How do I manage stress and anxiety?

[december_solstice]

My heart has been beating quicker than usual for the last...5 hours. Breathing is a little difficult. It seems I have been having a mild panic attack since the early evening. Any suggestions? I was looking through the Anxiety & Depression Association of America website...no real help yet.

Comments

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

My wife used to get panic attacks that lasted several hours, after every time she ate something sugary (ex. chocolate milk), it would usually happen at night when she was trying to sleep and she would complain that her heart was beating really fast and scaring her (though when I checked, it was just beating normally). After she entirely quit that stuff, it only started happening on rare occasions after she had too much processed/unproperly prepared stuff in general (ex. lots of milk, or certain snacks) and then it also happened twice after she got especially dizzy from what might be an allergy to something in the house. She just started thinking "oh I'm so dizzy I'm going to faint and die" kind of stuff and freaked herself out.

In my case, I'm not sure if I've had panic attacks but after every time I eat processed stuff, I start feeling afraid of death (in general not "I'm going to die in two seconds") and can't sleep. I don't get the heartbeat etc. problems. This also usually happens at night.

But on the rare times I keep track of the irrational behaviour in my house, it's the same, like yesterday my wife's sister ate a candy bar and now today she's suddenly irrationally afraid of us opening the bathroom window. (Though the effects of the food you ate start anywhere from a few hours to 4 days after you ate it.) For my wife's parents the bad moods come most strongly in the mornings right after they've woken up though.

My wife's cousin was getting a ton of bad panic attacks and got medicine for it, but the attacks were supposedly because she smoked a bad joint. I'm still not certain if that was a lie or not - the cousin also used to eat a freaking ton of junk food and gets really pissed off if you suggest that she cut down on it because she's "scared of hearing about sicknesses because then she believes she has that sickness". Well, you WILL get that sickness if you don't change your diet! She did change her diet somewhat actually, because the birth control she was on messed up her body, and so now she's not eating so much candy anymore but she's switched to eating a ton of processed soy products.

I have a lot of other friends who get panic attacks but their medicine/therapy doesn't seem to be particularly helping them and they all have the average high-sugar, highly-processed etc diet so I don't know. I try talking to them about diet but they just go "yeah it'd be nice to change my diet but I'm poor and busy so I can't". I did meet one girl who said her panic attacks almost disappeared after she quit eating wheat and cut down on sugary stuff in junior high, but then she went back to eating them and they came back : /

The general advice for panic attacks that I've seen is:
— Get someone to help calm you down and realize you're overreacting
— Deep breathing

: /

Oh yeah. And if you go to the hospital or something for a panic attack, they can't do anything at all for you.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

I've only had 2 panic attacks, and I'd say both are fairly recent. One was from that break in attempt I think I mentioned a while back, and yesterday.

I would not be surprised if it's related to what I've eaten lately because remember when I said I ate hotdogs and boxed mac n cheese...

My friend also has them, and her diet is horrific.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Did you know, both (normal) American hotdogs and normal boxed mac & cheese are so bad they're illegal to be sold in Europe? : D They don't sell those kinds of hotdogs at all here, and they sell very special off-brand boxes of mac & cheese made specially for export.

Similar stuff for butter and American cheese in general. Like they don't allow food colouring in cheese here.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

This is what I've heard. Someone once told me that America is the land of poison.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Oh also: my wife says magnesium helps when she is having panic attacks, so eat a banana or something.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

I believe that's exactly what I did! :D