i'm up to the point where i can't drive anymore. i still get panicky even in the house. sometimes i want to go somewhere bad but i can't. it's really an annoying feeling and i try to fight it. my car hasnt' left the garage in a month. i'm pissed and none of my friends can help me out now.

it's christmas soon and i want to feel ok to the pooint that i can at least go to our local restaurant and to my firend's house. someone will drive me there but i want to feel comfortable.

what vitamins should i take? what exercise should i do? what art stuff should i get into? what

vitamin b seems to make me feel lightheaded and nauseas when i take a full pill. i usually cut it into a half

c and e is the other i take and that's it.

i try to avoid sweets. i've noticed that eating sweets makes me feel anxious sometimes.

but after an anxious episode, i always crave sweets. and at times i then eat sweets. like all the anxious episode decreased my sugar level and i'm burnt out.

Railand,
You're very perceptive and i give you credit for considering vitamins and diet to help yourself. I found out thru a nutritionist 12 years ago that I had a severe chemical imbalance that was causing most of my anxiety and panic. It was an imbalance between low adrenalin and high histamine. He brought this imbalance under control in time with diet, vits and amino acids. Too long to go into, but the B's are a GREAT help for your nervous system. When we are stressed for long periods of time, the sheathing around our nerves deteriorates. Thus the feeling of "raw nereves". The B complex puts the sheathening back in place. The reason you feel nauceous is because the B known as niacin will release locked up histamine in our system. Histamine makes us feel lightheaded and spacey, nauceous and causes us to crave sweets. So the B's are drawing this out of you and thats why you don't feel so good. But you will if you stick with it. Histamine takes awhile to lower, but the more sweets you eat, the more ellivated it remains and just causes you to crave it over and over. It takes a good 10 days to get most of the sugar craving out and thats with not having any. Even a little starts the craving all over again. Eat a light breakfast of eggs and maybe some fruit......then wait an hour and take your B's and LOTS of water......it may be easier to handle...but until the histamine comes out, you'll feel lousy. Histamine is tied up in water in our bodies and by drinking lots you can flush alot of it out. C is good.....E fires adrenalin so you might want to stay away from that now. Take a good mineral complex too.

Diet. Stay away from high histamine foods such as wheat and rice, bananas, grapes, strawberries. And eat pork chops or tenderloin.......pork is loaded with tyrocine which helps restore the adrenals. keep chciken and fish low.....they fire the adrenals too much. Beef is fine. Lots of veggies and fruit and water. Unsalted walnuts and cashews.

These are some things that have helped me a ton!

Exercise will definitely help but this will raise your histamine when you get really hot from working out...so maybe do more of a yoga routine or pilates. Or dont get too sweaty at first.

And work the program. This tape series helps us identify all the bad habits that fuel an undercurrent of anxiety. I am going thru it a second time because I just couldnt see some of these habits in myself first time round. NOW I CAN!! High expectations of myself and everyone else......guilt, worry.......aggressive rather than assertive. And soooo much negetive thinking!!

Hope that helps some. Keep going!!

Love,
Peaches

P.S. After an "episode" your adrenalin is used up and your blood sugar is low and wiped out....but this is not the same as the sugar we eat. In fact white sugar messes up our blood sugar terribly. Protein is the best way to bring blood sugar back up. One night I was at a meeting and it was late and I hadn't eaten dinner and suddenly I got anxious and my blood sugar dropped drastically. I was so shakey. I had gone to the store before I went to the meeting and just happened to have turkey with me!! I popped a few slices and in seconds my sugars came right back up. Whewwww! Not eating is baddddd for the blood sugar and nerves!

Peaches

I would say start with zinc, has nature anti-anxiety benefits and magnesium....especially an hour or so before bed. It promotes sleep. Also flax seed oil and evening prim rose made my mood swings and anxiousness next to nothing.

Adrenaline can build in tissues and exercise is about the only way to release it, so try to start an exercise program. A good one is Jane Fonda's stress reducing workout...starts with very simple and low impact exercises and then a full body stretch followed by 10 minutes of progressive relaxtion, as this program suggests. The whole tape is less than a half hour..it is a great one if you have trouble doing anything to strenuous.

If vitamins make you feel sick, do what i do, and get some flintstones multi-vitamins...those are all I could tolerate and even had to take during pregnancy, just upped them to 2 instead of one a day.

I went thru the worst anxiety of my life after the baby with all the hormonal changes and I started flax seed oil, evening primrose, a zinc, calcium, magnesium combo all after breakfast, then another zn,ca,mg after lunch and dinner...also took one more evening primrose with one of those meals and I have to tell you..it saved my sanity. I didn't think it would help when someone recommended it, but within 3 days, I felt so calm and even my husband commented on my even-relaxed attitude...a real lifesaver!

All of these are nature and safe and a good start.