End Your Anxiety
Mental Health Alternatives
This site covers alternative and complimentary treatments for stress, anxiety and depression, and related mental health disorders, offering information, articles, current research, resources, and product recommendations.
|
Anxiety. You feel tense, with shortness of breath. Heart racing. Fear-driven. Tired but wired. Irritable. Sometimes dizzy. Trouble concentrating.
In a full-blown panic attack you may feel all these symptoms accompanied by an intense fear, and unpleasant physical symptoms such as trembling and sweaty palms.
Over time, anxiety is an exhausting disease that wears down the body and mind, causing everything from depression to heart disease, stroke, premature aging, and a whole host of other common ailments. About 90% of all visits to primary health care providers are due to stress-related problems.
Stress can wreak havoc on the limbic system, the brain region responsible for emotion. Brain parts that are primarily affected include the amygdala and the hippocampus. The amygdala is involved in the perception of fear-evoking whereas the hippocampus is involved in emotional memory. Both can be damaged by prolonged stress, leading to a dangerous feedback loop of fear-driven negative emotions. It's called anxiety.
Not surprisingly, most people who have anxiety for a long period of time also experience depression.
The most common anxiety disorders are: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Phobias (including Social Phobia, also known as Social Anxiety Disorder).
Not sure if you really have anxiety? If your common symptoms of anxiety are persistent and overwhelming, it's probably anxiety. To be sure, take this Anxiety Self Quiz from the National Institute of Anxiety and Stress.
Recommended Products
 Conquer Anxiety
A Complete Step-by-Step Action Plan that Shows You How To Overcome Your Anxiety. 6 CDs and a 200 page workbook. The best of cognitive-behavioral therapy, nutrition, psychology, personal development, medicine, stress management, learning theory, and breakthrough alternative approaches. A comprehensive program for an anxiety-free life.
The Panic Center Outstanding site containing a huge amount of information and a free 12-week cognitive behavioral therapy program.
MoodGYM Excellent (and free) web-based program of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy addressing depression and anxiety. More accessible to those on higher-speed connections.
Also see: End Your Depression
|
Recommended Reading Healing Anxiety and Depression by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. and Lisa C. Routh, M.D., Berkeley Publishing Group, 2003. Explains the source of anxiety and depression though SPECT brain scan images, and then provides proven-effective treatment plans for each type of anxiety-depression.
The Instinct To Heal, Curing Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D., Rodale Press, 2004. Depression Free, Naturally by Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D. Ballantine Wellspring, 1999. Seven weeks to eliminating anxiety, despair, fatigue, and anger from your life |
| Do you run a site that should be listed here? Link to this site and then tell us about it. |
|
