You’ve tried it all. Magnesium and ashwaghanda supplements from the local health food shop. Anti-anxiety meds prescribed by your sympathetic but brusque GP. Counselling and CBT with a skilled and compassionate psychologist. Maybe even CBD, kinesiology or hypnotherapy…and they’ve helped – some. But you STILL feel like your anxiety is slowly stealing away your quality of life and your ability to feel calm, content and in control…and you worry – am I going to be at the mercy of this forever? Is this just me? 

The truth is, through NO FAULT of your own, you’ve likely made 3 big mistakes when looking for a solution to your anxiety, which has only made you suffer more, longer. In this post I’m going to share what they are, and how you can take a totally different approach to finally break free from anxiety’s grip and experience the mental peace and wellbeing you truly desire.

1. You’re relating to your anxiety in a way that makes it worse

Anxiety is awful. The panic attacks, racing heart, dizziness and intrusive thoughts are deeply unpleasant at best and absolutely terrifying (or even debilitating) at worst. It’s completely human and normal to just want it to go away and to feel deep resistance towards the whole experience. Basically, you make these sensations and thoughts into a BIG PROBLEM that you just want to run away from. And this makes you more stressed and anxious. You get anxiety about your anxiety! Your anxious thoughts and physical symptoms make you MORE anxious. Again, this is a totally normal reaction, but it’s an unhelpful one that makes it SO much worse.

There is another way. Firstly to view anxiety differently. To see it as a messenger, an alarm system that’s trying to tell you that something, somewhere in our system is off-balance. If a smoke alarm goes off do you close your eyes and block your ears because the noise is unpleasant? Or do you look to see if there’s smoke? For many anxiety-sufferers, the “smoke” that sets off the alarm can be a range of things, from the physical (hormonal imbalances, gut dysfunction, nutrient deficiencies to name a few) to the mental/emotional (negative or fear-based thoughts, trauma, unprocessed emotions) to the environmental (stressful living or working conditions, toxic relationships for example). Usually it’s a unique combination of all three.

But if you view your anxiety as a messenger – as your smoke alarm – and get curious and investigative about what’s actually setting it off, (maybe even appreciative for the message!) you get that much closer to knowing how to effectively deal with those causes and triggers.

The other aspect to relating to your anxiety differently, and this is what mindfulness trains us to be able to do, is to learn how to drop that resistance and therefore the bulk of the suffering. While it definitely takes practice, believe it or not, it is possible to have anxiety but to feel OK. It’s even possible to feel warmth, tenderness and compassion towards your anxious thoughts and feelings instead of fear, dread and hatred. And this change in your relationship towards your anxiety makes a BIG difference, because you’re not adding fuel to the fire through your reactions.

2. You’re  looking for the short-term, quick-fix, escape-hatch solution

If you’re viewing and relating to your anxiety in the usual way I described above, then it’s only natural you’ll look for a solution that will just “turn off the smoke alarm” as quickly as possible. We want the magic pill, whether a supplement or a drug, to just make it go away as quickly as possible. Hence the multi-billion dollar drug and supplement industry. And there is definitely a place for both and I regularly prescribe anti-anxiety herbs and supplements for my clients to help minimise these unpleasant symptoms. BUT, this is just a band-aid approach to provide some relief, it’s not a true treatment. It’s imperative, as I mentioned above, to decode the message of your anxiety, and to take a truly integrative approach to treatment.

3. Relying on health professionals who take a one-sized fits all approach to anxiety

Unfortunately this is the way the majority of healthcare professionals operate. They tend to view anxiety through just one lens. Whether it’s the doctor that sees it only as an issue with brain chemistry and prescribes a drug (the chemical imbalance theory has been thoroughly debunked btw) or the therapist who sees all anxiety as unresolved childhood trauma and talk therapy as the holy grail. Trying to distill a complex and highly individual cluster of symptoms that has multiple causes, triggers and maintaining factors into one neat little box is not likely to result in a lasting solution. It’s better to seek out a practitioner who is open-minded, trained in several modalities, takes a root-cause approach and who works in partnership with the client to create a highly personalised healing journey, unique to that individual.

This is the foundation of the Integrative Mental Health Framework I use when assisting my clients with anxiety (and low mood, chronic stress or burnout). 

It’s a multi-targeted approach that includes:

• Extremely thorough case taking looking at the physical, mental/emotional, lifestyle realms in order to decode the unique possible root causes or contributing factors
• Thorough medical testing, sometimes through specialised labs that can test for more uncommon or lesser known causes of anxiety such as pyrrole disorder for example
• Addressing all the factors that can lead to a dysregulated nervous system: such as sleep, diet & nutrition, chronic stress, chronic inflammation, lack of exercise (to name a few)
• Working side by side with clients to map out their own vision and blueprint of mental wellbeing and supporting them to make lasting beahvioural changes that will meet their goals
• Training in mindfulness, yoga and CBT skills to calm the nervous system and build resilience to anxiety
• Naturopathic medicine including supplements and herbs that help not only minimise symptoms but address some of the underlying drivers

It’s a comprehensive approach that results in a completely individual journey for each and every client.

My hope, after you reading this post, is that you’re more aware of what healing anxiety actually entails, and can see why you may not have gotten the best results from quick-fix or one-sized fits all approaches.

If you’d like to learn more about how my Inetgrative Mental Health Framework could help you specifically book a free “Answers to Anxiety” call here.