Folk Remedies for Anxiety

There are plenty of items that claim to reduce anxiety significantly. These come in all sorts of forms from pills to dissolving gel capsules for relieving stress on the go. If you search around you will find Bach Rescue Remedy is mentioned quite often along with different brands of similar mood enhancing pills. These brands include Now, Moodboost, and many others that have essentially the same ingredients.

But what about L-theanine, you may say. If you suffer from extreme anxiety and have heard of this then you probably drink nothing but green tea to try and reap the benefits of it. I have switched to hot green tea for most of my drinking needs while I’m at home as well.

Saint John’s Wort? I have tried that as well. It is generally in the mood enhancing pills in small doses. If you check stores like CVS and Walgreens you can find it easily in the vitamin section in pill form.

Do these things work? If you’re like me you have tried everything not to use actual medicine to help yourself. I have spent years trying to heal myself naturally by using these type of products and I’m more than willing to share my results. They don’t work.

I have been using Bach Rescue Remedy Pearls for around a month now and I actually thought it was working until one dreaded morning. I was running late for work and forgot to take one. I was nearly halfway to work before I realized it and I was immediately struck with horror. I worked the day and I didn't feel too much different from when I was taking the Pearls. I have tried them on and off to compare to find that there was no difference. I also tried Now Mood Support. Unfortunately this had the same result.

L-theanine seemed promising, but I’m not sure how well it works. I have heard that you would have to drink an impossible amount of tea in order to get enough to make any real difference. I will say that drinking hot green tea does have a very relaxing effect on me. I’m sure it’s only that it’s a hot drink rather than the L-theanine though. I have started to bring a coffee mug full of hot tea to work work every morning and I have to say that it really helps me.

Out of the products I have tried I have been very disappointed that most of them have felt like placebos rather than something really helpful. I am not trying to discourage anyone from trying one of these products because there are plenty of people that have said they work wonders for them. What may work for you may not work for me and vice versa.

Hopefully one day there will be an all natural product that can knock out our anxiety as well as prescription medicine seems to be able to, but I doubt it. Until then we just have to pray that God will lead us in the direction He wants us to go even if that direction is prescription medication.

God Bless and let me know if you need anything,

David

Think About Who You Answer To

The biggest problem with anxiety is that even when you aren't feeling nervous you are still suffering. Anxiety is often connected with deep depression and that is really not surprising. Social anxiety makes you feel broken and alone long after the nervousness fades. Simple interactions can leave you questioning yourself for weeks.

I tend to replay past conversations over and over in my mind. I should have said this. I should have done that. Constant questioning leaves you in a state of doubt of whether or not you can do anything at all without failing.

This means when I’m not feeling anxious I’m feeling depressed about feeling anxious at some other time. It feels like your life is a deep hole you can’t escape, but you can! My grandparents are very important to me and my grandmother especially is very supportive. She always tells me about being stressed out over a job to the point of nearly having a panic attack. My grandfather, being the logical man he is, sat her down and asked her what the worst thing that could happen was. She said she could get fired and his response was “so what.”

I think this is a good way to look at life. I think that I look at life and every event in it way too seriously. I feel that anxiety comes from pride. I know mine does. It’s very important that I do everything perfectly and because of that my assumption is that everyone else feels the same. I am not perfect and neither are you. Setting the bar slightly higher than you can achieve can be useful to push yourself further but the goal we have set for ourselves has only caused us grief. We will fall flat on our faces every time if we think anything less than perfect is unacceptable.  What Jesus did for us was because it is impossible for us to be anywhere near perfect.

That anxiety you feel may never disappear and you may have horrible bouts of depression multiple times a year but that is no reason to give up on yourself. You are not perfect and you will never be. It’s okay to make mistakes. So what if you stutter while speaking at work or can’t type a single word when your boss is standing over your shoulder? Everyone has flaws and God won’t blame you for it. Since God is who we answer to, don’t be worried about all the worldly mistakes you and I will undoubtedly make or the people that may want to judge you for them.

I’m always around if someone needs to talk so send me a message if you need to.

God bless,

David