Looking for natural remedies for anxiety? Chronic anxiety can lead to depression and addiction and impair decision-making.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety
I’ll offer some suggestions on how to take advantage of natural remedies for anxiety. But first we have to talk about some of the ways people often experience anxiety and what it can do to your brain.
Anxiety can come in many forms, such as information overload, decision paralysis, social interaction-induced anxiety, pervasive thoughts before sleep about the past or the future, or a more serious condition like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Chronic mild anxiety can take its toll in many ways. It can:
- Increase cortisol to unhealthy levels.
- Lead to depression, dementia, and other mental disorders.
- Make your brain susceptible to addiction.
- Start a vicious cycle of anxiety.
- Impair your decision-making skills.
Read on to learn about the effects anxiety causes on your body, along with natural remedies for anxiety.
Cortisol Increases to Unhealthy Levels
Cortisol is a natural hormone released by the body to handle stress. However, if anxiety is causing you to constantly induce your cortisol response, that excess of cortisol can cause serious harm. Excessive cortisol production can be detrimental to the hippocampus, which can impair learning, memory, and emotional regulation over time.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety: Promote healthy cortisol levels by introducing Ocimum sanctum (Tulsi, Holy Basil) into your daily regimen. Ocimum sanctum, also called Holy Basil and Tulsi, can help modulate your cortisol response.
Depression, Dementia, and Other Mental Disorders
Repeated overstimulation of the hippocampal response to stress can create symptoms of depression, including low appetite, decreased libido, abnormal reaction to new stimuli, and difficulty sleeping. Furthermore, unchecked anxiety is associated with deterioration and impaired function of the hippocampus, which can increase the risk of developing dementia.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety: Support hippocampal health with Polygala tenuifolia to increase proliferation of neural stem cells.
Brain Susceptibility to Addiction
Research shows that stress and chronic anxiety play a key role in leading some people to attempt to alleviate anxiety in unhealthy ways, such as drug self-administration and abuse. If you suffer from depression, you’re also more susceptible to relapse. In addition, prolonged anxiety can also reduce your body’s serotonin and dopamine levels, which can leave you depressed and vulnerable to drug use as a means of escape.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety: You can lessen anxiety and susceptibility to addiction by taking Bacopa monnieri, which is neuro-protective against oxidative stress and supports healthy serotonin levels. This powerful supplement is commonly used as a rejuvenator of the mind, a memory enhancer, and a meditation support that can increase clarity of thought.
Vicious Cycles
Dealing with anxiety can take many forms, such as planning, worrying, escaping, and the triggering of avoidance and defense mechanisms. Always being in an uneasy state can become the norm for many who suffer from even mild anxieties. In fact, during periods of calm your brain might even start looking for things to worry about.
For example, you might be worrying about what you’ll make for dinner and then suddenly be struck with intense concern over how to pay your bills. As you experience these nervous, restless emotions, more thoughts creep in, creating a nasty cycle of worry with no resolutions.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety: Try to break the cycle by confronting feared situations or scenarios with confidence. Avoid using your tried and true coping mechanisms to alleviate anxiety so that you can build confidence to face your fears again and again without a negative chemical response.
Impaired Decision-Making Skills
Anxiety can shrink your prefrontal cortex, which adversely affects your decision making, memory, and impulse behavior control. The inability to make a decision may lead to more anxiety, which can perpetuate the whole sequence over again.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety: Use meditation to build focus and attention for decision making while you alleviate anxiety and its symptoms. Meditation therapies have proved effective in reducing several anxiety symptoms. Practicing focus and clear-headed mindfulness can do wonders for the psyche beyond easing stress. It can also lead to a healthier mindset overall.
Natural Remedies for Anxiety: Take Control
Anxiety is an epidemic. It can take over your brain if left untreated and spiral your mental health out of control.
In order to alleviate anxiety, you need to understand the effects of that anxiety so you can address those effects thoughtfully and with intention. With practical, determined treatment, you can take back control over your anxiety and its awful side effects.