Working with thousands of clients, I’ve witnessed firsthand one thing that has debilitated more people than anything else. It prevents people from partaking in social events, can stop us from ever getting on an airplane, and even keep people inside the confines of their own home. The one thing is anxiety—we’ve spent billions of dollars on drugs to manage it yet we still are left with unanswered questions.

Anxiety prevents far too many people from living the life they deserve to live. Some levels of anxiety are healthy for us; it has served to prevent us from getting into dangerous scenarios and to allow us to escape harm throughout our history as a species, and it can even motivate us to prepare and perform well on an upcoming presentation. But, for so many people, anxiety robs the joy from their life, costs employers millions of dollars in absenteeism, and has become an unnecessary burden.

“We used to talk about curing diseases. Nowadays we talk about treating disease. And sadly, the concept of prevention has almost been forgotten.” – Dr. David Williams

Anxiety is very real. The symptoms range from trembling, excessive sweating, heart palpitations, insomnia, lumps in the throat, diarrhea, and on the more extreme end, panic attacks. The list of external causes that can bring on anxiety seems to be growing each day. Some of the more common ones are over-working, death of a close friend or relative, divorce, life changes, excessive caffeine intake and an overload of stress. Most sufferers look to drugs to manage their symptoms and often turn a blind eye to the root causes. The drugs do a good job to manage the symptoms, but they don’t get to the real problem.

From the outside, we often can never tell that someone is suffering. Most are embarrassed to ever admit what they’re going through and they’ll use excuses to cover why they didn’t show up to work or not make it to your party. It is the silent killer—and holding it in can only make it worse. Fortunately, there are solutions to eradicate anxiety at its origin.

Balancing your Autonomic Nervous System

The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is responsible for every function in your body. If it’s not balanced, you’re likely not going to get better. It’s made up of two parts that everyone has: the Sympathetic Nervous System and the Parasympathetic Nervous System. The Sympathetic is like the gas in your car; it speeds you up and regulates your flight-or-fight mechanisms. The Parasympathetic is like the breaks; it slows you down, is responsible for conserving physical resources, and helps rest your heart rate.

Your body is in an anabolic state when your parasympathetic nervous system dominates. In this case, your body is better equipped to regenerate itself, you’ll sleep better and feel well rested and you can recover more rapidly from both physical and mental exertion.

On the other (and more common) end of the spectrum we have a catabolic state—when your body’s sympathetic nervous system dominates. People with a sympathetic dominant system often exhibit digestive problems, poor sleep, muscle and joint pains, slow growing hair, weak nails, and their body is unable to heal itself properly.

The bottom line is: when our parasympathetic nervous system dominates, we are relaxed and calm. When our sympathetic takes the lead, we provide a breeding ground for anxiety. There are two key ways to help get our ANS to a parasympathetic state:

Relaxation Techniques

Deep breathing, meditation and yoga. Exercises that help our body and mind slow down increase our parasympathetic tone and decrease our sympathetic tone. These techniques can also help us remain focused and able to concentrate, providing us a stronger foundation to block out the negative self-chatter.

For a great guide on how to mediate and its proven benefits, I recommend Herbert Benson’s The Relaxation Response.

Nutrition

Our modern Western diets are full of processed foods and sugars and void of essential vitamins and nutrients. Anxiety is linked to increase in lactate in the body, and one of the causes of too much blood lactate is linked to inadequate circulation, again from remaining in a sympathetic state. High lactic acid levels are linked to six nutritional factors:

– Alcohol
– Caffeine
– Sugar
– Deficiencies of B-vitamins
– Magnesium deficiencies
– Food allergens

By limiting our alcohol, sugar and caffeine intakes, we can make tremendous stride to ridding ourselves of anxiety. Supplementing with B Vitamins and Magnesium have also been shown to be extremely helpful. Remove any hypoallergenic foods from your diet along with refined carbs and white foods. A diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and whole grains will go a long way. Specifically, oats and hazelnuts are wonderful fuels to our nervous system. Zinc and Lithium are two trace-minerals which can also help put our ANS into a parasympathetic state. You wouldn’t put the wrong fuel into your car, so why put the wrong fuel into your body?

Psychosomatic Energetics

Psychosomatic Energetics (PSE) is a concept for the precise detection of energy blocks and the effective treatment of emotional issues. Emotional conditions are often the root cause of physical ailments, and I’ve seen first-hand the transformation of my clients’ lives by using PSE’s techniques and Rubimed remedies; it’s fast, effective and can manage anxiety attacks as they happen. PSE testing can help determine if our body is in an acute stage, experiencing: fatigue, anxiety, hyperactivity or nervousness. The testing and associated homeopathic remedies work to instantly balance out our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. A client who takes 5 drops of the remedy Anxiovita can almost instantly feel more relaxed, less tense, and see their anxiety diminish. After six weeks of treatment, I’ve had clients report back saying their old debilitating anxiety symptoms have completely disappeared.

Click here to learn more about PSE testing

Anxiety does not have to monopolize your life. Start today and know that you are not alone in your battle. More importantly, don’t hide it or hold it back, gaining the support of your loved ones will do wonders for your treatment. Changing your diet, working on the above techniques, and seeing someone who specializes in anxiety disorders will open up windows you may have never thought possible.