Anxiety

Most people have heard of fight or flight responses. We all have it. Our heightened senses are a part of our protection response. It’s good know our senses will give us the boost we need to escape impending dangers. But what happens when your brain constantly informs you to be suspicious or extra cautious when there is no serious threat? It’s possible you may suffer from an anxiety disorder. With symptoms and impairments ranging from mild to severe, anxiety disorders affect approximately 18% of the U.S population each year. It’s important to recognize the warning signs and act quickly by changing some damaging behaviors.

Mild Symptoms

• Feelings of inadequacy
• Uneasiness/restlessness
• Hypervigilance, heightened awareness of surroundings
• Over thinking/racing thoughts 
• Difficulty sleeping
• Heart palpitations

Severe Symptoms

• Easily startled, generalized fears
• Obsessive behaviors
• Forgetfulness, Increased confusion
• Short temper, easily agitated 
• Body discomfort—nausea, headache, dizziness, chest pain
• Visual or auditory hallucinations
• Fear of leaving home, avoiding public places

NON-PHARMACOLOGIC TREATMENT OPTIONS

Sleep Well

Your body needs downtime to reset and repair, this includes your brain. Getting eight hours of sleep allows your brain and its internal circuitry time to recover from all the excitement of the day. Here are some simple steps to improving your sleep quality:

1. Limit caffeine intake to the morning hours. If you love coffee, teas, or carbonated drinks, read the labels to confirm they are caffeine free.
2. Avoid daytime naps. Keep your mind engaged by running errands during the day, completing yard work, or catching up with friends to help keep you awake and energized.
3. Retire to the bedroom only at bedtime. This will train your brain to associate the bedroom with rest.
4. Turn off the noise. Sleeping with the television or music on is a sure way to disrupt your sleep. You may not remember waking up throughout the night, but you most certainly do. 
5. Sleep sounds. If background noise is a must, try white noise, sleep meditation, nature sounds, or a good audio books may do the trick. Don't forget to set your sleep timer! 
6. Wear an eye mask. Eye flickering throughout the night is normal but sometimes flickering become wide open eyes that refuse to close again. Eye masks gently keep those active eyelids closed and when combined with earbuds filled with sleep sounds, they create a cozy personal mental space that is hard to interrupt.

Healing From Within

Health and healing begin internally. Everything from the foods we consume to our daily activities affect our mental health. Healthy lifestyles can deposit happy brain chemicals that reward us with balanced mental health. Think of your brain as a bank account. We make mental withdrawals from our brains all day so it’s important to engage our lives in ways that produce healthy mental deposits. Here are some ideas to try:

1. Monitor your dietary intake. Too much caffeine not only interrupts much needed sleep, but it if you’re sensitive to its effects, it can elevate your heart rate just enough to trigger your body’s anxiety response.  Other foods such as artificial sweeteners, processed foods, and gluten may also increase the body’s inflammatory response, creating a perfect storm for mental health disorders.
2. Enjoy the fresh air. The great outdoors is good food for soul. Take long relaxing walks outdoors to appreciate the beauty of nature all around you—the song of birds, the sight of playful squirrels, a gentle breeze, the smell of fresh morning dew. These are good ways to engage your senses, redirect your focus, and get some sun derived vitamin D which has the added benefit of improving several mental health disorders.
3. Relax a little. Try restorative yoga, Tai-Chi, and meditation. Physical activity helps to create mental balance but activities which elevate your heart rate too much can have the same effect as caffeine whereas a higher heart rate can trigger the entire cascade of an anxiety response. Activities that engage mental concentration and deep breathing relaxes the body and communicates harmony to the brain.

Behavior Self-Checks

With the help of a mental health professional, you can learn behavior modification by reconceptualizing (rethinking) anxiety triggering events. We can’t all live on a remote island, away from the troubles of the world, so nuisances are inevitable—lawn mowers, traffic jams, an annoying coworker, household chores, and yes, rambunctious children.  The only difference between a person overcome by anxiety and someone without it, is perception. Have you ever seen someone peacefully read a book or chat in a restaurant while their children are in the background starting a third world war? How do they do that? The triggers are there, but they’ve become desensitized to them all. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT helps you to identify possible trigger points which are a part of everyday living. Once you’ve identified your triggers, then it’s time to reprogram the way you see, feel, and think about them. You will mentally resize these disturbances from overwhelming beasts to manageable pea-sized events that are easier to compartmentalize. So then, the next time the trigger presents itself, you will know how to respond and avoid an anxiety surge. That’s the behavior modification. 

PHARMACOLOGIC TREATMENT

The Hail Mary

In most cases, the first goal of professional treatment is to help you better manage your symptoms without medications but sometimes you need a little help to control anxiety symptoms. A visit to your primary care provider, psychiatric nurse practitioner or psychiatrist can help. For more severe symptoms or underlying health conditions, you should seek the help of a specialist such as a psychiatrist or psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. If your symptoms are mild or occasional, your provider may start you on a low dose benzodiazepine such as Xanax or clonazepam. Persistent symptoms may require a daily treatment regimen such as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac, Zoloft, or Lexapro to name a few. But remember, any prescription will work better when combined with non-pharmaceutic measures. 

Conclusion

It is important recognize your symptoms. The best outcomes are achieved when symptoms are addressed earl. Most non-pharmacologic treatment options are generally good health behaviors that should be exercised by everyone but even if you suffer with occasional anxiety, these interventions will serve you well. Remember to sleep, make good brain deposits, change your perspectives. If conservative options are not enough, then seek professional help. We are here for you!

Additional Resources (click links)

Understanding Anxiety, Facts and Statistics

Finding an Anxiety Support Group

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