Anxiety

Anxiety is more than just feeling stressed or worried. While stress and anxious feelings are a common response to a situation where we feel under pressure, they usually pass once the stressful situation has passed, or ‘stressor’ is removed.

Anxiety is when these anxious feelings don't go away – when they're ongoing and happen without any particular reason or cause. It’s a serious condition that makes it hard to cope with daily life. Everyone feels anxious from time to time, but for someone experiencing anxiety, these feelings aren't easily controlled.

Anxiety is the most common mental health condition in Australia. On average, one in four people – one in three women and one in five men – will experience anxiety at some stage in their life.

In a 12-month period, over two million Australians experience anxiety.

Anxiety is common, but the sooner people with anxiety get support, the more likely they are to recover.(1)

What causes it?

• The biochemical driver of anxiety is the hormone adrenaline and it’s silent but equally dangerous side-kick cortisol, also created by the adrenal gland which is released in response to a stressor. A stressor may be the irrational demands of a sociopathic business partner, but it can also be something as blame-free as an infection, sports injury or even an excessively hot day.
• Genes may be a factor. Anxious parents beget anxious children, though whether this is nature or nurture is open for debate.
• Lack of sleep, whether due to insomnia, shit work or burning the candle at both ends, can cause or exacerbate anxiety.
• Anxiety may be a symptom of a physical or mental illness or a side effect of a medication.
• Trauma such as a car accident or death of a close friend or family member can instigate anxiety.
• Anxiety is often experienced by people who are withdrawing from drugs of addictions, including alcohol and tobacco.

Aims of Treatment:

Relieve symptoms of anxiety through the use of anxiolytic and sedative herbs. Support the nervous system and the adrenal glands. Relieve associated symptoms such as cardiac symptoms.

What to do

While it is important to manage the diet to reduce stimulants and settle the nerves, the most important thing of all is to find a way for your body to calm. When your physical body is calm, your mind will follow suit. This is fundamental to helping ease the awfulness that is anxiety. Find a technique or method that works for you, and faithfully and consistently use it.

We use various naturopathic principles to treat the cause and look for the disharmony in your body and mind to bring your body back to balance. Please see below a brief treatment (Rx) protocol and reference guide, with choices to help improve your health and wellbeing. Click on the headings and links within for more treatment information.

HERBAL MEDICINE:

Listed here are a few of the medicinal herbal medicines that may be considered by a professional medical herbalist to create a specific herbal remedy formula (compound) to treat this condition and heal your body.

Bacopa, Black Cohosh, Californian Poppy, Chamomile, Damiana, Hawthorn, Hops, Holy Basil, Jamaica Dogwood, Japanese Knotweed, Kava, Kudzu, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Lime Flowers, Lion's Mane, Magnolia, Mexican Valerian, Motherwort, Oats, Passion Flower, Rosemary, Saffron, Schisandra, Skullcap, St. John's Wort (Hypericum), Valerian, Vervain, Withania, Zizyphus.

AROMATHERAPY:

Combining essential oils into a lifestyle routine that suits you is also a beneficial way to helping you improve ‘Your Style of Life’. Listed below is a suggestion you may enjoy.

COMBINE

3 drops of Frankincense – has the ability to slow and deepen the breath, carminative, tonic, sedative.

1 drop of Ylang-Ylang – sedative, soothing and calming.

2 drops of Vetiver – calming soothing sedating and a great tonic to the nervous system.

4 drops of Roman Chamomile – soothing, balancing, calming, restorative and sedating.

5 drops of Bergamot – revitalising uplifting, regulating balancing, anti-depressant.

USES

1. Once mixed together, 6 to 8 drops of this wonderfully relaxing, soothing and uplifting blend can be used in a room vaporiser.
2. Mixed with jojoba oil, it can be worn as a personal perfume.
3. Placed in a 30 ml spray bottle with essential oil dispersant and rose or orange blossom water, it can be used as a personal spray.
4. Mixed into 1/2 – 1 cup Epsom salts makes for the most relaxing bath.
5. Use as a massage blend in sweet almond oil for a full body relaxing massage.