| Book Title: Why We Never Give Up Our Need for a Perfect Mother:
Trapped at Home by Anxiety & Panic? |
| ISBN: 978-0-595-43402-2 (0-595-43402-9) Paperback.
Published 2007. Publisher: ASJA Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc. To order book call in the USA: 1-800-AUTHORS
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The 5-HTT Gene: Research at the Stoneybrook University in New York revealed that perhaps if you inherit a short version
of the gene called 5-HTT, you’re more likely to be predisposed to experiencing anxiety and fear or to become depressed.
Here’s how I burned out agoraphobia
and panic disorder by stretching, walking in place, and nutritional changes. Research your individual issues from my detailed
experience.
Book Description
The world is divided between
calm people with a long 5-HTT gene and anxious individuals with a short 5-HTT gene. People with a short 5-HTT gene live with
constant electrical activity in their brain’s fear center. Here’s one life story chronicling the genetic basis
of agoraphobia and panic disorder, one woman’s war against the fear of going outside. You may be predisposed to either
anxiety or depression if you have a short 5-HTT gene. Look up the article reporting a study that links depression to an overactive
fear center in the brain titled, “Bound for Gloom and Doom,” Proceedings of the National Academy or Sciences,
October 11, 2006. You can find this online at ScienceNOW Daily News. Online, check out ScienceNOW’s search engine at:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?searchtype=article&andorexacttitle=or&fulltext=bound+for+gloom+and+doom
Your genes react to different foods, vitamins, and treatments. If you’re concerned
about hormonal imbalances and genetic predisposition, such as a short 5-HTT gene, how your body metabolizes nutrients or what
defects are in your autonomic nervous system, then discover genetic causes of vitamin over stimulation or under absorption.
Here’s how I burned out agoraphobia and panic disorder with mild exercise such as walking in place and nutritional changes.
Research your individual issues from my detailed experience.
The 5-HTT Gene
How limited are future career plans when you are trapped at home for many years with agoraphobia—the fear of panicking
in unfamiliar spaces? Research at the Stoneybrook University in New York revealed that if you inherit a short version of the
gene called 5-HTT, you’re more likely to be predisposed to experiencing anxiety and fear or to become depressed.
Other studies
reveal that you also may be sensitive to carbon dioxide in the air, feeling panicky when the there’s 5 percent carbon
dioxide in the air. For people without a genetic sensitivity, the air in your environment would have to reach seven percent
carbon dioxide before you’d feel anxious.
If you’re
chronically anxious, have panic disorder or have advanced to agoraphobia, and are afraid of leaving your home or other familiar
surroundings, if you can’t drive, ride in a bus without getting a white-out, or walk more than a few feet from your
home without anxiety causing you to return home….you may not even feel depressed or be aware of any other feeling but
a physical sense of dread, trembling, or numbness in your elbow.
You may panic,
feel dizzy, become short of breath, hyperventilate, and go through the fight or flight syndrome. You may have adverse reactions
to stress, medicines, anesthesia, or foods. You could become allergic or sensitive to loud sound effects in movie theaters,
have a fear of bus travel beyond a certain point, or have white-outs while traveling, perhaps developing more frequent migraines.
You crave healing
sounds in music that makes you feel relaxed. Perhaps you are experiencing post traumatic stress disorder. If you don’t
have agoraphobia, perhaps it is sociophobia that keeps you away from opportunities to meet people and make friends. Or your
stress may be from a physical condition that worsens when you talk on the phone or meet new people and have to speak in public.
Or your panic may increase when you are in a group and fear that you’re being singled out, judged, or discriminated
against.
Sometimes you develop
an increasing sensitivity to dental anesthetics. For example, you react immediately with a panic attack when given a dental
injection, but can be calm when the same minor dental work, such as a deep cleaning on one tooth, is done without anesthesia.
Why do you feel
anxious, get panic attacks, or become homebound for decades with agoraphobia? Hyperactivity in the brain’s fear center
due to the fact that you’ve inherited a short instead of a long 5-HTT gene could be the cause. The brain’s fear
center is connected to the amygdala and hippocampus.
Okay, you have
a short 5-HTT gene. Maybe you can’t travel without become anxious, stressed, or panicked. Maybe you get headaches from
travel or have a low stress level. Maybe you panic when you laugh or are in any way emotionally stimulated by sound, touch,
sight, scent, or experience.
You may not be
able to sit in a movie theater or view a play without feeling anxious from the loud sound effects or the flashing lights.
You look for calming experiences. The problem is you have electrical activity in your brain.
The electrical
activity is in motion all the time, even when nothing should cause fear—such as when you laugh or make love. You overreact
to anything that stimulates that electrical center in your brain’s fear center. It doesn’t have to be anything
that would cause fear to people who have inherited a long copy of the 5-HTT gene.
The world is
divided between calm people with a long 5-HTT gene and anxious individuals with a short 5-HTT gene. People with a short 5-HTT gene live with constant electrical activity in their brain’s fear center.
You may feel either
anxiety or depression if you have a short 5-HTT gene. Look up the article reporting a study that links depression to an overactive
fear center in the brain titled, “Bound for Gloom and Doom,” Proceedings of the National Academy or Sciences,
October 11, 2006. You can find this online at ScienceNOW Daily News. Online, check out ScienceNOW’s search
engine at: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?searchtype=article&andorexacttitle=or&fulltext=bound+for+gloom+and+doom.
If left untreated,
agoraphobia can burn itself out with moderate exercise, but it may take years. You need to study how your genes react to various
treatments so that you don’t become dependent upon the treatment and not find the cause.
If your problem
is post partum anxiety or menopause, and you’re concerned about hormonal imbalances on top of genetic predisposition,
such as a short 5-HTT gene or defects in your autonomic nervous system inherited at birth compounded by your environment and
trauma from physical, emotional, or environmental stress, or even a slight head injury years ago, work on the physiological,
nutritional, and genetic causes of what is keeping you bound to your home.
What worked for
may be similar or very different from what will work for you. Be sure to find out how your genes react to the buildup of certain
vitamins or minerals from food supplements.
Are certain B complex
vitamins you take over-stimulating your thyroid? Know your body type, metabolism, and genetic predispositions. Find out how
fast or slow your body builds up and metabolizes vitamins, foods, and supplements in ways that might build up in your body
to over stimulate glands or organs. Are there toxic substances in the water you’re drinking?
Are you using a
water distiller that takes out all the magnesium and calcium, and you aren’t replacing those minerals in your food supplements
so your body can function properly? What trace minerals are you taking?
Who else in your
family had anxiety problems, migraines, or other inherited issues? Did a parent smoke, drink too much caffeine or alcohol,
or take any medicines or supplements during pregnancy that might have influenced your autonomic nervous system’s response
to stress or other perceived changes?
When you eat fruit
or sugary foods, is there a rush of insulin and adrenalin that makes you tremble with anxiety? Are the sugars in your diet
worsening chronic gum disease by keeping your blood glucose level too high? Anaerobic bacteria under the gums thrive on excess
sugar and yeast in your blood. Have you looked at your reactions to food that is a combination of protein and good oils
such as extra virgin olive oil and Omega 3 fish oils?
Have you discussed
with your health professional whether certain foods “hit you like a bomb” and cause anxiety or other symptoms
of blood sugar changes?
Agoraphobia has a female-to-male ratio of 2-3:1. Social
phobia is more common in females, but more males ask for treatment due to the social pressures on men to earn an income throughout
adult life. Talk
with health professionals that specialize in these symptoms. Is it metabolic syndrome for you or something else? Do you have
the short 5-HTT gene? Or is another part of your body giving you an important message to heed? Find out how your genes process what enters your body and how your genes and brain electro-chemistry react to stress. Stress
is rapid change. Does food hit you like a bomb?
What Helped My Own Hyperinsulinism and Metabolic Syndrome
What worked for
me may not work for you because your metabolic system is different from mine. You need to tailor your foods and treatments
to your own genes and work with health professionals that look at the whole person, and not solely the one symptom. Between
1965 and early 1972 I was housebound with agoraphobia and panic disorder. It began after the birth of my first and second
children in March 1965 and in November 1966. It resumed in 1981 to 1985 and from 1999 until 2004 when I started a better nutrition
program without eating the chocolate I craved, sugary desserts, and shell fish.
Each body type
has different nutritional variations just as you have different genes that can be switched on and off by various methods.
My metabolic syndrome and agoraphobia with panic disorder, my sensitivities to carbon dioxide in the air, to dental anesthetics,
and to a variety of foods and scents will be different than yours.
What set off anxiety
experiences or panic attacks in me or what caused my belly to go convex will be different that what sets off your physical
reactions or experiences. Sugar and too much salt, too many dairy products and too little greens were not good for my health.
You are different. Keep in mind that your genes influence how food affects your body. What environmental sounds, scents, or
experiences affect your panic level?
By switching to
vanilla instead of chocolate desserts, and a largely vegetarian Mediterranean and Japanese diet (seaweed, salmon, whole grains,
green vegetables, no caffeine, and decaf green tea with lemongrass or herb tea with blueberry leaf), I am now able to travel
by bus and walk for a half hour near my home. Caffeine and other foods were wreaking havoc causing adverse reactions as well
as most dental anesthetics.
More than
two million people in the United States suffer from this incapacitating anxiety, a panic state, when traveling away from their
homes. It's a fear that wells up when under even the slightest stress or in an unfamiliar situation.
When traditional medicine failed to help,
a friend sent me a book on Yoga exercises and meditation. I practiced the positions with determination to help myself.
In addition to the approximately 28 Yoga postures, I used music therapy, calming ethnic music of strings, flutes, and
slow drums at 60 beats per minute to bring down my naturally high adrenaline state. I also changed my diet to vegetarian,
but medium-protein, cutting out all white sugar and salted foods, all caffeine and chocolate.
I added raw vegetables and cut out certain starches in high amounts such as cooked potatoes and loads of cooked rice
and substituted tofu, protein powder, and grapefruit pectin powder, two scoops per day.
A fish and fruit
diet also worked wonders and is helpful for those not strict vegetarians. I was willing to try cooked fresh cold water fish
like baked salmon in lemon juice because it's helpful to those with genetic-based hyperinsulinism and genetically high blood
pressure.
My monthly estrogen migraines also grew less painful as a result. The vitamins I took were Vitamin E with 100 mg. of
Selenium, Vitamin C, and beta carotene, and the usual B complex vitamins found in health food stores in normal amounts fewer
than 100 mg. I also took magnesium 400 and calcium 600 to 1000 mgs.
At the time
I was 25 years old. I'm in my late sixties now. I couldn't exercise much with agoraphobia because exercise increased the lactic
acid in my body. Lactic acid creates panic attacks in persons prone to panic disorder. Exercising caused exercise asthma,
hyperventilation syndrome, and panic attacks.
During pregnancy, the estrogen and progesterone levels increase dramatically in a woman's body. A pregnant woman has
200 times as much estrogen in her body than before or after pregnancy. After childbirth, that estrogen and progesterone level
drops suddenly. For me, the result was panic attacks with agoraphobia and hyperventilation syndrome.
One way for me to get rid of my fear of leaving the house and the panic attacks was to get pregnant again. By the third month
of pregnancy I'd feel incredibly calm again. But I couldn't do that forever, especially, not when my husband divorced me after
the second child.
Yoga was my next resort. Yoga required stretching instead of the usual exercise movement that would increase my already
hyper state of adrenaline and insulin in my
blood. In addition, I had low blood
sugar (hypoglycemia)and too much insulin as I previously mentioned--(genetic hyperinsulinism). Too much insulin from too many
fast burning carbohydrates grew me a protruding belly that didn't look great on my 112 pound five feet four body. My fasting
blood glucose of 86 would drop to 60 when I drank two tablespoons of honey in lemon water during a glucose tolerance test.
For seven years I was totally housebound and suffered dozens of panic attacks a day some days. Other days I'd only have
chronic anxiety for the entire day, and panic when I had to sit in my graduate school classroom. At the time I was an evening
school graduate student in genetic and medical anthropology and science journalism. I'd tried every exercise from aerobics
to belly dancing.
Yoga was the only movement that relaxed me without giving me exercise asthma and the tremors. The stretching of my muscles
removed the lactic acid from my body in the same way that a runner stretches a leg against a tree to cool down and remove
the lactic acid that builds up in the body during exercise. It was the build up of lactic acid causing me to shake with the
tremors and go into a panic attack upon exercise.
Persons who are biologically prone to agoraphobia and panic under the slightest stress normally are born with shy, over-aroused
dominant introverted feeling) nervous systems. They often secrete a high level of catecholamines. Their adrenaline level is
frequently at a higher base level than in the average or naturally calm person. They secrete more insulin into their blood
that people who are literally immune from anxiety attacks.
Sometimes the left hemisphere of the brain (high verbal intelligence) begins to fire at a different rate, faster or
slower, than the right hemisphere (visual art and emotion). When the two hemispheres get out of sync, panic and shaking could
occur at any time of the night or day, when you laugh or sleep, walk through the street or sit in a chair.
Stretching from the Yoga positions calmed me so that I could relax and enjoy the day's events. I'd been a person with an avoidant/dependent
personality type. I withdrew from direct people contact and became a recluse in order to stop being a "hot reactor."
An ‘invisible’ hot reactor reacts to the slightest stress not by outward anger, but inwardly and silently,
by a dramatically increased blood pressure, pulse rate, and sudden, gripping fear to people and slight mental stress, even
though there is no facial expression change or bodily motion to show what's narrowing or calcifying from sugar (and insulin's
overabundance to sugar) on the inside.
All I ended up
with was the protruding pot belly of hyperinsulinism--on the thin, small-boned frame of a 120 pound, medium-height woman.
It’s also called metabolic disease. In my situation, it combined with agoraphobic, panic disorder, chronic anxiety and
sociophobia—fear of people, loud sounds, and ringing telephones. Outwardly, emotion is introverted, so nobody can see
what you're feeling on the inside.
Sometimes closet extroverts forced to act like introverts to please introverted family members in power can help to
push a genetically prone person into panic disorder. Usually, some physical stress does it, such as childbirth, surgery, or
even getting married or a first job and moving out of the family.
You can also get panic disorder from watching your mother being battered and not being able to help at a young age, or getting
frightened by a parent. It signifies a sense of loss and fear of losing your health, and it prevents you from traveling, or
in my case, of learning to drive. I never did learn to drive, but by choice. Why? I went from a low-income housewife (homemaker)
to a low-income senior citizen.
Why learn to drive
when I did not own a car or have the income to pay for a car, let alone the yearly insurance. I couldn’t even become
a member of a house of worship because it would cost money each month or annually, and with no income, food, clothing, and
a bus pass became priorities. Luckily, I don’t have to pay rent at this time. I know too well what it feels like to
be homeless. Again, being homeless at the age of 28 felt very different from what it would feel like now as I move closer
to the age 70 mark when the most important indicator of integrity in addition to health is being independent and in your own
home.
I had to change
my diet to healing foods that would not further stimulate my thyroid, as sugar and simple carbohydrates were doing when they
quickly turned to sugar as soon as they reached my bloodstream. Examples were fruit juice, white rice, bran muffins, and bagels.
As a biological introvert, sensitive to people's actions, noise, intrusions, and words, my whole body would over react to
any stress in my environment, until I had to back off and become housebound. I couldn't work at any job that brought me into
contact with people directly.
The phone would
ring and my pulse and pressure would hit the ceiling. I couldn’t sit in cinema theaters as the sounds effects were so
loud that they caused panic attacks. The loud effects overwhelmed my nervous system and caused panic tremors that subsided
when the film or loud music had finished. Gentle string and harp music calmed me, especially Baroque music of the 17th
century and new age meditation music.
I didn't dare answer the phone or I'd go into hyperventilation syndrome and start breathing too fast in terror at the
voice on the other end. I was expending a ton of energy in response to an ounce of provocation. I was afraid of everything
that could elicit a physiological response in me. Bellydance music, if not loud, created a feeling of well-being and prayer.
To counteract my weak calming branch, the more I stretched with Yoga exercises, the cooler and calmer I became. I noticed
that at the height of my panic attack, I'd go into the Yoga positions and stretch my muscles. The result was a sudden sense
of calm. Qi Gong and Tai Chi helped improve my balance. I’ve always had problems keeping my balance, even when young,
during the post-partum phase when agoraphobia and panic disorder hit hard, keeping me housebound exactly at the moment my
then wife-beating husband (now many decades deceased) had filed for divorce, taking all the money in the bank account, removing
the children to a foreign country, selling the house, and leaving me homeless and penniless.
Imagine what it
feels like to be homeless and housebound with agoraphobia, panic disorder, and hyperinsulinism/metabolic syndrome, and chronic
anxiety at the same moment your physically abusive husband walks out, leaving the country, even his mistress giving you the
finger, taking all the children and money…and you have no relatives of your own family to offer a hand. (He later also
left his mistress when he left the country.) That’s what happened to me.
Even when without
more than a few cents left on the table, I determined that I would exercise agoraphobia away, back then in the mid 1960s,
when I was only in my late twenties. Little did I know then that my son would grow up and become a physician specializing
in neuroradiology, and my daughter (a language scholar) would marry a physician who works with these types of issues in the
field of internal medicine.
What about the
anxiety that kept me from going more than a few feet from my home? I hadn’t realized that the amounts of vitamin B complex
I took stimulated my large, fast thyroid so much that the anxiety increased even more.
What I hadn’t
realized is that vitamin B (complex) stimulates the thyroid. In my body, my particular genes allowed the vitamin to over stimulate
my thyroid because of my sensitivity to various types of vitamin B.
That’s why
it’s important to find out how your genes turn on and off in reaction to food and food supplements and how these vitamins
affect other parts of your body. It’s all about how your genes respond to food, medicine, or environment.
When I walked for a half hour or more a day in small, 10 minute walking sessions, the anxiety would fade. A feeling of sending
out waves of love to my worst enemy took over my body and mind. My dominant introverted feeling personality type emphasized
values. I asked myself: Is this issue worth weakening my heart's pacemaker by an adrenaline bath? The answer was always, of
course not. For me, music became a healing tone. The type of music affected my brain’s fear or calming center
and healed my body to the point of a feeling of well-being instead of anxiety.
Harp music, calming
sting music, and even slow, new age music relaxed me. Belly dance music and music of India allowed me to stretch and do my
Tai-Chi exercises to the music as well as Yoga-type stretches. From there, I moved to high-energy bellydancing alone in my
room, stretching out my arms in a type of dance-prayer-tai-chi and yoga stretch and moving my arms and shoulders or feet in
a folk or tribal dance. When done in short spans, not long, exhausting hip-drops, the exercise did calm me, and a feeling
of well-being arose along with stress reduction. Nutrition played a part. I had to balance my magnesium and calcium
to feel relaxed.
Now, my body had to understand that feeling value at the molecular level as well. The best and healthiest answers came when
I asked a value question, is it worth it? Worth it meant was the solution, need, benefit, or answer worth it to my health
in the long run.
Yoga was the best event in my writing life and in providing a link or bridge to learning to relax by stretching until calm.
Listening to calming music or chanting also was a relaxing experience during a panic episode.
The calming, ethnic or meditative new age music such as Indian music relaxed me. My whole body would physiologically react
to the beat of the music. The slow beats, precisely music of 60 beats per minute brought me down to a relaxed normal feeling.
Music distracted my brain from firing off anxiety neurons. The right hemisphere of my brain was shooting off energy from neurons
a lot faster that the left hemisphere of my brain when the both hemispheres should have been working together in balance at
more or less the same rate. This was another cause of my chronic anxiety, panic attacks, and ultimately being housebound with
agoraphobia (literally, fear of the outdoors). I turned to Ayurvedic medical books for kind solace. Yoga helped the most along
with Qi Gong, a form of Tai Chi for health and balance.
What I was really afraid of was not the marketplace, or outdoors (agora in Greek), but my body's panic reaction to stress.
I perceived stress as threatening so fast that my
logical side didn't have time to calm
myself down. I had a weak calming branch.
Again Yoga came to the rescue. How Yoga worked specifically was by the actual stretching of the muscles. When muscles stretch
they cool down the panic by changing the posture. The stretching removed the adrenaline, lactic acid, and insulin from the
muscles, and the muscles stopped shaking.
My breathing grew slower as I stretched and went through the basic postures. My monthly migraines eased. Meditation became
easier. Finally, I could relax after a good, but gentle Yoga stretch. What’s your body type? Different body types metabolize
nutrients according to their own physiology. There are fast and slow ‘metabolizers.’ Have yours checked and measured.
Stretching Away the Panic Attacks
To get rid of the panic attack, I'd begin by sitting in a half lotus position. For hyperventilation syndrome, I'd breathe
into a brown paper bag to increase the carbon dioxide. However, when I was back to normal, I'd breathe fresh air slowly because
carbon dioxide causes sensitive people with panic disorder to have a panic attack from breathing carbon dioxide. Then I'd
hold my left foot firmly and place my left foot and heel against my right middle thigh near the knee while stretching my arms
downward.
The position of my foot resting against my inner thigh became the most calming stretch position for me. I tried to stretch
my arm muscles and the rest of my leg muscles. Then I allowed my forearm to relax and rest against my raised knee. I'd sit
for two minutes in this posture. The weight of my forearm gradually lowered my knee. By the time the knee was lowered as far
as it needed to go, I was calmed down. Slow deep breathing was very helpful.
Yoga also helped my inner ear problems. I have a damaged left inner ear from the time I was a passenger in the back seat of
a car that was rear ended in an accident in 1967.
After the ear injuries healed, I had life long vertigo attacks whenever I was under stress. The stretching and movement of
yoga as a series of postures helped me regain my balance.
Eventually my brain compensated for the damaged inner ear, and the vertigo and ear problems lessened, especially by
the side bend Yoga exercise. I'd recommend to any person housebound by agoraphobia to check out the values of a Yoga regimen
backed up by balanced nutrition, vitamins and minerals, and meditation with music therapy. Of all the therapies I tried, Yoga
worked the best.
Now years later, I practice Yoga. It's combined with slow belly dancing and Tai Chi Chuan, meditation, slow beat ethnic, new
age, and classical music. I ate soaked over night and then slow, low-heat-cooked whole grains and legumes consumed with fresh
and juiced vegetables, and no sugar or excessive salt. Fast dancing only brought on exercise asthma for me. Stretching slowly
took it away.
My motto is “stretch your panic away.” I'd take this regimen anytime over tranquilizers, addictive drugs
with side effects, or antidepressants that do nothing for the panic, but treat the depression that are usually prescribed
for agoraphobia with panic disorder. I'm only speaking for myself here.
I didn't feel depressed. I felt scar out of my skin, scared to tremors. The seizure of shaking felt almost like a mild epileptic
set of convulsions. Yet, I was always told after seeing dozens of doctors that nothing showed up on tests.
Back then, in the middle sixties, my doctors told me my panic attacks were all in my head, and I was in good health. They
automatically gave me a prescription for Miltown or Librium. I didn't take the tranquilizers after hearing other people's
sensitivity reactions to the pills. I wanted to try more natural solutions to agoraphobia and panic disorder such as better
foods or vitamins and minerals or antioxidants in small amounts. What worked best for me focused on mild exercise, walking
in place, then walking outdoors, then Tai Chi, Qi Gong and gentle Yoga. Finally, bellydancing or tribal dancing alone in my
room to relaxing but exotic music that allowed me to stretch and relax.
When I got older and complained of too much adrenaline in my blood, they gave me a prescription for Inderal, a beta blocker
to stop adrenalin from hitting my heart's electrical system. Over the years, I'd developed arrythmias which I cured with 150
mg. of selenium, 400 mg of vitamin E, 300 mg. of magnesium, calcium, and the amino acid, a little Taurine (half or quarter
of a 500 mg capsule) or Coenzyme Q 10 in a bottle of multiple vitamins.
I never took the pills because I was afraid of the side effects of depression, which I didn't have in the first place. Instead,
vitamins, minerals such as 400 mgs of magnesium and an equal amount of calcium with a tiny amount--a half capsule of the amino
acid Taurine, helped me feel normal. Omega 3 fish oil helped most along with good nutrition.
I know that having a genetically sensitive to stress system helped me understand why I feel so well working at home where
I can have my own flexible work hours. Yoga did help as did my vitamin B complex regimen with (for me only) 800 mgs of folic
acid in the B complex capsules and Betaine. These helped me along with Yoga. Everything, in vitamins or minerals, for me,
is in moderation. Please do not copy my individual combination of nutrients are for my body type. Make sure you tailor your
own foods and nutrients to your own body, genes, and blood type constitution.
I also have
AB blood that needs a balance of protein and carbohydrates because I don’t have the thin type O blood that can eat a
lot of protein, but rather the “vegetarian with some fish, fish oil, olive oil, and sea vegetables” (the omega
3 and 6 oils in balance as fatty acids) ‘thicker’ blood type, that is found in the healthy diets of Japan and
the Mediterranean areas.
Optimism helped the most to walk-off and dance away anxiety. Hope helps. Healing music, exercise, and nutritious eating became
my regimen. I preferred Yoga, meditation, serenity, good nutrition, and the vitamins and minerals that keep me calm
and reduce my reactions to stress.
For me stretching with Yoga eventually helped my menopausal back-aches, when I went through menopause more than fifteen years
ago. Taken with the best nutrition plan that works for me, stretching in Yoga and balancing from Tai Chi Chuan stepping gives
me the right kind of weight bearing exercise I need now in my sixth-going-on-seventh decade.
Making my own almond milk and eating frozen blueberries also helped to calm me. Fresh blue berries remove some of the vitamin
B from you. Frozen or cooked blueberries don't because the B vitamin removing enzyme is disabled by freezing or cooking. I
take a scoop of soy protein to help my bones and arteries. Along with the Yoga and Tai Chi Chuan exercise program or walking
as I don't drive, I'm happy and able to write to the best of my ability. Thanks, everyone, and thanks for Yoga.
It's the stretching and relaxation that works for me with world beat music in the background, again keeping to 60 beats per
minute when I can find it. I particularly like the music CD, Sheltering Stones, by Richard Searles (Earth Dance Music,
Sherman Oaks, CA).
Instrumentals with gentle voice sounds as in Mystic Voyage, from the CD Sheltering Stones, is a calming, Celtic work of plucked
strings and soft voices that helps me to visualize misty and mystic mornings at Big Sur in California.
Unsweetened products such as unsweetened almond milk has reputation for building bones, (but be sure to find out how your
body reacts to taking calcium and magnesium supplements so you get enough, but not too much to trigger other problems) and
Yoga is known for stretching and calming.
To counteract my
weak calming branch, the more I stretched with Yoga exercises, the cooler and calmer I became. I noticed that at the height
of my panic attack, I'd go into the Yoga positions and stretch my muscles. The result was a sudden sense of calm. Don’t
take soy isoflavones in powder form where it is highly concentrated if you have breast cancer because it’s not recommended.
For those not at high risk of any condition, soy is supposed to be good for your arteries. I took soy products for chronic
anxiety, and combined with yoga, here’s how it stretched out my doubts.
Talk to professional
nutritionists, health care professionals and compare their views with naturopaths and alternative nutrition counselors. Have
a genetic test to see how your body reacts to various foods, vitamins, mineral build up. For example, does calcium raise your
blood pressure or lower it?
Different people
react in different ways. What ration of calcium to magnesium is best for you? That’s why you need to talk to professionals
trained in tailoring your foods and any other treatments to your individual genes.
Get tested for
what is scientifically accurate about nutrition and genetic testing. Check out any companies with health care professionals.
Find out what other patients/clients are saying about their own treatments. What works for you may not work for someone else.
Stretching and walking in place worked wonders in the midst of a panic attack—at least for me.
Each time I did mild stretching with my legs and arms, anxiety would fade. A feeling of sending out waves of love to
my worst enemy took over my body and mind. My dominant introverted feeling personality type emphasized values. I asked myself:
Is this issue worth weakening my heart's pacemaker by an adrenaline bath? The answer was always, of course not.
Now, my body had to understand
that feeling value at the molecular level as well. The best and healthiest answers came when I asked a value question, is
it worth it?
Yoga, Tai Chi,
and Qi Gong were the best event in my writing life and in stretching, balancing, and walking to relax. Stretching resulted
in a feeling of calmness. Listening to calming music or chanting also felt relaxing during a panic episode.
The calming, meditative
new age and ethnic music helped to relaxed me. Oddly, high-spirited belly dance music without too much drumming gave me a
feeling of wellbeing, not panic. The drumming increased my heartbeat and raised my blood pressure. So I didn’t choose
music with a lot of fast drumming.
People’s
bodies react to the tempo of the music. If a music piece is only 60 beats a minute with a metronome, the human body responds
to that beat and calms down to a feeling of relaxation. Your body eventually moves in sync with the music beats. That’s
why I choose slow music.
My whole
body would physiologically react to the beat of the music. The slow beats, precisely music of 60 beats per minute brought
me down to a relaxed normal feeling. Classical string and brass music of the 17th century felt the best along with
new-age, stress-reduction, and relaxing music made for meditation. When calm, I liked bellydance or tribal dance music with
a slow beat to stretch to. The focus of each movement emphasized keeping my balance. And when the rhythm changed, the bellydance
hip-drop helped me focus on losing the stress.
***
How to Make a More Nutritious Cookie
- Vegan Cookie Recipe with Rice Bran, Oat, and Flax meal.
Low-sodium and only natural fruit sweetening…
No bleached flour ingredients. Use oat bran, flax seed meal, and oatmeal instead of flour. No eggs, baking powder, soda, or
dairy products.
_______________________________________________
The Recipe:
1 scoop rice protein powder (about 2
tablespoons)
1 tub tofu made with calcium sulfate
instead of magnesium
chloride (about a pound) or three egg
whites, beaten until in stiff peaks like merengue
1/2 to 2/3 cup of pink grapefruit juice.
Buy a freshly squeezed carton of juice or juice
your own grapefruit.
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil cold
pressed and not rancid or old.
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1 cup oat bran
1 cup oat meal--old fashioned rolled
oats uncooked
1/2-2/3 cup flax seed meal
1 tablespoon of lecithin granules (optional)
Place in a bowl the oat bran, protein powder,
lecithin, and flax seed meal, stir, then finally the oat meal, then all the fruit and nut ingredients. In a blender
blend the grapefruit juice and tofu. Pour into the large glass bowl.
Stir everything. Pour all ingredients
into the bowl and mix with a large spoon. If you need more sweetness, consider fruit, but please go lightly here. You don't
want sugar to raise those insulin levels. I like it without sweetener. Use pieces of fresh dates, chopped apples, or figs
to sweeten more, if you require a sweeter taste.
You can serve with almond butter, peanut
butter, or other high protein or nut butter topping if you wish. The addition of the Omega-3 oils in the form of flax seed
meal, is helpful, and at least helped me. This is a nutritious nut and fruit cookie that can supplement a meal on the run.
Coat 2 or 3 cookie sheets with the extra
virgin olive oil. (I use glass cookie sheets). Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for 40 minutes or from 30 to 45 minutes, until
the undersides of the cookies are a light brown.
Use a metal spatula to lift the warm
cookies and place into a cake dish or other glass bowl. Cover and let cool. The world's most nutritious cookie is served warm.
It's delicious.
The key ingredient is the rice protein
powder and the absence of granulated white sugar, fruit juice concentrate, or dairy fat.
***
Raspberry/Carrot Vegan Cookie Recipe
with Rice Bran, Oat, and Flax meal.
Low-sodium and only natural fruit sweetening.
No bleached flour ingredients. Use oat bran, flax seed meal, and oat meal instead of flour. No eggs, baking powder, soda,
or dairy products.
_______________________________________________
The Recipe:
2 scoops rice protein powder (about
2 tablespoons)
1 cup of unsweetened almond milk.
1/2 to 2/3 cup of frozen or fresh red
raspberries blended with a cup of soy milk.
1 peeled banana
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil cold
pressed and not rancid or old.
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup peeled baby carrots
1 cup oat bran
1 cup oat meal--old fashioned rolled
oats uncooked
1/2-2/3 cup flax seed meal
1 tablespoon of lecithin granules
2 or 3 egg whites. Or if vegan substitute
1/2 tub tofu (blended to a creme) for eggs or 1/2 cup stewed prunes in their syrup and 2 tablespoons of lecithin granules
if you don't eat egg whites.
In a blender blend the almond milk and fruit.
Add the peeled baby carrots. Liquify. Taste it and it will taste like a rather tart soymilk product.
Pour into a large glass bowl. Add two or three
egg whites to a bowl and add the soy milk and fruit blended to a thick smoothie consistency. Add to the bowl the oat bran,
protein powder, lecithin, and flax seed meal, stir, then finally the oatmeal, then all the fruit and nut ingredients.
Mix in bowl. Or if you're a vegan, substitute
1/2 pound tub of tofu or 1/2 stewed prunes in their syrup and 2 tablespoons of lecithin granules for the egg whites that will
hold the cookie paste together.
Stir everything. Pour all ingredients into
the bowl and mix with a large spoon. If you need more sweetness, consider fruit, but please go lightly here. You don't want
sugar to raise those insulin levels. I like it without sweetener.
You can serve with almond butter, peanut butter,
or other high protein or nut butter topping if you wish. The addition of the Omega-3 oils in the form of flax seed meal, is
helpful, and at least helped me. This is a nutritious nut and fruit cookie that can supplement a meal on the run.
Coat two or three cookie sheets with the olive
oil. I use glass cookie sheets. Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for 40 minutes or from 30 to 45 minutes, until the undersides
of the cookies are a light brown.
Use a metal spatula to lift the warm cookies
and place into a cake dish or other glass bowl. Cover and let cool. The world's most nutritious cookie is served warm. It's
delicious. The key ingredients are the rice bran and rice protein powder and the absence of granulated white sugar, fruit
juice concentrate, or dairy fat.
***
Other Book: Novel
| Title: Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome: A Time-Travel
Novel of Love as Growth of Consciousness & Peace in the Home |
| ISBN: 978-0-595-42977-6 (0-595-42977-7). |
Published 2007. |
Or see list of other available books in paperback written by Anne Hart at: http://annehart.tripod.com.
