anxietydisorder-treatment.info - Anxiety and panic attacks the solution.

Part 1 - (thanks to www.donexphotography.co.uk for the lovely photos). Here is part 1 of my radio interview with Westside FM (89.6 FM). I used to suffer with Social Anxiety and had done all of my life. Now that SA does not have a grip on my life as it once did, I feel empowered to help others with Social Anxiety and low self esteem and confidence issues through my non profit events http Ruby Wax attended our first event on 22nd November 2008 and I met her whilst being interviewed for a BBC ...

Anxiety is one of the most common symptoms of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS), post-childbirth, and perimenopause (the period of time before the onset of menopause). It may take the form of panic attacks, nervousness, sweating, intense fear, anxiety combined with depression, or other overwhelming symptoms. 

Here are several periods of hormonal change that can intensify or trigger anxiety in women. 

Puberty -- Developing girls experience hormonal changes as they prepare to begin their reproductive years. 

Monthly menstrual cycle -- Often girls and women experience PMS the week before their period. 

Following childbirth -- The severe drop in certain hormones following childbirth can cause dramatic physical symptoms and a temporary feeling of depression or anxiety; in some women, it is prolonged.

Perimenopause -- Perimenopause is the period of time when the body is approaching menopause. It may last from two to ten years. During this time the menstrual cycle becomes irregular as the hormone levels keep fluctuating, causing some women to experience PMS-like symptoms.

Although many of us may use the term "going through menopause" to describe this period of time, it is actually called perimenopause. Many women experience panic attacks for the first time during perimenopause. Other symptoms such as insomnia, hot flashes, rapid heartbeat, and sweating are also common. 

With surgical menopause (hysterectomy), you'll likely experience perimenopausal symptoms after the surgery, even if you did not experience symptoms prior to surgery. Symptoms can be prolonged and are due to the dramatic and sudden decrease of certain hormones as a result of the hysterectomy.  

In non-surgical circumstances, menopause occurs after a woman has no periods for twelve consecutive months. It lasts only one day. Many women report feeling better than ever mentally and physically after menopause, due to the fact that hormone levels stabilize.

Hormonal Change Triggers the Fight Or Flight Response

Due to the fact that hormonal change causes physical and psychological stress, it triggers our "fight or flight" response. The fight or flight response is the body's inborn, self-protective response to perceived danger. 

When we perceive that we are under stress, our bodies send out a rush of cortisol, adrenaline, and other brain chemicals to prepare us to "fight" or "flee" the danger. 

The fight or flight response triggers the physiological changes that we associate with anxiety, such as rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, sweating, muscle tension, narrowed mental focus, heightened emotion, and many other symptoms. 

These are the same physical sensations that many women experience when their hormone levels fluctuate. In other words, most of the symptoms women experience during times of hormonal change are really fight or flight reactions. While these physical sensations are not dangerous, they can be very intense and overwhelming.

Our fight or flight response mechanism can become "hypersensitive" with the various hormonal changes in our bodies that take place from puberty to menopause. Many of us are in a constant state of stress due to our lifestyle and thought patterns, which also causes hypersensitivity.

In other words, our bodies may be stuck in the "on" switch of fight or flight. What normally wouldn't trigger symptoms, now initiates symptoms and perpetuates an ongoing cycle. 

Fight or flight reactions in and of themselves are harmless. However, when our thoughts convince our rational minds that these symptoms are scary and dangerous, we create an anxiety cycle.

Anxiety consists of more than fight or flight reactions acting by themselves. Unproductive thoughts play a critical role in creating and perpetuating the anxiety we experience.

Our thoughts convert fight or flight reactions into anxiety, and a self-perpetuating cycle begins. Soon we find ourselves limiting our behaviors because of anxiety as well, which further entrenches the vicious cycle.

When a person is under stress, unresolved emotions and issues commonly come to the forefront. Because hormonal change is a major stressor, it can bring up internal conflicts and self-doubt in many areas of our lives. All of a sudden, we may find that the negative self-talk that we successfully pushed to the background of our lives during less stressful times is now playing center stage. 

During periods of hormonal change, we may also feel uncertain about our changing roles (e.g. maturing from girl to woman, becoming a mother, becoming a mature woman past childbearing years), which can add to our internal conflict. 

When we fail to successfully resolve internal conflicts and the unhelpful thought patterns that contribute to them, we create a breeding ground for anxiety. Combined with fight or flight symptoms, it's no wonder that these unproductive thoughts create and perpetuate the anxiety cycle! 

What can you do if hormone-related anxiety affects you?

Here's some great news! The same tools that you can use to overcome anxiety due to other reasons can help you to conquer anxiety related to hormonal changes too.

Research shows that cognitive-behavioral techniques that help you change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, lifestyle changes, relaxation techniques, and nutritional strategies (all found in our Conquer Anxiety Success Program) can help women dealing with hormonal changes.

These types of strategies not only help women regain a sense of control over their lives, but actually achieve improved physical and emotional well being! Here are a few tips to get you started:

-- Focus on reducing preventable stress in your life that triggers the fight or flight response -- stop the yo-yo dieting; increase sleep to eight or nine hours a night; exercise regularly; don't skip meals; cut back on your frantic schedule; and decrease stimulants, such as caffeine. 

The body isn't designed for constant stress. When we are bombarded with stress, our ability to cope can become overwhelmed because the elevation in stress hormones makes the fight or flight switch remain "on."

-- Learn how to train your body to respond differently to stress so that you can automatically turn the false alarm "off" when the fight or flight response is triggered. Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, yoga, meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation can help you achieve this goal.  

-- Most importantly, learn how to change how you think. Our thoughts are what convert the harmless fight or flight response into a vicious cycle of anxiety. Remember, just as our thoughts hold the key to creating anxiety, they also hold the key to eliminating it!

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Be kind to yourself. Its o.k. to make mistakes, cause that's how we learn. All too often fears, guilt or shame will play themselves out in our mind. Think of anxiety like a little person saying negative/anxious things in one ear and then running around to the other ear and telling you how bad you are for believing those things. Guilt and shame are another way that your thought patterns, which thrive on pain, survive. It is crucially important to cut yourself some major slack, especially at times like these. Be positive about yourself. Sooner or later you will realise that you have greater control over your mind and thoughts than might now seem to be the case. Step by step your going to take control of your mind, of your thought patterns. Your going to take control away from the negative thoughts that you've been feeding your mind.

Think of your mind for a moment like a judge making decisions, would you want him/her to hear only one side of the case before making a decision? You can't expect to make a rational decision about something that is worrying you when your brain receives, and re-receives again, the worst case scenario. Of course along the road to recovery time and time again you will want to resort back to your old worrying habit, because that's what your used to.

Worry is nothing more than a bad habit which you've developed over the course of many years. But did you worry like you do now when you were a child? Probably not, and if you did you learnt it early on, worry is a trained response. You have trained your brain to do it and now it's stuck on that setting. Your brain learnt this from you. You will need to break this worry habit if you want to be happy again. Be patient, and persistent with it, you will break this habit if you start now to think more positively.

Have you ever noticed how one day your worried about one thing seemingly monumental to yourself and as soon as that worry is over with it is replaced by another new worry even more monumental to yourself; and the other worry seems to lose it's significance and so on and so on, worry after worry, as long as your brain has something to worry about! Isn't that a fact, as long as your brain has something to worry about. In other words, its not what your worrying about that is the issue, in fact, rather, its your worry habit which clutches onto anything it can grab a hold of to worry about, and then it magnifies every conceivable negative variable that could possibly go wrong; this is a learnt response, and it only causes more worry, making the situation worse, and blowing your fear out of proportion. Here's how it works: you find something to worry about, worry about it, become fixated on it, blow it out of proportion, find something else "more pressing" to worry about, worry about that, look for more possible negative scenarios surrounding it, blow it out of proportion... and so on; constantly feeding into this worry habit. The only way out of this is to break the cycle of worry, and to teach your mind to start to think differently, in a more balanced way, a more logical way, and less emotionally. That's why it is so important to think positively about what is worrying you, so as to counter this tendency to exaggerate fear.

For better ways to cure anxiety, stress, panic, fear, or phobia click here: Link Title

This article was written by John horrax.

Anxiety is a feeling of unease. Everybody experiences it when faced with a stressful situation, for example before an exam or an interview, or during a worrying time such as illness. It's normal to feel anxious when facing something difficult or dangerous, and mild anxiety can be a positive and useful experience. However, for one in 10 people in the UK, anxiety interferes with normal life. Excessive anxiety is often associated with other mental health problems, such as depression. Anxiety is only considered to be a mental health problem when it is prolonged, severe and is interfering with everyday activities.

Treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder often involves psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Where necessary, one of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors will be introduced to improve symptoms including avoidance behaviour where people try not to remind themselves of the event. It's also important to recognize that people who've developed posttraumatic stress disorder often have other types of problems, including substance abuse and other anxiety and mood disorders. When present, treatment of these so-called "comorbid" disorders can improve the outlook for people with posttraumatic stress disorder.

By Dennis Fisher.

There are many people who are very happy indeed with the results they have been able to obtain from meditation.  They say meditation helped them cure their anxiety, stress and frequent panic attacks and brought tranquility, calm and harmony into their lives.There are others, however, who consider meditation to be very much overrated and, as far they are concerned, a waste of time.

 They say they tried various forms of meditation to get rid of anxiety and nervous tension, but found it of no help at all. 

Instead of  benefiting from a feeling of complete relaxation from meditation, they found sitting for long periods every day in the uncomfortable position demanded by the system of meditation they practiced, not only time-consuming  but also physically and mentally tiring.

 If you suffer from stress, anxiety and nervous tension and are considering meditation as a way to relieve your stress without medication, who should you believe?  Whose advice should you follow?  

It's sometimes difficult to decide.  There are almost as many people dissatisfied with the results they have obtained from meditation as those who speak in glowing terms of the benefits they have managed to obtain.

Why is it that some people have excellent results from meditation and others find it a waste of time?  Is meditation of any value at all?

In order to get a balanced and objective assessment of the value of meditation, it is important to study unbiased reports from prestigious Universities who have carried out detailed studies of meditation.

Clinical proof that meditation really works. 

 Many reliable, objective studies, carried about by well-known institutions, such as Harvard Medical School, the University of California and prestigious English Universities, provide conclusive proof that meditation, carried out in the correct manner, definitely does relieve stress.  It also results in important beneficial changes in the body. 

Study by Professor Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard.

One of many objective investigations to test the validity of claims made for Meditation, was carried out by a well-known Harvard Professor, Dr. Herbert Benson.

Dr. Benson conducted a series of clinical studies at Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas. He subsequently published  his findings in his widely-acclaimed  book, "THE RELAXATION RESPONSE".  

In this book, Dr. Benson confirmed meditation was responsible for definite biochemical changes to the body.  These changes brought about noticeable changes in blood pressure, heart rate and metabolism.

What type of meditation should you use to reduce stress?

Some forms of meditation are relatively simple and easy to follow.  Others are very involved; extremely difficult to follow and take years to master.

There are  a great variety of breathing techniques; different postures to adopt while meditating; different ways to focus  on a single thought and a number of different recommendations how to avoid distracting thoughts that  interfered with concentration.

For the beginner, anxious to choose the most effective type of meditation, one that will provide the maximum health benefits and is also easiest to master in the quickest possible time, the choice can be very confusing.

If it is possible to obtain personal, unbiased advice and a recommendation from someone who has been involved with meditation for a lengthy period, this is always very useful.  If not, it is probably best to try a number of different methods, and then decide which particular technique you are most comfortable with.

After experimenting with a number of different techniques you will find that the most complicated method is not necessarily the most effective. 

There definitely are meditation techniques that are both extremely easy to master and also very effective indeed in helping you cure stress and ending your stress-related anxiety disorders.

Some meditation systems offer free demonstration tapes or videos.  You have the opportunity of trying the particular system of meditation they suggest and judge for yourself whether or not you find it effective.

The particular system of meditation I would like to recommend is one that a great many people have found very effective indeed.  They are convinced it  has been  responsible for ending all symptoms of stress and nervous anxiety and has enabled them to experience a deep sense of calm and harmony in their lives.

To find out more about of this meditation system, which many people  have found so effective  in relieving stress, click MEDITATION POWER.