Tag: Anxiety

3 Ways to Sabotage Your Mood With Food

July 21, 2021

We all make poor food choices at some point in our life. Food has evolved in our lives to be much more than nourishment for the body. You can be stress relief, used to celebrate, are used to calm anxious nerves.
No matter what health condition you’re dealing with, understanding that there may be times you sabotage your own progress helps you to understand yourself. Self compassion is key on any healing journey.

Using Sugar to Calm Anxiety

Many of my patients struggling with their weight or diabetes isn’t it to snacking on sweets excessively and they’re feeling nervous. Furthermore, getting activities very likely occur during times of inside.
The impulse to eat my feel nervous stamps from when you take engage the parasympathetic system. The parasympathetic system is a part of the nervous system that covers eating, slow heart rate, sexual activity, and 3digestive function. During times of anxiety, it is the sympathetic system. This is the system that governs me fight or flight.
Many of us discover on accident that we can engage our parasympathetic system by eating. The act of chewing swallowing will stimulate the stomach to sin signals through the vagus nerve up to the brain that will help calm the system. Naturally, this is not good for the metabolism. Snacking to Lauren’s body levels will lead to weight gain and possibly diabetes.

If you are suffering from this, this is a good reason to consider starting meditation. You can engage your parasympathetic system with purposeful, slow deep breath.

Eating When Bored or Depressed


The digestive tract is a complex system that starts from the mouth and goes to the anus. They are layers of muscle and also a layer of nervous tissue. The nervous tissue of the gut actually contains more neurons then the grain itself.  The gut produces and responses to the same neurotransmitters that circulate in the brain.

Engaging and overeating particular when they are depressed or often attempting to raise their serotonin levels. Serotonin is to feel good hormone and one of the building blocks to make serotonin is carbohydrates.

Relying on food to improve the mood can lead on unwanted weight gain, and disease such as diabetes.

Meditations that focus on the core are a good remedy for this. See my book 21 day meditation journey or sign up for my course to get started today

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Feeding Your Cravings

I often ask my patients as well as ask myself what food is being craved. There is so much media that tells us if we are craving a food particularly something that’s unhealthy we should eat it. Really, when you’re having a craving your body is telling you you are insufficient in some nutrient.

To the craving for sugar, or salt, find a stack that is just the opposite of what you were craving. If you’re wanting something sweet, try snacking on nuts. If you’re wanting something salty, try something like organic fruit. Snacking on nuts for wanting something sweet will help to stabilize your insulin levels and hopefully stop the for something sweet. And you are craving salt, you like clean water, so in addition to drinking water eating a piece of fruit will get water into your body naturally.

3 Ways to Reduce Anxiety

June 16, 2021

Three ways you can lower anxiety in a few minutes

Most people don’t become aware of their anxiety until they have a severe symptoms. What most people don’t realize is that well before the sentinel event of anxiety that makes most people reach out for help, there were symptoms leading up to it that may have been going off for weeks or months.

Although all anxiety requires medical attention, there are things you can do for yourself to lower your anxiety in a few minutes.

The following the tips I wish the share. Having experienced anxiety myself, I wished I had had these exercises to help prevent my first anxiety attack.

Grounding

Grounding is a term used frequently in the holistic and metaphysical realm. It involves visualizing your biofield and bringing the excessive energy down to your legs and feet. Grounding exercises can be done at any time, even if you’re busy doing something else. The idea is simply to help with worry thoughts and create an energy pathway to take all that excess energy out of the head and into the legs and feet which is calming.
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Inhale and Exhale

It’s that simple. Taking a deep breath in and exhaling out of your mouth it’s one of the fastest ways you can decrease your own anxiety

One of my personal favorite mediation and mindfulness techniques is the Ujjayi Breath. This is a Yoga breathing technique that is easy to perform and can be done at any time of day.

Here are the steps:

  1. Take in a deep breath through your nose, filling up your belly and chest
  2. Exhale through your nose, with your mouth closed. Slightly constrict the back of your throat, which will create a hissing sound. This slows down your exhale.
  3. Repeat the cycle

You can try Ujjayi breath for one minute initially.  You may want to try checking your pulse, then doing a round of Ujjayi breath for a minute then checking your pulse again.  Notice any difference?

Meditate

There are many ways you can use meditation to reduce your anxiety. I have created a short meditation you can use to transmute worry thoughts and positivity.

Want to try a meditation to channel negative emotions? Click here

Tap it Out

Eft, also known as the emotional freedom technique, is a healing modality that is gaining popularity. EFT involves repeatedly tapping acupressure points which has been clinically shown to remodel the brain and create immediate as well as long-lasting changes.
You can use tapping on what’s called the quote karate chop points quote in which you will rapidly but gently tap the outside of each hand together while taking deep breaths.
There are many wonderful online resources for tapping that you may want to check out here
The Tapping Solution

Anxiety-Finding Help, Living with Anxiety

April 7, 2021

In a recent article from the ACP internist March 2021 volume 41 number 3 an article by author Charlotte Huff states that “roughly 40% of adult women develop some type of anxiety disorder during their lifetime compared to 26.4% of men” which is a quotation taken from the international journal of methods and psychiatry research.

In my medical practice, I frequently treat patients with the diagnosis of anxiety. Unfortunately, the Pandemic of 2020 drastically increased the occurrence of anxiety in my medical practice. The Pandemic has increased worry, and there are certainly many reasons to be anxious.

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My own observations, which are not necessarily quantifiable or have any research to back them up, I am witnessing a sharp increase in patients presenting with anxiety or anxiety like symptoms. Interestingly, I noticed the biggest increase after the wintertime surges.

They’re actually many forms of anxiety. Generalizes anxiety disorder is the anxiety disorder I encounter most medical practice. Other forms of anxiety include social phobias, agoraphobia, or anxiety related to public speaking. Anxiety may also be a component of another psychiatric disorder such as major depression or bipolar disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder, is characterized by persistent worry that leads to life changing consequences that last over 6 months. The classification is important because the emotion of anxiety happens to all of us. The distinction must be made when these symptoms are impacting the quality of life.

The typical symptoms of anxiety include but are not limited to:

  • Excessive Worry
  • Inability to rest or relax
  • Hypervigilance
  • Irritability
  • Tense muscles
  • Poor quality sleep

Anxiety can lead to many physical symptoms including:

  • Palpitations
  • Tremors
  • Excessive sweating
  • Digestive issues 
  • Muscle spasms

Many factors can put a person at risk, but it seems the greatest risk factor is being female. 

We all have times we feel anxious. Having transitory “butterflies in the stomach” or feeling on edge is a normal part of the human experience. It is when these symptoms persist, occur frequently, or interrupt daily activities that it may require management by a healthcare professional.

Getting Help

If you’re suffering from symptoms of anxiety, it is important to know where to turn to for help. If you have a relationship with a physician or care provider such as a Primary Care  doctor, they are often more than ready to help you. If you do not, the next best step is to try to find someone to see on a regular basis. If you don’t have health insurance, many state agencies have helplines such as 211 that can help get you to resources. In any case, it is usually impossible to determine by yourself how to figure your symptoms truly if they require treatment.

A complete history and physical exam is recommended to make sure no medical diagnosis could be causing the symptoms. 

Once anxiety has been confirmed with the diagnosis by healthcare professional, treatment options can include but are not limited to:

Therapy 

Medications

Observation

These treatment options require evaluation and recommendations of a healthcare professional.  Treatment must be individualized and tailored to each person’s needs.  Once treatment is selected, monitoring will need to continue potentially for several months.

Beyond what happens in the clinic, if you have been diagnosed with anxiety or are worried you may be at risk or developing anxiety that is clinical there are things that you can do for yourself at home to improve your symptoms.

Meditation

Meditation is the perfect compliment to medical treatment or therapy. Meditation often reduces the symptoms of anxiety immediately and when performed daily will help long-term.

If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of meditation I want to gently remind you that anyone can meditate.  please now that even if on the inside your thoughts are racing and you don’t think you can find peace, just the attempt at meditation will reap benefits.

Yoga

I frequently mention Yoga as a self-care modality that can be included with medication and with meditation when managing anxiety. Yoga has been clinically proven to help reduce the symptoms anxiety

One of the important aspects of Yoga that can help alleviate anxiety is the focus on breath work. individuals suffering from anxiety often have little to no awareness of how they breathe on a regular basis. Because they tend to breathe in a shallow manner they often don’t realize that they set the stage for anxiety attacks. The practice of yoga can help those suffering from anxiety learn how to work with their chest and their belly to breathe effectively in order to reduce the pulse. In this way is how yoga will help reduce anxiety in the immediate.

Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy has grown in popularity over the years. The science of aromatherapy involves engaging the olfactory nerve which has a very strong connection to the brain to create therapeutic benefits. Aromatherapy and the form of essential oils can be therapeutic and lower anxiety. Also, aromatherapy can be pleasing and pleasurable to the senses.

Essential oils can be very expensive. Because of this, I usually limit my recommendations to a few essential oils that are relatively well tolerated can be found in most natural food stores.

  • Lavender next paragraph
  •  Frankincense 
  •  Peppermint
  • Patchouli

If you are considering using aromatherapy, I recommend diluting essential oils and a high quality carrier oil and using a roller bottle. This makes carrying aromatherapy with you throughout the day much easier and less messy. this also allows for a very light application if you’re wanting to keep the smell in a limited area.

If you are managing anxiety it is important to realize that your anxiety may take a long time to improve. You want to be patient, gentle and caring with yourself. Do not rush yourself to “get back to normal”.  

Going to level deeper, as you journey through your experience of anxiety you may want to sit with the feeling to learn what the anxiety is teaching you. Anxiety rarely occurs for no reason at all. With the help of a skilled therapist, it is likely you will learn more about yourself and the way you exist in the world that has led to your experience with anxiety.  Anxiety can become a learning opportunity for your soul. Anxiety is going to teach you something, so if possible try to learn what it is that you need to about yourself.

As a thank you for spending time learning about a difficult topic you may download my channel negative emotions meditation I created. There are many ways that you can meditate. This particular meditation I created to harness the energy of unwanted emotions and channel them for the greater good.

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