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Can you help my anxiety?

19/ 5/2008

Q I am a very anxious person and suffer occasionally with panic attacks. Can cranial osteopathy or nutrition help me?

A This is becoming an increasingly common situation for people who previously were not anxious at all. My personal observations are that one major contributing factor may be nutritional deficiency: particularly of B-vitamins.

Our soils have been farmed for many years and are now deficient in vitamins and minerals. If the nutrients are not present in the soils, they cannot enter the vegetables we eat.

I attended a talk by an eminent nutritionist recently, who speculated that if you live in the UK, even if you were to eat one of every vegetable and every fruit available every day, you would not intake your RDA of vitamins. However, if you lived in India, you could live on carrots and potatoes alone and receive your complete complement and RDA of nutrients.

The point being, that it is now becoming essential to supplement your diet with vitamins and minerals. B-vitamins are leached from your body when you are stressed, and with the apparent rise in stress levels in our society, we are seeing a bit of a vicious cycle developing: stress causing leaching of B-vitamins: lack of B vitamins then increasing anxiousness and therefore stress levels, resulting in further leaching of B-vitamins.

And the cycle continues until you potentially develop panic attacks. Of course there are many other contributing factors that must be considered. This is a very broad overview and I will probably be criticised for making such a statement, but, it is a very real situation that individuals need to be aware of and address on a personal level.

Whilst the press continues to give vitamin supplementation a `dangerous' tag, our society is becoming increasing deficient in certain nutrients. Even the apparent rise in behaviour problems and violence in children I would personally attribute vitamin deficiency (B, zinc, magnesium) as a major contributing factor.

Also depression in children. This is increasing and is also, in my opinion, largely due to mothers themselves being deficient and therefore being unable to pass on required nutrient levels to their developing babies. Consider where your vitamins and minerals are coming from, check your ingredients, and get omega oils, zinc, magnesium and B-vitamins into your body.

And finally, to answer you question: Yes: Cranial osteopathy will help you, as it will relax your central nervous system. It is not a cure, but will help to manage your symptoms and start you on the road to addressing things.

Soothe Clinic, 49 King Street 0161 2888248 sootheclinic.com