Health anxiety and questions

[davidthegnome]

Hi folks, hope you're all doing well today. Not too bad myself, just kind of worried about things and I wanted to share, maybe someone has some advice or suggestions?

To sum up, I've been doing a work out which involves light weight lifting and pretty much a full body stretch and excercise. It's kind of cold where I am now though and I can't really go walking much. So I'm wondering if the weight lifting and such could actually be bad for my health or heart or whatever, I always feel kind of shaky when I'm done and worry that there might be something wrong.

I'm also a smoker, which I know definitely doesn't help. I'd like to quit but am afraid that doing so will make my anxiety worse - plus I'm already weaning down on lorazepam and figured I'll cut down one drug at a time.

I get these seemingly random chest pains out of no-where and often get pains in my arms or wrists that seem to be anxiety related. I've been to the Doc and had an EKG, everything was normal, but I'm still kinda spooked... if not my heart, perhaps my lungs, but they were x-rayed and I was given a clean bill of health. Just that my cholestorol is a little out of whack, low good and high on the bad. (33 and 149 to be precise)

So I'm trying to work on my cholestorol problem by working out and I am eating better. I only ever drink water too, so no caffeine or alcohol problems or anything.

Uhm, well I guess I'm ranting a lot. But does anyone have any suggestions? I'm thinking about doing my workout today but kind of worried that it will make me shaky and stuff. Plus I haven't slept all that great the past couple nights.

Sorry, I really do carry on don't I? Ok, this novel is finished.

Good luck and god bless you all, thanks for reading

Dave

[nell1965]

Hi Dave
Exercise is the best form of medicine for people like us for all sorts of reasons, including the release of the happy hormone. As for you shaking when you have finished... well if you were working out beside me and you werent shaking a bit i would say...work harder, lol.. Its natural to feel a little shaky in your muscles if you have given them a good workout, i suspect your shaking is a bit of just having worked out and the fact that you are anxious about it. You have been told that there is nothing wrong with you heart, so continue with the exercises. The average "non anxious" person has at least 3 episodes of unexplained pain in a day, the difference between them and us is they dont worry about it,but we do which leads on to more pain then more worrying and so begins the viscious anxiety circle. keep up the good work and try not to give in to the little voice in your head

[davidthegnome]

Thanks Nell. Yeah, I know excercise has definitely been a big help for me - because ever since I started I've been feeling better. It's just working up the energy to get going, you know? Then the shaking and stuff after, or some times during. I use this tape called full body training or something like that, it's a Tony Little tape and he's kind of weird, but very encouraging.

Goes from modified squats, to wide-stance squats, to lateral leg raises, then some kind of lower back excercise that involves weights. Then it's back down again for chest cross-overs and pushups. Ugh, the cross-overs and the pushups are rough. It then goes to lifting for the triceps, shoulders, biceps and such. The last movement is just calf raises which are pretty simple.

It gets me breathing hard and my heart beating faster, so I know it's good. Just worried about the shaking. It involves a warm up, a stretch, then a cool down and another stretch. Good exercise. Wish I knew more about yoga though, not sure where I can learn up here, I don't think there's any instructors locally.

I'll keep going, thanks for the encouragement.

God bless you,

Dave

[nell1965]

Dave
there are plenty of good dvd's around with yoga and pilates from beginners upwards, check them out online, reading what you have been doing im pretty sure the shaking is just related to the exercises and not a problem with you. My regime has a lot of squats and lunges in it too, but they are brilliant for the legs, ive seen me shaking for a while after a long session.