Anxiety & Panic Therapy Without Medications

Psychotherapy With The Brain in Mind! | Dr. Hart | Seattle Mental Health

Increased basal ganglia activity is often a finding we have seen with anxiety disorders. When there is increased activity on the left side it is often associated with anxiety and irritability (expressed anxiety) and when there is increased activity on the right side there is often anxiety, social withdrawal and conflict avoidance.

Increased activity in the temporal lobe area has also been associated with anxiety. When there is also increased cingulate activity a person may have significant trouble with “cognitive fusion” and repetitive thoughts or rumination about anxiety.

The Importance of Choosing Your Thoughts

While time spent alone can be a very positive opportunity for reflection, personal growth, and creativity, in can also be dangerous if we happen to be negatively turned against ourselves. This is reflected in the difference between introspection and rumination. Introspection is a process of self- reflection, examination, and exploration, all of which are positive and healthy. Rumination, however, involves going over the same things repeatedly, and can lead to a cycle of negative thinking that can hold us back. These two different states of personal solitude can be affected by the state of our mind, and whether we are looking at ourselves fairly as ourselves or through the eyes of a critical inner voice.

3 Deep Breathing Exercises to Reduce Anxiety

Therese J. Borchard writes this article acknowledging the importance of deep breathing in her personal recovery from problems such as anxiety and depression. She writes that shallow breathing contributes to feelings of panic and that she has personally been reduced to breathing out of a paper bag to maintain physical control of her breathing on more than one occasion. Deep breathing is so helpful in times of anxiety and stress because it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which is responsible for our body activity when we are rest. It works opposite of the sympathetic nervous system which controls fight-or-flight responses.

Are You Impatient for Change?

It hard not to understand why someone in our current society might be impatient for change. The world we live in has two recurring messages on this subject. One, that we aren’t good enough. Two, that change is quick and easy. There is medicine that is supposed to fix our physical and mental health problems, products that will make us feel good, books that will give us all the answers, and milestones that will suddenly make life better. The media sells us on the idea of fixing our problems and it is easy to want to believe them because we know that actual change is difficult. Change requires us to take responsibility.

Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy helps you manage your anxiety and depression and realize the personal change that you value!

A Little 3-Step Guide to Overcoming Fear

Fear is something that exists in most of our lives. Some may think that the best way to deal with the fear is to meditate on it and seek to control fear by being perpetually prepared for what they’re afraid of. That’s how Barrie Davenport used to think, but she found it to be a bad strategy for a variety of reasons. She found that the more she focused on her fears, the bigger they got. She found that she had formed a habit of fear-based thinking, where her brain was in a constant cycle of negativity. Even worse, with many fears that featured unpredictable variables, there really was no way to be prepared.

Emotional Appraisal Can Alleviate Anxiety

Emotional Re-Appraisal is one of the most effective methods today in dealing with emotional arousal. The technique involves taking an initial reaction and re-evaluating it. This evaluation or appraisal diffuses the impact of the initial response and alleviates anxious symptoms. Unfortunately neurological mechanisms of performing the appraisal take place in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which research suggests is impaired in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other anxiety issues. The impaired prefrontal cortex makes it more difficult for them to perform an emotional re-appraisal, though studies have not determined if this is a cause or effect of anxiety.

5 Steps For Relaxing and Deep Meditation

Most people have probably heard about the benefits of meditation. Some people may have even tried it out, but experienced a certain dissatisfaction or sense that the meditation is not as deep or meaningful as advertised. This article provides a few tips to help improve meditation and achieve the gravity and satisfaction people look for. It is best not to eat a heavy meal or drink stimulating drinks like coffee before attempting meditation. It’s also helpful to acknowledge the fact that there will inevitably be noise and distractions. If you’re prepared for the eventuality, they will be less bothersome when they occur and this will help you to ignore them.

5 Things to Do When You Feel Insecure

Most people have experienced moments of intense insecurity. This comes from viewing ourselves from an imaginary outside perspective and judging ourselves according to that view. These unsettling experiences of insecurity are unfortunately a part of life and so our goal to maintain ourselves is not to struggle to conquer the feelings, but learning how to control our reactions to these feelings. One way to do this may be to consider the insecurity as something beautiful. Perhaps look at it as humility, which is considered a great virtue. Another way could be to keep a collection, mental or even physical, of nice things that people have said about you.

Why We ‘Self-Medicate’ Our Own Depression or Anxiety

How do we know when a couple of nightly drinks make the dark turn towards alcohol dependency? When liquor routinely becomes the solution for stress, anxiety, or conflict, it’s time to take a serious look at the issue. Mental health problems are often self-medicated with a drink or trip to the bar. If you notice a pattern in yourself, or others comment on your use of alcohol, consider the “ endless cycle of use” you may not have been willing to acknowledge. Does your dependency nag at you, complicate your life, or shame you? If so, it’s time to get help.

7 Steps to Prevent Getting Stuck in an Emotion

Are you stuck in the pain of a break up? Do you perpetually grieve the loss of a loved one? How can you break through a tough emotion that won’t loosen its grip on your heart? Internally learning to accept the situation and practice patience with yourself will help you to heal. Be sure to take measures to get mentally and physically healthy. Bring any self-medicating habits under control and restore order to your life with a consistent, productive routine. Finally, embrace a new hobby or perspective while honoring your entire life experience, good and bad. Move forward, allowing old emotions to fall way and new feelings to come in.

Explore Alternatives | Evidence Based Psychotherapy in Seattle

A review of the psychological literature reveals that only a very small percentage of psychotherapy services in the United States are tightly linked to existing scientific knowledge. It is a really quite strange if you think of it. Would anyone want undergo medical surgery that was not based on a current scientific understanding of the body? Ask yourselr: just why should the mind and behavior be any different?

It is clear that this problem has multiple faces. Psychology and psychiatry have historically had a really hard time agreeing on what we even mean by mental disorders. Clearly, there is a proliferation of theories and approaches. Everyone seems to have some strange theoretical axe to grind. Managed care companies have strident practice guidelines; yet, it is infuriating that often such “guidelines” just come down to ways to reduce cost. The American Psychiatric Association has practice guidelines, but medications are so emphasized (no surprise) that as a broad public information service, they are not very useful.

This problem has multiple faces for psychology and psychiatry. Scientists have had a hard time agreeing on what we even mean by mental disorders. There clearly is a proliferation of theories and approaches. Everyone seems to have an axe to grind. Big pharma and managed care companies have practice guidelines but often they just come down to ways to reduce cost. The American Psychiatric Association has practice guidelines, but medications are so emphasized (surprise) that as a broad public information service, they are not very useful.

One certainly might hope that the government could get reasonable scientists together to say what is known. The fact that economic interests sometimes want a particular answer can make that difficult as well. But there are at least two government efforts worth noting in the area of psychotherapy, and fortunately both are exploring acceptance and mindfulness-based alternatives in the area of evidence-based care that give consumers a wider range of choices.

The Problem With Language | Acceptance Commitment Therapy

Not too long ago, perhaps a couple hundred thousand years, an obscure primate species called “human” learned a new trick. We learned to relate events arbitrarily–we learned to have one thing stand for another. We acquired symbolic thought.

We’ve been bossed around ever since…

The comedian Emo Philips has a saying that captures the situation we are in: “I used to think my mind was my most important organ. Then I noticed which organ was telling me that.”

The human mind is arrogant beyond belief. Because our minds can talk about anything, and this organ between our ears thinks it knows everything. Our logical, analytical, predictive, problem-solving mind knows how to live, knows how to love, and knows how to be at peace.

Not.

Language and cognition sit on top of vast amounts of experiential, social, evolutionary, and spiritual knowledge. It claims it all, merely because symbols can refer to such knowledge (to a degree) and guide it (to a degree). It is such a powerful illusion — this thin veneer of symbolic thought claiming unto itself substance and power it simply does not have. Our mind’s claims are the metaphorical equivalent of paint claiming to be the house it covers.

5 Signs that You May Have an Anger Problem

Anger itself is not a bad thing, but the behaviors that can result from being angry can be. It isn’t unheard of for a person to not realize that their anger is a problem, while the people around them are well aware of it. This causes relationship problems, not helped by the fact that the person with the anger problem tends to end up getting what they want. This might work in a restaurant setting, where the anger results in better service and the staff’s opinion is not of particular weight to the person with the anger problem, but in a close relationship this behavior can be particularly damaging.

Turning Self Doubt Into Confidence

Not many things can halt forward movement in life like self doubt. Self doubt can rob a person of their enthusiasm by summoning fears that can dismiss all work and preparation towards a goal as not good enough to ever realize it. By then halting forward momentum, those fears are realized. In order to keep moving, it is important to be able to turn doubt in confidence. This confidence is not arrogance, but assurance that it is good to try new things and it is okay to make mistakes. Doubt brings the fear of being punished for making a mistake and the idea that to make a mistake means to have failed.

6 Lies Your Depression Wants You to Believe (And How to Not Fall Into the Trap)

Psychiatrist Kavetha Sundaramoorthy believes that if a person is aware that the things they tell themselves while depressed are not true, it is easier for that person to ignore those lies and replace them with a helpful truth. In that spirit, this article is dedicated to debunking several lies that may seem convincing when depressed. The first lie is that depression is a chemical condition that cannot be helped. She believes that this way of thinking it too simplistic when we are in reality very complex individuals. She acknowledges that medication can be integral to healing depression, but it can not solve depression by itself.

Why Chasing Success and Happiness is Making You Unsuccessful and Miserable

After feeling stuck in where he was in life, Alexander Heyne started his own business and began searching for success. He sacrificed many aspects of his personal life in order to achieve success so that he could later use that monetary success to fund important things in life like bills, a family, and dreams of seeing the world. Time passed and he realized that not only had he not achieved this illusive success, but he was a lot less happy than when he started. The next step was then to go looking for happiness, until he realized that maybe this active search for happiness may be key to the problem.

Depression, Desire, Addiction: Is Meditation the Answer to Changing Your Brain?

There is no freedom in a life that is out of control. Peace may be discovered by mindful awareness practices and self-awareness that increase self-control. Brain research suggests that people can change the way they think and respond to life. According to neuropsychiatrist Daniel Amen, M.D., “You’re not stuck with the brain you’re born with. By changing your brain, you can change your life.” The Mind and Life and a program entitled the Zen Brain, Zen Mind Institute sponsor meetings that join science and Buddhism discover how meditation transforms life experiences. The article encourages time away to rest, find relief from pain, and to “come home to your own tender heart.”

7 Steps to Right-Sizing the Fear of What Others Think

The author of this article claims to suffer from a condition called “Fearwot.” This is a potentially crippling condition that can interfere with decisions as small as buying shoes to ones as major as promoting her own business in front of a crowd. Fearwot is, more clearly explained, a fear of what others think. It’s a condition that perhaps more people suffer from than just the author. This is one of many potentially crippling fears that the sufferer, though intellectually aware they shouldn’t be afraid, can’t help. They can, however, use fearwot and other fears to illuminate a thought process to success.

Why Waiting to Change Your Life Can Be Dangerous

This is a cautionary article about becoming too complacent with our lives as we make plans for what we want to do in the future without putting those plans into effect. There are many reasons this tends to happen: fear, embarrassment, self-doubt. But the idea that this article’s writer, as well as many others, unfortunately learned through a sudden accident is that not acting on your plans and hopes for the future is a gamble. It is a gamble that you have the time to not act on these ideas, and that you will always have time to build the life you want with the people you want sometime in the future.

4 Steps to Conquer Your Inner Critic

Most everyone is familiar with the idea of an inner critic. The inner critic is a voice that criticizes us, whether when looking in the mirror, when at work, or even when thinking of our closest relationships. This occurs because people are divided internally between an inner self that is goal-directed and another one that is critical and self-denying. It is usually formed from early experiences in which we internalize hurtful experiences that are directed at us. Even though this negative aspect has been adopted, it is possible to isolate the critical voice and improve our outlook.

Why it is Good For You to Feel Negative Emotions

According to Dr. Lisa Firestone, the best thing to do when confronted with strong negative emotions, such as being let down by a friend or partner, or having an argument with a child, is to stay with the pain. We expend more energy trying to avoid pain than we would just facing those feelings. In addition to the real possibility of making ourselves feel worse trying to avoid pain, it also creates a defensive habit that can lead to hurting others unintentionally. Facing emotionally challenging situations also makes us more emotionally adaptive and people who face negative feelings often end up feeling more refreshed the next day.

Study Discovers Internal Trigger for Panic Attack in the Previously Fearless

Over the past few years, researchers have been studying a woman who had suffered damage to the part of her brain known as the amygdala, which is responsible for processing fear. She showed a complete lack of fear in the controlled experiments and also in her life experiences, which involve living in a place with a lot of crime. In a recent experiment, however, involving breathing in a safe amount of carbon dioxide that nonetheless reproduces a feeling of suffocation, the woman and the researchers were all surprised to find that she experienced feelings of fear. The result seems to show a difference in the way the body processes external and internal threats.

Using Mindfulness to Treat Anxiety Disorders

A person with anxiety disorder will perceive threats to an exaggerated degree, have repetitious negative thoughts, and an increased sense of arousal and fear. This causes high blood pressure, a rapidly beating heart, and even digestive problems in those who are affected. Whether they are suffering from General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), the effects can be so sever that they are unable to perform daily tasks. A common treatment for anxiety disorders is cognitive-behavioral therapy, which seeks to replace the affected thought processes with more reasonable responses. Recent studies have shown that mindfulness-based therapies show substantial results, however, by changing the relationship between the patient and their thoughts.

Massage: One of My Favorite Stress Management Techniques for Good Reason

Elizabeth Scott has always enjoyed getting massages and also enjoys the idea of them being a part of a stress management plan. In her experience, massage has been an excellent short-term stress management tool, but she has since wondered what the actual benefits of massage are compared to other stress managements practices and whether or not a massage carried long-term stress benefits. Research into some studies published in various journals brought good news. One study showed that a massage lowered a subject’s perceived level of stress, which also resulted in lowered heart rate and even lowered blood pressure. Another study showed that a Thai massage can increase heart rate variability, pain threshold, and body flexibility.

Maintenance CBT Reduces Risk of Relapse for Panic and Agoraphobia

Panic and agoraphobia routinely exact a debilitating affect on daily life for those who suffer from them. While there are many treatments available, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to have a marked impact on the prevention of relapse and remediation of symptoms of panic (it is important to note) more so than medication alone. Encouraging is the finding that after the cessation of medication, a well conceived maintenance program informed by CBT therapists has the most successful prevention of relapse. Any gains made during treatment are significantly less likely to be sustained without such a maintenance program. So for all those suffering from panic and anxiety, including CBT in your long-term treatment plan is crucial for your success.

Nine Secrets of Courage from Extreme Fear

Everyone has to deal with fear, and the way fear is responded to can determine how we live the rest of our life. If we spend all of our time avoiding fear, we probably won’t get any better at handling fear when it is unavoidable. Jeff Wise’s new book explores the neurological underpinning of our fear response to better understand how fear can be mastered. In this article, he shares nine things that he found helps to increase courage. Studies show that physical fitness can curb the effects of fear, as exercise can ease depression. Thus skydivers with a lower body fat percentage take less time to recover from elevated stress levels.



• Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations.
• But in some cases, it becomes excessive and can cause sufferers to dread everyday situations.
• This type of steady, all-over anxiety is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
• Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger—if we didn’t feel it, we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate threats. But often we bristle with anxiety about situations that are far from life-or-death, and thus hang back and avoid the vital life with mindless oblivion.
• When we get clear about the nature of fear, we recognize this as a vital response to physical and emotional danger—if we didn’t feel it — register this in some way . . . we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate or ominous threats. Yet it is clear that we often fear situations that are far from life-or-death, and thus hang back for no good reason.

Bullying and Mental Health: Study Links Anxiety, Hyperactivity in Kids to Bullying

A lot of research has been conducted about the effects of bullying on the mental health of the victim and how the bullying contributes to issues such as anxiety and depression. A new study suggests that the relationship between bullying and mental health extends to the bully as well, showing that kids with mental health disorders are three times more likely to be a bully. The study used data provided by the parents of 64,000 children from the ages of 6 to 17 from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, and showed that children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD, and depression were six, three, and three times respectively more likely to be bullies.

Self-Care: An Antidote to Stress

If a person neglects themselves to meet the needs of others too frequently, it can have a negative effect on their physical, emotional, and mental health, with symptoms such as stress, irritability, and exhaustion. This can also lead to feelings of anger or resentment towards those whose needs are being given higher priority. All of these things are signs of a life out of balance, and a good way to get things back on track is to simply put more emphasis on self-care. A person who attends to their own needs is more likely to have the energy to help others.

Anxiety and Depression: Our Internal GPS System

Most people look at anxiety and depression as a warning of poor mental health or even as a disorder. From another perspective, however, anxiety and depression can serve as a sign that we are ready to change the world that we have created for ourselves mentally. Rather than suppress the feelings, we can investigate them to find and understand the reason for them. These feelings can act as a sort of internal GPS system, in that we experience feelings like anxiety and depression as our body’s way of keeping us on the right track and working for our greater good.

Want to Find Your Life Passion? Start by Simplifying Your Life

Barrie Davenport is a life passion coach, meaning she partners with people to uncover their life passions. She writes that when a person has a passion in life fueled by vision and purpose, they can wake up every day with the same excitement as a child waking up on their birthday. Part of finding a life passion involves finding a way to live with that passion and make it work practically in a person’s daily life. In order for the passion to fit, space needs to be made in the cluttered schedule in which most adults live.

The Power of Mindset and Getting Your Body Healthy and Fit

Fitness professional Sam Kappel writes that the first thing he coaches someone in is developing their mindset around their goal. This helps them overcome the obstacles that can get in the way of these goals by committing them to their goal. Accomplishing goals, whether fitness or otherwise, is a journey to be taken in baby steps. Part of developing the right mindset for a goal is to create mini-goals or benchmarks to be met along the way. Applying an award system to whatever mini-goals or benchmarks are set, as well as to the final goal, helps prevent discouragement and adds extra incentive.

How to Overcome Stress and Anxiety Naturally

Stress and anxiety are acknowledged parts of everyday life for most people due to lifestyle changes and the daily challenges that everyone faces. Excessive stress and anxiety can lead to health issues, however, so there are many medications available to help people manage their stress and anxiety. There are also many natural methods that can be employed to control and relieve the effects of stress and anxiety as well. Meditating, or taking a few minutes to clear your mind and achieve a sense of calm, can help relieve stress. Developing a positive mindset, or changing your perception of a negative situation by developing positive thoughts can also be a useful tool.

Why People Worry All the Time

People who seem to worry all the time suffer a condition, though not a disorder, called generalized anxiety disorder. Some worry about everything conceivable and others have one worry that preoccupies them throughout the day. Dr. Fredric Neuman explains that some patients worry because they are trying to anticipate danger. He has a parable of two cavemen that shows the benefits of worrying as well as explains why so many people worry today. The short version is that worrying is good for our survival as a race, but it is important to focus that worry on things that ought to be worried about.

Dr. Hart