What are the Possible Approaches for Anxiety Treatment?

Anxiety is a medical condition that can affect any human being, but you will be surprised to know that the probability of it happening among women is twice than in men. Further, the menopause period is the most vulnerable time for anxiety ranging from a mild irritation to a severe inability due to hormonal changes. Fortunately, women worried about anxiety can go for a variety of treatment options as per the severity and duration of symptoms, mental health history, and current lifestyle.

For treating anxiety, there are three levels or approaches of anxiety treatment - Lifestyle Changes, Alternative Medicine, and Drugs and Surgery.
 

• Lifestyle ChangesThis is the first level of anxiety treatment to begin with, as it is the least risky approach. Although there is no cost and risk involved, you are expected to follow them with the greatest amount of self-discipline. Lifestyle changes mostly include taking a balanced and improved diet, exercising, and managing stress and other negative feelings. Try speaking with a trusted friend or an expert, which can help in fighting anxiety to a great extent.
  
  Many people are getting familiar with the huge benefits of relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, and breathing techniques. And yes, diet also plays an important role in treating anxiety. It is true that it cannot eradicate anxiety, but can surely make you feel better with some modification. Do the following changes in diet:
• Drink a lot of water, at least 5-6 litres a day.
• Increase carbohydrates that result in hike of serotonin levels, which make you feel relax.
• Take smaller, but more often meals to prevent low blood sugar.
• Hike the consumption of tryptophan that is present in high quantity in milk, bananas, soy, nuts, peanut butter, and oats.
• Avoid taking caffeine that is the cause of nervousness.

I am sure all these changes are not that easy for you to make along with exercising. This is because it will take some time to change the habits and preferences that you were following since many years. However, these changes ease many symptoms, but yet they do not deal with the hormonal imbalance.

• Alternative MedicineThis approach directly deals with anxiety by increasing the hormonal levels in the body. Considered as an extremely effective way to treat menopause symptoms, this approach offers many different therapies such as herbal remedies, acupuncture, biofeedback, massage, homeopathy, and hypnosis. Among all of them, the herbal remedies are preferred the most for anxiety treatment. Two types of herbs are utilized for dealing with anxiety namely, phytoestrogenic and non-estrogenic herbs. Phytoestrogenic herbs such as Black Cohosh) are full of estrogenic components that when introduced in the body increases the estrogen level. But, adding outside hormones reduces the capacity of a woman’s body to produce estrogen on its own. So, non-estrogenic herbs like Macafem dominate among women. Despite the fact that they do not contain estrogen, they encourage the hormone production by fostering the pituitary and endocrine glands. This not only increases the amount of estrogen, but also of progesterone and testosterone. So, the body can create its own hormones without any external dependency. Experts are of the opinion that a combination of approaches is the most useful way to tackle anxiety. So, lifestyle changes and alternative medicine are mostly combined for the best results.
• Drugs and SurgeryAnxiety treatment might involve some healing options such as cognitive and behavioral therapies. For those who do not get treated with any of the above approaches, certain drugs, surgery, or the behavioral therapies are prescribed. This is because their case is extreme and so a trusted and trained professional’s help proves to be quite beneficial. In reality, this approach is the most risky and costly among all the three approaches of anxiety treatment. Listed below are the most common drug therapies.
• Selective-Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (anti-depressants)
• Anti-anxiety medications (anxiolytics)
• Mild sedatives
• Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) might be very fast in treating hormonal imbalance; but, it might induce several side effects such as cancer, which is seen in certain cases.