On the road to a positive path..

[MissLady83]

After years of being in denial about my anxiety and nerves I'm finally on the path to help. I got a referral through my doctor to the local mental health service. Saw a lovely doctor who asked me loadsa questions in relation to the way i feel. He thinks I'd benefit from CBT therapy.

Has any one had positive results from this? I know a little about it but never had it.

I'm really struggling with social situations at the minute. I get bad shakes, feel hot and communicating with people I see unexpectedly is so hard work I just panic?! Takes me a couple of hours to feel at ease again.

The doctor suspects i could have agoraphobia.. I briefly looked it up but need to look into it more as I hardly know anything about it. Do any of you lovely peeps know anything about agoraphobia? Or relaxation tips it's crippling how I feel lately.

[H.Daniel]

Basically agoraphobia means that you fear an actual or anticipated situation, such as using public transportation, being in open or enclosed spaces, standing in line or being in a crowd.

The anxiety is caused by fear that there's no easy way to escape or seek help if intense anxiety develops.

Most people who have agoraphobia develop it after having one or more panic attacks, causing them to fear another attack and avoid the place where it occurred.

There are several relaxation techniques which can be done almost anywhere at any time to help you control stress:

- Deep breathing is a simple technique that can relax tense muscles, focus energy and help one be more productive. To use the technique, simply breathe in deeply through the nose, letting your stomach expand as much as possible.

- Active relaxation is a process that can help you actually feel the difference between tension and relaxation. It is accomplished by first tensing and then relaxing each muscle in the body. Start with the muscles in the head and move down to the muscles in the feet.

- Stretching exercises are a simple, easy way to loosen up tight muscles and combat stress. Muscle tension is an automatic physical response to stress and the benefit of simple stretching exercises is often overlooked as a relaxation technique.

- Meditation and self-hypnosis are passive relaxation techniques that can be used to create relaxation. Four elements are used in meditation: a quiet environment, a point of focus like a neutral word that can help with concentration, a passive, accepting attitude and a comfortable position.

- Yoga is the use of deep meditation and concentration to free oneself and unite with a supreme spirit. It uses certain postures and carefully controlled breathing to turn off behaviors that cause stress.

- Biofeedback is a technique in which a person can actually learn to modify the body's physical reactions to forms of stress. Biofeedback involves sending direct messages to various parts of the body to get a desired response. For example, people have actually been able to prevent frostbite from developing in conditions of extreme cold by sending a message to their hands to stay warm.

Other activities you can try to relax include:

>> Taking a nice, long bath
>> Going on a walk
>> Visiting nature
>> Listening to music

I hope this answer your questions. Take care and stay positive!

[MissLady83]

What a fabulous reply. Thank you so much, I couldn't of asked for better feedback to my post. I'm definitely going to take on board some of your suggestions I haven't heard of. There's a few I'm trying and finding positive results.

We often overlook the simple things we can do to help ourselves in the healing of our bodies. The mind is such a powerful thing and mine works overtime

[hopey]

on the road to a positive path.
What a wonderful letter from H Daniel I have just read. Most informative.THANK YOU SO MUCH H DANIEL. hAVE A GOOD 2015 hopey