Treating Anxiety with Nutritional Medicine & Cognitive Hypnotherapy
© PeterSmithUK.com
I believe it’s absolutely possible to fully overcome anxiety, but to do so you have to treat it on many fronts. Building up GABA and serotonin levels can be a help but it’s not a permanent solution, even more important in anxiety is to change the wiring (neuro circuitry) of the brain.
Rewiring the anxious brain
In the anxious brain there is overactivity overactivity in a structure called the amygdala. In anxiety the amygdala acts like a hypersensitive burglar or car alarm that becomes triggered inappropriately at the wrong times.
Brains plastic, they grow and change according to how they are used and there is evidence that prolonged traumatic stress early in life over develops the amygdala making the individual more vulnerable to develop anxiety and depression throughout life I’m sorry if this is a depressing thing to hear, but armed with this knowledge there’s a lot you can do to work against this with brain training and natural therapy approaches.
You can use meditation brain training exercises that thin out the density of synapses in the amygdala and literally shrinkage it.
You can reprogram your traumatic memories.
You can …. the stress physiology
There is evidence that prolonged traumatic stress early in life amygdala making the individual more vulnerable to developing
network bombarding your thinking cortex with anxious thoughts you have to dampen down this overactivity. The good news is brain structures and wiring can be permanently changed with brain training but it does require several months of work. Prolonged stress and benzo antianxiety meds and desensitise the brain to GABA and the statements to overcome.
Treatment Plan
1/ If your anxiety is definitely situational or connected to a known traumatic event try hypnotherapy and NLP first if you are able to.
2/ If you are unable to make use of therapy because your anxiety is too extreme and overwhelming, or your anxiety is free-floating try reducing your symptoms and stabilising your condition before trying therapy by supplementing GABA and serotonin boosting remedies.
Experiment with increasing GABA and serotonin levels individually one at a time and then in combination both together to establish your ideal prescription. Keep a detailed journal of what you take each day so that you can refer back and work out what helps.
3/ Your brain chemistry and neurotransmitters may be out of balance because of mercury or other heavy metal toxins, if you so not make the progress you want to detoxifying mercury may allow your recovery to progress. Balancing unstable blood sugar is always some help and brings other health benefits. Food allergies and sensitivities trigger the release of stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, your brain may register the release of stress hormones as a threat and trigger an anxiety attack, so these may need to be treated see Allergies-&-Mental-Health.
4/ Then as soon as you are able to consult a cognitive hypnotherapist or similar experienced therapist to permanently make long-lasting changes in your mind to more permanently deal with this problem. With hypnotherapy and NLP you can reprogram the amygdala the subconscious fear centre of the brain so that it no longer automatically creating unwanted stress responses in your system and disconnect your mind from even registering the stress provoking triggers in the first place so that your brain does not respond to whatever was provoking your anxiety in the past. The goal is to get your brain to respond to the things that used to trigger anxiety like other none anxious brains.
Anxiety Treatment Balancing Brain Chemistry
GABA The Brains Natural Valium
GABA is a calming inhibitory neurotransmitter. It is the brains natural endogenous Valium. It enables your brain to put an end to persistent worrying thoughts going around and around in your mind. Combined together we believe the inhibitory neurotransmitters GABA and serotonin it enable the brain to control anxiety.
When GABA levels are deficient it can make it hard almost impossible to stop worrying thoughts dominating and sometimes overwhelming your mind, even ordinary stresses and worries can be hard to manage.
One may develop:-
- Anxiety, fearful, free floating anxiety.
- Panic attacks, nervy/stressed.
- Racing thoughts, inability to relax.
- get physical aches and pains because the nerves keep firing, possible causing/contributing to fibromyalgia.
- Carbohydrate cravings.
Adequate GABA and serotonin activity in the brain engenders a calm, balanced feeling. People with GABA dominant brains are often good organisers they can handle complex and stressful positions. A film producer for example has to manage multiple stress situations and crises in a single day at a fast and demanding pace. To cope with such a position takes lots of GABA activity to stay calm and put each stress full event behind them without dwelling on it as soon as the situation is resolved.
Without adequate GABA and serotonin levels not only can worrying thoughts persist longer than they need to, but as they go around and around they can escalate, gain momentum and grow into enormous, disturbing levels of fear, stress and anxiety. Persistent anxiety can ruin a person’s life experience, it can debilitate their ability to function normally engaging in work, relationships and recreation.
Anxiety due to low levels of GABA can be effectively helped using natural remedies that boost GABA levels and put the brakes on anxious thoughts. Balancing brain chemistry in this way can be an effective long-term therapy in its own right, however -helpful this treatment can be- it has the inherent problem relying purely on external remedies to top up GABA levels and unfortunately one can rarely maintain an absolutely stable and symptom free state without also using psychological approaches.
An inherent problem with anxiety can be that the person is too afraid to try hypnosis and other psychological therapies fearing how it will make them feel.
The good news is that by increasing GABA and serotonin levels with natural remedies first can enable you to engage in useful psychotherapy without becoming overwhelmed. Even still any psychotherapy technique that relies heavily upon the person connecting to their painful feelings, experiencing and discussing them (associated technique) will at best struggle to be useful and may simply be unable proceed. I am a tremendous advocate of psychotherapy and it is with some considerable regret that I have to conclude that most psychotherapy techniques are in practice incapable of managing and treating many forms of anxiety. I suggest that any therapist reading this who does not at least understand the nature of the problem I’m talking about has never met anyone with real phobias or free-floating anxiety.
GABA supplements include:-
The amino acid GABA and theanine for detailed GABA boosting protocols book and appointment. See GABA Deficient Anxiety
Serotonin & Anxiety
Although GABA is the brains primary inhibitory neurotransmitter it is common today to prescribe antidepressant drugs that increase serotonin (SSRIs) to treat anxiety. See GABA Deficient Anxiety
Which Neurotransmitter to Boost for Anxiety GABA or Serotonin
Both GABA and serotonin are inhibitory (sedating) neurotransmitters and as such can enable us to control anxious thoughts. It will vary from individual to individual whether increasing GABA or serotonin levels will have the best therapeutic effects with anxiety disorder. As mentioned elsewhere in this book at this point in time there is absolutely no reliable way of measuring neurotransmitter deficiencies in the brain (please don’t waste your money on your intestines) and so which neurotransmitter is more important in your individual case is best determined by personal trial and error.
Putting It All Together
1/ If your anxiety is definitely situational or connected to a known traumatic event try therapy first if you are able to.
2/ If you are unable to make use of therapy because your anxiety is too extreme and overwhelming, or your anxiety is free-floating try reducing your symptoms and stabilising your condition before trying therapy by supplementing GABA and serotonin boosting remedies. Experiment with increasing GABA and serotonin levels individually one at a time and then in combination both together to establish your ideal prescription. Keep a detailed journal of what you take each day so that you can refer back and work out what helps.
3/ Then as soon as you are able to consult a cognitive hypnotherapist or similar experienced therapist to permanently install long-lasting changes in your mind to more permanently deal with this problem.
Anxiety Treatment Reprogramming the Amygdala the Subconscious Fear centre of the Brian