3 simple (free) ways to reduce anxiety

I see many clients who have anxiety, it is a very common condition in our society today.

If you see your GP about this it's likely that they will prescribe some form of anti-depressant or beta blocker. If you are fortunate perhaps you will be offered some form of counselling.

Some what simple steps can you take to reduce anxiety?

1) It is far more useful to consider that you are 'doing anxiety' rather than feeling anxious. It's a simple but important distinction as it opens up the possibility of change. If you are 'doing anxiety' right now perhaps you can do calmness later.

2) Cut out sources of caffeine; tea coffee, coke, Red Bull etc. If you are feeling anxious the last thing you need is extra stimulation.

3) Make sure you have as well a balanced diet as you can. Fresh fruit and vegetables provide you with B vitamins and magnesium that tend to reduce anxiety.

One extra; drink plenty of water. Being even a little dehydrated will raise your anxiety.

It's that time of year when...

The newspapers talk about weight loss or maybe just being fat a lot this time of year.

Swedish weight watchers cause floor to collapse. Oh well there goes the stereotype of the slim Swedish blond.

Only eat raw food and lose weight? Well you can do it that way; here's what happened.

You could try the military boot-camp approach...

Or you could start to re-educate your body and mind with this...

If you want to be well and lose weight watch this

Watch this video and learn lots about how you can; beat cancer, lose weight and live longer.


Change your diet and change your live

10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight

There was an interesting program called "10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight" on the BBC last night (Wednesday 27th May 2009) .

It looked beyond the old counting calories approach to weight loss and outlined ten different approaches to shedding the pounds. Some of the tips have been around for a long time and are very simple indeed; for example switching from a 12inch diameter plate to a 10 inch.

The program also vindicated the Atkins approach to weight loss but backed it up with science. It seems that a high protein meal tends to turn off the chemical messenger signal for hunger, longer than the same amount of calories eaten as fat or carbohydrates. In effect meat, fish, beans and eggs are a better hunger suppressant than bread, rice, potatoes or pasta.

Some ideas were surprising, the program split a team of soldiers into two teams. Each team was fed the same meal, the first team ate the meal as usual with a glass of water. The second team had the same meal but it was liquidized with a glass of water, in effect creating a soup.

The suprise was just how much longer the soup version of the meal stayed in the stomach than the regular meal. As a consequence hunger was staved off for much longer with the soup meal.

Dairy fat is often given a wide berth by dieters yet it seems that those who want to lose weight are missing a trick. It seems that eating low fat dairy products can actually increase the amount of fat that is excreted from the body. The calcium in the milk or yoghurt binds with the fat in the gut and then passes through the body rather than being absorbed.

The program had other tips but one thing that I am very familiar with is the way that people record what they eat. I have worked with many people to help them lose weight and the accurate recording of what they eat is a real challenge. An actress on the program was certain that she ate a healthy and moderate diet, she thought that a slow metabolism was to blame for her excess weight.

She was tested in a research lab and found that her metabolism was absolutely normal. So back to the food then. It turned out the lady was under recording her food intake on video camera by some 60% and even when she wrote a food diary she under recorded by over 40%. Her food intake was over 3000 calories per day instead of the 2000 required on average for a woman. No wonder she was overweight.

What this program did not cover was the emotional reasons why people tend to over eat but it is worth a watch using the BBC iPLAYER through the link above.

Depression and the link to Omega oils

The Food Programme goes out on the BBC Radio 4 network in the UK. The most recent show discussed the essential fatty acids, Omega 3 and Omega 6 and their effect on both our physical and our mental wellbeing.

Omega 3 and Omega 6 are essential fatty acids that we can only obtain from our food. Scientists say, ideally, they should be in balance in the body, at a ratio of 2:1 for Omega 6 to Omega 3. But the average in the UK is around 10 : 1.

While the government health departments continue to promote the idea of reducing saturated fats, it's possible that some of the damaging effects attributed to these normally animal fats should have been attributed to Omega 6.

We need both Omega 3 & 6 but in the last thirty years we have changed our diet so that it includes many more seed oils and it is these that contribute the Omega 6.

What foods contain Omega 3?
Salmon, flax seeds and walnuts are excellent sources of omega 3 fatty acids.

Very good sources of these healthy fats include scallops, cauliflower, cabbage, cloves and mustard seeds.

Good sources of these fats include halibut, shrimp, cod, tuna, soybeans, tofu, kale, collard greens, and Brussels sprouts.

What foods contain Omega 6?
Cooking Oils - sunflower, safflower, corn, cottonseed, peanut and soybean
Egg yolks
Grain fed meats, particularly organ meats
Farm raised fish
All manner of processed foods

Why is this important?
According to Professor Michael Crawford of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition we need much more Omega 3 than we consume today. Ideally the ratio of Omega 3 to 6 would be aroud 1:2. The current epidemic of mental illness and arthritis, he says, is because we have this balance wrong. He believes we need to consume fewer Omega 6 essential fatty acids and expresses his concern at government health messages regarding Omega 3 essential fatty acids found in fish and all seafood.

Put simply, to maintain good mental health we should eat much more fish, as he says "we once came from the sea". This Omega 3 vs Omega 6 balance became far worse in the 20th century as we moved away from eating fresh fish and towards processed foods made with vegetable oils.

To look at the BBC programme web site click here.

My own 'take away' from the program was to reduce my sunflower oil intake, keep taking cod liver oil capsules once a day and use olive oil (a monounsaturated oil) when possible.

Is emotional need driving diabetes surge?

Once again we are hearing news reports about how type 2 diabetes is surging in the UK becoming more like the USA and Canada.

According to the BBC

From 1997 to 2003 there was a 74% rise in new cases of diabetes.

And by 2005, more than 4% of the population was classed as having diabetes - nearly double the rate of 10 years earlier.

This growing problem is driven by the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese. Our love of fast foods that are often fatty and fried together with a much less active lifestyle have led to us piling on the pounds and so driving the increase in type 2 diabetes. (Type 1 diabetes is a heredity condition that affects insulin production in the body.)

But is there another story here? I think so.

In my one to one work with clients who wanted to lose weight the most common theme was that of emotions driving eating patterns. Often I have found that low self esteem and low level depression lead to changes in eating patterns. It seems that in a strange way we are trying to feed our positive emotions by snacking and eating sweet or fatty foods.

These types of foods are exactly the ones we find most satisfying to eat. The satisfaction is partly down to our hunter gatherer history, in our cave man/woman past, fatty and sweet foods were hard to come by but very necessary for our survival through the cold winter months. So we developed a strong appreciation for foods like these that survives until the modern day. The difference now is that fatty and sweet foods are very easy and cheap to find, meaning that we are more likely to eat them more often.

So in a way we get an emotional boost from eating these foods and given the stress and anxiety that many people suffer with today it's no surprise that this feels good to do. Until we get on the scales that is and discover that it is easier to gain weight than it is to let it go.

So are we destined to be type 2 diabetes victims? No, not if we recognize that there are better ways to deal with negative emotions than eating.

So if you have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes it is not just your diet that will need to change but also the way in which you deal with your emotions. By finding more effective ways to deal with our emotions it will be much easier to deal with our increasing waistlines.

Anxiety, food & Dementia

In the next week or so the UK government is going to outline its strategy for dealing with Dementia in England. On the BBC Breakfast TV show this morning an expert was asked what step we might all take to stave off this illness.

His response was that 20% of dementia could be avoided altogether by ensuring that you eat a diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables ensuring that you get lots of anti-oxidants and vitamins, Vitamin C in particular.

In previous studies vitamin B3 has been show to be helpful as well in reducing a damaging protein that causes Alzheimer's disease. B3 is found in meat, fish and potatoes.


It seems that with each new study that is published diet seems to form an ever more important role in the prevention of disease.

In my own one to one therapy work I see many people with raised levels of anxiety leading to a lack of self confidence and sometimes panic attacks.

So here are three simple, diet related ways to lower your overall level of anxiety;

1) How much tea, coffee or cola/energy drinks to you take each day. If you are up to 8 cups of coffee a day or several cans of Red Bull, the caffeine will be doing its best to over excite the brain. Try reducing the amount of caffeine you drink, or for at least part of the day switch to a decaf version.

2) Related to point 1, some people just do not drink enough liquids throughout the day. For most people about 1.5 litres (about 2.5 pints) is enough and this can be almost any non-alcoholic, un-caffeinated drink. Water, milk, fruit juice, and fruit infusions will all do the job just fine. Being correctly hydrated will ensure that you brain is working most effectively for you.

3) Consider taking a multivitamin and multi-trace element supplement. If your diet is not quite as good as it might be then these low-cost additions to your diet will ensure that you have the building blocks you need to reduce anxiety. A low level of Magnesium for example is often cited as leading to increased anxiety.

The good news is that taking these simple steps will also help reduce the risk of you having dementia later in life.