Anxiety Road Podcast

In this episode, a look at a kindness inspired grounding practice you could do when you need to tame your internal little hater. Sometimes people come to the podcast intentionally. They see the album cover or up on a social media site and check it out. Or they might see a post on a social media place and happen to see the name of the show.   Some entrepreneurial site owners will post a link to their blog or podcast, having nothing to do with anxiety or mental health.   And then there are the entrepreneurial vendors that offer alternative forms of self-gratification, aficionados of the anal canal of prostate joy or climatically cliffs of everlasting delight.  I am under no illusion that providers who have goods, services and products for sale have honorable or dishonorable intentions. Most of it is just juicing for keyword or putting on that wolf coat.   Many times it is probably a quick get off the site link or trying to look legit. I have no control over that and Google is doing what they can, when they can.

It is the time when a bunch of people and advertisers want to encourage you to make changes to your existence and how you currently live your life.   You might in fact want to do this because you do not feel good in your mind and body.  Totally understandable.  But you don't have to define you worth on promises you really don't want to do.   There is a way to achieve your goals without imposing an artificial and non-valuable deadline.   You can take small, measured steps. You decide when to start and when to start. Does not have to be January 1, 2023.  It can be when you are ready. If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:  Virtual Bubble Wrap, pop your way into a bit of calm with this site. Open Path Psychotherapy Collective is a non-profit directory of therapists open to a diverse range of clients.    Disclaimer:  Links to other sites are provided for information pu

There are lots of apps for mindfulness and meditation. The advantage is just in time training, help and support and symptom relief. The disadvantage could be the continued separation from actual people, data harvesting by low lifers and the app not exactly meeting your needs.   I would say that it is important you develop your skills as an informed health consumer.   One way to do that is to visit the website One Mind Psyber Guide.    In this episode, a lot as some of the apps that are available for mindfulness and meditation. If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741.   Resources Mentioned:  U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) consumer page about protecting your privacy and being aware of permissions you give an app.   Free Meditation Apps From the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center there is the UCLA Mindful App for iOS and Android has features such as getting started in meditation, vi

When I'm looking for viable resources, I can tell when I find a traditional approach to treatment. Listed are two options listed, medication and therapy. Sometime they will mention others as a lifestyle choice. That is slowly changing. I am seeing more traditional sites including mindfulness and meditation.  There is increasing medical documentation that mindfulness and meditation work.  Medical scientists are still trying to quantify how it works. But they aren't kicking up a fuss about it anymore.  Another force for change is the entrepreneurial health app providers.  They offer meditation as a treatment option, for users and for large corporations.  Many are targeting corporations. The pitch is "we can provide meditation as a services and it won't cost you (corporations) as much as dealing with traditional providers."  And in-between the entrepreneurs and traditionally medicine is you, me and the rest of the gang.  Truth is, there are people that will be thrilled with an app that actual helps them. They ar

In this episode, a quick look at mindfulness-based stress reduction. The end of the year stuff is coming up early this year so quick episodes are probably going to be in the mix for the next few weeks.   If I can even get to an episode at all, it's that busy too much to do and not enough time.    However, my news feed blew up with articles, about a study about mindfulness-based stress reduction, The headlines, in many of these new stories were something like mindfulness works just as well as medicine.    In this episode, a quick look at the study and some resources so that you can do a deeper dive than most of mainstream media.   If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:  The JAMA Network Abstract on the MBSR Clinical Trial   NPR One Minute Listen on the clinical trial.   Medline Pro page on Escitalopram/Lexapro   Mindfulness and Health Institute - Programs and Virtual C

Hi folks, I'm at high tide with work and symptoms acting like a three-year old. But I wanted to put this out to let folks know that the Amazon.Care service has closed.    It is a little embarrassing for me. I had posted the episode in August and three weeks later the telehealth service began the process of shutting down.    From what I can suss out, there were several reasons for the service going down, and I'm getting my information from the Washington Post newspaper, some of the industry publications, and I believe there was an actual internal memo from Amazon that was cited in some of the news reports.   So this is just a quick informational update plus a little bit about my Twitter concerns. If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:  Washington Post article about Amazon to shut down its telehealth offering and a second story Amazon Care is dead, but the tech giant’

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a pesky bugger.    It is worry on steroids. You worry about money; you worry about every ache or pain and worry about things in the past and the future.   There is nothing that you don't worry about, in excess.   And the amount of worrying you are doing can impacting your life.    Or keep you from doing things you want to do because of the fear of the unknown is going to happen.   In this short episode, the symptoms of GAD and what you can do about it.   If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:  Generalized Anxiety Disorder: When Worry Gets Out of Control, a 12-page booklet that contains information about the condition from the National Institute of Mental Health.   From the ADAA.org site, a personal story, GAD Hard to Recognize by Meredith Arthur   The American Psychological Association has a podcast on mental health topics. Episode 173 S

In the introduction to this episode, I mention the financial bum rush of companies providing mental health apps to clients, patients and customers. Still working on that tact thing.   There is a small but growing segment of entrepreneurs that see gold in them there mental health hills.   Some of those entrepreneurs have honest intentions about making mental health accessible. They have hired psychologists and psychiatrists to help shape their product.   Others vendors are more focused on building chat bots that provide rote services that can be sold to businesses.   Probably as a checkbox for saying "Hey, we have provided this mental health gizmo, saves you money and that will allow you as business person to give us money. Win-Win."   But sometimes, you need a living licensed professional that will meet with you and your problems.   HMO doctors ain't got the time or the training for that kind of service.   Psychologists will talk to you but cannot provide medication treatment or management. Psychiatrists are

Deciding on taking medication is a choice and a responsibility.  If you have been diagnosed with an anxiety condition or disorder, you probably have been told that one of the treatment options is medication.    As I mentioned in ARP 169, It is ok to decide if medication is right for you.    It is equally ok that you don't want to take medications. First step is to get a through checkup to make sure it isn’t a physical health problem. Many anxiety symptoms are similar to a physical illness.    Anxiety medications can help reduce your symptoms, but it's not a cure.    Your symptoms are telling you that there is a problem.  Your challenge is to figure out the underlying cause.    In the meantime, your next step is to learn about the types of medication for anxiety:    Short term medication can help you with embarrassing or symptoms that are affecting your work or personal life. They are in and out of the body quickly. It is sedative opioid level medication.    Long term non-opioid medication takes a while to bui

Having to live with anxiety symptoms is not easy. I can't speak for you but I have sometimes been shamed, embarrassed or felt hopeless after a bad bout with those rascals. My self-medication of choice is food. I kinda have to deal with that because it isn't an effective way to deal with the problem. I've been around this bend before so I know I can do it.   Will I? Probably.   You see my symptoms are flaring up again. Big time.   And yes, I do breathe.    Go out side and walk a bit. Fill my head with music so I can get from point A to B.   Most times it works, sometimes it does not. I used to think that self-medication was a bad but understandable idea.  I’ve kinda moved to the center of “it depends, and what are your other options?”   So in this episode, the questions that I've asked myself and maybe you should consider is what are the benefits and liabilities of self-medication?   There are the obvious ones   Stopping or hiding symptoms A rest period Ability to focus Relief And the cons   Dosage, ho

There is a lot to learn about Hemp Seed Oil (HSO).  The main reason why I wanted to cover it was that there is a lot of misinformation about the product. It is not hard to find hemp in food products.  It is dang easy to find claims or promises of calm or relaxation.   People that have an anxiety condition are prime suckers for dark side entrepreneurs. Ignorance helps them to take advantage and money. Or worse, place your health at risk.   If you know the core basics, you might still be anxious but you will be an informed consumer. To summarize:   The oil is legal on the federal level, provided the seeds and the resultant product contains less than 0.3% THC or psych-active properties.   Those states with legalized hemp and marijuana laws permit the sale of this product. Other states do not and it will be up to you to know the difference.   Hemp Seed Oil is good for a lot of things:   There is some nutritional value Can be used for cold food recipes like salad dressings and other foods Good for the hair, ski

One of the things that I have learned about considering using hemp seed oil and CBD oil is that you need a lot of information.  Information about the laws in your states. Is cannabis legal where I live?   What do I want it for? Physical pain relief, a sleep aid or something to chill the anxiety symptoms down? Where do I go for credible, factual information? This has been one of the hardest aspect of putting these episodes together.    So, being a birth frugalista, I looked at it from a shopper's perspective.   There is some information from a post from the National Center of Complimentary and Integrative Health page on Cannabis (Marijuana) and Cannabinoids: What You Need To Know   It is factual but a lot more research has to be done and it can't happen until cannabis is federally legalized. There are advocacy organizations but most look like sales literature as opposed to providing consumer information.   Reams of pages about the laws except that the laws are changing even as I type this script.   Flim Flam

As I mention in the show, it is easy to get sucker-fied when it comes to purchasing hemp seed oil or CBD oil. There is a lot of flim-flam operators in the marketplace. We have a vulnerability to want to find anything that can help us cope.    If you are seeking for alternatives for traditional opiate medication it seems like it is an option. But if you don’t know the basics, you can lose time, money and an possible effective treatment source.   My intention is to find a way to get to the basic information needed to make an informed decision.   It is easy to find the junk and too dang hard to find viable, credible information.   Deep breath.    This is a small effort to find alternatives.  Alternative does not necessarily mean safer.    Again, start with identifying the basics     For those of us that had actual critical thinking classes this means:   What is it? What is it made of or how is it process? Who is doing what and why? Who is doing the opposite?  Why and what are the benefits and risk? What is in

I want folks to make an informed decision. Before you can make a decision you need facts, research and resources. There is a lot of hokum about hemp seed oil and CBD oil. Both are oils that come from the hemp plant.   They are not the same. They service different populations and purposes. In this episode, a look at what is hemp seed oil and CBD oil.   There was an interesting conversation about the original 2005 formulation of Four Loco. It was a fortified beer that had a lot of caffeine in it. It also came in fruit flavors. And wormwood, can't forget about the wormwood.   On Twitter there were people telling their stories about drinking half a can and then being tore up for the rest of the night.   Other people mentioning that not only did they drink a can of Four Loco but had a vodka chaser. The word blackout was often used.   This is when reading becomes fundamental. Not that it would have stopped any teen or college freshman from gulping it down but maybe reading that the drink had caffeine and a percent

Still on my summer slowdown. This is the seventh year of the podcast.    Yeah, seven whole years of the show. The good, bad and WTF?   There are new things that are going to be happening behind the curtain, like creating shorter more focused episodes on a specific topic, concept or resource.    Which means I can take my time on the longer one and not try to jam everything into one episode.   I can tell you that in the mental health space change is coming as fast as a Japanese speed train.    Access to care is being a challenge but there are governments, entrepreneurs and other folks that are trying to help or disrupt the system.   Exciting times doesn't begin to cover it.    If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:    U.S. National Library of Medicine MedlinePlus page has details about magnesium.     And for you folks in the OZ and NZ space, there is a lengthy page from

It is late and I typed out a long passage about how entrepreneurs and corporation looking to boost revenue are looking at the U.S. dysfunctional health system.  And that page got eaten by the spiritual gremlins of mischief. So this is the short version. AmazonCare is a new virtual healthcare service from Amazon. It provides primary care, pharmaceuticals, some diagnostic services and, in my opinion, mental healthcare lite.  Before you hippity hop over to the site you should know that someone is squatting on the .com domain. Don’t go there. The correct address is Amazon.Care   If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at either 988 or 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:  The AmazonCare web site - currently it is Amazon.Care. The .com version is domain squatted.   The Ginger website with information for consumers or businesses that would like to contract with the service.   The HBO series John Oliver's Last Week Tonig

This is an Anxiety Road Podcast pebble in the road with a quick look at the book called The Body Keeps the Score Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of trauma by By Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. Published by Penguin Random House. This book is about how trauma affects the body and mind. I know many of you don’t believe that your anxiety is trauma based. And you are telling the truth. If that is the case for you, skip this recommendation and be on your way. However, if you suspect or flat out know that trauma is one of the reasons for your condition then you might want to give this book a try. Resources Mentioned:  The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. published in 2015 by Penguin Random House. The book is available  as a book, ebook and audiobook.   Disclaimer:    Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only and do not constitute endorsements.  Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with questions you may have regard

I hate giving up but sometimes a retreat is necessary. Wish I could go to a retreat but that ain't happening. I know when I'm licked and I'm licked.  Not one but two computers have me on the ropes ducking punches.   So this is just a brief update of what's going on with me.    And what's going to be happening for the next couple of weeks. So in housekeeping news, I'm on summer slowdown mode until September.    Between my old computer dying on me and my new computer not recognizing my microphone the way I needed to recognize my microphone.    And it sounds like I have a sore throat. It's only because I've recorded the same episode on hoarding 10 times and gotten really progressively bad results. I am going to take a break and give up the fight and really figure out how I'm going to make this work.    So, I plan to come back. Fairly soon to put up a proper episode, but for right now, I'm stumped.     I'm going to go do something nice for myself and get out of this chair. I'll talk to you sometime in the future

I'm having some technical difficulties and having trouble getting a full episode out. So I just thought I'd do this little quick episode. This is just a quick informational post on traveling with your medications. There is some concern that allegedly there are some agents that are confiscating medication. Below is the link to the official TSA.gov webpage where they publicly states that you are allowed to bring your pill medication on board either in your carry-on or luggage.   There is the text of that statement and the reality of having an agent or two publicly try to take or embarrass you from your medications.   You will have to make some hard judgements on what to do to maintain your safety.     If you need support contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text “START” to 741-741. Resources Mentioned:  Official TSA.gov webpage on traveling with your medications.   Official TSA YouTube channel. This link is to a video on traveling with a

In this episode, a look at some of the words that get confused with hoarding.  I mentioned that there are U.S.and UK television programs about hoarding. Also, there are multiple Youtube channels where a young person buys a the contents or acquires a hoarders property to find hidden treasures and money.    There is also a sub-genre of professional housekeepers being paid to clean the home.   I can't forget that there is or was a person attached to their possessions.    Sure, if the person is deceased and the property has to be cleared for the next occupant, fair game.   But if it is a living person they need treatment and support. It won't work otherwise.    But as long as it is a money making freak show, I don't see that aspect of the cleaning happening in the broadcast and cable programs.     Long before the house is touched, you have to reach the actual person with a team approach to treatment. That is hard. It might not even happen because some folks are in too deep.    Not saying you need their approval t