Dealing with anxiety/stress triggers

I saw a psychologist....lots of therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy and some biofeedback.


yes, having ongoing chronis illness doesn't help and will exacerbate the stress/distress.

when it rains it pours...usually. Changing one's perspective or at least having options to see options is better than taking the victim role continually.

I do take an antidepressant but thinking I might be able to lower the dosage or go off of it.
I do use depression to deal with anxiety. Double edged sword....I'm more fearful of the depression than the anxiety, but I'm feeling emotionally stronger to at least put it all to the test.

Who's giving you your antianxiety meds? Ask to be referred to a therapist or counsellor or someone who does cognitive behavioural therapy.

quincy

hello,
for my anxiety I use alot of relaxation tech. such as hot baths, walks, music, art, ect. creativity seems to help me to release what ever is going on for me. Excersise helps a great deal as well. I find that the meds do seem to feed into the anxiety somehow and make it worse. Not to mention they are addictive and that in it self is a bad cycle. I had such a hard time coming off the medication. This is what works for me and I hope that might be helpful in answering your question.

nichole....I don't take any meds for anxiety at this time, but I was taking ativan for a while as well as clonazepam. The ativan made me more depressed and the clonazepam made me too zonked the next day.

Once I started the Effexor XR, the anxiety did seem to lessen as well, but I'm on a low dosage just enough to take the edge off.

The Lexapro would work better for those with more anxiety than Effexor would. It wouldn't work for me. I took Celexa for a week and I slept and felt worse.

You should definitely see a therapist or counsellor to help get your mental thoughts figured out. It's almost impossible to do it all on our own because it's so automatic the thoughts are never recognised since the reaction is what we see first.

quincy

Stress and antibiotics seems to cause my flares. I try to avoid antibiotics and my Mother in Law, I mean stress, as much as possible.

The counselor/therapist route seems a good one. But I guess the question remains, what kind of counselor? Aren't there sub specialties in psychology? How would you find an appropriate one?

j.

Consistency, moderation, experience and exercise help me.
Consistency: I need good sleep, good food (protein and carbs frequently)
Moderation: Anything in excess is bad news. I can handle alcohol, caffeine, sugar, spices and most anything in moderation
Experience: I have two types of anxiety. One is based on epilepsy and having seizures (I take valium for that). The other is anxiety from phobias I've learned to master (I used to take xanax for these). For instance driving in traffic was anxiety producing and I would have panic attacks if place in situations I felt I couldn’t get out of. I know relax and give into the feeling instead of fighting it. I've found that if I take an "I don't care" attitude when the anxiety situation presents itself (say stuck on a chair lift while skiing), then I don't have panic. I realized that I never had these anxiety attacks while buzzed with alcohol or when terribly sick. This is because I’m so relaxed when drinking or have an “I don’t care attitude when sick. So I try to act as though I’m that way when in a situation that may cause anxiety. I just say I don't care and relax into the feeling. It's hard to explain but it works for me.

I need exercise almost everyday as well.