Now when you read the title of this post you might have thought “cope with a panic attack? Is that even possible?” It is kinda hard to understand how one could cope or negotiate with such a stressful and seemingly out of control event but it can be done.

Let’s start by looking at the word cope. To cope means to manage a taxing circumstance. The operative term being manage, not defeat, conquer, vanquish, etc. We have to start out with the understanding that we cope with anxiety and panic we don’t and cannot will it away or destroy it.

With the presidential election looming it seems that the nations anxiety level has risen substantially. There seems to be fear mongering on both sides of the aisle and it’s creating a great deal of uncertainty and fear.

This blog is non-political so you’ll get no promotion or detraction for either candidate here. Moreover I’m not sure that people really want that as they’ve had it up to here (insert neck) with all the negativity. However I do get the sense that people are afraid. They are afraid of the country changing, they are afraid of the nations enemies, they are afraid of a potential economic depression, fear is everywhere.

Thinking is something we all do all the time. There is no way to stop the incessant chatter that is the soundtrack to everything we do.

Should I eat this? Or should I eat that? I need to go to the bathroom but I’ll wait a few minutes until I go. After that I better check my voice mail and then my email oh and I have to… it never stops.

Having a lump in your throat or the sensation that it’s hard to swallow is a very common sensation among anxiety sufferers.

This lump causes us to think that we are headed for a medical disaster and may even cause us to swallow in quick succession so that we can make sure that we can still swallow – just in case.

To view the diagram used in this screencast in more detail click here .

After having chronic anxiety for sometime you’ll start to notice changes in your health. This is because anxiety creates stress and stress in big doses can effect the functioning of our bodies.

Stress can change our ability to digest food properly, it creates increased stomach acid which leads to GERD and heartburn, blood pressure may be temporarily elevated, your immune system becomes depressed so that you get sick more often and for longer periods of time, it can even increase cholesterol levels.

As you search for the magic anti-anxiety elixir you should always take careful note of what you are ingesting. In most cases a so called anxiety busting drug may be of interest to you for obvious reasons but you should always consider the side effects.

As many of you know there are six different types of anxiety disorders. Social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic disorder, general anxiety disorder and the broad category of phobias. Of all these terrible disorders general anxiety disorder is perhaps one of the worse since it incorporates many of the symptoms and characteristics of the others.

It’s been awhile since I published a podcast so I decided to do a podcast round up which basically consist of recent issues I’ve talked about on the blog. Here is a short list of some of the things I covered on this podcast.

1. State of the world and why this should not concern you as much as the news would have you believe.

Who knew that those that suffer from mental ailments had their own global holiday? I didn’t. It turns out that Friday October 10, 2008 was World Mental Health Day.

This mental health initiative is the creation of the World Federation for Mental Health or the WFMH . The stated goal of this quasi holiday slash global mental health awareness movement states as it’s priority the "scaling up of services through citizen advocacy and action".

When it comes to anxiety disorders and their effect on our health there are more assumptions and myths than you can imagine. Some of these myths are based in fact but are not entirely accurate hence their myth status. The connection between anxiety and blood pressure is one of the most common of these semi-myths.