Dr. Umesh Jain is now exclusively responsible for TotallyADD.com and its content

Anxiety

Anxiety2012-05-23T06:15:26+00:00
Viewing 0 posts
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #90763

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    I was recently diagnosed at 55 years old. In my mid twenties I had an anxiety attack, and very fortunately discovered Relaxation Response (it wasn’t well known then) and later meditation. I became quite expert at these techniques over several years. My life at that time turned around at work and also in getting involved in other interest. About 15 years ago I dropped my RR and meditation habits. Gradually over time, what I now know to be ADD symptoms became worse. I work in construction and with the recession haven’t work regularly in recent years. I had occasionally tried to RR or meditate over the years but it takes some considerable focus, so it became just another one of things I knew I should do, but didn’t. Since going on Adderall I have been able to RR and begin to meditate. That was my main reason for going on meds, and it made much easier to do these exercises. It will take me a while to get back to the levels of relaxed being that I used to attain, but in just a couple of weeks I feel so much more relaxed. I had always known that when I was stressed I made silly mistakes, forgot important things and procrastinated, but had no clue that the anxiety was a co-morbidity with ADD.

    And… big bonus, I just had to have my blood pressure meds changed because the Relaxation Response exercises have considerably lowered my BP.

    REPORT ABUSE
    #114512

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    Hi there,

    I’m popping up everywhere aren’t I?!

    I was going to post something else, then I read your post. What is Relaxation Response? I’ve done yoga when I was pregnant and I only enjoyed it because it connected me to my baby – all that lying around breathing did my head in. I got the info I needed to get the babies out without drugs and I ran.

    I love the idea of meditation. But I just can’t do it. A) I’m never alone in the house B) I sit in my cross legged yogi position writing mental lists of all the things I should be doing if I werent ‘relaxing’.

    What’s the secret?

    REPORT ABUSE
    #114513

    Robbo
    Member
    Post count: 929

    Here’s a good trick for finding specific information in this web site. Use google to search this site only by using this code.

    Relaxation response site:totallyadd.com

    you can copy n paste that last line into the google thing. You’ll get tons of posts from this site that have that topic in them. Don’t post the link to the results of your google search here though. It’s bad luck. (just trust me okay?, doooonn’t do it)

    Peace AliD

    REPORT ABUSE
    #114514

    ipsofacto
    Member
    Post count: 162

    That’s a great tip Robbo. Google always works better than a web sites own search function.

    Relaxation Response is the term that Herbert Benson applied to a state of deep relaxation brought about by a deliberate process. In that state, both the body and the mind are relaxed. It can be achieved via a mental process, a mostly physical process, or a combination.

    The relaxation Response can be thought of as the opposite of a panic attack. The chemistry of the stressed body and mind is brought back to normal.

    Meditation, yoga, and relaxation techniques like Progressive Muscle Relaxation require learning and practicing mental focus. The core practice is of focusing on something like the breath, becoming distracted by a thought, and then mindfully bringing the focus back to the breath. This can happen many times, and it’s thought that this is especially beneficial to people with ADHD.

    Meditation takes a good deal of practice, but you don’t have to sit a funky position to do it. Sitting with good posture in a chair works just as well. Progressive Muscle Relaxation is best learned lying down, PMR is easier to learn because there is a physical reaction to each step, which helps to hold your focus.

    Transcendental meditation is similar, but with a single focus.

    There are long term changes in the brain that come with regular meditation.

    Being determined to find twenty minutes a day quite time is the biggest hurdle.

    REPORT ABUSE
    #114515

    ipsofacto
    Member
    Post count: 162

    A word on posture. Saying “sit with good posture” is really only half the story. It’s a chicken and egg problem. Good posture requires little effort. The skeletal frame hold you up. The body’s muscles simply work to maintain balance, and are really quite relaxed.

    I think it’s hard to have true good posture until you know what relaxed muscles feel like. It’s an alien concept to most of us because we are never taught to relax. This is another reason why I like PMR. It teaches you how to relax muscles, and what relaxed muscles feel like. With practice, you begin to notice very quickly if there are tensions in your body throughout the day. When we sit or stand with poor posture, there are always muscles working hard somewhere in your body.

    Being aware of, and having control over the muscular tensions in your body not only helps with posture. More importantly, the mind body connection means that stress in the mind causes stress in the body, and vice versa. In a stressful situation, it may be hard to clear the racing thoughts in your mind, but you can more easily relax the tensions in you body. The mind then tends to follow the body’s lead and becomes calmer.

    REPORT ABUSE
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)