anxiety

Beta Blockers for Anxiety: The Benefits, Side Effects, and Contraindications

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beta blocker for anxiety

Used as a remedy for occasional stage fright, beta blockers are prescribed to musicians, actors, political figures, or TV journalists in anticipation of an oral performance. These “anti-hypertensives” are intended to lower abnormally high blood pressure. They help slow down the effects of the adrenaline rush, such as sweaty hands, jitteriness, feverishness, and even paralysis.

It is not by chance that they are considered dopants in some sports. This is because by slowing the heart rate, they allow better endurance during exercise. But what are they? How do beta blockers make you feel? What are the best beta blockers for anxiety? What are their side effects and contraindications? How do you use them? We’ll try to answer these questions and more in this article.

Beta Blockers: What are they?

Beta blockers (or β-blockers) are drugs that have an action on the heart and blood vessels. They produce the following effects:

  • drop in blood pressure;
  • slow heart rate;
  • decrease in the force of contraction of the heart

Β-blockers are conventionally used in the management of:

  • heart failure;
  • angina;
  • anxiety;
  • high blood pressure;
  • myocardial infarction;
  • tachycardia attacks

Note: These drugs are sometimes used in the treatment of the so-called “temperament” disorders. Certain β-blockers, such as propranolol, have the property of neutralizing the neurotransmitters responsible for memorizing emotions, both for pain and joy.

There are two main groups of beta blockers:

  • those which act primarily on the “beta” receptors of our heart, the “cardio-selective”;
  • those which act on all of the “beta” receptors in our body, more commonly used in the treatment of stress and anxiety.

These can, therefore, reduce, or erase certain traumatic emotions and be prescribed in the event of stress.

Benefits of Beta Blockers for Anxiety

When the body is under stress, it produces adrenaline and norepinephrine, which are responsible for unpleasant manifestations such as:

  • paralyzing stage fright;
  • tremors;
  • a high heart rate or a symptom of a “fast-beating heart.”

Taking a beta blocker tablet acts on the secretion of the norepinephrine hormone and helps slow the heartbeat.

When they are prescribed to help fight against stress and anxiety, beta blockers are often prescribed at a low dosage. This has the advantage of reducing the probability of seeing the side effects.

What are the safest Beta Blockers for Anxiety?

According to Mayo Clinic, some of the most used beta blockers include Acebutolol, Atenolol, Bisoprolol, Carvedilol, Labetalol, Metoprolol, Nadolol, Pindolol, Propranolol, and Timolol.  These are considered safe to some extent, and when specific prescriptive instructions are followed.

Is Propranolol good for Anxiety?

One of the most common and safest beta blockers for anxiety is propranolol, also prescribed under the name Avlocardyl. Propanolol, a beta-blocker usually prescribed to lower blood pressure, is the ultimate anti-jitters! However, it has contraindications. It is not recommended in cases of asthma or slow heartbeat. It is, therefore, better to “test” it a few days before to make sure that it does not cause any side effects. On the day of the exam or public performance, user must take a tablet one hour before the start of the exams or stage appearance.

However, there have been reports of patients having symptoms of anxiety when taking or after withdrawing from beta blockers. But can propranolol make anxiety worse? No studies are suggesting that propranolol worsens anxiety, even after withdrawal. But you may want to talk to your doctor as soon as possible if you experience this.

Does Propranolol make you feel calm?

Propranolol is used for sedation (calming). It can help you control temper and other behavioral problems. But it only suppresses manifestations of anxiety, palpitations, and tremor by blocking the action of adrenaline.

Since beta blockers like propranolol are said to act as a sedative, this has always prompted the question: do beta blockers help you sleep? According to a study published by AARP, beta blockers can help you fall asleep sooner, have a more restful night, and sleep longer. But know that beta blockers can make you feel dizzy, according to the NHS, and this is often seen as a side effect.

How long can you stay on Beta Blockers?

Beta blockers like propranolol are generally safe for long time use, according to the NHS. In fact, beta blockers for anxiety, migraines, or heart conditions work best when taken on the long term. For anxiety, it doesn’t tend to have long-lasting side effects which are harmful when you take them for months or even years.

Taking Beta Blockers for Anxiety: Warning, Side Effects, and Contraindications

You should NEVER practice self-medication by taking a beta blocker yourself. Do not offer it to a friend in anticipation of a stressful situation (exam, competition, job interview, strained relationships, etc.). In a number of cases, taking a beta blocker requires strict precautions.

Beta blockers have lots of benefits for those suffering panic attacks. But what are their most common side effects? The most common side effects of beta blockers as found in patients are:

  • asthma;
  • nausea;
  • vomiting;
  • certain heart failure;
  • atrioventricular blocks;
  • bradycardias less than 40 or 50 per minute;
  • pheochromocytoma;
  • hypotension;
  • Raynaud’s disease.
  • certain hepatic insufficiencies;

Can you get addicted to Beta Blockers?

Beta blockers are not addictive. Rather, they are non-narcotic sedation drugs that are used to decrease anxiety symptoms in patients.

Contraindications

According to the Healthline, Beta blockers for anxiety are contraindicated for patients with asthma, AV block, symptomatic bradycardia, low blood pressure, and decompensated heart failure. Also, beta blockers must be initiated and withdrawn gradually, especially in patients with rebound tachycardia, hypertension, etc.

What medications should not be taken with Beta Blockers?

Some medicines or substances which should not be taken with beta blockers for anxiety or other health problems, according to the WebMD, include:

  • cold medicines;
  • antacids with aluminum content;
  • antihistamines;
  • caffeine;
  • alcohol

Conclusively, beta blockers are very useful in managing anxiety. However, like every sedative, beta blockers for anxiety have side effects and contraindications. They should only be used under prescription and strict adherence to doctor’s dosage instructions. Also, before taking any beta blocker, the doctor should make sure that the heart rate has not dropped too low. For this, it is advisable to carry out an electrocardiogram. 

 

 

Meditation for Anxiety

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meditation for anxiety

Everyone has experienced the feeling of anxiety, be it heart palpitations, tension headaches, upset or butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms, or tightness in the chest. And anyone who has been in the grip of anxiety knows the intensity of it and would prepare themselves for a ‘fight or flight’ response. One in 14 people around the world are affected with anxiety disorder, hence, if you are dealing with anxiety, you are not alone in this fight. Meditation for anxiety has become a practical tool as more and more people are using it to relieve stress, anxiety and cope with life and foster personal growth.

Managing Anxiety through Meditation

To manage anxiety, we must understand and know the inconsistent nature of our anxiety and how it operates. Anxiety is intellectual state associated to lack of ability to regulate emotions. We can acquire better sense of what triggers anxiety through MEDITATION.

Regular meditation practice can reprogram neural trails in the brain and hence, improve the ability to control emotions. With meditation, we train ourselves with anxiety-inducing feelings and scenarios. In this process we sit with anxiety and later let them go. We know that our thoughts do not define us, and it is not real – we steadily tend to change our relationship with anxiety. While meditating we learn body awareness skills that brings to our attention on any physical sensation felt. To feel this sensation, we sit with our senses and thoughts to stay more tuned to what is being experience. A consistent practice will help your brain better manage anxiety and stress that can cause depression.

Meditation is not a quick solution strategy; it does take an enduring approach. If you are suffering from severe anxiety or an anxiety disorder, contact your health care professional to talk through your preferences and figure out how to make meditation a part of an overall treatment program.

Meditation is one option out of many treatments available to help manage or learn to cope with the feelings of anxiety in a different way, basically changing the connection to anxiety, and the way it is viewed.

How to Meditate?

Meditation is very easy and straightforward; however, it may feel overwhelming or a bit odd if you have never tried it before. To begin with follow these simple steps.

  1. Be at Ease

Get comfortable and it is better to sit down when you are learning meditation for the first time, but it is okay to stand up if you feel better. The important thing is to feel content and relaxed. Closing your eyes will also deliver comfort.

  1. Concentrate on your Breath

Take deep and slow breath through your nose and focus on your breathing only for sometime. Just concentrate on:

  • The feeling of inhaling your breath
  • The feeling of exhaling your breath
  • The sound of your breathing

It is normal if your thoughts wander away from your breathing. It is important to redirect your thoughts and focus to breathing whenever you think of something else.

  1. Change from Breath to Body

Start moving your attention from your breath to the other parts of the body to do body scan. You can start from wherever you like, either with feet, hands, or head. Be conscious on how the body moves from one part to another and continue to breath slowly and deeply.

Start your body scan wherever you like. Some people find it more natural to start with their feet, while others prefer to start with their hands or head. If you feel any unusual disturbing sensation, such as tension or aches – now add a visualization exercise.

  1. Visualization Exercise

Envisioning yourself conveying relaxing breaths to the parts of body where you feel disturbing sensation. Imagine directing relaxing breaths to the parts of the body where you feel pain and visualize that your pain is easing.

Once you have finished scanning the body, shift your focus to your breathing for as long as you like.

Meditation Tips for Beginners

To help you get started, you can apply the helpful tips learnt from this article together with a guided meditation app like Headspace.

3 Ways to Practice Meditation for Anxiety

  1. An Easy Meditation to Overcome Anxiety
  • Accept your negative emotions to exist and allow yourself to act

This is meant to define the probability of developing a unique relationship to experience, one that is described by accepting an experience and letting it be. By being aware of your feeling, you can choose to how to respond to them. Hence, it takes a true dedication and involves a premeditated attention to opening to the feelings.

  • Disallowing your negative mindset is quite risky

Not experiencing your negative thoughts, feelings or consciousness is usually linked to an emotional chain that can automatically change the habitual and critical modes of mind. Try shifting your opinion for example, ‘I should be strong’ to ‘Oh, the fear is here’, this will allow the chain of habitual responses to be altered.

  • Acceptance helps you work through your nasty experience

Psychologically we know that it is helpful to be extra loving, caring, and accepting about ourselves and our feeling, but we do not know how to do it. It requires working through the body with frequent practice over time to see how things like anxiety will show up. Get attention/awareness to the feelings that accompanies challenging experiences that offers the possibility to learn to relate differently to such experiences. Working through the body allows people to understand their own rational practice and be okay with their nasty experience

  1. Meditation for Anxiety and Stress

Give yourself thirty minutes to meditate in a comfortable and in an alert position.

  • Take a moment to thank yourself for taking time out for yourself and doing something for yourself.
  • Connect your mind and body. Feel for any sensations, holdings or tightness in your body and feel for your mood, emotions or feeling and accept whatever is felt.
  • Slowly move your consciousness from the mindful checks to your breath. Be aware of your breath in the abdomen, inhaling and exhaling with awareness.  
  • Shift your awareness from your breath to your body scan. Acknowledge all your emotions, feelings, and sensations being experienced and let it be.
  • Breath into your whole body. At times you will feel tensions, tightness or heaviness and allow to soften it if you can and let it be if you cannot.
  • Be kind to your anxious thoughts. If it seems that even after doing the body scan and mindful breathing, we are continuing to have the anxious feelings, give attention to those feelings and know what is being felt.
  • Walk into your feelings with kindness and calmness. Very gently feel the feeling of fear with awareness, no need to analyse your fear. Just feel the feeling of anxiousness, fearful, worrying and let it be – feel into the heart of fear. Acknowledge your feeling and work through with feeling of anxiety. As we learn or feelings of fear, we may discover the fundamental cause of our fear and pain.
  • Now come back to your breath. Breathing in and breathing out, with alertness. Staying present to each breath, in and out. Take a moment to thank yourself for positively turning your fear and working with them.
  1. Guided Meditation for Anxious Feelings

It is a challenging practice as it involves deliberately investigating the experience of anxiety. Listen to your inner voice to determine whether it feels right to do it at that time. Do your first practice when you feel safe and curious and have energy and time to explore your anxiety more deeply.

The Benefits of Meditating

People are now more attracted to practice meditation as they discover its increasing benefits. It is a very beneficial way to reduce stress, improve concentration and helps the whole body with a range of different conditions.

Meditation assists in reducing high blood pressure, calms the mind, positive mood and outlook, healthy sleeping patterns and increases pain tolerance. The habitual process of meditation trains your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts and increase awareness of yourself and your surroundings.

Physical Benefits of Meditation

  • Feeling less anxious, the panic attacks, tensed muscles and other symptoms of anxiety are not felt often or not at all felt.
  • Reduces your blood pressure, you will feel calmer and less likely to indulge on wrong foods which will decrease the level of unhealthy cholesterol in your bloodstream – reduces the chance of having stroke or heart attack.
  • Getting better sleep – easily falling to sleep and staying asleep for longer period. Feeling better rested when you wake up.
  • Improves your athletic performance – staying more focus to your goals and track with working toward your goal.
  • Meditation can put an end to your addiction to drugs and alcohol.
  • As you age, your mind will be sharper, and you will feel stronger.

Mental benefits of Meditation

It has been proven that regular meditation helps you deal with emotional issues.

It can:

  • Helps in dealing with anxiety and other severe conditions like Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
  • Helps in focusing on the present – can move on easily from past upset situations or stop worrying about what is yet to happen.
  • Makes it at ease to deal with stressful situations
  • Enables you to maintain your ongoing focus – able to focus on the current issues without being distracted.
  • Enhances the symptoms of depression – it has been proven as useful as medications and without any severe side effects.
  • Improves your mental intelligence – you will know what you are feeling and better able to divert your negative emotions and be more considerate to those around you.
  • Helps you walk through your fears and phobias.

Everybody has different reasons for meditating, whether it be to reduce job stress, any kind of anxiety, minimize physical pain, improve relationship or to define life’s direction. Through meditation, we can understand the nature of anxiety and what it does to the mind and comprehend what causes it and then find ways to avoid falling into that trap again. All in all, meditation provides immediate relief and we can get to the core of anxious feeling and make great changes.

Book Summary: A Guide to Rational Living

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A Guide to Rational Living - Dealing with Anxiety!

A Guide to Rational Living, by Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, is a praiseworthy self-development guide with practical and proven techniques to change your self-destructive emotions and behaviors. The book vividly demonstrates what you do to unnecessarily distress yourself and how you can overcome this to become an emotionally stronger person. 

With the on-going global coronavirus pandemic, this book proves to be particularly valuable as most individuals face unprecedented challenges in their lives; having to deal with emotional disturbance, extreme feelings of uncertainty, anxiousness, and recurring depressive thoughts.

The author, Albert Ellis (1913 – 2007) was one of the most prominent psychotherapists as he pioneered Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) which gained an extensive standing in the 1960s and is the basis of this book.

REBT is based on the concept that our thoughts generate our emotions and influence our behaviors. The author, Albert Ellis was certain that people can change their emotions together with their behaviors by debating their irrational thoughts with facts and reasoning. In this book, he highlights the top 10 irrational ideas that cause the greatest number of people to experience unpleasant emotions.

The author clarifies that the objective of implementing rationality is not to be more happy, but rather to make straight one’s thinking so that one is constantly less unhappy.

How to deal with anxiety

Observing your Internal Dialogue

Ellis explains that we humans as language-creating animals tend to articulate our emotions and ideas in words and sentences which effectually become our thoughts and emotions. So fundamentally, we are what we tell ourselves, and for any personal change, it requires us to initially look at our internal conversations. Do our internal dialogues SERVE US or UNDERMINE US?

On the topic of anxiety, Ellis emphasizes being able to challenge our irrational philosophies:

“…track your worries and anxieties back to the specific sentences of which they consist. Invariably, you will find that you are telling yourself:

“Isn’t it terrible that…” “Wouldn’t it be awful if…”

Ellis guides his patients to oppose these irrational philosophies with questions like:

“Why would it be so terrible that…?”

“Would it really be so awful if…?”

He goes on: “Certainly if this or that happened it might well be inconvenient, annoying, or unfortunate. But would it really be catastrophic?”

Consequently, in order to address any form of anxiety, Ellis marks:

“…verbal and active de-propagandization are usually essential. You must first realize that you created the anxiety by your internalized sentences, and you must vigorously and persistently ferret out these sentences and challenge and contradict them. Then you must also push yourself to do the thing you are senselessly afraid of and act against your fear.”

Never being ‘desperately unhappy’ again

Ellis goes on to highlight the fact that the greatest challenge for individuals today is having control over their emotional lives.

A Guide to Rational Living contains various records of therapy sessions between Ellis and his patients. Following is a considerable example of his advice to one of his clients suffering from depression.  

 “The best you can do, at first, is to observe your depressed state after they have already arisen. And then to see, by theoretical analysis and inference, that you must have brought them on by telling yourself some nonsense.”

“…this will often be difficult. For once your depression sets in, as you noted a while ago, you don’t feel like un-depressing yourself again; you almost want to stay depressed. And unless you combat this feeling, and actively go after your underlying sentences with which you created your depression, you will, of course, stay quite miserable.”

Now, the individual will face a dilemma: remain depressed for the foreseeable future or make an effort to fight the negative feeling by noticing what they did to initiate it.

 “A tough choice,” Ellis states “But if you keep taking the lesser of these two evils. That is –combating your negative feelings, then eventually the time comes when your basic philosophy of life matures. As a result, you will depress yourself much more rarely, to begin with, and have an easier time getting yourself out of your vile mood when you do unconsciously put yourself in one.”

The Ultimate Point

Are human beings RATIONAL or IRRATIONAL beings?

According to the book, we are both. We are intelligent but we still pursue immature, nonsensical, bigoted behavior anyway. The basic to a good life is applying rationality to the utmost irrational aspect of life, the emotions.

There is a mirror of Buddhism in the rational-emotive approach as it recognizes that no matter what happened in your past, it is the present that matters and what you can do NOW to improve it. The author, Ellis learned this himself as a child: that you don’t have to become upset by circumstances unless you allow yourself to be, it is always possible to control your reactions. Even though this form of therapy is tough-minded, it in fact signifies an optimistic view of people.

Why you should read this book

It is an excellent self-help book on psychotherapy without the use of psychology jargon making it fit for laypeople. It essentially delivers emotionally troubled individuals with all the answers they seek especially those suffering from depression.

A Guide to Rational Living can benefit anyone to understand how their emotions are initiated, and most importantly how reasonably happy and fruitful life can be yours just through discipline and more caution in your thinking.

You may be doubtful of the fact that reasoning is the way out of your emotional clutter, but Ellis’s revolutionary ideas that are supported by his forty years of cognitive psychology is the rationale that it works. 

Neurofolin – L-Methylfolate for Dietary Management of Depression

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Neurofolin

Neurofolin is an item of nourishment for the special medicinal purposes that provides nutritional support in the management of depression. The main content of Neurofolin is L-Methylfolate which is an active form of folate found to be deficient in individuals experiencing depressive disorders. It nutritionally supports by creating mood-regulating neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. Neurofolin has shown to be a promising adjunct therapy as it has successfully been used together with depression’s primary treatment, anti-depression medicine

Individuals with depressive disorders can experience a treatment that is partially effective at relieving their depression and some that cause unbearable side effects. It is likely it may be treatment-resistant depression where symptoms have not improved after being treated for depression.  In situations like this, it is best to work closely with your psychiatrist to explore options like supplementing with L-Methylfolate.

How does Neurofolin work?

Neurofolin has been precisely formulated for the nutritional support of depression management and contains 15mg of L-Methylfolate – an active form of folate.

Folate is a B-group vitamin and like all B vitamins, folate plays a vital role in maintaining the well-being of the nervous system and aids in processing fats and carbohydrates.  In addition to other health complications, folate deficiency can be associated with the development of the major depressive disorder (MDD). In fact, studies have successfully linked folate deficiency to depression.

Regular folic acid cannot cross the blood-brain barrier and need to be transformed to L-Methylfolate in the body before entering the brain, Neurofolin, on the other hand, contains the L-Methylfolate which avoids this step and directly crosses the blood-brain carrier. Once in the brain, L-Methylfolate helps to produce a vital cofactor called BH4 which is involved in the creation of key neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and epinephrine that is found to be deficient in individuals with major depressive disorder.

What are the Benefits of Neurofolin?

  • Provides access to faster and an active form of folate
  • Proficient strength as it is available in 15mg doses
  • Provides brain and mood support as L-Methyfolate is significant for the production of neurotransmitters related to sleep, concentration, energy, and mood stability.
  • Well tolerated when added to anti-depressant therapy
  • Adjunctive treatment for depression, making it a positive addition to depression management 

Highlighted below are two examples of how people have benefited from the dietary supplement:

  • By taking L-Methylfolate, Colbey’s mental health showed significant improvement and after five months the symptoms had reduced significantly.
  • Neurofolin is seen as a major development for depression sufferers in Australia.

What are the side effects of taking L-Methylfolate?

L-Methylfolate is generally well tolerated when taken in normal doses, however, it can cause a reaction in some people, particularly when taken in high doses. Some of the common side effects include bloating, sleeping difficulties, and nausea. Other possible reactions to L-Methylfolate, especially when taken in a higher quantity include irritability, abdominal pain, decreased appetite, problem staying focused, and feelings of discomfort. Some of the serious side effects which need to be immediately reported to your health care provider include seizures, confusion, or numbness. Mentioned above are most of the side effects, but not all, your health care provider will be able to confer a comprehensive list with you.

Guidelines for Use

Neurofolin being a water-soluble diet supplement comes as an effervescent powder in 15g sachets. Each sachet can be consumed once daily by completely dissolving in 200ml of normal temperature or chilled water, taking note that it needs to be stirred briskly and consumed straightaway.

Where to Buy:

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Conclusion

To sum up, it is important for individuals with depressive symptoms to be examined by a mental health professional and also advisable to seek professional medical advice before self-administering Neurofolin. There is certainly an affirmative global trend in depression treatment towards augmenting medications with particular nutritional support to increase the number of individuals who benefit.