Anxiety

M

Mary80

Peer Supporter
Does anyone have any other suggestions for getting rid of anxiety? I read Claire Weekes and at first it seemed useful, I have this problem practically at any moment in everything I do, every appointment I have, every people I meet. . always. I know anxiety increases during work for tms. . but I can not continue because while some symptoms are leaving me, this remains exactly the same. . at most it increases:shifty:. I am totally at the mercy of this problem and as much as I try to do all I have to do, my life has suffered limitations. Do you have any advice or book to suggest that I can integrate with everything I have already read and applied?
Thank you
 
I did both, the program of Dr. Shubiner and Alan Gordon. Some pain symptoms are going away but the anxiety is stable or grows and I can not take it anymore. My brain does not understand and continues to panic. . I can not concentrate while I'm talking to someone, I try but when I talk I'm distracted by the symptoms of anxiety, so I try to calm down and keep talking but after a few seconds it restart until I finish doing what I'm doing and I'm leaving, but all I do like going shopping to go to the hairdresser go to a meeting go to the pharmacy. . ..almost everywhere. . anxiety comes to me. faithful friend.
 
Hello Mary! First a big hug from a fellow anxiety sufferer!
How long have you worked with Claire Weekes? It took me maybe a year before the almost constant terrible anxiety got better. Then another 6 months or so where it faded and I became more free and relaxed, it didn´t disappear, but it came in different nuances and I suddenly could focus on other things! And then after this 6 months the anxiety was almost gone. The nervous system was still (and is) under a lot of stress, but it was more like "stress" and not like the anxiety which you constantly want to get away from.
Much love and understanding to you!
Durga

Ps!
My TMS is CFS, so my nervous system is especially triggered, so maybe it took longer for me, but it worked. Letting time pass!)
 
Hello :)
I have been working with these new approches about 2 years. First with unlearn your pain and unlearn your anxiety and depression and then about 2 months with Claire and Alan. I'm really tired, I also go to a therapist, I try to be patient but sometimes it's hard, when you have to go to pay bills or do important things, I can not do a speech without anxiety overwhelms me, everything that I do.. even the most stupid ... is not just afraid of something or someone, now it's become a part of my character and believe me I was not so ... I do not understand what happens ..is too much ..too much and I do not love medicines .. but if I have to do something important I take a bit of benzodiazepines .. and I have anxiety anyway ..:bored::grumpy::shifty: . It seems that there is nothing that works but this is not possible..not even I think it is so .... then maybe I need another idea or another way..that is right for me. I commit myself and suffer in silence and I do not find right that Mrs. Anxiety does not make a little effort to find the door and get out of my life. ...sorry I try to throw it on the comedian. I feel like a hamster in the wheel.
 
This is not directly responsive to anything above, but I think the definitive scientific book on anxiety is Joseph LeDoux's Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015). Despite the subtitle, which I suspect is the product of an overzealous marketing person at the publisher, the book does not provide any self-help advice on how to overcome anxiety. To the contrary, it explains why psychotherapists and pharmaceutical companies have had so little success in coming up with effective treatment for anxiety (including benzodiazepines, as Mary80 experienced), and it suggests a new direction for pharmaceutical research. But I found the book interesting for its unparalleled explanation of what anxiety is and why people have it--to a troubling degree for many people, as chapter 9 includes this tidbit: "Though anxiety is fundamental to human nature, for some people it has debilitating consequences. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, forty million people in the United States alone have some form of an anxiety disorder."

The book is not an easy read because it is loaded with neuroscience. However, LeDoux is not only a neuroscientist but also is a gifted writer who wrote the book for both scientists and lay people. An intelligent lay person who puts in the effort can understand what he is saying. I think knowledge about what is actually going on with anxiety can to some extent provide comfort even if it is not a "cure."
 
Thanks, it seems interesting, I think I'll read it.
there is someone else who wants to tell his experience with this problem and if someone has managed to solve. . how ? I need suggestions, I do not really know what else to do.
thank you
 
No one else anxious can give me advice?
I bought Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety .
 
Mary,
Claire and Alan's methods usually take longer than 2 months. You're so sensitized right now that your brain is causing a lot of chemicals/hormones to flood your body. It is no wonder you are feeling completely overwhelmed.

I saw someone say in their post that the anxiety was all smoke and mirrors. I really appreciated that idea. The special effects these days are amazing and if the theater seats are on a moving platform it's so "physical."

Rather than reading, have you listened to Claire Weekes? I find listening to her so soothing, especially when driving to and from stress producing errands.

Lizzy
 
Lizzy said:
Mary,
Claire and Alan's methods usually take longer than 2 months. You're so sensitized right now that your brain is causing a lot of chemicals/hormones to flood your body. It is no wonder you are feeling completely overwhelmed.
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Lizzy is quite right. Healing takes the time it takes especially if you've been unwell for a long time. This is why I encourage people to foster patience and a gentle approach to recovery. It really is a moment-by-moment, day-to-day process at the beginning but with time this softens and becomes more natural.

It really helps to embrace as many self-soothers into your life as you can. Anything that calms and relaxes you is good and helps to gradually reduce the stress the nervous system is under.

It does get easier.

Plum x
 
Lizzy said:
Mary,
Claire and Alan's methods usually take longer than 2 months. You're so sensitized right now that your brain is causing a lot of chemicals/hormones to flood your body. It is no wonder you are feeling completely overwhelmed.
Click to expand...

So guys, I want to point out that Mary80 actually says she's been working on this for 2 years, not 2 months.

Mary80 said:
I have been working with these new approches about 2 years.
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Mary80, have you been working with a therapist? Also, have you had your magnesium level thoroughly checked? Sorry, that's all I have to suggest.
 
EileenS said:
So guys, I want to point out that Mary80 actually says she's been working on this for 2 years, not 2 months.
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I followed Sarno's and later Schubiner's advice for 7 years, and then loosened the hold before I started to see any improvement in my pain levels so I truly understand the agony of an excruciatingly slow recovery. I don't tend to reference my healing time frame lest it discourage people but having suffered trigeminal neuralgia for almost 2 decades, to be where I am now is priceless. It's been a long and heart-breaking journey but one I know to be grounded in patience, self-compassion and self-care. All else was variously interesting or redundant.

EileenS said:
Mary80...have you had your magnesium level thoroughly checked? Sorry, that's all I have to suggest.
Click to expand...

The magnesium issue is definitely worth exploration. The barren soil which produces our food has been woefully low in this and other essential minerals for decades. I routinely bathe in magnesium salts and swear by their efficacy. They are not a magic bullet but they are a very important element in health and well-being. Epsom salts are cheap enough and readily available to incorporate into any lifestyle.
 
Hi everyone
excuse me maybe I wrote wrong..It has been 2 years since I started with Dr. Sarno, 1 year Dr Shubiner, 2 months Claire Weekes/Alan Gordon and I'm seeing a therapist for 1 years. Before all this ..I've donerelaxation and mindfulness but like self-taught. I would say there was a little bit of progress..very small almost in all, but anxiety seems to be getting worse, I'm trying to be better about it...because I can't do anything ..and I do not want to take medicine every day but only when I really need it .My gynecologist prescribed magnesium for my PMS.
Thanks to all .. talk with you about all these symptoms is useful to me... and thank you for the inspiring advice.
 
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EileenS said:
So guys, I want to point out
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Sorry to sound flippant in this posting. I meant to say "sorry guys", but my annoying mouse pad deletes things when my hot hands hover over it while typing. (Us Canadians are known for saying sorry a lot.)
 
Mary80 said:
Hi everyone
excuse me maybe I wrote wrong..It has been 2 years since I started with Dr. Sarno, 1 year Dr Shubiner, 2 months Claire Weekes/Alan Gordon and I'm seeing a therapist for 1 years. Before all this ..I've donerelaxation and mindfulness but like self-taught. I would say there was a little bit of progress..very small almost in all, but anxiety seems to be getting worse, I'm trying to be better about it...because I can't do anything and I do not want to take medicine every day but only when I really need it .My gynecologist prescribed magnesium for my PMS. Thanks to all .. talk with you about all these symptoms is useful to me... and thank you for the inspiring advice.
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Mary, none of the mind-oriented or psychological methods worked for me and I truly gave them more than a fair run. It was only when I started to include my body in my healing that I began to get better. I explain this more in 'My Story'. I'm not the only person who has found body-oriented healing more appropriate and effective.

Did your gynecologist prescribe magnesium tablets or salts to bathe in? The best method is what they call transdermal meaning it passes through the skin because the absorption rates are much higher and much quicker. Magnesium tablets upset the stomach at higher (effective) doses so very little gets absorbed. For this reason it is often used as a laxative.

EileenS said:
Sorry to sound flippant in this posting. I meant to say "sorry guys", but my annoying mouse pad deletes things when my hot hands hover over it while typing. (Us Canadians are known for saying sorry a lot.)
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No worries. I'd rather someone provide a heads up than miss vital information. I do most of my postings on my smartphone so there are errors aplenty. (Us Brits also say sorry all the time).
 
Hi Plum,
I read your story .. you've really had so much trouble, you have been strong in many difficult moments and I can only learn from you.
I agree the body must be included in the process, and personally I have long since stopped writing and analyzing rather than trying to feel and to tell the truth while analyzing and writing I did not feel any relief, but I waited and followed the steps, the analysis is only a step then it moves on to something else, I did it this way. I recently noticed that something is happening ... there are small changes, so small that I realize little, less pain, less burning, few dizziness, but almost disappeared, if someone asks me how I managed I can not really answer .. I do not know what's going on, I simply stopped looking for the cure .. I come here on the forum and I read and participate, I ask for advice and all this reminds me what I have to do and what not. Maybe an important step for me was when I felt a deep pain rise from my anxiety, a strong feeling .. I was very anxious and I did not know why, I was home and I told myself .. you're anxious..ok is fine is not important, just listen, so this feeling has emerged and I burst into tears without understanding ... while all this happened I understood that I finally gave myself permission to feel. This was liberating for me..I had some other moments when I allowed my body and mind to go together and feel fully, maybe that's why I'm getting better, but now I'm ready for the next step .. the anxiety is sky-high and I need to find a way to figure out how to deal with it, I use the book by Claire Weekes but I want to integrate, because alone it's not helping me ... maybe it's because I can not follow very well what she says. I am sure there is a way for each of us and that for each of us it is different and I believe that my path is yet to be discovered, so I ask ... because each of you can give me an important idea. I want to try yin yoga for example, maybe it's my way too.
For magnesium the doctor said only magnesium without saying how ...I'll buy it and try the bath salts as you say.

thank you so much
 
Those small barely noticable changes begin to increase and come more often. The trick is to let them be and try not to seize on them or over-analyse because that only increases tension. The whole healing process is a gentle awareness of letting be and letting go, tuning into your body but not judging it too much. It is overwhelming in the beginning but this lessens with time until a healing momentum is reached.

Remember that you are calming an over-sensitised system and for a while it will tend to amplify sensations and feelings. Here you need to apply the soothing techniques and practices that help you. They act as bridges and begin to lay good feeling pathways that in time take over from the negative painful ones. This should feel like a pleasant process not one that is fraught or challenging.

I found Claire Weekes to be brilliant when I was in the midst of a panic attack but for low level anxiety or other such feelings I find being in Nature the most beneficial of all. Sometimes sitting on my balcony in the moonlight is enough. Anything we can do to counter the frenetic and busy demands of modern life is good. Silence and solitude are balms for me in this regard.

You'll find your path. It's just an inspiration away.

Plum x
 
Mary80 said:
For magnesium the doctor said only magnesium without saying how ...I'll buy it and try the bath salts as you say
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If you do take a magnesium supplement, make sure it's not magnesium oxide. That's the one most likely to give 'the runs'. And don't take tablets because as Plum mentions, very little is absorbed. I started going to a TCM acupuncturist in Feb and 3 weeks ago she insisted I start taking magnesium aspartate in capsules (ie powder) at 200 mg a day, for my tight muscles. Within a week I was sleeping better, no anxiety (I had low level anxiety), heart flutters gone, and muscles are noticeably relaxing more. Epsom salts are wonderful and baths are too.
 
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