Author Tim Clare spent a year researching his condition and trying every treatment he could. This is what worked
’m pinned to the floor, screaming. From two rooms away comes the sound of nursery rhymes, playing at full volume – my wife’s attempt to drown me out, so I don’t frighten our baby daughter. I’m having a panic attack. I am terrified and, beneath the fear, burning with shame.
I kept telling myself it wasn’t that bad, that each attack was a freak occurrence – I’d been tired or under pressure HIIT was a great way for me to practise facing the symptoms I used to experience during a panic attack: breathlessness, a tight chest and a pounding heart. It’s like exposure therapy. LISS improved my overall health, and last year I ran my first marathon. I can still worry during a run, but it often improves my mood, especially my sense of what psychologist Albert Bandura called ‘self-efficacy’: my belief I can cope with challenges.
Sugary foods and refined carbs trigger the same cycle, so quitting energy drinks and junk food was good for me. I lost 3st over several months. There’s emerging evidence of a link between anxiety and chronic inflammation, and reducing excess body fat is one way to reduce inflammation. Some studies have suggested eating a Mediterranean diet – lots of fresh fruits and vegetables rich in plant-based polysaccharides, nuts, olive oil and not much meat – has a mild correlation with lower anxiety.
Meta-analyses of hundreds of trials show SSRIs and SNRIs consistently perform better, on average, than placebos when it comes to reducing symptoms of disordered anxiety. But maybe 60-70% of people who take them without other interventions do not see a remission of symptoms. Those numbers are in line with many treatments in modern medicine, but they suggest, whether or not you choose to explore medication, you you should try other approaches in parallel.
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