When you’re constantly part of the hustle and bustle of the San Francisco Bay Area, it can create an anxiety overload. The current coronavirus pandemic, high caseloads, risks of illness, and recession don’t help matters. It’s no surprise that you might be more anxious than usual these days, and you’re not alone. Combined, general anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety, and panic disorders are the most common mental health disorders in the United States, affecting roughly 18.1% of the population every year.

Unfortunately, most people diagnosed with an anxiety disorder are treated with pharmaceuticals, including antidepressants, SSRIs, SNRIs, or benzodiazepines, yet many people don’t respond to them. This starts a cycle of trying pharmaceutical after pharmaceutical without results. When traditional treatment options don’t work, it pays to look into alternative treatments for anxiety.

1. Lifestyle Changes

Proper self-care can go a long way to helping relieve anxiety on a day-to-day basis. Taking care of your mental and physical health is a natural remedy that you can start trying right away.

Some lifestyle changes that can help reduce anxiety or help you cope with anxiety more effectively include:

• Getting enough sleep: Insomnia is a common symptom of anxiety. 
• Participating in calming activities like meditation and yoga: 30 minutes a day of meditation can act as an antidepressant and alleviate anxiety symptoms by removing chaotic thoughts and replacing them with a sense of calm. 
• Staying active and exercising regularly: You can experience anxiety relief for hours after a workout. 
• Eating a healthy diet: Low blood sugar levels, high-sugar diets, dehydration, and the chemicals in processed foods can all negatively affect your mood. 
• Avoiding alcohol, drugs, and nicotine: These quick fixes for anxiety can actually worsen symptoms over time.

2. Aromatherapy

Using targeted fragrant essential oils, you can use aromatherapy to promote well-being and reduce anxiety. You can either inhale essential oils directly, add them to a warm bath, or use a diffuser.

Aromatherapy can be effective in helping you relax, sleep better, boosting your mood, and reducing your heart rate and blood pressure, which can in turn lower your anxiety levels.

Anxiety-relieving essential oils include ylang ylang, grapefruit, clary sage, lavender, and bergamot.

3. Ketamine Treatment

As many patients with anxiety will tell you, it can be a long and challenging process to get an anxiety disorder under control with pharmaceuticals. Even when nonpharmacologic therapies are added, a significant number of patients (30 to 40%) will still struggle to achieve remission.

Fortunately, there’s a novel treatment option that’s showing great promise in the psychiatric community: ketamine. Studies indicate that ketamine may be a rapid and effective treatment option for general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and even obsessive compulsive disorder, along with other mental health conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Not only is it considered effective, but ketamine tends to act quickly to improve symptoms, including social and work functioning. Just one treatment session can lead to the improvement of anxiety symptoms for several weeks.

If you’re interested in trying ketamine treatment for anxiety and you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, book a mobile appointment with Rejuv IV. After a short telehealth appointment, we’ll come to you to administer the treatment in the comfort of your home.