Beat ANXIETY with yoga & natural remedies!

Use the best out of yoga & natural remedies to fight anxiety & stress!

Anxiety is a condition that affects many people in many different ways, it could happen all of a sudden & block us completely or can be more gradual & lead to symptoms like insomnia, tachycardia and so on.  There are different ways of approaching & getting through even the most difficult phases.

For example in Phytotherapy teas, tinctures or dry extracts are used.  If the anxious state is manifested on our muscle apparatus, hence with pains, cramps etc, we must use camomile & melissa because they calm irritability & nervousness, relaxing our muscles.

They are also indicated for their anti-spasm activity, in nervous origin gastrointestinal disorders, such as spastic colitis, gastritis & meteorism.

If anxiety is accompanied by tachycardia, palpitations, alterations in heart beat, hypertension, we can than use lime & hawthorn that have a calming effect on our cardiac system and are ideal against insomnia, arrhythmias, nervousness & headache, caused by anxiety & stress.

Flower therapy instead, intervenes on the different forms of anxiety dividing them into:

Difficult temporary situations we go through during our life;
Negative behaviour deriving from our personality.
During acute anxiety moments we use the famous “Rescue Remedy” because it relieves immediately the main disorders, considering it an actual cure offered by Bach flowers that also provide us with other remedies not as effective as the “Rescue Remedy” but which act slower but still in an effective way we therefore have:

  • Agrimony: Ideal for those who hide their anxiety & keep it inside, seeming to be always happy & smiling in the eyes of other people.  This flower helps us face our problems, helping us not to hide them because we fear that we won’t be accepted, giving us optimism & serenity in facing them.
  • Walnut: Ideal for the type of anxiety that comes from a stressful event or a radical change in life.  This remedy gives us constance, determination, ability to adapt ourselves, no regrets & most of all helps us take those decisions & choices that seem to be very difficult to take.
  • White Chestnut: Is ideal for the type of anxiety caused by those thoughts that afflict us & for which we tend not to find the solution.  This flower helps us keep away obsessive thoughts, giving peace of mind & relaxation.

There are many more but we have focused on the most important ones.

We also have aromatherapy that deals with anxiety through the use of essential oils, to bring back the calmness & serenity during nervous & stressful moments.  These oils can be inhaled, used as diffusors or used for relaxing baths by pouring just 10 drops in the bath tub, the most ideal oils are:

Lavender essential oil: It is by far the best relaxing essence, since it calms anxiety, agitation, nervousness; relieves headache & other symptoms caused by stress; it also helps us sleep if we suffer from insomnia.

– Neroli essential oil: It is useful after mental fatigue & psychological tension, against fear, anxiety & depression.  It calms our thoughts during moments of great confusion & gives us peace of mind.  It has a great calming effect & relieves, hypertension, tachycardia & stress, it also helps us sleep.

Lemon essential oil: It calms the psyche & nervous system, & improves our memory.

Even food plays its part & at table we can learn how to handle our anxiety thanks to some essential aminoacids that rebalance our nervous system:

  • Histidine: has a mind calming & relaxing effect, it is found in animal protein
  • Tryptophan: forerunner of serotonin. Often anxious people have a shortage of serotonin in their blood, the tryptophan together with group B vitamins & vitamin C become important for maintaining mental & emotial balance & these can be found in animal protein & soy.
  •  Glycine: It works on the spinal cord monitoring the motor alterations anxious people go through, like for example spasms & contractions.
  • Taurine: found in our central nervous system, our organism produces it by itself.

Also group B vitamins are necessary & green leaf vegetables are also very helpful.

Another fundamental part to fight anxiety & stress is without any doubt movement & physical activity, the best disciplines able to give us peace are those originating from oriental arts, some examples are TAI CHI CHUAN, QI QONG, & obviously YOGA, which thanks to breathing exercises & repetitive movements that require concentration, help us develop an internal peaceful sensation and therefore give us notable improvements.  A constant practice of exercises which cause us to concentrate, relax or even keep the position for a longer time, could help anxious or stressed people beat the negativity surrounding them. We all tend to have repetitive schemes in our mind, even the smallest actions are part of this repetitive attitude that can do good when it regards any positive activity like yoga for example, but this attitude could also harm us if the mental schemes are negative and destructive. The best thing would be to find a good teacher in order to start breaking these schemes immediately.  In the meantime we can pratice some exercises at home also in case of emergency:

With your right thumb massage with a circular movement & for approximately 2 minutes the centre of your left palm.  Repeat this massage on the other hand and again for various times, brething deeply each time, you will immediately notice firts your breathing slowing down & than your heart beat.

Another technique is to press your index finger for 5 minutes, on the part between your eyebrows:  apply a bit of pressure & close your eyes & take a deep breathe.  Also in this case we will immediately feel the benefits.

Take a look at our tried and tested method: Anti-Diet

If you want to deepen and start with the basics of yoga take a look at our ebook yoga for everyone