mention here is muscle twitches. This symptom is closely-related to the trembling, since it’s also caused by the excess adrenaline in your system. Muscle twitches can also be caused by good old-fashioned stress, and they can also happen after you’ve done something physically demanding, like a tough workout, or some heavy lifting.

Next up is extreme tiredness.

Again, this is a very common problem for anxiety sufferers. There’s no real secret cause for this one – it just comes down to what you put your body and mind through. The constant psychological stress you subject yourself to, and the physical strain this puts on your body, simply wears you down, and the end result of that is often chronic fatigue. What’s worse is that sleep usually doesn’t help at all in refreshing you, and you’ll often wake to feel as bad as you did the night before.

The symptoms I’ve mentioned today are not the only ones suffered by those affected with anxiety, but they are the most common. By learning their true causes, and finding reassurance that nothing serious is responsible for them, you’ll find that your anxiety attack symptoms cause you far less concern.

Several natural cures for anxiety are available now that give you the chance to treat yourself from the comfort of your home. The most popular are Panic Away and The Linden Method.

Old and outdated techniques such as deep-breathing and light therapies require time and might not prove effective. After a 2 months of deep research I managed to find 3 remedies that prove effective. I’ve suffered from horrible panic attacks for many years, I can barely remember those times, and I do not feel comfortable with such memories. Anxiety is a mind disorder which has to be treated. You are the only one that is able to do it, it is not easy, however there are remedies for anxiety that can help.

Here is my list of the top remedies for anxiety that helped thousands of patients.

Panic Away

Regardless of you have been taught about your condition, panic attacks and anxieties can be treated without any medication or therapies, which might have proved useless. Panic Away is a complete guide to cure anxiety naturally, created by Joe Barry, a former anxiety suffer. Simply use the methods taught in Panic Away and you will feel a lot calmer, more confident and happy. Panic Away cures anxiety literally in a few days.

There is a free email course that you can subscribe for to get more convinced. Joe Barry describes some unique and effective tactics, that have been put together not only to cure anxiety, but extinguish it forever out of your life, after ten whole years of deep research. In my opinion Panic Away is the most effective natural cure for anxiety.

The tactics described in Panic Away are unbelievable, easy to follow and they work really fast. You can’t go wrong, anxiety and panic attacks can be treated.

The Linden Method

Charles Linden, the creator of the Linden Method is a former anxiety suffer. He is one of the sufferers that had to go through 10 years of continuous stress, anxiety and panic attacks. Finally he discovered that there is a misconception when people blame anxiety for chemical imbalances in the brain. In fact what triggers anxiety is a small organ situated in the lower part of brain called the Amygdala. The Amygdala triggers panic attacks and anxiety whenever you are exposed to high-stress.

This course is available on cds and ebook format that are fully downloadable. If you decide to cure your anxiety completely, then the Linden Method is a natural cure for anxiety that you have to try. Charles offers a ‘One Year Email Support’ for everyone that decides to join The Linden Method and cure anxiety for good.

Anxiety is a common emotion like happiness, sadness and anger, however when anxiety becomes uncontrollable or excessive, it becomes a problem or disorder. Anxiety becomes uncomfortable when coupled with increased heart beat, increased blood pressure, too much fear and panic. Anxiety disorder is a mental state that can interfere with your daily life and very disabling. You have to know anxiety panic attack relief to survive attacks and learn how to manage your anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety may be experienced with major changes in your life like loss or death of someone you love, divorce or broken relationships and too much stress at work or school.

Before learning anxiety panic attack relief, you must learn how to recognize anxiety attacks symptoms. Common symptoms of anxiety attacks are chest pain, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, uncontrollable sweating, increased heart rate, trembling, excessive fear or feeling of going crazy, choking sensation and dizziness. Imagine feeling all of these things and if you cannot learn about anxiety panic attack relief, these symptoms are very disabling and can interfere with your daily life.

The first step to learn anxiety panic attack relief is to believe that you have the ability to take control. Anxiety disorder is not a disease it?s a state of mind that can be controlled. The body responds to the messages sent to it by your mind, even if the situation is totally safe but your mind interprets it as unsafe, your body will respond to what you think. The first step in anxiety panic attack relief is changing the way you think. During anxiety attacks, tell to yourself ?I will be alright, this cannot harm me and I will feel better.? Your mind and the way you think can control your anxiety physical symptoms. Changing your negative thoughts to positive thoughts will decrease and eliminate your physical symptoms.

Breathing exercises is another anxiety panic attack relief that you can do. During anxiety attacks you experience hyperventilation or you are breathing faster causing dizziness, shortness of breath and other anxiety disorder symptoms. By changing the way you breathe during attacks you can lessen your symptoms. Deep and slow breathing will help you to feel more relax and calm. Take a deep breathe through your nose, hold it for 3 seconds and exhale slowly.

While it is important to know anxiety panic attack relief during attacks it is best to consult the experts to cure your anxiety disorder. Anxiety panic attack relief is just an immediate relief to lessen or eliminate your symptoms temporarily. It is best to find remedy and cure for your anxiety disorder and get rid of your symptoms permanently. Did you know that there are people who cured their anxiety disorder permanently? To know more about anxiety and panic attack cure visit Cure Anxiety and Panic Disorder



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So what happens when a person first identifies that he or she suffers from an anxiety disorder? For all of us, thousands of thoughts are pouring through our brain at the same moment. I?m a freak! What do I do? What?s wrong with me? Is there any cure? To further worsen the situation, many of us have lives that are full of all sorts of other drama such as addiction, other mental illness like bipolar disorder, or chaotic or nonexistent interpersonal relationships! This is indeed difficult to overcome! What should a person do in order to turn a complete 180 and live a happy and healthy life rather than a sad and miserable one?

Counseling

The first thing to do is to find a good counselor. Good counseling can be a hard find, and it can also be expensive. To find a good counselor, one simply needs to find a personality type with which he or she can work well. Some counselors are in-your-face and confrontational, while others are very laid-back, perhaps even more anxious than the client at the first meeting. Sometimes, a person will find that a particular counselor just is not working well with him or her for whatever reason; at this point it is important to remember that the client is the boss of the counselor. If the client wants, he or she can fire the counselor and see another one ? just make sure that the counselor is being fired for an inability to work effectively with the client, and not because of a silly superficial reason like the client disliking the way the counselor asks questions.

Keep in mind that the term here used is ?counselor,? and that it is used for a very specific reason. Many other professionals can treat anxiety; these include therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists. The reason I recommend a counselor is because a counselor typically takes in the ?big picture.? As noted earlier, those of us with anxiety struggles in our lives often have many other stressful situations co-occuring which serve to increase our anxiety level. Therapists and psychiatrists will focus on reducing only the anxiety, while possibly psychologists, and definitely counselors, will look at the other stressful situations such as difficult parents, bad significant others, or substance dependency which may be playing an important role in increasing the client?s anxiety level.

Finally, counseling can be expensive, but it can be made affordable. Typically, counseling will run somewhere from $75-$125 per hour, which is way outside the range of affordability for those of us without insurance. One thing to check into is ?sliding-scale? counseling, which is where a counselor will lower his or her fee based on the client?s income. Simply placing a call to the local NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), looking in the phone book for counseling agencies (Counselors are more than happy to help. Feel free to call ANY agency and they will know someone at their organization or someone else?s who can provide sliding-scale services), or asking friends and relatives who are comfortable with this topic will eventually turn up something affordable.

Counseling is incredibly beneficial, and it does not last a lifetime-only until the counselor and the client are comfortable the client can operate on his or her own. It helped me to completely turn my life around in a matter of months! There is no shame in it. Everybody has problems, but most do not seek help. It takes great courage and strength to admit one has problems and ask for help, but it can be the best decision one makes in life.

Exercise

The next most important thing to add to one?s life, if it does not exist already, is regular exercise that increases one?s heart rate to 80% of its maximum for twenty minutes three times per week. Exercise helps to increase one?s confidence and general feelings of well being, while simultaneously adding energy (exercise is like a natural caffeine) and enhancing the quality of one?s sleep, and most important to this article, it reduces anxiety! Exercise is great in every way for a person?s health. For more details on exercise?s relationship to anxiety, read ASN?s article entitled Anxiety and Exercise.

Medication

Medication is a very controversial topic in our society, and it is very wise for each person to carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of taking medication. One thing to remember about medication is that different people respond to the same medication in different ways. I take a low dosage of Lexapro (10 mg), and that works really well for me. But, another person may try it and receive no benefit whatsoever, or even worse, that person may experience increased anxiety and other symptoms while receiving no benefit at all. The best thing to do is to keep a brief journal of how one is thinking and feeling in the days after taking the medication. Give the medication a couple of months to take full effect, and to allow the body to adjust to this new substance. If things are not going quite right, either switch the medication or go off of it entirely.

Another point to consider when thinking about medication is how the client would like the medication to work in his or her life. The Lexapro that I am on is intended to be a medication that I take daily and that is working all the time. Some people may experience low anxiety most of the time, but extreme anxiety in certain situations. Medications exist which only have an effect for a few hours at a time, and in my opinion, the less medication that is running through the body, the better.

The technical aspects of medication are not my area of expertise; I know only the generalities of medication. But, what I have given is solid advice. The bottom line is for clients to realize that they are the expects on themselves, and if something is not working right or is causing more bad than good, it is perfectly okay to change things up or stop medication entirely.

Finally, medication is not a requirement for recovery from anxiety, but it certainly can be helpful. It is most effective when used in combination with counseling, diet, exercise, and supportive friends. For additional details, read ASN?s article Medication ? Don?t Believe the Hype!

Biofeedback

Biofeedback can be another very helpful option in helping anxiety-sufferers to relax. If a client is seeing a counselor, be sure to ask about it. Many counselors keep simple biofeedback devices ready and available, or know where to get them for a reasonable price. The university that I attend has a counseling center that allows students to check out the devices and use them for free, so this can be a viable option for persons in that age range. Otherwise, I have been told that biofeedback devices that hook up to any household computer can run only about $125 or so.

Different types of biofeedback devices exist, and the only one I know about is one that has little ?caps,? for lack of a better term, that connect to the middle, index, and ring fingers. These caps are then connected to another device that is attached to a computer. The caps measure the electrical resistance across a person?s skin. In this particular biofeedback system, a game, called the Wild Divine, is played that helps to teach the anxious person how to relax. For myself, I found it moderately beneficial, and I do not have the time to do it these days. However, it was helpful, and different things can work for different people, so if one is able to try out biofeedback and one finds it useful, use it!

Taking Risks

The next, and probably scariest part of recovering from anxiety is taking risks. One can read all the information that exists, go to counseling, or engage in biofeedback all one wants, however, one eventually must take the real risks and begin to approach situations that are terrifying.

Probably the best way to do this is to discuss the terrifying situation with a counselor or supportive friend. People who are outside of the situation can see it more realistically and can help a person to identify his or her anxious thoughts that are not very realistic. After actually taking the risk, report the happenings to the trusted friend or counselor, and again they will help the client or friend interpret the situation in a realistic sense. This is the best way to help one realize that the anxious beliefs and thoughts are simply not true.

If a person ends up failing and not taking the risk, there is no problem! Simply regroup, take a break, and get ready to get back at it because limitless opportunities exist for taking risks!

Supportive Social Network

Another major key to one?s recovery is having a supportive social network. Many of us live in families where personal problems are not to be discussed. These persons may claim that mental conditions such as social anxiety do not exist (this is an extreme point of view), or they may simply belittle or mock the problems that other people face (as an aside, other people do this usually because they are trying to avoid problems in their own lives and want to make themselves feel better about their situation).

Having a supportive social network means that we can go somewhere to talk to people who have experience with anxiety. Not only this, but a supportive social network will be made of people who will listen and try to understand what one is experiencing, and perhaps offer some useful advice or sympathy for the situation. If a friend or family member seems resistant to understanding difficulties present in other person?s lives, one can continue to attempt to help that person understand, but ultimately, it is best to seek out other people who have common experience with anxiety, as it is impossible to force someone to understand something.

All humans need some sort of social network and place to vent their problems; it is a requirement of a happy life. Places that offer supportive social networks can include the Anxiety Support Network?s forum, NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) meetings (these typically only exist in larger cities), and anxiety groups that can be run in many different places such as the local library or a local counseling agency.

Regrouping During Burnout



Finally, one thing that is inevitable for all of us is that we will all hit a point where we feel burned out from all the anxiety we have been facing. This happened to me many times over the years, and I believe that it will happen again; the reason I continue to want to recover from anxiety is that the burnout becomes less frequent and less intense over the years. In the past, it may have happened every couple weeks or so, but now it may only happen once or twice per year, and only under very stressful conditions.

It is important to remember at this point that what we need to do is to take care of ourselves. The temptation is to get upset about where we are in our life; that we are not making enough progress and that will always be stuck in this endless cycle of terrifying anxiety. However, as I have noted from my own personal experience, there is an end. At this point, the best thing that we can do for ourselves is to take a break, relax, and do something very nice to ourselves that will bring healthy enjoyment to our lives. This can be very different for many people, but some things that some of us choose would include spending all day watching movies, taking a hot bath with scented candles, getting a massage, eating a favorite meal, playing videogames, or any other activity that brings joy to one?s life.

While life is challenging and difficult at times, it is a wise idea to do the things we love in order to keep our sanity. Those people who do nothing that brings them joy find themselves to be very miserable persons.

It may take a few hours or a few days to regroup from burnout. During this period, it is also important to be talking to friends, and also to take a break from challenging anxiety. So what if one is not taking anxiety-provoking risks for a few days! Everyone needs a break at some time and it is perfectly okay to do so once in a while. I still do it at times myself.

The final point to keep in mind is to congratulate one?s self for any progress made, no matter how small. Was a conversation, though full of stuttering and stammering, started with a stranger? If so, and if this is something one could not do in the past, but now one can do it, then this is progress and a job well done! Was one able to leave the house and just enter the local gym and just be around other people, but not actually exercise? If so, this is progress. This is good enough for now, and eventually, if a person sticks to it, that person will be able to start conversations with strangers without having to think about it, or that person will be able to go to the gym and exercise without worrying about what other people are thinking of him or her.

To Wrap It Up

This guide was meant as a comprehensive guide to treating anxiety. It does not go into great detail in each section, but it gives enough of an idea so that a person can make reasonable steps towards defeating anxiety and living a happier life. Treating anxiety can be infinitely complex, but if one follows the basic steps in this article, one will be heading in the right direction, and before one knows it, one will be living a happier life and be doing the things that he or she always dreamed of doing!