I experienced similar symptoms to what you are feeling and here is what I did to turn things around -
Give it a go, you should feel a whole lot more energised and relaxed. It’s a life style change!

1) Get a physical flush from a colonic therapist – A good one will give you feedback!

2) Afterwards eat mainly raw fruit and vegetables for a few days

3) Start to do some light excerises daily and slowly increase them – I found doing Wii fit/sports
fun and it didn’t seem like a chore.

4) Drink a least two pints of water a day. After a while your body will let you know when it needs it!

To get more detailed info check out these 2 websites which helped me change my life style:

http://bit.ly/7qvARP

http://bit.ly/720W8q

Good Luck!

I know excessive salt contributes to it, but I don’t really eat salty foods. For many years, I’ve been hearing that stress can also contribute to hypertension. I’ve been SUPER stressed out lately! Worried about a LOT. But my nurse practitioner said that stress has nothing to do with my pressure being high.

Your nurse practitioner is WRONG. When you are stressed, your sympathetic nervous system (aka fight or flight response) kicks in and releases epinephrine into your blood stream, increasing your blood pressure, heart rate, ect. You may have naturally underlying high blood pressure, but stress will increase it even further. Temporary stressors (like almost falling off a cliff) that raise your BP are not harmful, but a normal response. However, if you have chronic stress and high blood pressure, you need to have the high BP treated so your heart and blood vessels do not sustain damage and you also need to find some way of relieving stress that works for you. (exercise is best).

I’ve decided to change my diet, and cut out everything that stresses me out.
This means that anything with caffeine or alcohol in it has to go, and all the B-vitamine robbers are off limits, too (sugar, etc.).
Does anyone here know of any diets specifically geared toward calming people down and restoring their strength and resourcefulness?
I’ve been through a few mentally exhausting years, and want to make a fresh start.

The process of thinking causes psychological stress: can we explore the cause?

The symptom maybe a psychological focus of attention upon a ”desire to eat”, which in turn leads to ”eating when not hungry”, and ”eating more of one thing in a given time than is healthy”. What is the cause of this symptom?

Enjoyment of any activity tends to get translated into the mental image of pleasure, after the feeling of delight has passed. This translation process turns our sensual experience into a neural pattern: this is the process of identification.

Enjoyment is quite natural, but the worship of a lingering image in memory leads to the psychological desire to re-enjoy that pattern, unconnected with any physical need.

Like any mental image (such as brushing ones teeth in the morning), the image of pleasure can become associated with daily routine, to the extent that certain associations will always illicit attention to that mental image of pleasure. That’s why advertisers spend so much money on TV ads.

All foods and drinks are toxic at the wrong dose, including water.
Your body knows when it is hungry and thirsty, as it will grumble.

So the next thing ones psyche opts to try is: "not eating till you get hungry" and "not drinking till you get thirsty". This ”try” thing is a reaction to ones existing habit, so trying is an academic concept to the human mind, and as such it becomes a mental image in conflict with your other habit patterns which you’ve long cultivated. Ones brain tries to strive toward the ideal concept, whilst trying to escape from the vicefull resident habit.

So you’ll no doubt find (or have already found) that whatever method or approach you try, at some point, your vicefull habitual patterns will take over when your concentration is spent for whatever reason. That is why replacing old habits with new habits only works temporarily.

What ever path you try to adopt to change (even the path of ignoring all habits) will eventually fail: why? There is some friction in attempting to conform to an ideal habit, which saps ones energy. It is akin to stretching elastic: the longer your brain attempts to conform to an ideal desire, the more tension grows until your brain has no energy to maintain that stretch any longer. The recoil just sends you back into the reverse of that ideal, the pattern of vice.

So the question arises: is there a state of mind in which habits don’t operate at all (even thought the machinery exists); a state of being which is born only of the bodies natural needs?

Normal human psychological approaches intend to remove unnatural patterns/habits by: 1) changing them into a good habit (creating ideals) 2) attempting to destroy the pattern by attacking our old habits with criticism (self denial) 3) to replace our old habit with another bad habit (sublimation).

All that "trying to change" sustains the habitual pattern in our attention; those approaches are therefore doomed to fail.

So is there a state of mind which ones brain does not attempt to: fulfill, attack, mutate or replace the desire/habit when our attention flows into that neural pattern?

We can watch a sunset, but never give attention to the desire to see one every night: can we be like that with our other enjoyments, detached?

Any effort to achieve detachment is doomed to fail, for detachment is the absence of any mental agitation of any kind. A state of effortlessness cannot be reached by effort.

The question is: can you live with your desires without trying to change them or fulfill them? Can you live with yourself without judging/criticizing or priding/condoning your habits, desires or fears? Can you live with your questions without attempting to synthesize a solution?

I kind of understand the concept but what is stress and how does sensory overload directly affect it.

Stress, as you’ve guessed, is a combination of mental and physical fatigue. I pastor a Church and deal with it personally and in counseling. I even wrote a short booklet on it. Your mind and body are connected. Worry, fear, anxiety, and such things add to the body’s stress as well. A body that is run down, exhausted, or sick can impact your mental state as well. Stress is unavoidable. It is part of life. We feel it any time there is pressure. Pressure to perform, pressure to be somewhere, pressure to do something, pressure to be something. All of this is stress.

Sensory overload, to culminate in stress, is usually something that is built up over time. For example: Listening to someone chewing loudly will grow more bothersome to some people over time. It focuses the mind on it so that they can’t tune it out. The intense focus on something like that leads to stress.

We live in a society where noise and images are the primary means of gaining attention. You drive down the street and see billboards and signs. You watch TV and have images flashing rapidly at you with the often overwhelming number of sounds and noises. Movies can be stressful for people. They give children nightmares, they can cause sleep deprivation. I go into people’s houses and notice that the TV is on and no one is watching. They don’t even realize that the images and noise is constantly on. You can say that their senses have been overwhelmed.

I’ve even found a correlation between children diagnosed with ADD and their environment at home. When the house is loud, noisy, and generally in a clamor, children can’t seem to absorb it well and often end up with attention spans much less than other children. It is a form of stress. I’ve observed teenagers that have to have music playing all the time, even when they go to sleep, tend to be more nervous and stressed than others.

And you can’t discount a person’s emotional state. The more raw our emotions, the more impact sensory input can affect it. A parent who had a bad day at work and comes home to loud and rambunctious children will quickly grow stressed with the noise and find himself or herself unable to deal with it properly. A wife having a bad marriage will find herself unable to deal with the pressures of her job, especially if she works in a loud environment.

There are many factors, but yes, stress and sensory overload are connected.

I need to act as though I have severe anxiety. I’m at college studying drama and performing arts and it’s crucial for this new role. I’m acting the part of a troubled middle age man who suffers with anxiety and Bipolar disorder. Any tips?

I have a anxiety disorder so if I was you I would be really happy and jolly then sudden outburst with anger at someone or something when something happens, when you are anxious you feel like you are excited about something, remember a time like this then remember the feeling 100x more powerful, it’s horrible but if your acting. You have to shake a lot, be clumsy, talk shakily, move around a lot and try to always sit down. Hope this helps you!

If you could ask Santa Claus for a method or a process or a way of handling the stress in your life, what would it do? What would it look like?
For example, meditation has helped me stay calm under stress – but the outer stress is still there.
Maybe learning to work better in teams, to get some stress off your shoulders – but then there’s the stress of working with other people!
I’d like to know what other people think.
Thank you.

Hello

That is a MASSIVE question, that Is difficult to answer all here.

The best way to release stress is to ‘Mind Dump.’

By this I mean take a piece of paper, or what ever you can get you hands on and wright everything down that is on your mind. I do mean EVERYTHING. It could be the clothes you need to get ready to get your kids to school in the morning, preparing the report that is due on your bosses desk at 9am or you need to pick up some dog food at the store, before Paddy starves!! This isn’t a 30 second job, take 5,10… an hour if you need to do this. I coached one person who had that much on his mind that this took a full morning. Once everything that is on your mind, is now not on your mind, close your eyes and take a big deep breath…. How do you feel?? (let me know I never get board of that part).

That isn’t it though. Everything you just wrote down now needs organizing into a system or your brain wont let go of it. Try putting these thoughts into some kind of diary, to-do order, or even better, a system to give them a slot in your life when you can deal with them one by one. DO NOT LET THEM CREEP BACK UP INTO YOUR HEAD!! Any new thoughts add them to your piece of paper. (If you would like further advice on this part let me know)

Your brain is an excellent gathering tool, but struggles to cope with more than seven tasks at a time, and as such can cause stress issues. Free it up to think and problem solve, don’t clutter it up with the 1000+ things that could be organized else where.

Einstein didn’t know his own telephone number, as he would not use his enormous brain to store information he could assess in other means!!

Its worth a thought.

If I could be of anymore assistance to anyone I would love to help.

Colbonce
www.mystresscoach.co.uk
Free One-to-one Stress & Productivity Coaching

I figure since there is some body/fin damage it’s good to dose the tank again. I normally add it to water changes, but should I treat the whole tank now?

I would treat the tank with stress coat after you’ve finished with the ich treatment. Stress coat helps add extra slime coating to the fish. The slime coating on the fish is what the ich hides under and the ich medication cannot kill it when it’s on the fish. Adding stress coat could be counterproductive, you would be adding a healing agent for the fishes benefit, but you would also be trapping live ich protozoans under the slime coat with the fish.

I’ve tried exercise, guided meditation, eliminating caffeine and simple sugars, anti-depressants prescribed by a psychiatrist to no avail.
Any fresh new ideas out there? Holistic meds, diet supplements, etc?
I didn’t like the meds at all so we discontinued their use about 6 months ago.
Anxiety and nervousness are one end of my issue, severe sadness and crying are at the other end.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Try to start overcoming your fears. This is very important, as it allows you to retrain your mind into letting you again believe that there isn’t a danger in going to the mall, or driving a car. You have told your mind that these things are putting your body in danger, and your body is reacting to the threat. But really, there is not a threat at the time, your mind is tricking your body. If, for instance, there was a real threat then your body would respond as necessary. This is what our bodies are designed to do.

One of the most effective methods used is deep breathing. The following exercise will physically, and mentally calm you.
Start out by breathing through your nose for a slow 3 count
Then hold your breath for a slow 3 count
And then exhale for a slow 3 count. You can do this as long as you want. It really helps.

Good luck.

recently i found out i had shin splints (read on wikipedia if you dont know what it is) and on wikipedia it says it can lead to a stress fracture. so what would they do to a stress fracture in the tibia caused by shin splints?
people always misunderstand eh…i dont think i have a stress fracture. i just wanna know what would happen if i get one

it depends on the degree of the stress fracture. for mild ones, you’d just be put on crutches. for moderate ones, you’d be put in a walking boot and for severe ones, you’d need to be put in a fiberglass cast. although, it is really unlikely your shin splints would lead to a stress fracture.

What is the difference between a panic attack and an anxiety attack ?
I’ve been suffering from panic attacks and wanted to find out more about it and how it links with anxiety attacks.

Thanks in advance.

I’m definatly no expert and to be honest, ive had my fair share of anxiety.

Take anxiety as the feeling of not wanting to go to work tomorrow because your fearful of what your boss may say about your work, take panicing as the feeling of being in that situation and feeling a sudden state of adrenaline and wanting to flee the situation

As you may know, theres a difference between panicing and anxiety, anxiety is usually described as an overwhelming fear or can be a long term worry. Panicing is usually a state where by the person will feel overpowering anxiety and will usually feel extremely fearful and want to get away from the situation as quickly as possible.

So, the main differences between a panic attack and an anxiety attack i would say are the intensity of the two. Panic attacks usually give you a rush of adrenaline and gives you that urge to flee from the situation, anxiety attacks can sometimes be described as the same, but sometimes just described as sudden feeling of fear or depression from fear without the feelings to flee or evade the situation.

I hope this helps.