Our Naturopath Speaks About Anxiety

Anxiety affects everyone at some point in their life. At this point of the year, you could be starting anew job, or a new school or face new and different challenges that can bring up your anxiety. This could be mild anxiety to more frequent and sever symptoms like panic attacks. Although the cause of anxiety is not fully understood, there are known triggers and contributions that may cause you to feel this way.

Triggers

Past Trauma

This could include past trauma from childhood, accidents, and also negative experiences. Without realising these traumatic events can cause present day trauma, where perhaps normal everyday things can act as triggers to things that happened years ago. For example the trauma of being bullied in the past may cause in the present day to have fear and stress over interacting with others. If you are having difficulty with dealing with a traumatic issue seeking help from a professional might be the option for you.

Inherited or mimicked by family members

Anxiety may also affect the people you live with and surround yourself with. We learn behaviour from our parents and grandparents growing up as well as other people we spend time with. If anxiety affects your parents, you will be watching and learning how they deal with everyday life.
Behaviours and thoughts like overly stressing about things, having fear based thoughts verbalised, worrying, being tense, being nervous, being restless, etc. These behaviours can be learnt and carried on to children.
People generally have 60-70,000 thoughts per day. 80-90% of these thoughts are the same every single day. Generally a lot of these thoughts will be worry or fear based and this can lead to feelings of anxiousness.
For example, you may have had an experience where something negative happens to you and you start to have new thoughts and believes based around that experience. If those same thoughts keep repeating for weeks, months to years, without being corrected or addressed, they have now become a part of your daily life and thought habit. This habit can become your personality unconsciously as we are not always present to our thoughts and what we are telling ourselves.

Physical stress, poor health and disease.

The nervous system is very closely connected to the body's systems and organs. Emotional and physical stress affect each other so an imbalance may throw out either one of these systems.
For example experiencing high stress can cause the body to have an allergic reaction in response to the emotional or mental stress. At the same time if your body is not at its optimum state due to disease and other factors, it can impact your mental wellbeing and cause anxiety and stress.

Examples are:

Hormonal disorders like hyperthyroidism

Diabetes

Respiratory conditions like asthma

Drug side effects or misuse

Drug, alcohol and other withdrawal including cigarettes, caffeine, sugar etc.

Nutrient and mineral deficiencies

Healthy Diet

○ Incorporating a healthy diet with nutrient dense food is key. Cutting out all processed foods, fast foods and foods that build toxins in the body will significantly help in reducing stress and anxiety.
○ Avoid excessive caffeine intake and stimulants as it can cause anxiety
○ Avoid the use of drugs and alcohol as it is known to have detrimental effects on mental health
○ Vitamin and mineral supplements can help with any deficiencies due to illness and stress
○ Herbal supplements can help correct imbalances in the brain, support the body's stress response, support healing and immune response.
Seek the advice of a professional if you are finding it hard to manage your anxiety

Good Quality Sleep

○ To have good quality sleep. While you sleep your body is repairing so if you go to bed late or don’t get enough sleep it throws your body out of balance.

Exercise

○ Exercise is really important to produce feel good chemicals in your body. This is especially helpful for anxiety and mental health.

Mindfulness

○ Practicing to be mindful of thoughts is a great way to start changing you daily thoughts especially the ones that trigger anxiety.
○ To replace an old habit you need to start a new one, a healthy one. This may take some persistence and practice, like a muscle getting stronger every time.
○ Meditation can really be helpful to quiet the mind and really concentrate on what thoughts you allow to form and pass through. Through practice, even if you have a negative thought you will be able to recognise it and let it just pass by without dwelling or building other negative thoughts around that thought.
○ Keep a journal and record your feelings in there to keep track of what makes you feel this way as well as being able to reflect back and see why these things are causing you to feel anxious.

Below i have listed some products that may help in the reduction of anxiety. If you have any questions please book in an appointment with me at either the Spring Farm or North Kellyville store through https://www.choicepharmacy.com.au/book-an-appointment/