Anxiety symptoms are of such a kind that you just have to respond to them. very few people can sit by and let feelings of anxiety or their physiological symptoms pass them by. You are compelled to do some thing the moment they arise..
Unfortunately, the most natural and immediate responses don’t work. Nevertheless, most people resort to them as a natural response, despite their ineffectiveness. In most instances, it is only after trying numerous of these immediate and seemingly logical responses and discovering that they don’t work, that more serious and consider treatment for anxiety is resorted. Here we have a look at five (5) of these ineffective treatment response to anxiety.
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- Avoidance - Well this seems obvious. You know what troubles you so its best to stay away from what scares you the most. But pretty soon you find you are hiding away from most of life and now you are faced with a whole range of unwanted secondary problems, such as, social isolation, ridicule, lack of confidence and over the long-term some seriously emerging health problems, e.g. peptic ulcers, insomnia, heart disease, etc.
- Seeking Re-assurance – Your anxiety levels are so pervasive that you are almost compelled to self-talk your ‘OK-ness’ to others, or to ask them if you are doing OK. Pretty soon you will find your friends avoiding you because the anxiety that you ‘spill-over’ into friendships becomes too much. Secondly, since these anxiety feelings lie inside of you, no matter what your friends say they will not just disappear. So you may feel so momentary relief and be relieved that you are ‘not going mad”, them moment they are gone these damn feelings will be back again like the constant companion that they can be.
- Seeking Quick Fixes - You will try all these and the internet is filled with them. You will try everything from herbs, music beats and chants, exercise, self-hypnosis, etc. Hopefully you won’t waste too much money before you take a more serious and disciplined approach to addressing your treatment for anxiety plan
- Psycho-therapy - unfortunately, the Ego-driven and analysis types of therapy have proved to be ineffective as a treatment approach for anxiety – this includes life-coaching and some self skills training as well. The research indicates that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is very effective. Some practitioners have had success with NLP as well. But I can’t say I have seen many successful outcomes with this approach.
- Alcohol and ‘Illegal Drugs- It’s very hard not to use OTC drugs and self-medication to address anxiety situations and anxiety symptoms. Cocaine and codeine can easily lead to the false belief that they help treat anxiety, because for short moments your energy is boosted and CNS depression effects lead you to feeling more confident. But this quickly changes and the depressive come-downs heighten your anxiety levels and often leave you feeling worse and more frightened. The social costs of his self-medicated route turns out to be very costly in the long end and should be avoided at all costs.
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- Sorry to preach a bit like this, but please be careful and avoid this treatment approach. It does not work over the long-term and your difficulties are only increased, not remediate. This also includes the long-term use of prescribed benzodiazepine . They may be necessary for the short-term and part of a professionally managed anxiety treatment program, but not over the long-term. If long-term medication is necessary then look to the SNRIs like Effexor or such instead.