Here is a tip that works wonders. Delete FB and twitter, both are incredibly destructive to the mental well being of millions (and don't go to Reddit). The less time you spend on the Internet the better you will feel.
Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
21–30 of 243 posts
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#22One other thing to consider, that I rarely hear anyone talk about, is that anxiety can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying physiological condition or disease. For example, hypoglycemia-related anxiety is a common complaint.
Also I thought I was developing anxiety attacks at one point but turns out it was just heart burn. Didn't find out until it got worse. The symptom was that it messes up your breathing to the point where you have to consciously start breathing and can't take deep breaths with your diaphragm. As soon as the heartburn goes away you're able to breath normally again.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#23I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
Recent mentions of mindfulness have made it obsolete as it is something that akkktually does not work and it should not be advised as something that works(for everyone).
Well, the reason here is that I tried mindfulness(because I was probably extremelly stressed out from what was going on around me at that time) and it was not working and here is why(from REAL expert): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/2...
Even though, some of the things mentioned in THIS article(by Emma Pattee) are written with right words, it should be mentioned, that Emma Pattee has not presented them as a medical expert on anxiety, but as a writer, so anything that is written in article should be taken as a (wishful) literature - not medical help.
It is best advice to not to worry about things - and the main thing here is that for everyone there is different path on how to achieve that... though, it is quite impossible task for really stressed out human, where even normal social reactions can be interpreted as hostile, that will add more cycles to stress and postpone getting out of worries.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#24Anxiety is so general a diagnosis as to be useless in discussing treatment with exercise and breathing.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#25Eh, a gross oversimplification.
Feeling troubled by being anxious in the modern world is a "cerebral" issue. The guy who mistook an innocent animal as a tiger and freaked out because of it didn't feel bad for feeling anxious for no reason. We do. Because it interferes with our daily functioning / responsibilities in the modern world.
Anxiety is also very frequently comorbid with other mental disorders. Especially OCD or OCD like tendencies, depression etc. I am medicated now and feel a lot better but when my anxiety was worse, the chatter of my "conscious" brain murmuring about "what if" scenarios was the worst. My point is, yes, anxiety manifests itself in a physical way, big time, but that is only half the problem. The discomfort with being anxious, constantly thinking about the possibility of having an anxiety attack even if you are not physically anxious "at that time", evaluating the "what if" scenarios, the constant planning to work around possible issues, all that torture are very cognitive pursuits and they were a lot of a bigger burden on my quality of life than experiencing an anxiety attack now and then.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#26Who in their right mind would take their psychological advice from a fiction writer?!?
First, no, anxiety is not in your body. Fear, just like any other emotion is in your brain. You might get physiological responses in the form of chemicals in your body. That is an effect, not a cause.
Second, neocortex is not "thinking brain," its role is to manage social interactions. Cognition is a small part of that.
Third, mindfulness is the opposite of any therapy I can think of. It is an ego-depletion technique proven to be detrimental to people suffering from anxiety and depression.
Finally, I don't know who performed therapy on the author but some steps seem to be missing:
//> when you have an anxiety attack, the only thing you can do is to perform the grounding exercises. Yes, that is the moment you start counting and do square breathing exercises. If people in the military can do it while in stressful situations, you can do it from behind a macbook. Nothing is treated mid-episode.
//> once the episode is over, you can explore the trigger. Chances are that your response is healthy, you are in a situation you should be anxious, but your behavioural response is over the top. A trigger contains the stimulus, the circumstance and your personal patterns (e.g. personal experiences).
//> part of the role of the therapist is to help you figure out the patterns. The other is to see if your behavioural responses are productive for you or not. If loud sounds make you run like hell, that is a good thing in an active shooter situation or a war theatre. Not so much at a birthday party where a balloon popped.
/rant
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#27It's both.
Approximately half of depression cases respond well to psychotherapy.
Approximately half of depression cases respond well to antidepressants.
The halves are (seemingly) independent: for about a quarter of all patients both work and for another quarter neither works.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#28I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
>I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things
Any tips with doing this? The thoughts I try to avoid end up in my dreams even if I try my best to distract myself during the day
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#29One other thing to consider, that I rarely hear anyone talk about, is that anxiety can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying physiological condition or disease. For example, hypoglycemia-related anxiety is a common complaint.
This is true, but it’s more rare than it sounds. It’s a challenge for doctors because mental health still carries a stigma of weakness, whereas physical ailments don’t. Many patients are resistant to mental health diagnoses, instead insisting that they are suffering from undiagnosed physical ailments.
Doctors do consider physical causes for issues like anxiety, but they’ll avoid proposing it directly to the patient in order to avoid giving them the wrong idea.
There have been several studies performed on this topic, although they tend to focus on depression. The number of cases with identifiable physical causes are in the low single digit percentages.
In other words, keep an eye out for additional symptoms that may suggest a physical ailment, but start with the most likely explanation: That the disorder is best approached as a mental health issue
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#30Here is an overview of the state of the art in GAD:
TL;DR Tofisopam appears to be the ideal long term anxiety medication except it's understudied despite being old, which is a real shame.
Pregabalin is likely the second best candidate however some people reports horrible anecdotes with it (brain breaker)
As always the best blog about the topic is from Scott Alexander: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/13/things-that-sometimes-...
Best recent meta analyse of the SOTA https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30712879/
Anxiety is more prevalant than depression yet is extremely under reported. While ADHD and depression have relatively safe and effective medications for long term treatment, chronic anxiety doesn't.
Some antidepressants are safe long term treatment for anxiety however they are not very potent (compared to benzodiazepines)
Benzos are not a long term solution because of tolerance, of their sedative effect and of their persistent impairment of cognitive performance.
The ideal medication has the following properties: Required: 1) no persistent loss of cognitive performance Studies shows that popular benzos negatively affect cognitive performance even months (years?) after their use. 2) no hypnotic effect at normal dose
Desired: 3) no loss of cognitive performance while in use. 4) No or low tolerance 5) no sedative effect
It happens that there are at least 2 benzos derivatives that share those properties:
Tofisopam (Emandaxin and Grandaxin) and Hydazepam (Gidazepam IC) are drugs that are benzodiazepine derivatives. Like other benzodiazepines, they possesses anxiolytic properties, but, unlike other benzodiazepines, they do not have anticonvulsant, sedative, skeletal muscle relaxant, motor skill-impairing, or amnestic properties. Moreover Tofisopam (apparently) induce NO COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE LOSS! See e.g this DOI on scihub https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74031-2_13
The most interesting NON-benzos:
Pregabalin's anxiolytic effect appears after one week of use and is similar in effectiveness to lorazepam, alprazolam, and venlafaxine, but has demonstrated more consistent therapeutic effects for psychic and somatic anxiety symptoms. Long-term trials have shown continued effectiveness without the development of tolerance, and unlike benzodiazepines, it does not disrupt sleep architecture and produces less severe cognitive and psychomotor impairment. Pregabalin also exhibits a lower potential for abuse and dependence than benzodiazepines.[43][44]
Hydroxyzine has been shown to be as effective as benzodiazepines in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder, while producing fewer side-effects.[13]
Moclobemide potentially more potent than SSRIs, however much slower to act than benzos.
CONCLUSION:
* Tofisopam appears to be the clear winner. Hydazepam might be as well but can't find information on cognitive performance. Pregabalin appears to be the best non-benzo * reversible Maois might be the safest/potent well studied medication for long term use and do not destroy libido contrary to SSRIs. This is a major issue because anxiety is a major commorbidity of ADHD and given that MAOIs increase norepinephrine/dopamine quantities it might interact badly with concurrent use of stimulants. However some anecdotal studies shows that it can be safe, however the use of beta blockers might be needed (for e.g 50mg of Vyvanse) A plausible and surprisingly understudied solution for the SSRIs effects on libido might be TRT.