So, I've been under a
lot of stress and pressure lately, and these days I am learning more than ever the truth of the statement "when it rains, it pours."
I've always been a little high strung, I was in therapy a lot as a kid for anxiety issues and things of that nature. I can handle most everyday stresses, but for the past couple of weeks the pressure has been getting too intense. I haven't been eating much, and it's had a major impact on my sleeping (in that I pretty much don't anymore.) Most of the pressure I'm dealing with comes from situations that are largely out of my control, so I can't really reduce my stress... but I'm wanting to at least manage it a little better.
My mom said when I was younger she had me taking some holistic/herbal stress relievers that seemed to work, but she can't remember the names of them. I know that exercise can really help, and I go for runs whenever I can, but again, I'm experiencing a bit of a downpour so I haven't had much time for that lately. Any other ideas? I'm hoping for something that I can do to slow down my brain so that a million thoughts aren't running through my head when I'm trying to sleep. Also hoping to not hyperventilate and get really bad pit-in-my-stomach feelings.
I basically need to calm the fuck down. help?
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Definately keep up the exercise, that helps tremendously. Secondly, sit down with yourself, look at your life and how it is progressing. Is it going as planned? If not, what can you do to change it? Are there things you want to do but haven't, either due to time constraints or because they are just hard enough to stop you from trying?
You need to work up a plan to make your life fantastic, and it needs to include exercise, picking up new hobbies and meeting new people, as well as doing great at whatever school/uni/work you have.
Its fucking hard to stop that anxious feeling... actually for me its pretty much impossible at the moment, but I DO take comfort in the fact that I am doing everything in my power to make my life better. Everyday I get up in the morning I say "yeah, life fucking sucks, things are not going your way, but GODDAMNIT, you WILL succeed".
Keep saying that to yourself whilst you are improving... it will help.
Basically, even if you can't bring yourself to feel positive about your life, act in a way that produces positive results for yourself. If you can't be happy at the moment, you may as well do right by yourself no?
But when I get stressed I do usually have pretty bad anxiety, but here are some things I do. Again, some sound very cliche.
- First off, you've got to just stop for a little while. Try to buy some time open to relax, it will make working much easier when you do.
- Honestly just start taking some deep breaths. Just stop all together, sit down, and take several deep breaths for a few minutes.
- Consider going to a spa, get a massage or something. (I don't actually do this but I do try to get Ms. Shim to walk on my back)
- Try drinking tea, or eating chocolate.
- Excercise, (like you mentioned) but it doesn't necessarily have to be strenuous excersise. Do stretching. One thing that helps me is that I have one of those big plastic balls you see used for Yoga or whatever, but I always stretch my back out on those.
- Most of all, I always remember that it's not the end of the world. If you're still breathing, everything is going to work out eventually. Even if something goes wrong, you'll be okay.
What kind of herbs can you think of that might help relieve stress?
Yep.
I'm inclined to think that this is a big part of the problem. If you can get a good night's sleep, I think you'll find that the positive benefits carry over into a lot of other areas. It's not going to fix everything overnight, but I think it might help a lot with your capacity to cope.
When I have this problem, I try some basic meditation. No spiritual connotations (though there's nothing wrong with that if you're into that sort of thing), I just try to maintain very slow, steady breathing, try to think about nothing but breathing, sloooowly in, sloooowly out. That's usually enough to break the cycle of my brain running around, churning over the same problem or set of problems that I can't do anything about. If that doesn't work, I get up and distract myself for an hour with a good book, then go back to bed and try again. Note that you should never read in bed, use a comfy chair for that. The bed should be for two things, sleeping and sex, anything else you do in there habitualizes your body to doing things that aren't sleeping. Speaking of sex, or masturbation in the absence of a suitable partner, that would be another line of defense against sleepness. Seriously, an orgasm is the body's own sedative/painkiller, it's effective, all-natural, and just plain fun. Don't be afraid to use it in a calculated fashion.
Indoor excercises might be easier to do (time wise) then going out for a run.
Honestly, it's just a matter of relaxing. There's no "cure." I've known a few people who struggled with pretty severe cases of more or less what you're describing, and either they learned to chill out, sought out professional help, and in some cases received medication from the professional that helped them.
The bottom line is that there's no polite way to say this, but it's really all in your head. Everybody has to find their own solution, and there's no real advice besides "relax - stop worrying" and that you might consider seeking help to do that.
I reccomend breathing properly. Completely exhale, exhale your breath then exhale some more until you feel light headed! Now inhale into the stomach deeply and inhale some more. Repeat this process and keep up with a constant breathing pace because people have a tendency to hold their breath.
Deep breathing exercise to practice; Lay down on your back, one hand on your chest, one hand on your stomach just below the button/on it, exhale completely till your chest sinks a bit, inhale only into your stomach(hard at first) so no chest movement, exhale completely and repeat for set reps or a time frame. Slow controlled breaths work best and listening to music while performing(something instrumental).
I reccomend taking up exercise if you don't already. Work on your posture as this will allow more oxygen to move freely into your body. Also stretch a shit load, like 30mins a night before bed and practice breathing deep after stretching. Main areas to stretch out are the chest, lats, traps/neck and upper back.
Another one i was taught was to just listen. Don't think, just listen. Don't feed into your thoughts, just listen. Listen to you environment, listen to your breathing, just focus on the listening part of you mind.
For both of these you should sit down, preferably on the floor cross-legged, with your eyes closed and your posture straight to help the breathing.
My law teacher taught us these two meditations to help us focus, give it a try and see if it helps you.
Also, have you spoken to a doctor? Anxiety is pretty common, and there are meds for it, if you're open to that sort of thing, and if your doctor thinks its appropriate. Seeing as you mention that you're not able to sleep or eat properly, that can't be good for your health, and talking to a doctor may be a good idea.
I can see why you say that. For me, 'relaxing' would be like putting a gun to my head. Its not that I can't relax- I can! - its just that when I am going through a tough time, sitting back and relaxing makes me feel like I am losing ground on my problems. For me the solution is always proactive- change something, do something, make something. This then makes me feel like I am going forward again, and for me, momentum is critical to my mental state.
Its interesting, but I can only 'relax' once I know I am going flat out achieving and improving, thats when I tend to feel better... its then I can sit back and take a breather. Might be the same for the OP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava
Anyway, I don't have any valid herbal suggestions for stress-relief, but there's a lot of mental tricks you can do if you can find yourself fifteen minutes where you don't have to be doing other shit a couple times a day. My favorite (which I used for anger-management, not stress-relief, but they're kinda similar things) was to make myself some superhot green tea, crank either my stereo or my phones (whichever was appropriate at the time), and listen to the Amakakeru Ryu No Hirameki track from the Kenshin soundtrack (whatever, any soothing song works). And then you just chill, drink the tea, and then the tricky part (which the whole atmosphere shtick is supposed to help make easier) is to sort of willfully clear your head, keep it clear for a bit, then try to keep it clear when you go back to your day and maybe plan things from a mindset of "this is what needs to be done, this is the order it needs to be done in, if something's not done I'll deal with it when the time comes".
Edit: Thinking too much has a lot of really nasty side-effects I've found, and it's really hard and takes quite a while to find a way to avoid them. Controlling what you think about or at least how you think about things is pretty much key, and not really easy for automatically-analyze-everything type people.
She may have been talking about St. John's Wort. It's not verified to work by the FDA or anything but it's supposed to help. I tried it when i was pretty stressed out and it seemed to make things better, not sure if it's the placebo effect or not. Here's a website with some more info. http://www.sjwinfo.org
um. failing that.
Valerian root (it's stinks, but relaxes you)
Kava Kava (relaxes you, but is hard on the liver - don't over do).
Passion Flower (suppose to relax you. Warning, may make you horny).
Hops (suppose to make you sleepy).
Make sure they put you on one 300mg Wellbutrin per day. They started me with 150mg and it didn't do shit. Also, it takes about 3-4 weeks for it to start working to the full effect.
It wasn't advice, it was a suggestion, something to look into. Oh, and there's the part where I just finished dealing with the same exact problem and have experience with the situation.
And, this might not go for you, but I tend to work really hard when I'm doing something for someone I care about (be it my mother, grandmother, friends, latest crush or a teacher I respect) and as we know, when you're really busy with one thing, you forget about the other. If the problems are really out of your control, it doesn't hurt to not think about it a lot.
Oh
Always look on the bright side of life
This is good advice, but for people such as myself who are perpetually anxious, it's only temporary. Anxiety is a mental sickness, plain and simple, and is usually attributed to a chemical imbalance or something of the like. As much as I don't want to sound like a tool, medication really is the way to go. All it really does is calm you down and help you relax. Wellbutrin has no harmful side effects, except for the part where you're advised to not drink while taking it. Some others cause sexual dysfunction, but it's up to your doctor to judge whether you should upgrade to a stronger medication or just up the dosage on the current one.
In my case, I took Wellbutrin for 2 months to help me deal with my current stresses and then immediately stopped when I felt ready to cope without it. Most psychiatrists will provide an endless prescription for Wellbutrin or will set your prescription for a certain amount of refills before you need to visit again. Oh, and I'd suggest actually talking to your psychiatrist twice a month because chances are your anxiety problems are much more deeply rooted than just your current stresses. Hope I could help.
On a personal side, I always really like baths with lavender or rose oil. And try and do 20 mins of exercise and stretches before I sleep. Honey is supposed to be quite good for you as well if you take a spoonful in the evening.
Though I can understand if things don't really help. Last month I got my bank account frozen pending a fraud investigation due to a bank fuckup. On top of the fact that I'd just moved to a new job, in a new city and into a new flat with random people. Stressy couple of weeks.
Fair enough.
Or Music... that helps me relax
or run while listening to music.