Just joined - working on reducing anxiety

[lynzee720]

Hi, I just joined this group. Help from pharmaceuticals is not an option for me. The side effects caused restless leg syndrome / sleep deprivation. After 15 years this almost killed me. I stopped 6 years ago. I am managing and living with depression through diet, exercise, and mind guidance. Last year I started experiencing anxiety. Depression has been with me since I was 7. Now I realized the anxiety began earlier in life. So I am working toward identifying non medical ways to reduce anxiety. Even though I do eat yogurt daily, I did find that also eating kimchi every day made a difference. It happened after three months.

[Cruncher]

Distraction is key and writing things out. Reminding myself that the things I am anxious about are usually not going to matter to me later on, or are not going to stop the world from spinning and are small in the grand scheme of things

[lynzee720 in reply to Cruncher]

Good .. putting the event into perspective. Thank you. I can feel the relief just thinking of this.

[Hidden]

How about counselling? Does that help? Mindfulness is good for anxiety and there is lots of info online about it.

[lynzee720 in reply to Hidden]

Thanks for mentioning counseling. I did ask for and did get a referral through my health care. I saw the person 4x. Not a good fit. But at the end of the second visit I discovered the feeling I was having is anxiety. Wow... after 20 yrs of counseling ... this year is the first time I felt anxiety. This is when I realized it has been there all along. I realized that I was anxious before I started with depression. This is a big missing piece is of understanding of what happened. Anyway, once I knew what it was I started working to find relief.

As you and many know, the feelings we had as children are some times not connected to words so we don't know what went on in adult thinking terms. I was told how difficult I was starting at 4 yrs old with wetting the bed and chewing my cuticles and clothes. Sad that I was deemed 'bad" and that my parents could not know that I needed help and support not punishment.