Anxiety Issue / Solution?

[Maesinho]

Dear All,

The first time I got in touch anxiety was about a year ago. My company was going through an investment process that took quite long and I assume the adjoining stress caused the exposure to anxiety attacks. They came out of nowhere but mostly appeared on public transports, taxi's and sometimes public places. But the most disturbing was when I had to do presentations in high profile meetings.

In the beginning I was able to cope with it, but at a certain moment I was at the airport from Hong Kong and it all of the sudden hit me again, like I never experienced before. I really thought I was about to die, right there in the middle of the airport. So I decided to get professional help, result the doctor prescribed me Lexapro.

The Lexapro actually helped me quite well and it had the anxiety under control. After the investment period, and once everything had a better outlook, I decided to quite, cold turkey. This was around 6 months of treatment. I did this while I was following a very intensive fitness program. I can tell you I never felled better in my life. I was over the anxiety, could stop the medication and had a perfect 6 following months.

Recently my company ended in a similar situation with even more stress coming towards me. I believe the anxiety is back, actually I am sure, but I am not very keen going back to daily medication. I know that when I did the fitness program it helped me enormously. But I don't think the effect will be as good as it was before as I do not do any side treatments.

Again the most frightening times are when I have to enter high profile meetings with investors or top management. In these meetings the anxiety some times pops up, just out of nowhere, and affects my performance.

Are there solutions or medications that can help me entering before those meetings? So I could in the mean time try to fight the anxiety by changing lifestyle with exercising and eating habits? Or is the Lexapro and following a similar few months like I did before my best shot? I am just a bit worried that I will stay stuck in a permanent medicine use like I read on many forums where people are taking it for years. I am not a big fan of it and would like to live the majority of my life time medicine free.

Thanks a lot for any advice around this topic.

Kind Regards,

K

[michigan07]

No prob. Since it will be difficult to see a therapist over there I would consider looking into CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. There is a lot of good literature on this and perhaps you can learn some different techniques to help with anxiety from them.

[Maesinho]

Thanks for your answer Michigan.

The problem is that I am at a stage again where the anxiety gets triggered by various things in my daily live like for example taking public transport (which I have to).

In terms of talking to a therapist, I am an expat running my business in Asia. It is quite difficult to find somebody proper to talk with, as there is always a language and culture barrier.

I think I made up my mind by combining the Lexapro for 6 months again with intensive workout, build it off and hopefully times are better then.

[michigan07]

Medication is only one part of the solution to dealing with anxiety if needed at at all. Some need it, some don't. On it or off it everyone has different needs. What I think would help the most for you is talking with a therapist, discuss the triggers to your anxiety, and see what techniques you can utilize to alleviate the anxiety. Working out as you have been is great at helping keep anxiety at bay too.