Each pose is a challenge to be met, and a lesson in release. There are several “grounding” poses which will help increase your focus and calm you during your day. You don’t have to be an experienced yoga practitioner to reap the benefits of these poses. Remember to focus your energy downwards. Be conscious of the earth beneath you, in all its rhythms.

1) Mountain Pose – Stand with your feet no more than shoulder width apart, hands loose by your side. Relax your shoulders and neck. Your knees should be slightly bent, not locked. Close your eyes, and let gravity take hold. Focus on the feeling of the floor beneath your feet as your weight sinks downwards, and braces you. As with all yoga poses, inhale fully and slowly, and exhale completely.

2) Tree Pose – Start in mountain pose. Slowly let your right foot travel up the inside of your left leg until the arch braces against the inside of the knee. Your free hip should be turned out. You can bring your hands, palms together, to heart center, or raise them over your head. This is a balance move, but I find it very grounding because of the focus on the standing leg, and the controlled breathing. Slowly lower your leg, and switch to the other side. Keep your breathing steady.

3) Forward Fold – This basic pose loosens the tension in your back. Start in mountain pose, and slowly raise your arms over your head. Dive down, and let your whole body relax. Allow the arms to dangle loosely, and feel the feet plant into the floor. Inhale deeply, and as you exhale let your body relax just a little more, folding inwards, head towards the floor.

4) Warrior Pose – There is just something about this pose that feels powerful, yet at the same time it is very meditative. Extend your right leg into a forward lunge, but don’t go too deep. Your torso should face the side of the room, but your gaze is over your knee. Your arms are lifted, right arm in front extending over your bent leg, left arm in back. Sink into the lunge. Remember to breathe.

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“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Always works for me. It seems as though it works for psychiatric research, as well. And that’s a good thing because I’ve become frustrated and puzzled by the lack of research and treatment attention panic disorder, all of the anxiety disorders for that matter, receives.

Panic, and the anxiety disorders, so often take a back seat, especially to the mood disorders. And that’s odd given the fact that the anxiety disorders are the most prevalent of the mind variances, and so many anxiety sufferers have a mood disorder comorbidity.

Stepping off my soapbox, here’s some very creative thinking that gives me renewed confidence and hope. Using meds and psychotherapy as a punch combo to combat a mind variance isn’t anything new. For example, a panic disorder sufferer participating in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) gets referred to a psychiatrist and begins taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Happens all the time, though not always efficacious.

But what if there was a more creative boxing strategy? What if instead of meds and therapy working as a jab/cross combo, they teamed to become one massive knockout punch? Well, tune-in because this is cool.

D-cycloserine is an antibiotic that’s best known as a back-up treatment for tuberculosis. But, go figure, it’s shown efficacy in the treatment of phobias. And it’s also provided relief when used in augmentation with psychotherapy in the treatment of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and even schizophrenia. Well, it seems you may be able to add panic disorder to that list, especially within the context of exposure work in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

So how does an antibiotic provide relief for panic? Well, one of the characteristics of D-cycloserine is that of a partial agonist of a receptor for glutamate. Glutamate is the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in mammals, and an agonist is a manufactured or naturally occurring drug that triggers action from a neuron. The impact of glutamate is thought to be based in sensory-related fear extinction in the amygdala. Of course, the amygdala is our emotion/fear headquarters.

So if you really think about it, the D-cycloserine work is really a matter of enhancing a learning process. And it would then make perfect sense that a dosage of D-cycloserine would be administered one-hour prior to a CBT session. Isn’t that wild? It’s like a pre-game warm-up for the brain.

Though, to my knowledge, use of D-cycloserine hasn’t gone beyond the lab, it’s really very exciting and offers a lot of hope for many reasons. First and foremost, there’s every reason to believe the treatment can provide relief. And, secondly, it’s proof that some very creative thinking is occurring in the world of psychiatric research. It’s like a football coach revising offensive and defensive strategy, as well as the game plan, because he knows his player talent level is low.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Thank goodness for thought outside of the box.

After a winning bout with panic disorder, a career in the business world, and a part-time job working with socially challenged adolescents, Bill found his life’s passion and work. So he earned his master’s degree and counseling credentials, and is doing all he can to lend a hand to those having a tough time.

Bill has some powerful BE CALM mentoring and service packages available for panic attack sufferers on his website, which include his panic attack education and recovery eWorkbook, “Panic! …and Poetic Justice.” The eWorkbook is delivered via an immediate download. You’ll also find a link on the website to Bill’s Panic Attack Freedom! blog. Lots of good stuff going on and much more to come.

In addition to doing psychiatric emergency work, Bill continues to do a lot of writing and speaking. He’s conducted numerous mental health workshops and is available for future engagements. Bill is a national and local member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (N.A.M.I.). He resides in the far western suburbs of Chicago where he enjoys time with his two wonderful teenage children.
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Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/mental-health-articles/panic-attacks-anxiety-and-dcycloserine-thinking-outside-of-the-box-1324880.html

It’s not exactly clear as to what causes panic attack . Sure, a panic attack is the result of a very serious state of anxiety, but what makes anxiety levels peak? By understanding anxiety, one can learn to deal it, but it’s not life threatening. Though it often seem so! Some theories that might explain what leads to panic attack disorders are:

Biological reasons – Panic Attacks can be a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain and can run in families. If a member of a family suffers from panic attacks, chances are that other family members will develop it. It has been seen that panic attack sufferers are more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, undergo a depression or try to commit suicide, as compared to non-sufferers.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – A major life stress or change can lead to panic attacks. The stressor that triggers panic could be an illness, death of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce, financial problems or a miscarriage. These events usually precede the first panic attack. Some women experience an increase in the frequency of panic attacks during pregnancy.

Behavioral theory – You can learn certain negative behaviors or thought patterns that ‘teach’ you to become terrified of panic attacks. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle – as the number and intensity of fears grow, they feed on each other and severely affect the quality of your life.

Flight or fight – Your body’s builted in response to danger is to increase your heart rate and breathing, tense your muscles and sweat, as it readies itself to face a dangerous situation. Similar reactions take place during a panic attack.

Though why the body’s self defense system gets triggered when there’s no evident threat or danger, is not clear. During the fight and flight response, hormones are released through the body to prepare you to either fight the danger or run from it!

Now, when you think in a certain way during a panic attack, your body responds to your thoughts and activates the ‘fight and flight’ response. You see, your body can’t tell the difference between your thoughts and reality. While panicking, you keep fearing the worst and wonder what if this were to happen, what if that were to happen, and this turns the fight and flight response on.

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Without a doubt, opening up has always been a toughie for me. Still can be. My issue has always been trust, trying my best to believe that those in whom I might confide will truly listen to all I have to say; and accept it, not necessarily in agreement, without passing judgment. God only knows I’ve always been willing to do the same.

Looking back over the years, I can only imagine the price I’ve paid in relationships and personal frustration because of this opening-up dilemma. But when you really think about it, I suppose it’s not too hard to figure out why any panic sufferer would turn out to be somewhat of a recluse. I mean, we all too often don’t go anywhere because of agoraphobia, social phobia, avoidance, assorted irrational fears, etc. Hence, we kind of get in the habit of, indeed, simply avoiding people and relationships, excluding from our lives any sort of environment in which we can open-up and be comfortable in simply being ourselves. And if you’re like I was, that probably suits you just fine. Right?

Why would we want to associate with anyone? What could we possibly have to offer? Shoot, the very last thing we’d want to do is expose anyone to all the misery in our lives, and the misery of us. It’s not like they’d want to hear our long litany of pain, much less be able to understand or do anything about it. We’d just feel like a whiner. And we sure as heck don’t want to have to be confronted with the successes of others. I mean, why would we want to subject ourselves to any form of self-comparison to someone, who in our minds, we could never match. I mean, what’s the point? Not to mention, because of our fear-ridden perception of the world, who could we trust anyway? And, of course, our very low self-regard bangs these falsehoods home day in and day out.

Well, I can tell you from experience that opening myself to others wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, and still isn’t. No doubt, there are just so many hidden agendas held deep within that keep us from really reaching out, taking the risk of being exposed. But I can also tell you that we must try as hard as we can to pull it off. There’s just too much to be missed. Now, I’m not saying we have to pour our heart and soul out to each and every person we come across. No, we just need to release ourselves from the chains of any mode of thinking that entirely excludes expressing ourselves at some decent level of depth. I mean, it’s so easy for us to be quite comfortable living the life of a recluse, but I promise it won’t be long before that lifestyle choice will turn into a highly littered dead-end street. Maybe it already has.

Trust me, there are people out there who either do, or would, really care about us and would be more than willing to accept us just the way we are, and help us leap to the next level. And the cool thing is we haven’t even met some of these people yet. We’ll miss out on so much valuable release, input, feedback, and companionship if we elect to live our lives alone, keeping all of our thoughts and feelings inside. I know it’s never been easy to trust anyone in the screwed-up and crazy world in which we live or have lived. But, that can all be a bad memory now. We really need to take a shot at being known and knowing someone else, baring a bit of our souls. Yes, it’s a risk; but we’re more than strong enough to handle it. And the potential rewards are more than fabulous.

After a winning bout with panic disorder, a career in the business world, and a part-time job working with socially challenged adolescents, Bill found his life’s passion and work. So he earned his master’s degree and counseling credentials, and is doing all he can to lend a hand to those having a tough time.

Bill has some powerful BE CALM mentoring and service packages available for panic attack sufferers on his website, which include his panic attack education and recovery eWorkbook, “Panic! …and Poetic Justice.” The eWorkbook is delivered via an immediate download. You’ll also find a link on the website to Bill’s Panic Attack Freedom! blog. Lots of good stuff going on and much more to come.

In addition to doing psychiatric emergency work, Bill continues to do a lot of writing and speaking. He’s conducted numerous mental health workshops and is available for future engagements. Bill is a national and local member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (N.A.M.I.). He resides in the far western suburbs of Chicago where he enjoys time with his two wonderful teenage children.
Subscribe to the Hope and Healing Dynamics newsletter.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/mental-health-articles/panic-attacks-and-anxiety-the-risk-of-opening-up-1312714.html

Anyone who has to deal with constant anxiety or panic attacks knows that it is not a fun time. And it’s not like there is a good time for you to feel like a heart attack is coming on, there is never a good time for that. Anxiety is an interesting thing because everyone has to deal with it, depending on what happens to be going on in your life, but for many people it rarely goes away, that awful feeling is with you at all times. It starts when you wake up and gives you all sorts of problems getting to sleep, but there is help out there and there are ways for you to cope and even limit it.

There are a lot of medications, both herbal and from the pharmacy which can help you deal with anxiety and panic attacks. Things like kava, lavender, passion flower oil and lemon balm have been shown to help ease some of the symptoms of anxiety and are great if you are averse to taking medication. From your doctor you can get something like Zoloft which should not be taken lightly but for those who suffer worst, it can solve the problem.

Since much of the problems with anxiety and panic attacks are really psychological, then in many cases there are a few basic steps you can take to either ease the problem or get rid of it altogether.  Learning to relax is a good start and you can look into things like massage, acupuncture and even aroma therapy can help ease the stress of life. You should also look into meditation which has been shown to be very helpful for a lot of people.

You can also look at changing some aspects of your daily life, things that have been shown to cause anxiety and nervous disorders. If you are a smoker, that is a great and obvious place to start but other stimulants like coffee, soda and other caffeine based products should be cut out and you will probably see some good results from that.

And finally you should look at the most basic parts of good living, namely getting a good nights sleep and some regular exercise. In many cases, those who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks are not the picture of good living and if you spend some quality time looking hard at your life, maybe you can find some small changes you can make to help you relax and live a happier life. More help for anxiety and panic attacks.

Gary P is a writer for RX Direct Health

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/mental-health-articles/living-with-anxiety-and-panic-attacks-1303707.html