Dealing with Worry and Anxiety

When I was a little girl I remember one of my aunts using the quote "Take a chill pill". Although she was just making light of a tense situation and using a slang term that we frequently quoted back in the day, little did I know that there really were "chill pills".  Back in the old days people would randomly say "I need my nerve pills", and I never knew what "nerve pills" were until I asked a preacher's wife one day at a church that I attended when my daughter was a baby. She told me that the older generation referred to B-vitamins as nerve pills. After that discovery, I was on my way to many other discoveries regarding health and nutrition and studying about the human body and hormones which I was very fascinated about.

There is a large percentage of the US population who are taking antidepressants and other prescription drugs to help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression today. Many people who take recreational drugs, overindulge in junk food, drink alcohol excessively, and smoke cigarettes are really looking for a way to relieve the pain (both physical and emotional pain) that they are experiencing. We've recently witnessed the death of of one my all-time favorite singers, Whitney Houston, due to these type of prescription medicines and other drugs. Stress, worry, and anxiety is something that everyone experiences from time to time but when it happens more often than not, it's time to get yourself checked out by your doctor, find out what's really going on, and start doing something about it.

As a holistic health counselor I look to natural ways of healing the body because there is so much that is provided to us in nature to be used for medicinal purposes. That's what God created plant foods and herbs for. Don't get me wrong, I never recommend to anyone not to use prescription medicine or stop taking something that has been prescribed by their doctor. First of all because your doctor is the go to person who decides whether you should be on prescription medicine or not, and second of all, there are some people who do require prescription medicine, it's completely something to be determined by your doctor. But, what I AM saying is that just because you may have to take a prescription drug doesn't mean you can neglect eating healthy foods. Drugs are not a cure-all and they are definitely not good for your liver because it is a foreign unnatural substance and can be very toxic to the body. Your liver has to process these toxins. The function of the liver is to help the body to eliminate waste, or toxic substances. But if there are too many toxins, the liver becomes overloaded and therefore cannot function properly. This is what happens with a person who smokes cigarettes.

Personally I do not like drugs. I have never been someone prone to take drugs or experiment with them, I don't even really like taking aspirin unless I just have to, because I don't want to become dependent on it.  I've always relied on herbs to bring my body back in to hormonal balance and to relieve specific symptoms. Some people rely on sleeping pills to help them fall asleep at night and sleeping pills can become addictive. But there's a more natural alternative. Melatonin is a natural hormone that the body produces to help us fall asleep and it's something that you can buy over-the-counter to get your body back into hormonal balance if you are having trouble sleeping. A lot of times caffeine is a reason why people have trouble sleeping. Too much caffeine can get the body out of whack and create hormonal imbalance. So you end up drinking 4-6 cups of coffee per day to keep you going and then popping sleeping pills at night to help you sleep and it becomes an ongoing cycle. The body never really gets a chance to heal itself and get back into balance naturally because you are too busy feeding it unnatural substances.

Instead of taking pills, I prefer to eat healthy and eliminate certain foods out of my diet that may cause allergies which create headaches and other ailments than to keep eating whatever I want and pop a pill to get rid of the pain. The body was created to heal itself if you provide it the nutrients and raw material (fruit and vegetables) that it needs to do so. Another reason I don't like drugs is because I never like to feel "out-of-control". Before I started studying about health and nutrition, years ago in my efforts to lose the weight that I put on from pregnancy I tried taking some diet pills because one of my coworkers who had lost a lot of weight after the birth of her baby stated that she was taking diet pills. The diet pills that I tried were the ones that Anna Nicole Smith was taking and had endorsed before she died (TrimSpa). The other diet pills that I tried years before TrimSpa was Relacore. I didn't experience side-effects with Relacore but stopped taking them because as I said before, I don't like being dependent on drugs although Relacore was an herbal diet supplement. But TrimSpa was very, very dangerous! Even the ephedra-free ones that I was taking. These pills had my hormones so out of whack it had me going through crying spells and hot flashes. There was one time I had taken a dose before working my shift at the job that I was working at and I felt dizzy and light-headed and ended up drinking tons of water to try to get it out of my system. All I could do was wait it out and after about 4-5 hours I finally came down from the effect of it. This is why I don't like drugs! I never took diet pills after that.

What I do advocate is learning about more holistic methods of healing the body, whether as something to do 100% of the time or something to help increase the effectiveness of the prescription medicine. One big reason why I try to educate on holistic health and wellness is because our society has been brain-washed into thinking that drugs are to answer to everything. Other cultures are very much into herbal treatments, acupunture, etc. Many of the healing techniques that are accepted and effective in other countries have not yet been adopted in the Western countries. Holistic healing is a form of alternative healthcare that integrates the whole person in the healing process: body, soul (mind, will, emotion), and spirit. When a person gets a headache the most common thing to do is to pop an aspirin into our mouth. Most people don't consider looking at what's going on to cause the headache in the first place. Stress factors at work, at home, lifestyle,....these all play a role in how we feel. What type of foods are you eating? How well dehydrated are you? I'm surprised to know that there are still people who don't drink water. Drinking 3-4 or more sodas a day, smoking cigarettes, and never drinking water is definitely not healthy for you. What a lot of people are doing is self-medicating by eating junk food, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol to relieve stress and pain, and just living a very unhealthy lifestyle and relying on pills to be the quick fix.

Lifestyle change is the key to healing the body. Change in lifestyle being daily exercise to stimulate those "feel-good" hormones (endorphins), changes in your diet to make sure that you are providing your body all of the nutrients it needs, and changes in your mindset to eliminate negative thinking patterns which is a good breeding ground for worry and anxiety. Stress has a direct affect on your emotions and your energy level.

So let me tell you about my "chill pill" that I recommend to anyone experiencing frequent stress and anxiety and even depression. These pills (vitamins) are a very important part of the human diet and should be a part of your regular regimen of nutrients you are taking in everyday for optimal health and wellness. These vitamins are 'drumroll'...........THE B-VITAMINS! : ) Are you getting enough B-vtimains in your diet. Well let me tell you what these vitamins will do you Nature's "Chill Pills"...The B-Vitamins!