Anxiety Attacks - 5 Tips How To Improve Your Self Esteem and Reduce Your Fears!

For so many of us, the fear creeps up and takes a hold. Suddenly, we feel our heart rate accelerate and our breathing become quicker. We feel uncomfortable sensations coursing through our body and become even more frightened.

We are so consumed by the physical manifestations of our anxiety or panic attack that we don´t take the time to analyze what this sudden surge is all about.

Why are we feeling this way, what are we concerned about, and most importantly are our fears based on probabilities or remote possibilities?




We don´t take the time to analyze our attacks because who could possibly think about anything other than whether our body can survive this latest and greatest assault by our anxiety demon. While it may seem impossible to analyze our fears away, you need to try to take the time to do it. Doing so begins with reminding yourself that your body and your mind can survive the physical manifestations of your anxiety symptoms.

You are not going to go into cardiac arrest. You are not going to stop breathing. You are not going to lose all sensations and feeling in your body. If you´ve had more than one panic attack, this may be easier for you to tell yourself. You have already survived multiple panic attacks and while the episode may have been scary, you are none the worse for wear physically.

Your body was designed to have this happen; having an adrenaline surge is a natural response and one that your body can spring back from without difficulty. Since you aren´t going to die, you can actually take the time to analyze the basis of your panic attack or anxiety symptoms.

Usually, the trigger was building up over a course of hours, days or weeks. In these times of economic turmoil, many of the panic attack triggers revolve around financial uncertainty. A fear that you might lose your job, that you won´t get hired somewhere else, that you won´t have as many things, or that your family will be poor.

All of these worries are genuine but if you think about them more thoroughly you will realize the answer to all these potential pitfalls is SO WHAT! If you are worried about losing your job or have already lost your job, this isn´t a new found status. At some point in your earlier life you were unemployed.

You somehow managed to find a job once and you will do so again. So what if you don´t have as many things or make as much money? Life and happiness are not based on possessions. Some of the unhappiest people I know are also the richest. Money is not a guaranteed route to happiness and you shouldn´t let it determine your self worth.

Having a high self worth or high self esteem is central to dealing with your anxiety problems. People with high self confidence and a high regard for themselves and their abilities tend to have less problems with anxiety and panic. This makes intuitive sense but you can´t just conjure self esteem out of nowhere.

People with low self esteem tend to think of life in terms of what they don´t have, rather than what they do have. They aren´t rich enough, smart enough, and pretty enough. Building up your self esteem is a process but it is something that can certainly be accomplished and it will help you deal with your anxiety.

How do you enhance your self esteem? Here are some steps to boost your feelings of self worth and give your more confidence about your life.

1. Accept what bring to the table as well as your own limitations

This seems simple enough but so many people have a hard time doing it. If you are 5´5´´, you are not the next Lebron James, no matter how much you wish it were so. If you can´t carry a tune, you are not going to star in a musical on Broadway.

Accept your limitations and appreciate what you can do. You may not be able to carry a tune but you may be a whiz in math or be an eloquent speaker, or have a sympathetic and understanding heart. These are important abilities or traits that can be built upon to find your own niche in life.

2. Find Your Value

Appreciating what you bring to the table and your own abilities will help you find your value in this world. You may not be indispensable on the basketball court, but you may be in the science lab or in the operating room, or educating children.

There are so many places where you can find pride and a feeling of self worth. You don´t have to have your name in lights to experience the appreciation of others and feel good about yourself and what you do.

3. Be Realistic About Your Goals

It´s important to dream big and set your sights high but you don´t want to set yourself up for disappointment. You are not going to become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company in one year. However, you might be able to get a job at one and work your way up.

4. Work Hard and Feel Good about Your Accomplishments

Working hard reaps rewards. Its just the simple truth, you get places and get noticed when you put the extra effort in. When you do get recognition, appreciate it and celebrate it. Celebrating your accomplishments is a great way to build up self esteem.

Recognizing that you earned that promotion, that raise or that congratulatory pat on the back is an important part of feeling good about yourself and reducing any anxiety you might be experiencing as you work towards your goals.

5. Remember You Are Special

This isn´t just some hokey line, it´s the truth. Each of us brings something special and unique to this world. If you have children, all you have to do is look into their eyes to realize how special you are. Let your whole life, not just your job, determine how you feel about yourself. Believe in your ability to accomplish what you desire and beat back that anxiety and panicky feeling that threaten to undermine your happiness.
by: Bertil Hjert

Physical And Environmental Causes Of Stress

Stress, which is the main trigger for anxiety attack comes in two categories: (i) physical causes and (ii) environmental causes.

Physical Causes of Anxiety

1. Age - Physical causes for anxiety are those which are triggered by tangible changes in your body. One of the most often quoted factors under this category is middle age. Though more commonly identified with women and menopause, men too experience anxiety symptoms in their mid-to-late 40s. This is because of sudden changes in hormone production which affect the functions of all the systems in the body. Doctors normally prescribe HRT or hormone replacement therapy for women who experience extreme anxiety levels during menopause. For men, the only way out is counseling and symptomatic treatment...

2. Andropause as in the male-menopause - Did you know that men go through a similar phase (though not directly connected to fertility) in their late 40s to mid 50s? It is called andropause and exhibits almost all the symptoms of menopause including anxiety and panic attacks. These are usually treated on the merit of each case, though imbalance of hormones plays a major role here as well.

3. Drug effects and side effects - Other physical causes of anxiety are related to drugs and their absorption in the body. Say, you were a regular smoker and decide to quit; or you realize that coffee and caffeinated products are making you edgy and you eliminate from your diet. The result in both these cases would be anxiety attacks due to withdrawal symptoms caused by suddenly stopping the intake of such substances. You would also experience anxiety attacks if certain drugs are stopped suddenly, such as anti-depressants, abuse of OTC (over-the-counter) drugs, and so on.

4. Thyroid problems - Anxiety can also be triggered by a malfunctioning thyroid gland, which once again causes chemical imbalances in the brain. Unfortunately, this is one of the most difficult conditions to diagnose because tests usually come negative when the thyroid is tested for abnormal function.

Environmental Causes of Anxiety

Internal factors that cause imbalance of hormones and other chemicals account for one side of the story. The other one pertains to external factors or stressors, such as:

1. Job loss or the threat of loosing your job
2. Death of someone loved
3. Prolonged illness
4. Sudden change in lifestyles - marriage, life after death of a spouse, having a baby, new job, moving to a new town/ country, and so on
5. Relationship problems
6. Knowledge that you are suffering from a fatal disease
7. Extreme conditions at workplace
8. Inability to generate adequate finances to support self and family
9. Physical and/or mental abuse
10. Physical challenges to cope with situations or life styles

Before we go any further you need to know one less known fact - stress can be positive, too. The Oxford dictionary defines stress as, “a state of affairs involving demand on physical or mental energy", which leaves out any allusion to the negative connotation we are so used to hear about. Medically, stress is “perturbation of the body"s homeostasis" or simply put a state where both body and mind need to work constantly to cope with the demands from environment. Therefore, it is easy to infer from here that stress does not become a negative factor unless it cannot be managed. As long as you are able to manage stress, you are likely to benefit rather than suffer because of it. How?

Consider a scenario where you have a tight deadline. In order to meet it, you draw upon all your inner potential and strength and push yourself to overachieve. The result is that you do make the deadline and you feel good about your success. Inventions, people juggling successfully careers and homes, athletic feats, and so on are only a few example of how stress can be a positive vehicle to fulfill your potential. It becomes negative and harmful when sustained over a prolonged period, long enough to cause gross malfunction of the major systems within your body.
by: Ian Spencer

Anxiety And Stress - Eliminate Environment Factor With Diet

Anxiety attacks are often you are leading a very stressful life. It is as if your body and mind say, "Enough! I cannot take it anymore." The tension you feel because you are worried whether you would be able to make your deadline, whether you would be able to attend your children's special days at school, whether your finances would be enough to cover the raising monthly expenses and so on, eventually would result in anxiety attacks. If these stressors are...

not checked in time and adequate measures are not taken to reverse the symptoms, depression would follow.

Anxiety is a combined result of external stressor and internal chemical hormonal imbalance. This is why we can understand when people who have gone through a traumatic period or women who are entering menopause experience anxiety attacks. However, you will observe that there are plenty of cases when anxiety strikes seemingly unexpectedly. What happens actually?

There are two other factors that cause anxiety that we have not yet discussed: (i) heredity and (ii) diet. We have seen that anxiety attacks, whether mild or serious need triggers, just like asthma or allergy. For it to happen there should be something that presses the 'start' button. Sometimes it is the stress that overwhelms your life; other times it is the biological clock of your body and sometimes it is a shock caused by a traumatic incident. Each trigger is a conduit to anxiety attacks, due to the alteration of the chemical balance inside the body.

Heredity And Anxiety

It is obvious from the above that anxiety is an external manifestation of chemical imbalances in the body. Like diabetes, heart problems and cancer among others, anxiety is also a hereditary condition. In other words, sometimes the trigger would be just some faulty genes that you have inherited from your parents. Therefore, if you feel those butterflies in the stomach and exhibit anxiety symptoms, and you see no real indicators of what could have caused it, it would be a good idea to check your family's medical history.

Find out whether either of your parents suffered from anxiety attacks. Do not stop here. Look a little deeper and check with your maternal and paternal aunts, uncles, and grandparents on both sides. If you find that any one of these people were victims of this affliction, then you could investigate heredity as the source of your problem.

Once you have identified the source of the problem you would be able to take adequate measures to address the chemical imbalance of the body without worrying about identifying any other stressor or trigger. With the right medication and adequate diet, you would be able to put the anxiety attack out of your system for good in a very short time.
by: Ian Spencer