Anxiety Archive

Ask the doctor

Q. What causes high blood pressure?

A. My answer is going to start in your back yard; stay with me. You're holding a hose, you turn on the water, and it shoots through the hose and out the nozzle. The water is moving because it's under pressure. Similarly, when your heart beats it creates pressure that enables your blood to "water" your body with the nutrients that are in your blood.

Three things affect the amount of pressure that pushes blood through your body: how forcefully the heart pumps, how much blood there is, and how narrow the smallest blood vessels are. That last one may need some explanation. When you're watering plants, and you want the stream of water to go farther, what do you do? You make the nozzle smaller. Narrowing the opening through which the water flows increases the pressure, and the water then is able to reach the distant flowerbed.

This age-old relaxation method can bring health benefits, and there are many tools to help get you started.

These days it seems like there's an app for almost everything you can do for your health, from tracking your diet and exercise to charting your sleep patterns. So, it's no surprise that there's been a surge in apps to help with meditation, an ancient practice designed to help you focus inward to promote relaxation.

In fact, Apple designated "self-care" — a category that includes meditation, mindfulness, and general wellness — as the 2018 "app trend of the year." This mirrors growing interest in meditation as an overall health strategy, a movement likely driven by a growing body of research showing potential health benefits from the practice.

Sales of cannabidiol-infused products are expected to top $2 billion by 2021. But is CBD right for you?

Cannabidiol (CBD) is touted as a natural wonder that can help treat symptoms of everything from anxiety to arthritis pain. The plant extract comes from two varieties of cannabis — hemp and marijuana — and is available in creams, tinctures, oils, patches, gummy bears, capsules, and more. You can even add CBD to a latte if you walk into a coffee shop in some cities.

But is CBD safe for older adults? There haven't been a lot of large studies of CBD's safety, but more traditional medicines for pain and anxiety are not free of adverse effects, either. "I think CBD is likely safer than many other treatments people use for pain, insomnia, or anxiety," says Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. Other physicians don't think we know enough about the safety profile of CBD to be sure.

Dealing with the emotional effects from a physical setback can be a challenge. These three strategies can help.

The physical repercussions of a major health issue, like surgery, an injury, or a heart attack, are tough enough without having to also confront the stress, anxiety, and depression that often accompanies it. Yet managing your mental health is just as important as your physical health when it comes to making a full recovery.

"There is no question that your state of mind can dictate how quickly you can return from a physical setback," says Dr. Jeff Huffman, director of the cardiac psychiatry research program at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

News briefs

 Image: © emiliozv/Getty Images

Omega-3 fatty acid supplements may help ease anxiety symptoms in people diagnosed with a range of physical and mental health problems, according to a review published in the Sept. 14, 2018, JAMA Network Open. The report pooled findings from 19 different studies and included 1,200 people. Most of the studies compared omega-3 supplements to a placebo. Taken together, the studies included people with a range of health problems, including heart attacks, attention deficit disorder, substance abuse, depression, and Parkinson's disease, as well as some groups without any specific clinical diagnosis. Researchers found that people who took high doses of omega-3s (up to 2,000 mg a day) seemed to have the most reduction in anxiety symptoms. Omega-3 fatty acids, which are usually derived from fish oil, have a number of biological effects in the body. Brain membranes contain a high proportion of these fats, and human studies suggest that a lack of omega-3s in the brain may induce various behavioral and psychiatric disorders. For now, it's too soon to recommend high-dose omega-3 supplements for treating anxiety. Larger trials testing the supplements (both alone and combined with standard treatments) are needed, the study authors say.

No one is "perfect." Yet many people struggle to be a perfectionist , which can trigger a cascade of anxieties. Striving to be a perfectionist may be a strong suit or a stumbling block, depending on how it's channeled, as clinical psychologist Jeff Szymanski explains. Dr. Szymanski is an associate instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the International OCD Foundation.

"The core of all perfectionism is the intention to do something well," says Dr. Szymanski. "If you can keep your eye on intention and desired outcome, adjusting your strategy when needed, you're fine.... But when you can't tolerate making a mistake, when your strategy is to make no mistakes, that's when perfectionism starts veering off in the wrong direction." In its most severe form, perfectionism can leave you unable to complete any task for fear of making a mistake.