Hi great people, can anybody recommend any remedies for anxiety that allow you to function well?

[miahall1]

[Jeffju]

Well I have tried CBT, yoga, deep breathing, hypnotherapy, meditation,listening to relaxation cd's and Bachs rescue remedy and lots of support from people. All this plus effort on my own part have lessened my anxiety. It's not completely gone but I am a lot better than I used to be.Hope this may be of help. I still listen to the cd's and they are good. Julie xx

[Hidden]

Hi I have used CBT and Meditation, Yoga is great to. If you do go to the doctor and they recommend medication don't beat your self up about it. I was to scared to ask for help and things get so bad I really needed the medication for a while. But it is great to see you on here taking positive to help yourself now. Why not try mindfulness : a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world. It comes with meditation CDs and practical exercises to do, they might have it or similar books in your libary if you just want to try them out. Hope this helps

[formidible]

May I ask why you need to function well? One of the things with anxiety and depression is accepting that it will take time to recover and to then try making changes in your life that may have contributed to the way you feel now. Apart from the recommendations above, maybe also consider counseling. You obviously need as much support as possible right now. Good luck.

[cheekipixi]

Nothing works for me, I just have to let it ride its out, my son has a number of anxieties issues and when he was little I used to ask him to lie down on the bed/settee, close his eyes and I would tell a story of calm waters that were warm, sun coming thru the trees etc etc, or the other 1 was, artex on the ceiling, start at the corner of the ceiling and he becomes a little ant or a smaller version of himself, the bumps in the artex are hills or sandunes, now he starts his journey finishing up at the opposite corner, sounds silly I know but it took his mind from what was making him anxious. The mind is a mean machine sometimes, I hate the stubbornness of mine.

Take care x

[Lions13]

Cheekipixi has an excellent bit of advice and she may not even know it "I just have to ride it out".

Very often when we are faced with an anxiety provoking situation we tend to avoid it. We think to ourselves "This is too scary", so we decide to avoid the scary situation and never get to discover whether or not we would be able to cope with it.

While anxiety tends to rise sharply, it will also dissipate if we go into the situation that we are fearful of. Unfortunately, the reduction in anxiety is more gradual and we very often miss out on noticing this as by avoiding the situation this allows our anxious feelings to disappear more quickly.

With anxiety we tend to overestimate the fear and/or danger of a situation. On top of that we underestimate our own ability to cope with a situation. How often have imagined what is going to happen and come up with an absolute catastrophe? When you come up with the catastrophe did you try to challenge it or just accept that was what would happen and run away screaming. I know I have done the latter. By taking a little time you can start to recognise some your thoughts and start to challenge them.

There are 5 steps that you can use - STOPP.

S - Stop

T - Take a breath

O - Observe. What am I thinking? What am I reacting to? What am I feeling?

P - Pull back & put in some perspective. See the bigger picture. Is this fact or opinion? How would someone else see this?

P - Practise what works. What's the best thing to do for me, for others, for this situation?

A wee tool that I use with some of my clients is WORST, BEST, MOST LIKELY. It lets you imagine the worst case scenario in any situation and you get to write it down. I then encourage them to think of the best possible situation, imagining every single thing has gone absolutely perfectly. The next stage is to consider what the most likely outcome would be. Once they have done this I ask them of they would survive all of the possible outcomes. The answer is normally yes...they might not enjoy the outcome, but they would survive. When we are in the throws of anxiety we don't tend to think of any other outcome than the worst possible one. This tool lets us take a little time to see there are other possibilities.

Take care

John

[Ashbash25]

The only thing that works for me and makes me feel remotely normal is diazepam but people and doctors are very reluctant to it but if it makes me feel normal I couldn't care less.