Your anxiety

try this

I was recently sent a book called The Narrowing by Dr Alexandra Shaker. She has a lifelong relationship with anxiety and writes about it very well.

“Anxiety is a felt state of emergency in the absence of an actual emergency. It leads to something I’ve come to think of as chronic emergency confusion […] Whether you face a real or perceived threat, and even when we know better, bodily systems engage to handle an emergency.”

This is also good:

“Anxiety can generate its own pernicious myth making. These are […] stories of catastrophe told in advance - of the awful things that could be, instead of what already is. I recall a wise psychologist who described anxiety, aptly, as ‘the tyranny of what-ifs’.”

I remember this, this state of feeling like something very, extremely bad is either about to happen or is happening right now, but I haven’t experienced it for a while. I have visited Dr O on and off and he offered me an anti-anxiety medication. But even starting on a low dose gave me the most intensely frightening feelings of really desperate depression and, although I was told that you need to sort of battle through this, I just couldn’t. I was also offered beta-blockers but can’t take them due to a freakishly low resting heart rate (no, I am not exceedingly fit, my heart is just a bit of an LVP).

But I took the advice of a reader to start taking 5-HTP and have been taking it - just off the shelf from Holland & Barrett - for probably four months now and I really think it helps.

The long name of 5-HTP is 5-hydroxytryptophan and, TLDR, it raises serotonin. It’s primarily used for depression, which I don’t feel like I especially suffer from, but anxiety and depression are - to me - so closely intertwined that I’m sure serotonin helps with that, too.

Yes, I definitely am aware that the effect could be placebo, but as I’ve said elsewhere, that’s fine with me. An effect is an effect. I am still capable of anxiety when it is appropriate, but no longer exist in a constant felt state of emergency.

Give it a whirl if it sounds like it’s for you. I haven’t experienced any side effects, but that doesn’t mean there will be none for everyone, so have a quick read before you dive in.