Signs You Might Be Living with Crippling Anxiety
Over 40 million Americans including 25% of children ages 13-18 suffer from anxiety and they are often living with crippling anxiety. Heart racing, palms sweating, shallow breathing, and more can all be anxiety attack symptoms. The fast-paced lifestyle, with the Standard American Diet, sitting and staring at a screen hunched over all day. Then you combine that with the social media comparison and photoshop game and you have a stressed out, malnourished, sedentary person.
It’s no wonder Anxiety is SO common!
To put it simply anxiety is the mind’s reaction to a potential threat that causes physical reactions. Which over time our bodies deplete themselves of the nutrients we need to help us see things as good and bad instead of everything being a threat.
Table of Contents
How do You Know If Living With Crippling Anxiety
Before we get into some of the symptoms of crippling anxiety, I want to just say that there definitely are ways to cope and even many natural ways. How do you know if you have crippling anxiety? Well If you can’t get out of bed in the morning because you had insomnia and could not sleep well, that can be a sign your anxiety is crippling you.
If you have no energy and your diet is fairly health, you feel like your fears are increasing because everything gives you anxiety. Then it is safe to say you are being crippled with anxiety.
Normal Anxiety vs. Neurotic Anxiety
A little stress and anxiety are healthy, because if nothing phased you then you would not be able to feel and express yourself adequately. Some anxiety could be heart racing from being excited or anticipating something new and thrilling.
Whether it is good or bad, prolonged periods of anxiety cause fatigue, exhaustion, and muscle soreness, along with a bunch of other symptoms of an anxiety attack.
Neurotic Anxiety is “a reaction that does not match the threat and results in blocking off of activity and awareness.” (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2018) If you are living with crippling anxiety, you may not be as sensitive to or aware of the anxiety symptoms you are having.
Below are some important symptoms to look out for.
Heart Racing
You will feel like your heart is beating so fast and you just woke up or just had a heated argument. This is your fight-or-flight system working to try to protect you. Which is great if you are running from a lion, but not if you just woke up or are sitting and relaxed.
Try focusing on breathing slowly and doing some yoga stretches.
Lack of Concentration
A lack of food throughout the day in combination with a stressful day can make you lose all concentration. Stress and anxiety can be exhausting and your body won’t be able to think.
This is your body’s way of crying out for help. For food, meditation, and a little less caffeine.
Insomnia
I have been a victim of this one since I was about 12 years old. An overactive mind now that I have kids and people that depend on me, combined with a lot of drive and ambition.
It’s great to be driven and a go-getter. In order to keep that up you have to know when to shut it down.
Try going to sleep before 11 pm because your body wakes itself up more after 11 pm if you fight it.
Also, try taking some magnesium, because there is some really great research on its effects on anxiety attack symptoms.
Magnesium is urinated out when you undergo lots of stress that’s why it HAS to be replenished. Through your diet would be the most ideal route, however, that’s difficult.
Our food quality is not the same as it was for our ancestors. We still need to eat our veggies like avocados and dark leafy greens. (Great sources of Magnesium)
However, supplements help us supplement what our diet is lacking.
Here is my favorite Calm Magnesium on Amazon it is 113 servings and can be taken multiple times a day.
Why I love Calm Magnesium
I have woken up so many times feeling like my anxiety is crippling me and when I take my Calm Magnesium, it gets better so quickly!
- It is a powder and it dissolves in cold water in just a few minutes
- Super affordable for 113 servings in the larger bottle (even more depending on how much your body needs)
- Slightly flavored but contains no sugar!
- Once mixed in water, the liquid is absorbed much faster than a pill.
- Potent
- Effective
- Works FAST
Digestive Issues
I feel like this is one of the anxiety attack symptoms that people do not have a clue about. When you eliminate foods out of your diet that you believe you are sensitive to. Then you still have an upset stomach or tightening feeling.
Anxiety.
Even your gut health is affected by your anxiety. We produce between 80-90% of our serotonin in our guts. There have also been many connections between our guts and our hearts, skin, brain, immune system, and more.
High Blood Pressure
Prolonged stress, lots of caffeine, alcohol, no exercise, AND a magnesium deficiency can all cause high BP. Magnesium tells your heart and blood vessels to relax.
Consuming high amounts of white refined salt can cause small cuts in your arteries and the body sends plaque to repair it, therefore causing build-up and increasing blood pressure.
Pro Tip: Switch to an unrefined sea salt like Redmond’s Real Salt or Evolution’s Himalayan Salt both are natural salts. In addition, they have magnesium in them, but of course, taking the supplement helps to increase it faster and it is faster acting than salt.
Sweating
Is the temperature always too hot? You are sweating indoors with the air on full blast and you have no idea why. Yeah, that’s your anxiety, my friend.
Something an acupuncturist taught me was to use peppermint oil on the bottom of my feet. Peppermint is kind of tingly and very cooling so only use a few drops.
If you love essential oils, check out the blog post I created about Essential Oils for Anxiety.
Muscle Tension
When stressed our muscles tense up. If you are lifting weights at the gym you want this. (Exercise is a form of stress, healthy but still stress.)
That’s like doing a squat and just holding it most of the day. Your muscles would tense up and give you a charlie horse after a while.
Summary
- Anxiety is normal when our morals are threatened.
- Magnesium is helpful at calming you down and supporting healthy blood pressure.
- Your digestive health can be affected by your thoughts.
You can heal your body if you heal your mind. You can thrive in business, health, relationships, and potential if you work on healing your mind.
Originally posted 2020-06-18 04:03:41.
Megan Santiago
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