Hi,


Any info on how meditation affects anxiety would be appreciated.

About 6 years ago, I started taking Effexor(150mg) for what was orginally diagnosed at social anxiety. In that time, I've worked on getting my thinking under control. I did notice that the Effexor took away this weird buzzing in my head and nervous feeling I had all the time. This year I've been taking Ritalin with good results(I guess, it's hard to tell). While I was on the Rit and EFX, I fooled around with meditation and found that I could calm myself down when mentally excited by doing some breathing exercises.


I weened myself off of the EFX a few months ago(that was fun). Now I'm starting to notice a bit of panic in my head. Situations that I normally handle well are starting to get me frazzled. In the past week, I'm noticing that my head is a bit buzzy as well as what feels like a physical shiver. I'm facing the situtations that I normally face, yet I'm feeling like I did years ago.

Always thought that situations would cause the anxiety, but I think I'm learning that anxiety comes on by itself, is this true?

I haven't done the meditation in a while and just found the book I have to refresh. Since meditation is supposed to calm the mind, is it helpfull for anxiety?

thanks,

al

My counselor says regularly practicing meditation as well as daily relaxation breathing is good for reducing anxiety -- it may or may not be enough in your case. Exercise is also helpful for reducing anxiety.

Take care,
Scattered

I 've dealt with social phobia for most of my life. Medications helped for a while but ultimately led to dependence and abuse problems. Turned to meditation as a last resort. Best thing I ever did. Just before I left on a recent holiday I got a call asking if I would give a talk to a group interested in my line of work. I would have normally avoided this like the plague but I heard myself saying yes I could give the talk when I got back from the holiday. Somehow I got the date wrong and on my first day back from the holiday I got a call reminding me that the talk was tonight. I had nothing prepared. Normally this would have caused panic overload. However, I was calm throughout the day and felt no anxiety during the talk that evening. I fear almost nothing now. Intellectually I knew there was nothing to fear in these social situations but the fear was real to me none the less. There is nothing so nice as being comfortable with who you are.

Sometimes working with a behavioral counselor or a therapy group can also be helpful in working on this problem.

I started rereading the meditation book last night and will start off with 2 10min sessions a day to start. I'm getting back to my breathing exercises to calm myself down when I'm feeling tense.


I started working out again last week. I'm back to treadmill, and weights. I had shhoulder surgery back in November, and it did slow me down quite a bit.


I'm working with a psychologist now. We started off identifying my ADHD traits, then found I have some OCD traits. I've noticed that the stuff that I obsess about does create some anxiety.


thanks,

al