Anxiety / Nervousness

There is “explained” anxiety ie: stress at work, stress in a relationship – psycho-social anxiety or nervousness which is when the body is feeling exactly how it should be feeling given the situation or the environment. Although it can be “explained” it’s not a nice feeling and often adrenal support can be added to a nutritional regiment to help the body best handle the stressor and be less reactive to it. Then there is the “unexplained” anxiety or nervousness, which is when the body feels anxious or nervous but there is nothing significant enough going on in life to feel anxious or nervous about. Those are the tougher cases and quite often we have to look beyond the adrenals to the neurotransmitters. Some of the more common imbalances include: GABA & Glutamate imbalance with the GABA being the calming influence and glutamate having a more excitatory effect. Anxiety is a common symptom associated with peri-menopause or early post menopause most often associated with low progesterone.

Naturopathic Approach

A naturopathic approach to treating someone with anxiety or nervousness is to first assess what the underlying cause of the anxiety is. To help objectively determine this I may order an adrenal stress profile test which is a saliva test that is collected at four set times throughout the day and the results show if the individual is hypercortisolemia normal cortisol or hypocortisolemia. If the adrenals do in fact appear to be an issue, breathing exercises, meditation exercises, physical exercise may be prescribed along with adpatogenic herbal and nutritional support to nourish the adrenals. I may order a thyroid panel to rule in/out hyperthyroidism. I may order a female hormone panel if I am suspecting an imbalance in her estrogen/progesterone is contributing to the anxiety. I may order a neurotransmitter test to see imbalances in the neurotransmitters. Once the underlying cause is established, an individual clinical nutrition and botanical plan will be created to help reestablish balance in the body to resolve the anxiety or nervousness.