Anxiety 2 Calm

Tryptophan for anxiety and depression is now being touted as one of the best natural anxiety cures you can buy. It is always hard to know if something like Tryptophan is effective or not because it is not marketted by big pharma companies and is therefore not widely researched.

Hydroxytryptophan, to give it its full name, is an essential amino acid which the body cannot produce itself and therefore needs to find through diet or supplement. There are many food sources but you can buy a supplement in most countries called L-Tryptophan.

Tryptophan is thought to be useful as a treatment of anxiety and depression (and other mood disorders) because it is a precursor to Seratonin. Your body uses Tryptophan to make Seratonin which is one of the most important neurotransmitters effecting mood. It also makes Melatonin, which helps control sleep.

Common dietary sources are things such as egg, cod, soya and some cheeses and some meats. Turkey is always said to be high in Tryptophan, but actually cod has more per kg. While many people get enough through their diet others do not. It is hard for Tryptophan to cross the blood-brain barrier because it has to compete with other amino acids. The best way round this is to eat some carbohydrate with the Tryptophan, which will release insulin which helps Tryptophan’s passage into the area of the brain where it is needed.

It is hard to say if Tryptophan works as an anxiety cure or a depression cure. Certainly many people find that carbohydrates make them relaxed which is likely due to elevated Seratonin levels in the brain. If that strikes accord with you then maybe supplementing is worth a try.

In may be better to supplement with Tryptophan than with its nearest neighbour 5-HTP, which has a habit of converting to Seratonin outside the brain and is thought to cause heart valve damage. The only real way to know if Tryptophan works for anxiety is to try it!

NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming to give it its full moniker, has been around for several decades now and seems to promise the world to anyone with issues from anxiety and depression to anorexia and poverty. Does NLP work? I have blogged about this elsewhere.  There is a lack of peer reviewed evidence that NLP is effective, this may in part be due to the fact that lots of peer reviewed journals are too snobbish to cover NLP. Certainly mainstream medicine and psychology don’t like NLP. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t work however.

Well, in my own opinion and experience some aspects of NLP are very useful tools for anyone who is suffering from some negative emotions be they anxiety or anything else. Changing how we see pictures in our mind can alter the way we feel about past events and future events that are worrying us. Changing how we hear the voices in our heads, where they come from and what they sound like can alter how much we believe of what we tell ourselves. Taking the feelings in our bodies and concentrating on them, seeing how they seem to move within us and then speeding up or slowing that movement down, or changing its direction. All of these things can have a profound effect on our mood because how we feel physically within ourselves, what images we see and what we tell ourselves are basically what makes up our mood.

You could spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds on learning NLP from a qualified and certified practitioner, they really know how to charge and finding a good one can be tricky. The great thing about NLP though is its simplicity. You really can learn it from a book. There are lots on the market and I recommend this one. I know it has a cheesey marketing page (like most NLP literature) but I think you are far better off spending money on an NLP package like this than on a practitioner that would be more expensive and no more useful (and possibly a complete charlatan). Also the NLP Practitioner Manual could be very useful in taking you deeper into the subject and learning how to apply NLP to your life, to find solutions.

Let me say a slightly less positive word about NLP practitioners. Lots of them are now selling what they call ‘breakthrough’ sessions. These are day long sessions that they say will cure you of anxiety or whatever brings you to them. I have been quoted anything from £800 to £2000 pounds for this day long session. It is in my opinion not worth doing. The skills you can gain from NLP can be learnt far cheaper from a book such as that described above. The eight hour long session, although it may be full of promises, is probably not going to be very helpful and like all therapists NLP practitioners know how to make money from people that are suffering from anxiety and other problems. They also know how to promise a money back guarantee without ever having to give money back. The last thing I would add is that Breakthrough sessions rely a lot on timeline therapy. I am very cynical about regression type therapies and am still waiting to hear from one single anxiety sufferer who was cured by releasing negative emotion from the past. My advice: avoid.

Since my last post on Omega 3 Oils and anxiety I have been continuing my research and I have found some more useful information. One study published here and quoted here found that supplementing with over a gram of EPA a day was as good as a SSRI for depression, but only really worked on patients that had depression (unipolar) without anxiety. For patients with anxiety and depression the omega 3 supplement was no better than a placebo or dummy pill.

This is interesting as it suggests that omega 3 oil is not the answer some thought it was. This is at odds with a reasonable amount of literature (but perhaps not much hard science) that suggested omega 3, and EPA in particular was a useful supplement for anxious people. Certainly some suppliers of high strength fish oils state on their websites that their product is a potential treatment for anxiety.

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So should anxiety sufferers abandon Omega 3 and look elsewhere for nutritional solutions to anxiety? Not necessarily. The above mentioned study focussed on depressed patients over just two months. Others have hypothesised that treatment with omega 3s needs to be ongoing, but that improvements would show after three to six months. Could it be that the patients with both anxiety and depression needed more than two months? After all, omega 3s are the building blocks for important parts of our brain and nervous system, and years of neglect can’t be remedied in a day.

So I would still suggest investigating Omega 3 supplementation as a potential anti-anxiety supplement. The medical establishment does not fully understand the role of fish oils and omega 3s.

In this post I want to talk a bit about posture…not the kind of Victorian deportment stuff, although that does come into it. What I really want to talk about is the link between posture and how we feel…I think there is in fact a much greater link than people realise. 

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Firstly, let’s get down to some basic physiology and anatomy…your spine carries all the nerve messages from your brain to the rest of your body, this includes parts of your body which are very important to your mental health, such as your stomach (which in itself produces neurotransmitters although medical science is not entirely sure why) and your adrenal glands. Your spine is very important and you need it to be functioning properly. A poorly aligned spine, brought on by bad posture, can put pressure on your spinal column and cause it to work less efficiently. It’s not just back pain you have to worry about, it’s also anxiety, depression, insomnia, stress and tension headaches, panic attacks etc.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can blame all your emotional problems on poor posture, but it may well be a (significant) part of the problem. And solving posture problems can be a great help towards feeling better.

So, how does one go about improving posture? You can of course seek the help of an osteopath or a chiropractor, and this should definitely be done if you are experiencing pain or have serious postural difficulties.

If however you want to feel more confident and relaxed, and have less anxiety and stress, sleep better and improve your mood, then some simple posture exercises might help you get into the good habits you need re-acquire.

Try standing in front of a mirror. Gently push your shoulders back and down, don’t force anything or push to the point of pain or discomfort. Next, push your hips forward, again, don’t exaggerate it, just push them forward so your bottom is tucked in. Now, without pushing your chest out like a sergeant-major, try to imagine your ears becoming aligned with the centre of your shoulders, hips and ankles, so they all pass through one vertical line. 

Now, imagine your body is a string of pearls. Imagine that the top pearl is being held up, this is your head. Imagine it floating up to the ceiling, pulling you taller. As before, don’t force anything and stay within what is comfortable, good posture takes time and practice. So as your head floats up, imagine the rest of your body as the other pearls, pulled gently towards the ground by gravity. 

Hold this position for as long as feels comfortable, but more importantly come back to it in your daily life as often as you can imagine, as you walk, work, sit and eat. The more you do it the more habit-forming it will be and the better your posture will become.

Rimonabant (also known as Acomplia) is a drug which is used to treat obese patients with a risk of developing diabetes.

As I blogged about a month or so ago, the drug is considered controversial. There is now evidence to suggest that one in every ten people that take the drug suffer from some kind of psychiatric side-effect.

We say this is too high! Mental health issues are not taken seriously enough, and any drug which has this much potential to cause psychiatric side-effects should be banned (as it is already in the USA).

Treating diabetes and obesity related cardiovascular disease is important, but not at the risk of causing suicidal thoughts, depression, and, in one known case, self-harm.

It is time for some joined up thinking when it comes to medication which effects how our brain functions. The organisations and bodies that licence drugs need to be better prepared to stop harmful drugs reaching patients. This habit of stopping drugs which have now been used , and done harm, for some time has to be replaced by a more efficient system.

Hi!

This article seems to confirm what a lot of us already know. That doctors in the westernised world are encouraged to overprescribe drugs to patients who actually would do much better with other forms of treatment. Yes drugs are cheap, but they do not get to the heart of the problem, even if they are successful often this is just a crutch.

Although longer term, more labour intensive treatments seem to be more expensive in fact they are not. If you look at the longterm benefits to the whole economy of having a workforce in sound mental health you will find that it is an investment to take mental healthcate seriously.

So let’s see better strategies for mental health, depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue and panic attacks.

Here’s the article:

Up to one in three mental health patients are being over-prescribed drugs, says the Healthcare Commission.
A report found mental health patients were more likely to have problems with medicines than those in other trusts.

The healthcare watchdog said management of mental healthcare patients’ medicines must improve, and pharmacists should be involved in patient care.

It said the findings were “concerning” given the importance of medicines in mental healthcare.

Healthcare Commission Chief Executive Anna Walker said: “Managing medicines safely, effectively and efficiently is central to the delivery of high quality care that is focused on the patient and gives value for money.”

She called on both primary care trusts and mental health trusts to look at their medicines management, and said patients in mental health trusts had told the Commission that they had not been involved as much as they would like in decisions about their medicines.

She said: “This needs to be addressed if trusts expect service users to take their medicines as prescribed.”

Over-prescription

In research undertaken by the Prescribing Observatory for Mental Health, 36% of people were found to have been prescribed more than the maximum recommended dose of anti-psychotic medicines.

Mental health charity Rethink called for an end to the over-prescription of mental health medicines.

The charity’s chief executive Paul Jenkins said: “The Healthcare Commission has once again highlighted a shocking over-prescription of powerful medicines to people in hospital experiencing a mental health crisis.

“As well as defying national guidance, this over-prescription actually delays successful discharge in many cases.

“Everyone has the right to the best evidence-based care, but it is unacceptable that people experiencing a mental health crisis can still be treated as second class citizens.”

Reviews helpful

The Commission said the problem could be detected by an effective clinical pharmacy service.

It found that reviewing medication benefited patients, with 70% of reviews in mental health trusts leading to a change in a person’s medicine, and 46% of those reviewed being found not to be taking their medicines appropriately.

David Pruce, Director of Practice and Quality Improvement from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain said: “The evidence shows that medication reviews in mental health by specialist pharmacists can have a major impact, with over 70% of the reviews leading to a change in the patient’s medication.”

Yet 24% of wards in mental health trusts received no visits from pharmacy staff, compared to only 14% in acute trusts, and just 14% received more than five hours of pharmacy staff time in a week, compared to 64% in acute trusts.

Mr Pruce said: “The future should see specialist mental health pharmacists having an increased role in the care of patients.”

Not complacent

National Clinical Director for Mental Health, Professor Louis Appleby said: “We recognise that the safe and effective management of medicines is central to the delivery of high quality patient care.

“This report will help services address a very important issue and ensure that patients are fully involved in decisions about – and get the most from – their medicines.

“We are not complacent and more work is needed to ensure that all Trusts reach the standards of the best.”

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5 HTP has been touted as a cure for various Serotonin deiciency related illnesses such as Anxiety, Panic Attacks, weight los, insomnia, and depression. 5 HTP, or 5 hydroxytryptophan to give it it’s full name, is manufactured from an African Plant called Griffonia simplicifolia, it is not really practical to get enough of this in your natural diet, so concentrated supplement form is the only way forward. It is commonly found in Healthfood shops and is not normally classed as a drug. Relying on supplements might not be wise, why not also consider something like Panic Away to help you relax and cure anxiety.

Dosage of 5 HTP. When it comes to supplements slack regulations allow manufacturers to be vague. For anxiety, depression, panic attacks and agoraphobia normally 50-100 mg are recommended three times a day. This can be adjusted depending on success and tolerance. For insomnia a single dose half an hour before bed is recommended, again of approximately 50-100 mg. For weight control the same dosage is suggested twenty to thirty minutes before eating. To avoid side effects it is better to start on a low dose and gradually increase.

Dangers: 5-HTP is pretty safe ***but*** there is some evidence that 5-htp can cause damage to heart valves over time…I can find no definitive scientific answer to this question, so maybe more research is needed.  It is not associated with the same number of severity of side effects as traditional medical antidepressants such as Prozac, Celexa, and the other SSRIs. There was a rumpus in the past about a contaminated batch of l-tryptophan in the USA which caused serious illness and death. This was not due to the supplement but to the contamination of one brand in one factory.

Side effects: nausea, constipation, gas, drowsiness, or a decreased sex drive. These are usually mild if present at all, and pass quickly. Generally 5-htp’s side effects are considered to be much less than SSRIs. Check this post on 5-HTP side effects as well.

Length of time
Generally it can take 2-4 weeks for 5 htp to start working, or achieve clinical effectiveness

Efficacy of 5 HTP
Definitely some clinical trials have found that 5-htp is for some people more effective than SSRIs. As ever the results of all the studies are hard to interpret and be sure about as researchers are oftened skewed. Pharmacology is a dirty business.

Warnings etc
Speak to your doctor! 5 HTP can react badly with SSRIs, MOAIs, some over the counter medications and may not be suitable for everyone. Speak to your doctor! (worth saying twice!)

In my opinion, 5 HTP can do good things for the anxiety, panic attack, and agoraphobia sufferer. It may be possible to get the same effect by increasing tryptophan rich foods into your diet! More about that tomorrow!

Cheers.