The holiday season overtook us… but I was about to deliver on a promise of what can you DO about anxiety. It seems quite a few people are eagerly awaiting the answer. I’m not surprised this piece struck a chord with so many: I believe it is indeed the Age Of Anxiety. It’s everywhere: economics, politics, religion, environment, gender issues, career… and now, of course, this year particularly: end of the world!! It would be pathological NOT to feel somewhat apprehensive.

As I showed with part 2 of this article series (Masserman’s Cats), anxiety is really uncertainty and contra-survival shocks that destabilize us and leads to tension. If you always know where you are going to live; that you will always have a home and food; that your job is secure; your God is not going to let you down; and your government is working to keep you safe; then you probably won’t feel insecure and will never know real anxiety.

However, there is still the physiological condition of anxiety: tension, adrenalin or (later) cortisol, leading to agitation and restlessness. You can get that from eating the wrong foods, as I found out in the 1980s. Nutritional deficiency, such as is rampant today in the Western world, with it’s manufactured junk, will lead to depletion of positive neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine. You will certainly FEEL anxious, till that is corrected.

Electronics also do a lot to over-agitate the nervous system and keep us in high beta (brainwaves of 25 Hertz or more).

What can we do? Continue reading →