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Can food and nutrients really help me if I have very severe anxiety and/or panic attacks and I’m using medications?

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food, nutrients and med

As I prepare for “The Anxiety Summit 5: Gut-Brain Axis” (airing in November 2019) I have been going through interviews from the first Anxiety Summit in 2014 and would like to share something that I addressed in my opening interview as a good recap for you as you are on your healing journey with anxiety (or in case this comes up again in the future) – you truly can eliminate anxiety entirely!

This is a question I am often asked: “Can I really eliminate anxiety using food, nutrients (and a functional medicine approach) if I have very severe anxiety and/or panic attacks and I’m using medications?”

Way too many folks don’t believe it’s possible but yes, you can! You can completely eliminate full blown anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety (where you cannot go out to social event or go and feel so anxious), phobias like fear of spiders or agoraphobia (where you cannot get out of the house), and even obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Many folks believe their anxiety is much too severe and that food and nutrients couldn’t possibly help. I’m here to tell you this is just not true.

It’s not uncommon for well-known thought leaders to perpetuate this myth, implying anxiety and fears never go away.

Ali Brown, entrepreneurial guru for women, and one of my amazing business mentors, created a program to help businesswomen overcome their fears. She shared this in the program information: “Let’s not forget women’s darkest best friends: anxiety and worry” and admitted “I still have to fight it. I come from a long line of worriers.”

I say no, you don’t have to fight it. Just because you come from a long line of worriers doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to put up with it and live with it. There is something you can do to eliminate the anxiety, worries and fears.

Seth Godin, author and thought leader, says this: “When fear shows up, understand that it never goes away. Dance with it instead.”

While I really enjoy the dance suggestion – it’s fun and the joy of dancing and the exercise may help – however I really do disagree with the fact that he says fear never goes away.

In season 1 interviewed Julia Ross, MA, my mentor and author of The Mood Cure (my Amazon link), on using amino acids for anxiety and she summed it up perfectly:

On a scale from zero to 10, zero is not an unrealistic goal when it comes to anxiety. It’s really the human potential and GABA and tryptophan give us access to it.

I’m going to repeat this because I think it’s really worth repeating. Zero is not an unrealistic goal when it comes to anxiety. Bravo Julia – I totally agree with this and I want you to know this!

It starts with doing trials of GABA and tryptophan, and using food and nutrients, and finding all the root causes and addressing them.

I really want you to know this, remember this, and don’t stop looking for the answer and the root causes. It may be food changes that you need to make. It may be breakfast that you need to eat. It may be low serotonin or low GABA. It may be foods that are problems for you like gluten or dairy. It may be additives in the foods that you’re eating. It may be toxins in your environment. There are many possible root causes, and you may have one or many root causes that are causing your anxiety.

Addressing these root causes with food and nutrients (and a functional medicine approach you can completely eliminate your anxiety even if you have very severe anxiety and/or panic attacks and you’re using medications.

Resources for you

Do you believe your anxiety is much too severe for food and nutrients to be of help?

Or did you believe this and started looking at nutritional and biochemical root causes anyway and found solutions and anxiety resolution?

Additional Anxiety Resources
Click on each image to learn more

Julia Rucklidge: Keep access to nutrients with therapeutic benefits

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vitamins

I’m just passing on this petition via micronutrient researcher Professor Julia Rucklidge:

Something very concerning is developing in New Zealand. It is not unique to NZ – it has already happened in Australia, has been happening in Europe, and it will likely happen in the U.S. and Canada. Under the guise of regulating Natural Health Products (NHPs) to ensure their safety, the NHPs are actually being severely restricted.

In NZ, the government is passing legislation called the Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill that will limit access to minerals and vitamins.

The work done in the field of nutritional psychiatry by researchers such as Julia is so valuable and limiting access to nutrients with therapeutic benefits and a good safety record will impact many lives.

You may recall our excellent Anxiety Summit interview on micronutrients to treat anxiety and depression and her very inspiring TEDx talk: The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health: Julia Rucklidge at TEDx

I signed it, left a comment and am sharing it because:

1) I believe we all have the right to choose what we consume in the way of nutrients

2) I support the work of Dr. Julia Rucklidge and other researchers focused on the growing and valuable field of nutritional psychiatry

3) My clients who have anxiety and panic attacks, and suffer from social anxiety successfully use vitamins/minerals/fatty acids (together with dietary and lifestyle changes) to eliminate their anxiety and should not be denied access to these powerful solutions that address root causes

4) I personally found resolution for my own anxiety and panic attacks with the use of key nutrients and continue to use many to stay in optimal health. I would not want to be denied this choice

This could have worldwide impacts and it’s important that we take a stand. We’d love you to join in and sign the petition and/or leave a comment if it feels like a fit for you, and if you’ve benefited from taking supplements and want continued access to them.

Go here to read more about these valuable nutrients and the petition (and to sign it/comment)

Be sure to check out all the great feedback from people like you who are seeing benefits with vitamins and minerals.

We appreciate signatures, comments and/or shares! Thanks!

Food, exercise, biofeedback and nutrients for anxiety at ADAA

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Trudy scott antianxiety adaa 2012

Great three days at the 2012 Annual Conference of Anxiety Disorders Association of America. I was accepted to do a poster presentation on Saturday night: Food and Mood: Case Study of Woman with Anxiety (using food changes and nutrients) and I had a lot of firsts – the first time attending this conference, my first poster presentation at a mainstream conference, first time meeting some of the excellent researchers in the field and first time exposure to some of the newest research on anxiety.

I thoroughly enjoyed it from the start… submitting my proposal, creating the poster, figuring out how big to make it so it could be read easily (it was 3ft high by 5 ft wide) and then standing with my poster answering questions for an hour and a half during the poster session. I am now I’m inspired to do some of my own food mood research.

My poster was a case study of a woman using real whole food, no gluten, no sugar, 5-HTP, GABA, zinc, vitamin B6 and other nutrients to end her anxiety and panic attacks. I was very pleased with the interest and was thrilled to share this important info about the food-mood connection!

Some other highlights from the conference (there were many!):

  • Keynote by Dr Spiegel on self-hypnotism – in one study, participants were able to increase their gastric acid secretion. We learned that hypnotism has much good research for anxiety but is not used that extensively.
  • Meeting and talking to Lindsey DeBoer, lead author of Dietary Supplements for Anxiety Disorders: A Systematic Review – to be included in a chapter in a new book called Psychobiological Approaches for Anxiety Disorders that I look forward to checking out
  • Great quote from a session on Exercise for Anxiety: “Do your exercise before a stressful event and you’ll do much better” ~ Michael W. Otto, Ph.D. At the same session Jasper Smits, PhD shared much of the evidence of the benefits of exercise for anxiety, OCD, panic attacks and social phobia. Otto and Smits have a new book Exercise for Mood and Anxiety that I look forward to checking out.
  • This short 2 min totally cool video!!! “Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator and feel better” is something we often hear or read in the Sunday papers. Few people actually follow that advice. Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do? See the results here. http://www.thefuntheory.com/piano-staircase With thanks to Michael W. Otto, Ph.D and Jasper Smits, PhD for sharing this at the exercise presentation
  • Doing a biofeedback relaxation session
  • Meeting, listening to and learning from researchers, authors and editors of some of the major journals
  • Meeting new people and making new connections

(On a side note, the ADAA was previously Anxiety Disorders Association of America, and was just renamed this weekend to be Anxiety and Depression Association of America.)

More research and conference highlights will be shared in future blogs… and all this and more will be included in future editions of The Antianxiety Food Solution: How the Foods You Eat Can Help You Calm Your Anxious Mind, Improve Your Mood and End Cravings, available in major books stores, at Amazon and via www.antianxietyfoodsolution.com.