A Few Things That Help Me... Sometimes.

[barq2]

I've had Social Anxiety as long as I can remember and Generalized Anxiety(GAD) since my early twenties that was brought on by a traumatic situation. Its been difficult but also has built a lot of character in me. Having to learn to cope with the physical and mental effects of it(anxiety) without any medical intervention has been hard, but makes the good days that much gooder.  
There are times it gets bad enough that I have to implement measures to cope with it, and one "natural" resource has been a few supplements. One of the best for my GAD is Ashwaganda twice a day. Its not an active supplement, just kind of a passive one. Kinda like, you don't realize its working until later when you realize that you have been less anxious throughout the day. Another one that helped me for several weeks was St. Johns Wort. I took it alongside the Ashwaganda and it seemed to calm the speeding internal voice that tends to overthink everything. Gave me a bit of relief from the stress of that internal voice telling me I had 100 things to do and only 2 hours to do them. Instead of a fury of bees in my mind, it was just like a calm partly cloudy day with ducks in a row. Maybe that's where that saying comes from.

I totally agree about St John's Wort. I think it makes me more psychologically resiliant. Also, there's a lot of scientific evidence to support it's effectiveness. I believe doctors in Germany quite frequently treat depression/anxiety with SJW before they reach for the SSRIs.

One warning about St John's Wort to anyone reading this and feeling interested is it can interact badly with certain other meds such as SSRIs... well, anything serotonigenic, so mixing with antidepressants can cause serotonin syndrome. It also interacts with tramadol, plus some contraceptives (not sure why) - that's just from memory, so I'm sure there are other potential interactions. Don't want to scare anyone, but check before you take it. In many cases it's actually fine, but please don't assume that because its "natural" that it is harmless since it's powerful. Although the flip side to this is that it can be a life saver for people who can't tolerate typical  antidepressants.

Last tip on SJW is that branded capsules vary in quality. Go for a good brand where you get more of the flower rather than cheap caps full of powdered twigs. When you are comparing prices take note of how many capsules you take a day. My variety looks expensive but it's only one per day whereas others are 2 or 4. You get the idea.

It's a good tip. Thanks for the reminder TheBigGreenBastard (love the name BTW).