Alternative Therapy for Anxiety

Status
Not open for further replies.

Flexecif

Distinguished member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
108
Reason
Other
Diagnosis
00/0000
Country
CA
State
Canada
This year had been stressful and people got so anxious with the many uncertainties brought about by the pandemic. There's not much we can do but take care of our health. What are other alternative ways to combat anxiety without involving any meds?
 
I like to crochet and loom knit, it helps with my anxiety and gives me something else to focus on. Playing with my dogs also helps and giving them lots of cuddles.
 
Dogs.

Long walk or hike in nature; even better with a dog.

Doing anything else with a dog. Dogs are always in the moment, and if you hang out with them you can learn a bit of that yourself.
 
If you mean *real* anxiety - cognitive behavioral therapy... (and books and forums/mailing lists). But apart from that - relaxation techniques: calm music, running water sounds, breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, self-hypnosis... :)
 
Thank you all for your responses. Dogs are really helpful. They make us happy. I guess it's all about focus and letting go of the things we can't control.
 
I became a wild eyed serious euphonium (tenor tuba) player in the year before Covid slapped us all in the face, so during the 6 months between lockdown and this last September I practiced hard an hour every day and the endorphin flood was like a miracle.
THEN, I got a Staph skin infection under my nose, right smack where my mouthpiece hits my face, and it stopped me cold. I’m still working on healing it.
My point overall though, is that if you have a passion for some activity that can involve your ”right brain”, it can truly become like a sort of mental yoga, and for me, that’s the best stress medicine in the world.
My family doesn’t quite get how much I NEED to practice, much like they don’t get what happens when I’m in a Fibro flare, but they’re slowly getting better with tolerating both.
If you’re lucky enough to have some sort of nonverbal artistic passion like mine, it might be worth it to you to give it a shot.
 
Making music (instrumental and vocal tracks in all genres) on mac & keyboard and putting them up on soundcloud does create an endorphin flood in me, BUT also weariness and The Ache, because I easily forget "myself". So cortisol is not exactly my friend, it's a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing. I "use" it, praps drug-like, but try to watch myself even there, which I'm getting better at. I used to occasionally let it take me over for a few days, sleeping less helped that, which then seemed good, with a lot of energy, but then crashed for a week or so, for no apparent reason. Now I watch for enough sleep (9h+) and am extremely wary of days where my energy feels good, but somehow strained. Last week I had pretty full energy, but slept full, no strain, but that was either because I'm on a longer break from work or trying 5-HTP. Testing the latter by leaving it off for a week, then on again for the last week of not working.
 
Music heals the soul. I wish I could make it like you, but I guess it wasn't meant for me. Thank you for sharing your story. Some of us have to fight life twice as much as everyone else, but that's okay. I guess we just need to focus on ourselves, all our blessings, instead of our adversities.
 
Music heals the soul. I wish I could make it like you, but I guess it wasn't meant for me. Thank you for sharing your story. Some of us have to fight life twice as much as everyone else, but that's okay. I guess we just need to focus on ourselves, all our blessings, instead of our adversities.
Flexecif...........I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not, but thought I would give it a try. I notice you say
"Some of us have to fight life twice as much as everyone else"

..........and I want to respond to that. Of course, I don't know what you really mean by that, and don't want to make assumptions and take it the wrong way. but just in case, I would like to say that even thinking about things as "fighting life" or fighting anything at all can be detrimental. Of course I don't mean be positive all the time, no one can be. but I make a point of not ever thinking in terms of fighting: not fighting fibro, not fighting my limitations, not fighting the current state of the world.....because none of those things can be effectively fought. And if I have a "fight with life" attitude, it only harms me, so instead I think in terms of things I am struggling with inside myself, and that brings me back to the acceptance of what is in the moment. I don't even like to think of fighting to stay healthy or fighting to manage things better, because just the term "fighting" is a negative. It helps me to remember that nothing has to be a fight. It's more a case of learning, adapting, knowing my truth and being willing to stand on it, and setting my boundaries both inside and outside myself. Kind of the way that most true martial arts are not about fighting the opposition or winning, but rather about deflecting their approach.

As I say, that may not be what you mean by what you said at all. And if I took is the wrong way, never mind!

And focusing on what is good in our lives as you say, is of course important. All of us here, just by virtue of the fact that we obviously have internet access and therefore electricity and probably running water and heat and a roof over our heads have vastly more than hundreds of millions of people in the world have, so there's a lot to appreciate.
 
Flexecif...........I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not, but thought I would give it a try. I notice you say
"Some of us have to fight life twice as much as everyone else"

..........and I want to respond to that. Of course, I don't know what you really mean by that, and don't want to make assumptions and take it the wrong way. but just in case, I would like to say that even thinking about things as "fighting life" or fighting anything at all can be detrimental. Of course I don't mean be positive all the time, no one can be. but I make a point of not ever thinking in terms of fighting: not fighting fibro, not fighting my limitations, not fighting the current state of the world.....because none of those things can be effectively fought. And if I have a "fight with life" attitude, it only harms me, so instead I think in terms of things I am struggling with inside myself, and that brings me back to the acceptance of what is in the moment. I don't even like to think of fighting to stay healthy or fighting to manage things better, because just the term "fighting" is a negative. It helps me to remember that nothing has to be a fight. It's more a case of learning, adapting, knowing my truth and being willing to stand on it, and setting my boundaries both inside and outside myself. Kind of the way that most true martial arts are not about fighting the opposition or winning, but rather about deflecting their approach.

As I say, that may not be what you mean by what you said at all. And if I took is the wrong way, never mind!

And focusing on what is good in our lives as you say, is of course important. All of us here, just by virtue of the fact that we obviously have internet access and therefore electricity and probably running water and heat and a roof over our heads have vastly more than hundreds of millions of people in the world have, so there's a lot to appreciate.

I love what you said. Life isn't a fight, instead, life is continuous learning. Maybe what Flexecif meant is that some of us have to learn more than the others. Illness is a blessing in disguise if you look at the brighter side, as it makes us appreciate the good even more. We know that feeling okay and not feeling any pain at all is heaven.
 
I love what you said. Life isn't a fight, instead, life is continuous learning. Maybe what Flexecif meant is that some of us have to learn more than the others. Illness is a blessing in disguise if you look at the brighter side, as it makes us appreciate the good even more. We know that feeling okay and not feeling any pain at all is heaven.
Some of the most important thing I have learned in my life have been learned from terrible experiences. I would never say I was glad I had those experiences. I would make it so that I had not had them if I could! But I did and that cannot be undone. What I have now is what I learned and how I grew as a person from that. And the experiences helped me to be more compassionate to others. I can't be grateful for chronic pain or for the bad things that have happened in my life, but I can at least be grateful for what I have learned. May as well be, right? It doesn't hurt to be grateful for something.
 
Thank you @sunkacola Sometimes, it just gets to me as to why others seem to be living life effortlessly. And I hate to see ungrateful ones, like when someone is complaining about something that's none sense.
 
Thank you @sunkacola Sometimes, it just gets to me as to why others seem to be living life effortlessly. And I hate to see ungrateful ones, like when someone is complaining about something that's none sense.
I sure can relate to that! The vast majority of my life has been spent wondering what it would be like just to go through each day without it being such a tremendous struggle just to get through the day. Prior to developing fibro I had chronic clinical depression, and now I have both although I have a much better handle on both of them these days.

One thing I stopped doing very early in life is asking "why" others seem to be living life effortlessly. For one thing, I don't know what their lives are like on the inside. Many, many people who have known me, worked with me, whatever, have not known what a struggle I was having because I learned early in my life to hide it and put on a really good face. There's no telling how many other people are doing the same thing.

And of course, "why" questions are often futile with things like this. there's really no answer because there's really no why to it. It's just how life happens for one person or another. Why did that person live through the (___fill in the blank___) and the other didn't? Well, you can say because this or that, but the larger Why question is not answerable. That's just what happened.

I am also often annoyed like heck when people complain about relatively trivial things, or fail to acknowledge the positive things they have that others don't. In America ( I presume Canada is similar in this) the majority of people go around feeling entitled to all the luxuries they have and get upset if the smallest thing happens. Not even thinking that just to turn a tap and get clean drinkable water in hot or cold is a luxury that hundreds of millions of people in the world have never had. I think about that every single day and never forget how lucky (and rich) I am just to have a home and roof and bed and food and phone and internet while so many other people have nothing. The way that we live is unimaginable wealth and luxury to those people.

So back to "Why?"...........why are we so privileged and the others aren't? Not a question that can really, deep down, be answered. My response is to help if something is right in front of me that I can do, to be grateful for what I have, and to try not to spend too much of my energy feeling bad that other people are so much less fortunate.
 
Hi. I keep myself busy as much as I could, doing arts and some tinkering too. I guess if you're busy. you'll have less time to worry,

One thing I stopped doing very early in life is asking "why" others seem to be living life effortlessly. For one thing, I don't know what their lives are like on the inside. Many, many people who have known me, worked with me, whatever, have not known what a struggle I was having because I learned early in my life to hide it and put on a really good face. There's no telling how many other people are doing the same thing.

This is true. Most people that we see on social media who look happy are struggling with their own battles. Some people are just not comfortable letting others see their sufferings.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top