Slater Koekkoek details 'unbearable' anxiety he suffered throughout NHL career

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Trying to calm your brain with more thought is often ineffective, especially once you've already begun to spiral

Breathing exercises help a lot, because if you're intentionally breathing deeply and in a pattern that isn't associated with panic/fight or flight (very short, shallow breaths), you're telling your brain physiologically that it's no longer experiencing a threat and activate the parasympathetic nervous system to calm you.

Also I'm finding that nutrition is just as much an important tool to help with anxiety, before resorting to medication. That doesn't mean eating a lot when it's perhaps difficult to do in the first place, but consuming the right things when you can.

That means getting an adequate supply of B vitamins and things like tryptophan, which help with regulation of emotion, mood and overthinking. Also supplements like Ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen that helps with anxiety, stress and depression.

We're also chronically deficient in vitamin D here, so supplementing is a must in winter. It will provide serotonin to boost your mood and help your circadian rhythm do you get better sleep and are more mentally refreshed during the day. That can never hurt.

Medicating is only treating your symptoms after all and can come with side effects. If you seek out proper nutrition as best you can, even if it's managing a few eggs, seeds, a couple teaspoons of nutritional yeast and basic supplements, can possibly help tackle your symptoms at their root.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Trying to calm your brain with more thought is often ineffective, especially once you've already begun to spiral.

I agree with everything else in this post, but just wanted to point out that CBT (which is essentially calming your brain with more thought) can be incredibly effective once you know how to do it. It starts out as really having to stop yourself and think through what your brain is doing and what your body is doing, but with enough practice it happens more automatically.

A really wonderful form of therapy for anxiety.

[D as in David]

In his book Breath, James Nestor showed that nasal breathing and breathing techniques such as humming and particular types of controlled breath holding stimulate increased nitric oxide production sixfold.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Originally Posted by D as in David

In his book Breath, James Nestor showed that nasal breathing and breathing techniques such as humming and particular types of controlled breath holding stimulate increased nitric oxide production sixfold.

Humming stimulates the vagus nerve

A deep & sustained "om" sound in particular is effective

[blankall]

As someone who's had boughts of anxiety and situational anxiety, but thankfully nothing sustained, I can definitely sympathize heavily with anyone who suffers from chronic anxiety.

I imagine for professional athletes the constant pressure to perform must make things so much worse. The old saying, it's lonely at the top teams is true. Plus I'd imagine even though your team mates are you team mates, they are all also out to get you to some degree, to either maintain their position at the top or potentially replace you. Just constantly knowing that, for even an established NHLer, just twenty games or so of bad play could end your career must be constantly weighing on you. Then you can to deal with all the travel, new beds, isolation from family, time zone changes, etc...

[minnow]

At the end of last year, it seemed to me as if Kylington was playing frantically, maniacally almost, at times. Pushing himself faster and recklessly at times. The team missed him this year, hope he comes back.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

That means getting an adequate supply of B vitamins and things like tryptophan, which help with regulation of emotion, mood and overthinking. Also supplements like Ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen that helps with anxiety, stress and depression.

We're also chronically deficient in vitamin D here, so supplementing is a must in winter. It will provide serotonin to boost your mood and help your circadian rhythm do you get better sleep and are more mentally refreshed during the day. That can never hurt.

Medicating is only treating your symptoms after all and can come with side effects. If you seek out proper nutrition as best you can, even if it's managing a few eggs, seeds, a couple teaspoons of nutritional yeast and basic supplements, can possibly help tackle your symptoms at their root.

Please don't lead people astray with this nonsense. What does "medicating is only treating your symptoms" mean? If that's the case, how are supplements different (besides not working)?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Please don't lead people astray with this nonsense. What does "medicating is only treating your symptoms" mean? If that's the case, how are supplements different (besides not working)?

Agreed. IMO it's silly and counterproductive to stigmatize/gatekeep medications. They certainly have pros/cons, and I'm sure most people would be stoked if it actually was as simple as eating X and practising Y, but that's simply not true for many people.

I do appreciate hearing ideas like X and Y and try to integrate them into my life if they make sense for me, though I also think the placebo effect may be doing a lot of the heavy lifting (which is great!)

[Dion]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Medicating is only treating your symptoms after all and can come with side effects. If you seek out proper nutrition as best you can, even if it's managing a few eggs, seeds, a couple teaspoons of nutritional yeast and basic supplements, can possibly help tackle your symptoms at their root.

Some 13 years ago I experienced some horrible anxiety that basically crippled me to a point where I couldn't function in daily life. My doctor gave me some Ativan to bring down the level of anxiety I was experiencing so I could deal with talk therapy.

Medication is often prescribed to help the patient deal with therapy and in my case it was a godsend.

Don't be so quick to dismiss medication.

[Yeah_Baby]

1) Thank you to this thread for reminding me to take my meds this morning.

2) my meds help keep me at a baseline that allows me to stay in a place where I do the work in therapy etc to continue to be healthy. For me, it's like top rope/harness as I climb the wall of therapy/growth and healing.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Not discounting meds as helpful.

Saying not to make it a first resort if you're thinking about seeking solutions to your anxiety/panic/depression.

Field different solutions first, including diet and lifetstyle. Some people are living pretty unhealthily and don't consider how that can be linked to how they feel.

If symptoms are extreme and other things haven't worked for you, yes medication can be very helpful.

Yes, they primarily treat symptoms, and depending on which drug therapy, they can create other unwanted symptoms as a result.

For those that it has worked successfully for, that's great. Taking nothing away.

I'm offering alternative ideas for those that don't know where to begin with tackling the issues they might be experiencing.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Not discounting meds as helpful.

Saying not to make it a first resort if you're thinking about seeking solutions to your anxiety/panic/depression.

Field different solutions first, including diet and lifetstyle. Some people are living pretty unhealthily and don't consider how that can be linked to how they feel.

If symptoms are extreme and other things haven't worked for you, yes medication can be very helpful.

Yes, they primarily treat symptoms, and depending on which drug therapy, they can create other unwanted symptoms as a result.

For those that it has worked successfully for, that's great. Taking nothing away.

I'm offering alternative ideas for those that don't know where to begin with tackling the issues they might be experiencing.

Got it! Yeah, I don't disagree. That's where my doctor and I started and then esclated the type of interventions.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Not discounting meds as helpful.

Saying not to make it a first resort if you're thinking about seeking solutions to your anxiety/panic/depression.

Field different solutions first, including diet and lifetstyle. Some people are living pretty unhealthily and don't consider how that can be linked to how they feel.

If symptoms are extreme and other things haven't worked for you, yes medication can be very helpful.

Yes, they primarily treat symptoms, and depending on which drug therapy, they can create other unwanted symptoms as a result.

For those that it has worked successfully for, that's great. Taking nothing away.

I'm offering alternative ideas for those that don't know where to begin with tackling the issues they might be experiencing.

To add to this a bit, there are certain conditions, including psychological conditions, where some form of pharmaceutical treatment is necessary as a first resort and/or on an emergency basis.

I agree with your main point though.

The pharmaceutical industry is a for profit industry, and they have an awful record of pushing people onto ongoing (and often expensive) pharmaceutical regimes. Overall, the medical field is very quick to push people into a category and then give them the medicine that corresponds with that category. In reality, a lot of conditions, particularly psychological ones, exist along a spectrum and what works for one person may not work for another.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Not discounting meds as helpful.



Saying not to make it a first resort if you're thinking about seeking solutions to your anxiety/panic/depression.



Field different solutions first, including diet and lifetstyle. Some people are living pretty unhealthily and don't consider how that can be linked to how they feel.



If symptoms are extreme and other things haven't worked for you, yes medication can be very helpful.



Yes, they primarily treat symptoms, and depending on which drug therapy, they can create other unwanted symptoms as a result.



For those that it has worked successfully for, that's great. Taking nothing away.



I'm offering alternative ideas for those that don't know where to begin with tackling the issues they might be experiencing.

That's where current guidelines sit and no one disagrees there, but that's not what you posted.

My issue is unhelpful statements like "medications only treat symptoms" whilst hocking supplements with zero real evidence as somehow different, is a classic natural fallacy that does lots of patients real harm. It's giving easy answers to complex problems while denigrating needed solutions with a handwave to evidence based practice.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by FlatLandFlamesFan

I opened up about 3 years ago when I finally came to terms with having anxiety issues and depression.
half the battle was to get there (realize what my behavior was and some of my coping mechanisms ) the second half for me was saying it "out loud"

Even if was out loud to all my Facebook , family ,friends ,co-workers ,acquaintances it was life changing.
The outpouring of support still brings a tear to my eye.
I even managed to help someone else come to the realization of their issues ,and that was the most amazing part for me, that not only did I help myself but someone else as well.

The struggles for me are daily but I am in a much better place today than I was then. Hearing some of your stories helps

You are never alone

This might sound silly, but seeing posts like this and the story in OP is so huge for someone like me as well. I can't relate to these experiences, and having nothing to compare it too can make it hard to wrap your head around things like this, so hearing someone break down what they're going through is incredibly important to help me understand it

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Not discounting meds as helpful.

Saying not to make it a first resort if you're thinking about seeking solutions to your anxiety/panic/depression.

Field different solutions first, including diet and lifetstyle. Some people are living pretty unhealthily and don't consider how that can be linked to how they feel.

If symptoms are extreme and other things haven't worked for you, yes medication can be very helpful.

Yes, they primarily treat symptoms, and depending on which drug therapy, they can create other unwanted symptoms as a result.

For those that it has worked successfully for, that's great. Taking nothing away.

I'm offering alternative ideas for those that don't know where to begin with tackling the issues they might be experiencing.

I don't think you meant to come across how you did. My first thought was that you were some quack naturopath. I am not sure a specific concoction of vitamins and herbs is the answer to anything. Thanks for clarifying.

I think you are right in the sense that people need to look for larger lifestyle changes to help them with chronic issues like anxiety - diet, exercise and good "self care".

That said, for people really suffering who can't even get their heads around rolling out of bed, meds might be the best first step.