Herbal Remedies: Anxiety & Stress

I found an early copy of my herbal notes that I had typed up and put on Pagan Forum a couple of years ago, and figured I’d go back and revise and expand them a bit for the blog.  Its a bit more than just herbal remedies and I hope you find them helpful! I’ll be posting a little bit every week for the next few weeks as I work through them.

NOTE:   None of this is to replace medical care.  If you think that you require professional medical care for any condition, get it.  (duh) 

The best treatment for anxiety, tension and stress is to identify and eliminate or reduce stressors and to identify negative coping patterns and replace them with positive coping strategies.

*Keep your body healthy with proper nutrition and exercise.
*Get proper sleep (sleep issues will be a future discussion!)
*Avoid caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, sugar and refined foods.
*Nutritional supplements such as calcium (1,000 mg per day), magnesium (400 to 600 mg per day), and B complex vitamins (50 to 100 mg per day can help support the nervous system and minimize the effects of stress.
*A daily herbal decoction that includes oatstraw and nettle can bolster one’s moods and sort of smooth out the edges of tension and anxiety.
*Relaxation techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, biofeedback, meditation, and self-hypnosis can be effective in relieving tension, stress and anxiety, as can exercise/meditation regimes such as yoga or tai chi.
*Surround yourself with people that make you feel good, and that you can help feel good in return (because knowing you helped someone is as great of a way to feel good as knowing you have people ready to help you). Build a support group for life, whether it be online or inperson.
*Turn off the news. Yes, we need to be informed…but not at the expense of our sanity.
*Develop a creative outlet–cooking, art, dance, poetry. Something that allows you to express yourself and let your thinking mind rest.

For those times when stress is unavoidable but manageable, consider the following:

*One 8 oz cup of chamomile or lavender or a chamomile and lavender combination tea can be taken to reduce anxiety, nervousness and tension. Especially if you drink it meditatively.
*Herbs useful for reducing anxiety and stress include passionflower, valerian, kava, as well as most of the mint family, including varieties such as catnip and lemon balm.
*Aromatherapy can be excellent for reducing anxiety and environmental stressors and promoting a relaxing environment.  Lavender is especially good for this.  Put some essential oil on a cotton ball in your room, burn a lavender candle or put a cup of lavender flowers in a muslin/cheese cloth bag and put in your bath water.
*Have an outlet. Everyone has stress. Everyone needs a shoulder now and again. Build relationships that allow you to have someone to lean on…and return the favor when they are in need. Yup, I know this is a repeat from up above–but its an important repeat that bears repeating over and over!!
*Other essential oils that are useful for promoting relaxation and relieving anxiety are bergamont, cypress, geranium, jasmine, lemon balm, neroli, rose, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang.
*Try utilizing controlled breathing patterns (such as inhale to a count or 4, hold for 4, out for 4) until tension subsides.
*Amethyst and Rose Quarts (IMO) are two of the best stones to use as a focus for stress relief meditations, if you are into crystals.
*Massage is a great stress reducer.  The following points can help relieve anxiety, tension and stress:

If you have a clinical anxiety disorder, or suspect that you do, see a medical professional. If you aren’t sure if you should seek professional assistance, consider if your anxiety is interfering in your life, as you would like to be living it…if yes, then you should seek assistance.  There are support groups and organizations that can help, if you feel that the people around you “just don’t get it” and your normal coping techniques are not being useful.  Consider charting your moods, so that you know when you may be headed for problems and in need of assistance.

Also, anxiety can be a cause AND a symptom of other, more serious, heath conditions.  If you are having unusual issues with anxiety that are not explained by life events, consider mentioning it to your physician.  On a personal note, the most obvious marker to indicate that I need to have my thyroid levels checked is an excess amount of anxiety out of the blue…I have never been wrong here, every time I’ve had to have my medication adjusted.

*shhhhh…*

Don’t tell anyone I was here because I’m not really back yet!

I’ve slowly but surely, in my few spare moments here and there, been doing some page tinkering, but overall, I’m still terribly busy with school…and I should probably be studying (but I just can’t take it at the moment!!!)

To top it off, Mr. Collin has been sick with an ear and sinus infection. Poor little guy is a bit cranky…but he got his first REAL hair cut and (mostly) handled it like a trooper. And tomorrow is Miss Sophie’s birthday, my little Ostara baby…she is such a Pisces with a dash of Aries to make it difficult. I had plans for a family Ostara (as well as an actual Ostara post), but with the birthday things going on and an exam today, as well as three exams and a presentation due next week…that all went by the wayside. I’m thinking we will suspend Ostara to coincide (as to not confuse the kiddos, and because I have a three day weekend) until Easter, since my family does a HUGE egg hunt for the kids.

So until/unless I get another bout of midnight madness (hubby started a new job and works evenings–and often overtime now, and my schedule is off), have a wonderful Ostara and a Happy Spring!!!

Ooooh…and (while I’m still up) I totally have two random recipes because I have been experimenting with using yogurt instead of cream cheese or sour cream…

Fast, cheap & easy bean dip:

2 cans fat free refried beans
1 can chili seasoned tomatoes (or 1 cup of salsa, your choice)
1 cup fat free plain yogurt

Mix together. A sprinkling of cheese is optional. Serve with corn chips.

Creamy Pesto:

Two tablespoons pesto
Two tablespoons fat free plain yogurt

Mix together. Yummy on sandwiches.

Also, try adding some yogurt to tomato soup or chicken noodle/chicken with rice, it makes it nice and creamy and gives it a bit of a tang, while promoting the incorporation of probiotics into the diet.

Moments of Mindfulness

On my path, to be mindful is to be aware of what is, within and without, as it is, and to accept it and myself, without condition or condemnation.

Rather than any structured meditation, I walk the beach…it has the bonus of being a quiet moment of exercize, reflection and benediction all in one.  Walking the beach is really sort of a metaphor for life…when you walk the shoreline, there is heartwrenching beauty made all the more poignant for the sporadic defilement by humans and unabashed destruction of the elements–and like the joys and sorrows of life, you couldn’t have one without the other. 

I take a mesh bag and two or three grocery bags (my way of recycling the few I get when I buy too many groceries for my reusable bags) and pick up the trash that blows or drifts ashore, or is left by beach-goers in the grocery bags, and place the small treasures that one finds on the beach–and interesting rock, a unique shell, a piece of coral or seaweed, an old, rounded and worn piece of glass into the mesh bag.  I feel the wind in my hair and the salt tang on my tongue, the water laps at my legs and the sandy-sild bottom of the bay squelches between my toes.  I walk, but I’m not sure how far…until the lower right side of my back twinges, or the bag of trash gets too full.  I feel the silence in my very pores–the silence that has less to do with the absence of sount than the stillness of the mind.

I am at peace and I yearn to lie in the sand as the tide flows around me…but in the back of my mind that list of things to do still tickles.

Sometimes it is hard to be mindful.

Worrywart

Two months ago, at Collin’s pediatrics appointment, we brought up the fact that we weren’t sure he was hearing well.  We had noticed that he didn’t seem to startle at loud noises, and that he followed what he saw, rather than what he heard.   Our pediatrician wasn’t terribly concerned…he was meeting all of his milestones, and he had passed his newborn screening.  We chalked it up to the colds and stuffy nose he and Sophie passed back and forth over the winter.  But, since then, our feeling that something wasn’t quite right increased. 

We  have rang bells, yelled in his ear, clapped behind him, turned music on in the middle of nap time…and nothing.  No waking up, no looking around for the sound, no startle, no response other than he keeps doing whatever interests him.  He’s not soothed by sounds.   No ba-ba, da-da, ma-ma sounds that babies begin to make, just the same gurgle/giggling noise that happy babies make starting around 2-4 months.  The most heartbreaking is when he cries because he’s faced the wrong way and thinks he’s alone in the room because he hasn’t quite leared to turn around when he’s in crawling position.

At his six month appointment, he was ahead on all of his milestones–except for those dealing with communication, which he was behind on.  Our pediatrician put in a consult to the audiologist, and he is having an ABR test (Auditory Brainstem Response) next month.  Its not soon enough.

In the meantime, I worry…because I am a mom, and that is what we do.  And since I can’t just sit around and worry without going crazy, I research…because that is how I deal with unexpected transitions.  I worry because I don’t know what to expect (even though no one knows what to expect from life).  I worry because my child might never get to hear his own child laugh for the first time (jumping the gun on grandchildren by a couple of decades).  I worry because I love music, and I can’t imagine not hearing.  I worry because I don’t know anything about being deaf, except for a semester of ASL I took 8 years ago.  I worry because I didn’t teach my daughter baby signing, because the only programs I had heard about at the time weren’t based in “real” signing.  I worry because there are too many options, too many opinions, too many people with agendas, too much conflicting information.  I worry because I feel guilty for worrying…I mean, its like aknowledging that something might be “wrong” but there is nothing wrong with being deaf (and I’ll be damned if anyone tries to tell me something is “wrong” with my baby). 

Heck, I even worry that he’s NOT deaf, and that there is something else causing this and that we aren’t going to figure out what it is until it is too late and we have stunted his ability to learn to communicate.

And I keep reading. 

“If parents are not able to accept the fact that their child is deaf and continue to deny the implications of the deafness, the resulting effects on the child are to encourage his own denial and lack of authenticity. Such a child is thus unable to accept himself and his capacity to emerge or become a unique person is blocked. He lives an existential lie and becomes unable to relate to himself and to other deaf individuals and to the world in a genuine manner.”

from an excellent website that has calmed me down a bit @ http://www.deaf-culture-online.com/parents-of-deaf-children.html 

We decided (in our three days of panic) that we are going to start with baby signing—even if Collin isn’t deaf, the exposure to another is a great idea.  Sophie, Collin and I watched Signing Time videos on youTube.

Sophie’s expression to all of this is the puzzled, I’m-not-sure-I-like-this look that generally accompanies peas or carrots, Collin stares in transfixed concentration and contentment.  I try to teach Sophie the sign for “milk”, and her favorite food, “apple”, but she tells me “NO! NO, MOMMY! No like it”.  For all I have heard about the improvement in communication and language skills, I wonder about my two-year-old’s stubborn tenacity, resistance to change and already incredibly advanced vocabulary. 

I want to cry.

Tomorrow is another day…and maybe after some sleep (I’ve been up with cranky, sick kids since 3 am), I can get some clarity…

Stressed out…

I  have a 14 month old, I’m pregnant (and hi-risk) and I’m in the military (as is my husband) and work long, bizarre hours, we are often strapped for money, time and everything else…and, like just about everyone else in our society, I’m stressed…

I almost wonder if there isn’t some grand conspiracy of business, government and media to keep us that way, in the interests of making money off of us…I read a book that discusses that the more insecure women are made thru advertising (in the discussion of the book, about their periods), the more money they spend on feminine hygene products–I have seen this idea echoed in other articles and such, and I believe it whole heartedly—just look at the diet industry, the make-up industry, the fashion industry (to name a few).

I have had to work on decreasing my stress level, as well as some of my normal habits and actions…it is quite difficult for me to relax…  Clinically speaking, I have some hypervigilance issues, which tend to manifest as trigger point pain and a wee touch of OCD (the military loves that trait–but my family does NOT). 

Other than the tips below, the best thing I have done thus far has been to create an environment designed to relax and recharge, to welcome and make one feel secure…reducing clutter, creating a cleaning schedule, embracing the imperfect, soothing colors, scents, as well as cleansing and blessing the home can all go along way to achieving this.

Natural Remedies for Tension and StressThe best treatment for anxiety, tension and stress is to identify and eliminate or reduce stressors and to identify negative coping patterns and replace them with positive coping strategies.

*Keep your body healthy with proper nutrition and exercise.
*Avoid caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, sugar and refined foods.
*Nutritional supplements such as calcium (1,000 mg per day), magnesium (400 to 600 mg per day), and B complex vitamins (50 to 100 mg per day can help support the nervous system and minimize the effects of stress. 
*Relaxation techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, biofeedback, meditation, and self-hypnosis can be effective in relieving tension, stress and anxiety. 

For those times when stress is unavoidable but manageable, consider the following:

*One 8 oz cup of chamomile or lavender or a chamomile and lavender combination tea can be taken to reduce anxiety, nervousness and tension.
*Herbs useful for reducing anxiety and stress include passionflower, valerian, kava, as well as most of the mint family, including varieties such as catnip and lemon balm.
*Aromatherapy can be excellent for reducing anxiety and environmental stressors and promoting a relaxing environment.  Lavender is especially good for this.  Put some essential oil on a cotton ball in your room, burn a lavender candle or put a cup of lavender flowers in a muslin/cheese cloth bag and put in your bath water.
*Other essential oils that are useful for promoting relaxation and relieving anxiety are bergamot, cypress, geranium, jasmine, lemon balm, neroli, rose, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang.
*Massage is a great stress reducer.  The following points can helprelieve anxiety, tension and stress.


*For some other ideas, try http://www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/47/123.cfm