Reply to Anxiety & Depression on dsp

[Guest_24334156]

Hello. 

I hope this forum finds you well. I have a problem with anxiety attacks everyday and panic. I can't hold a job down successfully. Does anyone have any ideas to help me? I've tried many things but keep landing in it. I used to be a childcare assistant and animal shelter volunteer. I'm on the ndis now.

Thankyou for reading this. If someone could respond I would be most happy.

[Sophie_M]

Hi Kali79,

Thank you for your post and welcome to the Forums. This is a safe and supportive space for you to connect with others who understand what it is like. Anxiety and panic attacks are something that many of us here can relate to and understand just how debilitating it can be.

Because anxiety is something many of us experience, there is a lot of information and research around what is most helpful. There is a great resource here which goes into more detail about the types of treatments available for anxiety and what some next steps might be: Treatments for anxiety and 10 strategies for managing anxiety. There is also an older thread here on the Forums from one of our Community Champions discussing what they did to manage their anxiety.

Is there anything that you are doing at the moment to help manage your anxiety?  For example, a distraction that you find helpful when you feel the anxious feelings starting to build?

We hope that you can treat yourself with kindness as you navigate this. Thank you again for your sharing here. We are here to support you through this – you are not alone.
 
Kind regards
Sophie M
 

[indigo22]

Hello and welcome,

There are so many people these days who find their lives taken over by mental health issues, it says a lot about the world we live in and the way things have changed in the past 100 years or so. Sophie M has offered a number of links that may help with keeping your anxiety in check.

I am currently watching a series on something that you may have heard of called the gut-brain axis. For a really long time, science has looked at the different parts of our body as separate and independent, but this is not the case and science is starting to become more aware of this fact. Everything is connected and what we consume has an important role on how our health is in all areas. If we concentrate on our gut first, taking care of our micro-biome, giving it the right types of foods for it to flourish, it has a follow on effect with the rest of the body improving health including mental health.

In this series, one of the things that has been talked about in this regard, is incorporating good quality fermented foods daily. The probiotics that are available really don't do a lot to assist as they are only made up of a small number of strains of bacteria, where as good quality fermented foods generally contain a more diverse range.

Some examples of things to include in the diet would be yoghurts, sauerkraut, kimchi, kafir, miso, tempeh, most of which you would find in health food stores in the refrigerated section. This part is important because to keep the bacteria live and viable, they need to be refrigerated. Fermented foods can also be made at home fairly easily and by doing this, you will know exactly what has gone into them.

Can I suggest doing some research on this information and trying this for a few weeks to prove to yourself whether or not it works for you. Also doing some research on the Vagus Nerve as this is the pathway between the gut and the brain and can be stimulated when you are in an anxious state to encourage the nervous system to return to a regulated state.

I also wanted to suggest if you are able to, get back to being around animals again as they are masters in helping to regulate the nervous system and they are just so comforting to be around.

I hope this helps and would be interested to hear how you are going if you wish to share.

Take good care of yourself,

indigo

[Croix]

Dear Kali79~

I'd like to join Sophie_M and Indigo22 in welcoming you here to the forum. It's a good move as very many here have an anxiety condition, myself included. 

You have already been given a fair amout of information and links to follow, they are extremely useful. However I thought I might be able to add a little more by saying how I try to deal with anxiety attacks. I've had them for a very long time and still am on clinical support and medication.

For me the first problem is I may not realize that anxiety has taken over and my thoughts are illness driven, with me thinking of a particular thing, conversation or event and getting to where it seems quite logical to me that the very worst outcome is quite possible.

This is accompanied by various physical symptoms, from stomach problems to the shakes.

If left like this unchecked my decision making capacity is not good, I'll treat everything as huge barriers, and the thoughts go on and on in a 'hamster wheel', frequently keeping me awake at night as they go round and round.

I've found the two main ways to break this cycle of thoughts is firstly though another whom I trust, normally my partner, sometimes my psych. They can point out my thoughts are skewed and no disaster is likely.. My partner then deliberately distracts me into doing something else, from opening a stuck jam jar to walking with Foxy Dog. 

If I am by myself I really have two things to do once I realise I'm having over-anxious thoughts. The first is to break that continuous loop of thoughts, going over the same thing again and again. The second is how to stop them coming back.

To break the loop I use the free smartphone app Smiling Mind. This has exercises in it to focus you mind on a particular thing, perhaps a leaf in a stream. It has umpteen exercises for all levels of skill. I have the attention span of a gold-fish and even I found an exercise that suited me.  It must be admitted it does take practice when you first start, however it is worth it. It leaves you calm and not thinking of the thing you were stressing on before.

Left to itself shortly later my mind would start to return to that set of thoughts so I have pre-prepaired a number of things I can do straight way. As an example I read, however when anxious I can't concentrate, but now in this temporary calm I can start to read, and that then takes over. I have a number of enjoyable books put to one side and will start at a chapter in one of these.

Same applies to movies, tv shows, walking the little fat dog, ringing a friend or many more. Your tastes will be different, but when feeling well I'm sure you get the idea and can put things aside ready to be used.

I hope these posts have been of some use, please do come back and talk some more should you wish

Croix