People always assume that anxiety is caused by emotional stress and living a busy lifestyle. But anxiety can also be caused by physical stress to the body. In order to cure your anxiety once and for all you have to confront the underlying health problems and deal with them as well as helping your adrenal glands.
It is important to find out the underlying cause. Many times anxiety is caused by some health problem that slowly wears your body's defenses down until your body literally goes into panic mode (usually due to adrenal fatigue). For example, extreme and systemic candida overgrowth, heavy metal poisoning, irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut, multiple chemical sensitivities, food allergies and fibromyalgia. All of these things put a significant amount of stress on your organs, immune system, adrenal and thyroid glands and your whole body in general. Also, eating a poor diet puts an incredible strain on the body.
One primary cause of anxiety is diet. If you have any of the above problems and you are feeling sick most of the time, you need to change your diet to something very healthy. Today many people are saying that eating a mostly raw diet with vegetables, fruits and grains and very little meat or eggs is the way to go. And, yes, It sounds very healthy. But if you have anxiety and proplems with your adrenal glands, this is not a healthy diet. What you need is lots of protein and fats along with your fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts. You need meat, fish, eggs and cheeses in your diet as well. Low carb diets help to stabilize your blood sugar. Be sure that the carbs you do eat are in the form of vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds and fruit -- absolutely no sugars or sugar substitutes.
Other Ways to Conquer Anxiety
Most likely your anxiety is caused by adrenal fatigue. The adrenal glands become this way due to stress -- physical stress or emotional stress. And over time your brain can also become involved because of the mental stress this causes as well. This is when the adrenals have been stressed for so long they can no longer produce the hormones they are supposed to produce -- like cortisol. When cortisol levels become too low it causes severe hypoglycemia which is the main cause of the anxiety response. Curing your adrenal fatigue will significantly improve your anxiety.
You can control your cortisol levels better if you eat lots of snacks throughout the day to keep your blood sugar stable. If you don't keep your blood sugar stable, you will be caught in a spiral effect of low cortisol, low blood sugar, even lower cortisol, even lower blood sugar. At some point this then turns into anxiety or panic attack.
Some herbs that are very helpful in regulating cortisol and adrenaline levels is ashwagandha, rhodiola rosea and eleuthero root or siberian ginseng. If you've also been having trouble sleeping, ashwagandha will help dramatically. Another helpful herb is Relora. It is usually used to help loose weight but is also very helpful in making you feel calm. It helps regulate your cortisol levels. When your anxiety is very intense such as panic attacks, then taking phosphaditylserine is extremely helpful.
The best way to handle an anxiety attack is to not react to it. This may sound ridiculous but it really works. If you feel yourself heading toward a panic attack, instead of panicking, make your body relax. Take deep breaths very slowly in and out. Tell yourself that everything is all right, it's just a panic attack. Then also begin drinking a glass or two of diluted fruit juice (all fruit no sugar) - half water, half juice. This will quickly bring your blood sugar back up to normal and you'll feel a lot better.
If you respond to the panic attack, you begin to fuel the attack and make it worse. What is really happening is your heart is racing due to low blood sugar. Your body is in emergency mode and is trying to stabilize the situation. The panic is your brain responding to what is going on. You need to tell your brain that nothing is wrong that can't be fixed in just a few minutes.
Because the panic attack is caused by a rapid drop in blood sugar this is why the diluted juice is very useful. Eat something right after the juice that has some protein, fat and complex carbs. This will make sure the blood sugar doesn't drop again right away.
If you find yourself in a situation where you can't seem to be able to stop the anxiety, it is very helpful to do gentle exercises and stretches. This will help you to work the adrenaline out of your system so it isn't nearly so bothersome. If you sit still when you are anxious, the adrenaline continues to build up in your muscles and the anxiety can escalate until it is very hard to deal with or turns into a panic attack. Keep eating a small snack every two hours, or even more frequently, to keep your blood sugar from dropping. Drink lots of fluids like diluted juice or water. Vitamin C can also help. Many times low cortisol levels that lead to anxiety are caused by low levels of DHEA. Stress can also be the cause of low DHEA. You can have your DHEA levels tested to see where your levels are.
Check out the Adrenal Fatigue page as this might be what is causing your anxiety. There is a lot of information about how to heal your Adrenal Fatigue.
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