How I Manage My Panic Disorder Using the CES Ultra Device


How I Manage My Panic Disorder Using the CES Ultra Device

If you’re anything like me, you’re familiar with the exhaustion and humiliation of experiencing a panic attack. Your hands lock up as if the tendons were suddenly coated in super glue. Your lungs refuse to inflate and instead force every breath right back out. Every inch of your skin feels like TV static. Your jaw and limbs are locked and numb. You can’t stop crying and your chest feels like it might burst from the tightness. You have completely lost control and your body thinks you’re dying, even if your mind knows better.

The worst part is, this could happen anywhere, anytime, for basically any reason.

natural treatment for panic disorder

Living with Panic Disorder

Today, anxiety disorders are all too common. The world around us is basically designed to keep our nervous systems in a constant deregulated state. On top of this, many grow up in a traumatic environment. This can alter the way the brain learns to respond to threats, which can lead to developing an anxiety disorder.

Personally, I didn’t even realize I struggled with what medical professionals would call “panic disorder,” until I was an adult, despite having suffered countless panic attacks from the age of 12 and on. I didn’t know what to call these attacks, and everyone around me seemed to want to believe they weren’t really happening, or that they weren’t a big deal.

When no one acknowledges such a debilitating issue in your life, it takes an emotional toll. Many feel shame and humiliation around their panic attacks, especially when they’re witnessed by others. There’s fear that they’ll think you’re faking it or going crazy. This fear can contribute to further anxiety, which can lead to more and worse panic attacks. It’s a vicious cycle of anxiety leading to attacks, and attacks leading to greater anxiety.

Some people have panic attacks so severe, they’re rushed to the emergency room for a suspected heart attack. It can be humiliating to learn that your symptoms were simply caused by anxiety. It can be shocking that a simple panic attack could cause such strong pain and feelings of impending doom. If you suffer panic disorder, you may or may not be aware that it IS possible to gain control over your panic attacks before they start, and greatly reduce the amount of anxiety you feel in general.

“What’s Causing my Panic Attacks?”

Having panic disorder doesn’t mean you only experience anxiety during an attack. In fact, the attacks are usually a product of anxiety piling up throughout the day to the point of complete nervous system overwhelm. Gaining control over panic attacks involves addressing the underlying cause of general anxiety.

The role of the “fight or flight” response

You may have heard the term “fight or flight” quite often. This refers to the body’s natural ability to rapidly prepare the body to face or flee a threat. This response occurs when the amygdala (deals with emotional processing) in the brain sends a distress-signal to the hypothalamus (command center of the brain). The hypothalamus then sends a flood of stress-hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol into the nervous system, causing a jolt of strength and energy.

The fight or flight response is immensely useful in life-threatening situations. However, sometimes our brains can’t differentiate between real threats to safety and stressful situations. This can be due to a variety of reasons such as past trauma, having an anxious parent, or simply all the nervous system-deregulating stimuli we’re constantly surrounded by in the modern day. Some people live in a perpetual state of fight or flight, and others experience it more frequently than they should. Either way, it’s exhausting to pour all that energy into a function that isn’t necessary for every day stressors.

Approaching Panic Disorder from All Sides

When it comes to treating anxiety, there are physical factors, as well as emotional. After years of attempting various remedies to manage my panic disorder, I’ve found that the most effective model of treatment is combing physical and emotional remedies to attack anxiety from all sides. It takes dedication and perseverance, but I can happily report that I’ve reduced the occurrence of my panic attacks from 1-3 every few weeks, to one per year (sometimes none!)

Lifestyle Habits That Help Maintain Anxiety

We’ll get the most common discussion out of the way first. As with all mental health ailments, the first advice you’ll likely receive is to sleep well, eat a balanced diet, and exercise regularly. While these things aren’t a cure-all by any means, it definitely helps to have as healthy a body as possible when dealing with any health ailment.

While implementing these habits into one’s life may certainly benefit their stress levels and body chemistry, it can also be counterproductive when achieving “perfection” in your sleep schedule, eating habits, and workout routine becomes stressful. Especially when anxiety is coupled with depression, these could be the very last things you feel like doing on a bad day.

My advice is to view these habits as tools, rather than an obligation. If you’re feeling stressed but energized, go for a little walk or run in the sunshine. I’ve found that even on a particularly stressful day, a walk in the park is one of the most effective ways to uplift my mood. If you’re bored and feel motivated, cook a healthy meal for dinner and even make extra to save for other nights throughout the week. If you’re like me and prefer to stay up into outrageous hours of the night, switch off the tv or phone and practice a guided meditation to prepare your body for sleep.

Doing little favors for your body, when you’re feeling up to it, is a great way to maintain your stress. Even just the act of taking care of yourself if beneficial to the mind.

Therapy

Therapy is one of the most popular treatments for a variety of problems. While anyone can benefit from regularly talking out their issues with a professional, it can be especially effective for people living with anxiety disorders. Managing anxiety is a learned skill that requires awareness and practice.

“What Form of Therapy is Right For Me?”

When you think of therapy, it may look like a patient lying down on a fancy couch, relaying all the trauma from their childhood to a wise-looking doctor. This is an over-exaggerated example of talk therapy. While talk therapy can help to validate emotions and behavior, there are other therapies that specifically target brain-function. These therapies often prove more effective for managing anxiety and other emotional disorders.

Eye Movement desensitization and reprocessing

EMDR is my therapy of choice. Its purpose is to bring up buried trauma, memories, and negative beliefs, then allow space for the brain to process them. Your therapist will help you identify these things and desensitize them through special finger movements you follow with your eyes. The movements ease you into a meditative state, which allows your brain to neutrally observe feelings and traumatic memories. As these things come up, your brain is given a chance to process and recover. A positive belief is often put in place of the negative one. The brain continues to process the addressed trauma for up to 48 hours after a session. This allows healing to continue as you go about your day!

This type of therapy proves to rapidly reverse and rebuild neural pathways. These are strings of connected neurons that send signals in the brain. When built around trauma and stress, the brain learns a negative thought pattern that leads to recurring stress and anxiety. However, the brain has an incredible built in ability called neuroplasticity. This is the ability to break down and rebuild neural pathways to circumstances and experiences. Therefore, pathways built even through immensely traumatizing events can be reconstructed to break the destructive thought-cycle and related fight or flight response. As it turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT is another form of psychotherapy that examines negative or false beliefs that lead to destructive thought patterns and behaviors. By gaining awareness of these beliefs, one can alter the way they view triggering situations. A CBT therapist helps a patient address “distorted” perceptions of certain situations or the motives behind other people’s behavior. At the same time, confidence-building skills help the patient to confront life and fears in a healthy way. CBT is an effective approach to depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse, marital problems, and mental illness.

Nutrition and Supplementation

Along with addressing the mental side of anxiety disorders, it’s important to make sure the body has all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and amino acids for brain function. There are many everyday nutrients that most people are deficient in. However, it’s not widely known that many of these nutrients have a direct impact on the body’s stress response. Magnesium is one of the most important minerals for healthy neurotransmitter function. Magnesium is a bonding agent for adenosine triphosphate, which is the energy that the mitochondria absorbs. Without something to bind to, ATP cannot properly absorb, leading to low energy. In the brain, magnesium plays a far more complicated role.

Healthy levels of magnesium in the brain may promote neurogenesis, which is the production of new neurons. This process greatly contributes to the brain’s ability to process and adapt to situations and circumstances. It also affects the rate of learning and repairing damaged cells.

B6 and iron are two more substances that are essential for the brain’s ability to cope with and respond to stress. They contribute to the production of serotonin, which is an essential neurotransmitter responsible for regulating homeostasis. Another essential nutrient for neurotransmitter production is an amino acid called tryptophan. This is the “precursor” to serotonin and other system-regulating hormones. Having a healthy level of neurotransmitters is essential to manage panic disorder and anxiety. All of these nutrients can be found in over-the-counter supplement capsules. Always consult a physician before beginning a new supplement.

CES Device Treatment for Anxiety and Panic Disorder

Cranial electrotherapy stimulation is an FDA-cleared, natural treatment to manage panic disorder and anxiety. A CES device is a compact device that delivers a specific frequency of electrical stimulation to the brain via wired ear clips or electrode pads. CES works on anxiety by stimulating the hypothalamus in the brain, which improves its ability to respond to stress. As stated above, the hypothalamus acts as the “command” center in the brain. In an electrically unbalanced state, it may react to every-day stressors as if they were life-threatening dangers. This leads to an unnecessarily heightened release of stress-hormones, which can cause anxiety.

With daily treatment, CES can balance the electrical activity of the brain’s hypothalamic tissue, which decreases or eliminates hyperactive responses to stress. The device is worn and used twice per day, for 30-45 minutes. CES can be discretely used during most daily activities, with the exceptions of driving and sleeping. The best part is, there are no harmful side-effects, unlike many other clinical anxiety treatments.

Since beginning CES treatment to manage panic disorder, I’ve personally seen a night-and-day improvement in my overall anxiety level, as well as a major decrease in the amount of panic attacks I experience per year. Wearing the device when I feel a panic attack coming on is even enough to stop it in its tracks! My sleep has also significantly improved, which has positively contributed to my overall stress and energy levels as well! I would personally recommend CES as a first line of defense to anyone who suffers anxiety, insomnia, or a combination of the two.

try CES ultra, a natural treatment for anxiety
CES Ultra is a Natural Treatment for Anxiety

Mindfulness and Meditation

My final piece of advice for managing anxiety is to build a habit of practicing mindfulness. Anxiety tends to make us either live in the past or stress about the future. Growing up, I developed a destructive habit of focusing on the “what-if’s.” I naturally jumped to worst-case-scenarios and spent all my time dreading the consequences of things that weren’t sure to happen. “What if I get home and the house is burnt down?” “What if I get into a fatal accident when I drive to the store?” “What if I embarrass myself at this social gathering? I better not go.” It’s exhausting to live in an assumed future that hasn’t happened yet. Determined to live my life in the present and take problems as they come, I decided to begin meditating.

The hardest part of learning meditation is the frustration of not knowing whether you’re “doing it right.” “Am I sitting in the right position?” “Is my back straight enough?” “What am I supposed to think about?” These doubts are counterproductive against reaching a meditative state. Rather than worrying about doing it perfectly, the point of meditation is to neutrally observe your thoughts, reaction-free. Taking a few minutes to sit in the present can grant you peace of mind for the remainder of the day.

“What’s the “Right Way?”

The position you’re in is actually the least important part of meditation, but I’ve found that resting my tailbone on a small pillow and sitting criss-cross helps me relax into an upright position without slouching or straining. There’s also nothing wrong with lying down, as long as you’re comfortable. Simply take some deep breaths into your abdomen and check in with the sensations in your body. Try mentally scanning yourself from head to toe, relaxing every inch as you scan downward. Acknowledge the sounds around you, but let them fade into the background. Now, allow your thoughts to silently flow while you observe. If you latch onto a thought, gently bring your awareness back to the present. End by slowly bringing your attention back to your environment and peacefully return to your day.

Daily mindfulness doesn’t end with a meditation session. Any task can be done with the intention of fully immersing yourself in the moment! A great way to practice is to begin mindfully eating. Focus on your 5 senses and bring all your awareness to your enjoyment of the meal. Not only will you feel more satisfied with the experience, but this will strengthen your ability to be mindful in other areas of your life, as well!

The Science Behind Meditation

When in a meditative state, there’s actually a measurable increase in the electrical pulses in the brain. During and after meditation, the brain produces theta and alpha waves, which induce relaxation and calmness. With daily practice, alpha waves can become the dominant brain wave, which can greatly reduce overall stress and anxiety. There are many proven health benefits associated with daily meditation, starting with improved sleep and mood.

I often wear my CES device while I meditate. The tingling sensation it gives my earlobes is something I can easily ground to. Since CES balances electrical pulses in the brain and induces a sense of calmness, it can make meditation easier and more effective! Plus, since CES Ultra runs on a timer, I can know when to end my session once the device switches off, without having to interrupt myself to check the clock.

Anxiety Management is a Lifestyle

I wish I could say there was an immediate “magical cure” for anxiety. While this isn’t the case, it is possible to get better or even eliminate anxiety from your life, quickly. Naturally strengthening brain function, rather than medicating it, is the most effective way to change how your body responds to stress. To function normally in the modern, crazy world, our brains and bodies require a bit of maintenance. This does not make you broken.

Hopefully, my experience with managing my panic disorder has given you some ideas on how to manage yours!

**This article is written for informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical advice. Always work with a qualified healthcare provider when making decisions about your health and wellness.


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