Everybody at one point experiences anxiety when faced with a stressful or worrying situation. Anxiety is the feeling of fear, apprehension and worry, accompanied by nausea, palpitations, chest pain, and breathlessness. Sometimes this can interfere with your normal life. Excessive anxiety can be linked with other psychiatric conditions, such as depression.

Anxiety can be in many forms. It may be a fear of snakes, a fear of heights or stage fright, or it could also be nonstop worry about your parenting skills or constant fretting about success at work, etc.

Components:

Anxiety is said to have four components:

Cognitive components: This imposes fear of uncertain danger.

Somatic components: When faced with a frightening situation your blood pressure and heart rate are increased, you tend to sweat, and blood flow to the major muscle groups is increased. The somatic signs of anxiety might include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupil dilation.

Emotional components: The emotional components of anxiety cause a sense of dread or panic, nausea, and chills.

Behavioral components: This would lead to both voluntary and involuntary behaviors, and you maybe directed at avoiding the source of anxiety which is quite common.

Types of Anxiety and the symptoms:

There are various types of anxiety - Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety and specific phobias. Anxiety Disorder is very common throughout the world. It is a chronically recurring case of anxiety that can seriously affect your life. People with this disorder feel afraid of something but are unable to articulate the specific fear. If you are constantly worrying, and have a hard time controlling your worries then you might be suffering from anxiety disorder.

Some of the common symptoms of anxiety disorder are:

• Muscle tension
• Heart palpitations
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Sweating
• Nausea
• Cold hands
• Jumpiness
• Difficulty falling asleep
• Hot flashes or chills
• Diarrhea and irritated bowel syndrome

Anxiety can make you cranky and irritable. You may get tired easily and often suffer from insomnia. It is very important that you seek professional medical help. For the initial diagnosis of this problem, a good assessment is required by taking a standardized interview or questionnaire procedure with expert evaluation. There should be a thorough examination to find out the cause that could have triggered this condition. If the patient has a family history of anxiety disorders then this could be a possibility.

Treatment:

You can get help and come out of your fear. There are four types of therapy that have proved to be helpful and they have been used successfully to address the symptoms of anxiety disorders.

Behavior Therapy: Here you are made to face your fear in a planned environment, and using different relaxation techniques, you are made to accept and overcome your anxiety and panic. This helps you to become more confident about managing fear and anxiety and also prepares you to face any kind of inducing situations.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy: This is the most popular and effective type of psychotherapy to overcome your anxiety. The goal is to understand your thinking process and help you to develop coping skills before your anxiety takes over. This helps you:

• Challenge false or self-defeating beliefs
• Think positive

Psychodynamic psychotherapy: This therapy helps those who have fear because of unconscious mental conflict. You are made to uncover the conflict as a means to stop the fear-causing anxiety and panic.

Alternative therapies: Different therapies have been developed for treating anxiety, like EMDR - a therapy that utilizes rapid eye movement, repetitive sounds and tapping to reintegrate an “out of sync” brain. Even acupuncture is being used to treat anxiety.

All these therapies depend on various subjective factors, such as therapist competence. It is advisable to go to only a well known and experienced psychotherapist. Self help and relaxation techniques also play an important role in relieving anxiety symptoms. Improving your eating habits and reduction in caffeine and sugar intake also helps. Exercise and a relaxation technique such as yoga, is also very helpful. Try to reach out to your friends and family and share your troubles; do not let it get accumulated before it hits you hard. Anxiety is very common and you are not the only one, so don’t hesitate to seek help.

Multivitamin supplements are an excellent source of the daily recommended allowance of vitamins that you can’t get from a good diet alone. Food is no longer as nutritious as it once was. There are fewer farms, and more crops are being grown on less land. Have you heard of any new farms being opened lately? Or an area being cleared to make room for a farm? Probably not. That is why a daily multivitamin is so important. Just take a pill and you have your daily needs in one easy swallow. Multivitamins are the most convenient way to get vitamins into your body that would otherwise be left out. In this article you will learn what multivitamins do for the body and what the consequences of a vitamin deficiency are. After reading this you will understand why it is crucial to supplement your diet with a multivitamin.

Vitamins are food substances that aid your body’s essential biochemical reactions. There are thirteen known vitamins that are classified as either fat soluble or water soluble. Fat soluble vitamins can be stored in the body for months and come in the forms A, D, E, and K. Your body is able to store enough water soluble vitamins to last only a few weeks. The nine water soluble vitamins are C, B1, B2, B6, niacin, folic acid, biotin, and pantothenic acid.

If you eat a healthy diet with plenty of whole foods and the correct balance of proteins, fats, and carbs, you may be fine. However, if your diet is lacking you should consider investing in a basic multivitamin. The problems that can result from a vitamin deficiency could fill a book. Some of the most basic signs of a deficiency are a greater tendency to feel stressed or sick. Cigarette smoke also depletes vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin E, and selenium, so if you smoke, make sure that your multivitamin contains these ingredients.

Bodybuilders need vitamins to build muscle and burn fat efficiently. Even though 99.9% of the world’s population is not bodybuilders, they should still take a multivitamin. Women of child-bearing age, people over age 60, pregnant or breast-feeding women, strict vegetarians, people on weight loss diets, and anyone not eating a balanced diet will all benefit greatly from them. But keep in mind that even if you take a multivitamin, you still need to eat a healthy diet. Foods such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains provide fiber and many other antioxidants not found in any type of pill.

Look for 100% of the daily value for vitamins D, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, folic acid, and at least 20 micrograms of vitamin K. A multivitamin should not cost more than a few cents a day. You don’t need anything fancy to reap the benefits of daily multivitamin intake. And remember: taking more than 100% of the daily value is not good for you either. In fact, it is harmful because large doses of copper can interfere with your absorption of zinc and vice versa. Large doses of vitamin A and zinc are also worse for you than not taking one at all. I hope that you now understand the basics of multivitamins and will make an educated decision the next time you shop for vitamins. GA-003

For many people, thinning hair is a reality that they would
rather deal without. No matter whether their hair loss is due to
a medical condition, is hereditary or is stress related, many
cope with trying to style limp, thinning tresses on a daily
basis. For these people the thoughts of their ever thinning hair
are constantly on their mind when they go out into public or
attend a special function.

The billion-dollar hair loss industry has shown that when it
comes to hair, people are willing to do just about anything to
grow new locks or keep a hold on ones that are slipping away.
>From camouflage sprays and mousses to massage therapy and
surgery, the amount of money spent each year on these hair loss
products prove that people with thinning hair are serious about
concealing the problem.

But what can you do when all of these alternatives have failed,
and you cannot afford expensive solutions such as surgery? Is
there anything that you can do to conceal your thinning tresses?
The answer is yes. There is an amazing amount of things that you
can easily and inexpensively do to make your tresses look
thicker, and it all begins with the right hair stylist.

Often, thinning hair is the result of genes that have been
passed on to your from your parents. Male Pattern Baldness,
identified by hair loss centered on the top of the head and a
receding hair line, is the most common, but it is also not
uncommon for women to suffer from this condition. While it is
rare for women to become completely bald, they can become
extremely thin all over the head, and it only gets worse with
age. Another thing that contributes to hair loss is physical
health. Conditions such as Thyroid disease and heart disease can
wreak havoc on a healthy head of hair. And the medications to
treat these illnesses can also have a profound, negative effect
on hair as well.

In many cases, these types of hair loss are irreversible and a
struggle to deal with on a daily basis. That is why it is so
important to find the right professional to keep your hair
looking the very best that it can. By wearing the right style
and using the right products, you can add a good bit of volume
and virtually conceal any amount of hair loss. So, your first
step in concealing hair loss is to find a professional stylist
who knows how to work with thinning and fragile hair.

Once you have found a stylist that understands hair loss, you
need to work closely together to achieve the best results.
Often, this means a great deal of discussing your hair loss,
your lifestyle and your styling needs. There are many tricks up
a stylist’s sleeve to make your hair appear thicker, but none of
them will do you any good if you are unable to create the effect
at home. So, be sure to speak up and tell your stylist if you
feel that you are unable to get the desired results at home.

Here are just a few of the rules that stylists follow to
camouflage hair loss.

Keep it short. Long hair styles tend to pull hair down close to
the scalp, which can make it all too obvious that there isn’t a
lot of hair to deal with. On top of that, thinning hair often
looks straggly and unkempt if it is kept too long. Shorter cuts,
on the other hand, can give the illusion of thickness. There are
multitudes of styles that are perfect for thinning hair so you
will have a large variety to choose from. Be sure to choose a
cut that compliments your facial structure and has a lot of
movement.

Plump with hair color. Hair color is one of the few chemical
services that stylists can use on clients with thinning and
fragile hair without causing breakage. In fact, the process of
coloring hair plumps up each individual hair strand and makes it
appear thicker. In addition, using coloring techniques that
infuse different levels of lowlights and highlights into your
hair takes attention off of your scalp and onto your beautifully
colored hair.

Style with soft curl and the right products. Soft curl and
full-bodied styles gently lift your hair up from your scalp and
give you the appearance of having thick, lush hair. Also a great
help are hair thickening shampoos, conditioners and styling
products. But before buying products that claim to make your
hair thicker, be sure to get your stylist’s approval. Many
products on the market simply cause build up to make hair appear
thicker initially, but that build up will cause a great deal of
breakage and damage down the road.

As you can see from these few examples, there are many things
that you can do to conceal your hair loss. And I’m sure that
your stylist will have a few suggestions of his or her own.

Every year, billions of dollars are spent on medication to relieve headaches. Billions more are lost due to time away from work for headache sufferers. Why do we have so many headaches and what can be done about them?

Janet Travell, M.D. was the White House Physician under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson who wrote the landmark textbook Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction. Dr. Travell estimated that 90% of pain in the head, neck, and face was due to painful muscles.

As dentists, we know that if the bite is not balanced, pain and other symptoms can develop. This is commonly known as TMD (or TMJ). Our jaw is supported by a sling of muscles that guide our teeth together in our habitual bite. If our bite is in harmony with our muscles, everything feels good. But if our muscles have to strain on a regular basis just to bring our bite together, symptoms can develop. These symptoms take the form of headaches, neck and shoulder pain, feelings of ear congestion, dizziness, and other symptoms not commonly considered “dental.”

How do we know if our symptoms are bite related and what can be done? First of all, it is always a good idea to check with your physician to make sure that nothing serious is going on. Next, talk to your dentist to find out if your symptoms could be related to your bite. If your bite is the problem, there is incredible technology available which allows your dentist to find the most comfortable position for your bite. Once this position is found, your dentist can make you an orthotic (nightguard) for you to wear which allows your jaw to rest in this most comfortable position. Oftentimes, just wearing the orthotic relieves the symptoms.

If it is decided that this comfortable jaw position is the correct position for you in the long run, your dentist can use braces or advanced dentistry to change your bite.

In the dental field, we have seen amazing advances in pain relief. If you think you may be suffering needlessly, talk to your dentist.

Dr. Bernstein is a longtime Piedmont resident in private practice 2 blocks from Cal Berkeley. He is a clinical instructor at the world-renowned Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies and his practice focuses on cosmetic dentistry and 5 star guest services. Dr. Bernstein can be reached at 848-SMILE (848-7645) and at http://www.san-francisco-dentist.com.