Treating The Emotional Aspects of Anxiety Due to Fear

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Treating The Emotional Aspects of Anxiety Due to Fear

We all have fears and worries but when they begin to dominate our

life and our behavior, and become the focal point in which everything

revolves, that's anxiety. Many factors can contribute; trauma,

chemical sensitivity, caffeine, heredity, drugs, alcohol, lifestyle

choices....If you cannot change the situation that is the focus of

anxiety, try to determine a way of trying to change your way of

handling the problem. Relaxation of the mind and body and stress

reduction are key.

Anxiety is often vague and undirected, a sinking feeling that

something terrible is about to happen. Unlike concrete fears (of

illness or losing a job, for example), anxiety often stems from what

used to be called borrowed trouble. Anxious people imagine worst-case

scenarios and spend lots of time dreading things that may never

happen. For persistent anxiety, seek professional counseling. But the

natural remedies can help tremendously.

Anxiety disorders are possibly the most common and frequently

occurring disorders of the mind/body. They include a group of

conditions that share extreme anxiety as the principal disturbance of

mood or emotional tone. Anxiety, which may be understood as the

pathological counterpart of normal fear, is manifest by disturbances

of mood, as well as of thinking, behavior and physiological activity.

Included in this category are panic disorder (with or without a

history of agoraphobia), agoraphobia (with or without a history of

panic disorder), generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobia,

social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, acute stress disorder

and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Anxiety disorders are ubiquitous across human cultures. The

longitudinal course of these disorders is characterized by relatively

early ages of onset, chronicity, relapsing or recurrent illness and

periods of disability. Panic disorder and agoraphobia are

particularly associated with suicidal tendencies.

A sense of fear is the root of anxiety.

Fear and the Amygdala

Whether you are ecstatic, dejected or frightened, emotions certainly

can have a grip on your life. In the world of science, however,

emotions did not have such a hold. In the past they took a back seat

to more clear-cut scientific topics. But now an increasing amount of

evidence is showing that the emotion of fear is decipherable. The

identification of a specific brain system that processes fear is

spurring a great interest in the field. New discoveries could explain

the mystery behind many mental disorders and prompt the development

of new treatments.

An almond-shaped area of the brain, the amygdala (uh-mig-dah-la)

receives signals of potential danger and begins to set off a series

of reactions that will help you protect yourself, according to an

increasing number of studies. Additional messages sent to the

amygdala determines whether there is a threat or not.

Fear can often be a daily part of our lives. The fight or flight

response can occur when an individual is subjected to fear such as a

threatening situation or a resistant or hostile event. The response

may be one of confrontation or one of avoidance such as running. The

response involves all parts of the nervous system, as well as the

endocrine system, and can be consciously or unconsciously mediated.

The autonomic part of the fight-or-flight response results in a

general increase in sympathetic activity, including heart rate, blood

pressure, sweating, muscular strength, and can trigger an adrenaline

surge that quickens your pulse, raises blood pressure, kick-starts

anxiety and prepares you for "fight or flight." The fight-or-flight

response is adaptive because it enables the individual to resist or

move away from a threatening situation. can trigger an adrenaline

surge that quickens your pulse, raises blood pressure, kick-starts

anxiety and prepares you for "fight or flight."

Fear and Chinese Medicine

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Kidneys are the Organ most

likely to be damaged by fear and to cause a person to be more prone

to feeling fear when damaged or suffering imbalance. So it's not

surprising that something which can build up the Kidneys would help

panic attacks when the panic attacks have a root of Kidney imbalance.

There are a lot of different things that can cause panic attacks.

About the most well-known one is respiratory alkalosis. This is the

CO2 (carbon dioxide) level in the blood is too low and the pH

(measure of acidity-alkalinity) is too high (too alkaline). The

person feels like s/he's smothering and needs more oxygen, but the O2

level is too high. It's the CO2 level that needs to be brought up.

This is the condition where if the person will hold his/her breath or

breathe into a paper bag (and re-breathe CO2 just exhaled), the CO2

content of the blood will rise and the pH will get lower (less

alkaline), and the breathing problems and the panic will stop. The

most common cause of respiratory alkalosis is hyperventilation

(breathing too fast and too swallow), and the most common cause of

hyperventilation is anxiety. When the CO2 drops low enough and the pH

rises too high, the anxiety turns into a panic attack.

Without a doubt, there are situations in our lives that cause fear.

This is something we must "pick apart" in order to find it's roots.

There may be one or two things that are not allowing your mind to be

free. Write them down.

Tips for Releasing Your Fears

No matter what type of fear you are experiencing, there are many

techniques which will allow us to move forward.

1. By slowly taking away the "layers" of what covers this fear or

block, and discovering what is truly at the root of the fear, it

enables us to deal with it from a higher point or view and opens up a

path in which to rebalance.

2. Look at them on paper. Send them to me if you like (we can look at

them together). Be honest with yourself when you write them out. Go

with your immediate intuition. Fears have a tendency to dissolve when

we are looking them face on.

3. Re-balance. As a holistic individual, you know that our bodies are

continuously in a state of re-balancing itself. This is how we

function. This is how we grow. By holding on to a fear, we are not

allowing this processes (your intuitive state) to flow freely. This

block can be the cause of a much bigger problem.

4. Letting go. By giving this fear up to the universe to handle, you

are essentially allowing yourself to release this fear, and in turn

strip away any kind of meaning or significance it may have upon you.

By letting go, this allows us to move to the next level in our lives.

The next natural process. Often times, this is a fear in itself. The

fear of "what will happen when I DO move to my next stage in life?"

Feeling protected always comes by letting go of the fear.

5. Let your guard down. Let it go. This is not a fear. This is a

great journey. Allow yourself to follow it.

6. Being Grounded. Beng grounded is related to our survival

instincts, and to our sense of connection to our bodies and the

physical plane.

7. Being Aware. Ideally, being aware allows us the understanding of

fear, which gives us the comfort to feel protected. Once you know

what your fear is, you can take steps to address it. Being aware can

keep us healthy, secure, and allow us dynamic presence.

8. Be Familiar. When we are familiar, we are comfortable and we feel

connected with our physical body and the space around us.

9. Be Open. Being open, gives us the ability to be conscious and

secure in ourselves and determines how we look at life around us.

This roots us in survival of both the physical realm and spiritual

body.

10. Deep Breathing. Learn to breath deeper. This is very helpful in

stressful situations. It allows for the release of carbon dioxide

(stess) and room to take in fresh, soothing air (calm).

Pacholyk, MS, L.Achttp://www.peacefulmind.com/anxiety.htm

Therapies for healing

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