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Caffeine is a psychoactive drug found in coffee, tea, chocolate, cola and energy drinks. The caffeine in these foods and drinks can have some positive effects. For example helping a person to stay awake or giving them a little energy boost so that they can continue on with their import work they are in the middle of doing. Even with good points it does have it’s bad; one of the most common is addiction but for anxiety sufferers it’s got more of a bad place than that.

Caffeine can have negative effects on anxiety disorders. According to a 2011 literature review, caffeine use is positively associated with anxiety and panic disorders. At high doses, typically greater than 300 mg, caffeine can both cause and worsen anxiety. For some people, discontinuing caffeine use can significantly reduce anxiety.

Quote from Wikipedia

While we know and have seen studies on caffeine and its effects on anxiety disorders we often find that it can be a crutch for sufferers that just want to stay awake through the exhaustion effects of anxiety disorders and get on with their current lives. But conversely the same drug that helps with that could be making it worse. Caffeine is known to cause insomnia in some cases increasing the body’s need for sleep.

So what is the solution?

The solution for many is to moderate caffeine intake and in some cases trickle down the caffeine intake until it’s zero. In fact if you find that caffeine affects your anxiety then that is what No Panic recommends you to start doing.

Anxiety in the workplace can be frightening, distressing and horrific. It for most is one of the worst places you can suffer from any time of acute time of anxiety or panic. Breaking down in front of others for a lot of people is also very hard. Even more so if you struggle with any kind of social anxiety.

This kind of thing is compounded when you have colleagues, a boss or underlings who don’t understand. In this situation you’re likely to get put down and made to feel even more anxious and depressed about the whole situation on top of what you were feeling anxious about beforehand. To counteract this you may feel like you have to be the best that a person can be at work. Take on as much as possible and deal with so much during a day that you feel at breaking point when you get home in the evening. You may also feel like quitting to try and find that dream environment where you don’t need to worry but that you will be fighting the anxiety about change.

So what can you do about it?

Promote an openness about mental health in your workplace. Convince management that they need to be aware and treat all people with respect and care especially when it comes to a person’s mental health. You could help arrange mental health awareness days and get information from leading organisations like No Panic for your human resources department. But for yourself it’s required that you keep to your limits, don’t make yourself ill to make others feel better about you. Make sure you look after yourself too.

Today, the third Monday in January, is supposed to be one of the most depressed days of the year, Blue Monday.

Currently trending on Twitter among other places. So why doesn’t anxiety and depression respect this? Because they’re an illness and don’t discriminate based on the day of the year. So No Panic is sharing its top tips to have a good day.

1. Relax – Being relaxed is the opposite of being anxious, if your relaxing then you won’t be getting more anxious.
2. Breathe – Take a breath and take some time to focus on something so simple that you forget about it so often.
3. Thought Control – Thinking too much on your anxiety and its symptoms can prolong and increase your anxiety.
4. CBT Basics – Use the basics of CBT to alter how you react to situations and your own anxious thoughts.
5. Ask for Help – Ask for help when you need it, call our helpline, message our Facebook page or email us.

No Panic wishes you an anxiety free Blue Monday and hopes that you find some of these techniques helpful.

Half of all mental health problems have been established by the age of 14, rising to 75 per cent by age 24. One in ten children aged 5–16 has a diagnosable problem.

On Tuesday 12th December Open forum Events held their Children and Young People’s Mental Health Conference. The day was good, there were 10 speakers who spoke about topics ranging from mental health in education, to parenting and the recently released green paper on young people’s mental health.

Young people spend, roughly, 40% of their waking time at school.

That was one of the biggest messages that stood out to me from the talk by Headteacher Andy Howard from the Crossley Manor School which educates young people with social, emotional and/or mental health needs. School is vitally import to a young person it can either be a place of safety and stability or their worst nightmare.

Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: a Green Paper

During the day, there was a lot of talk about the green paper and the provisions that were going to be put in place hopefully as a result of this. The main points of the green paper are designated mental health leads in schools, mental health support teams in the local area supervised by CAMHS staff which deal with schools in a locality and the target waiting time of 4 weeks to access specialist services.

There are concerns about this not going far enough especially from myself and a few of the speakers. Concerns were raised about the mental health teams not being in schools but around them as the current plan. I was concerned about the teachers having training to provide support in the here and now for anxiety and panic attacks. Concerns were also raised about having these problems dealt with before they entered the higher education system by one of the speakers and the hope that this means problems that occur during primary and secondary educations will be addressed.

This was a very good day providing lots of information on the future of mental health in schools and the attendees like myself got a lot from the speakers. These attendees also got information about No Panic and how we can help. If you’d like to know more about how we can help schools and young people’s organisations please contact us.

The government has announced a new green paper that proposes to help young people in schools before they get worse. This comes at the same time they release the statistic that one in ten girls ages 16 or 17 were referred for specialist mental health services in england last year. Below are the main points of the green paper.

The government’s new green paper proposes:

• training for senior designated mental health leads in schools to improve prevention work
• earlier access to services through the creation of new mental health support teams working in and directly with schools
• a new four-week waiting time for NHS children and young people’s mental health services
• every primary and secondary school in England to be offered mental health awareness training
• all pupils to be taught about mental health and wellbeing as part of improved relationships education and PSHE [personal, social, health and economic] lessons

If these proposals pass and are worked on this would be a great help to people that suffer. This would help not only the students but the knowledge that the teachers gain should help them to manage their own problems as well. This is what No Panic have been working towards with it’s school workshop programme as a part of our youth project. Teaching not only the students but the teachers as well about the ways to manage mental ill health and anxiety in particular. This kind of global effort in schools would make for happier, healthier and more adaptable people in society as a whole.

If you are connected with a school or organisation that helps sufferers and you want to get a head start on all of this then please get into contact with our office on 01952 680460 or membership@nopanic.org.uk and our ambassador Mark will be happy to discuss your needs and requirements.

The human race has evolved to deal with trauma and needs traumas to develop responses to dangerous situations. For example we know animals can be dangerous by dealing with the first trauma of seeing an animal attack a human and how that knowledge is passed down the generations.

Sometimes however trauma can be overwhelming and not be dealt with in the normal way a human brain does. Normally if a trauma happens the Amygdala will take a snapshot of the cause and associate that with the trauma. The Hippocampus will take a more detailed version of the memory and should be able to recall that when the Amygdala notices one of these trauma warning signs thus stopping the trauma reactions from taking place.

Trauma reactions often come in steps, the first step being fight or flight. The second is dissociation and the third is immobility. The Limbic system is the trigger for these; the Amygdala is part of the limbic system but the reactions to this is controlled by the brain stem or reptilian brain. These are meant to be tempered by the Hippocampus which should control your reactions to the warning sign from the Amygdala. In some cases the Hippocampus is suppressed by cortisol a brain chemical secreted during fight or flight and this can most often happen in cases of post traumatic stress disorders and associated disorders like non-epileptic attack disorder.

When you do fall victim to the 3 steps, it can have various effects. Fight or flight reactions vary and can have many symptoms. You can find out more about fight or flight symptoms on our anxiety symptoms explained page. Dissociation is where a person can feel unreal, drift off into their own world or be consumed by something totally different that isn’t the task at hand. This can lead to people being unresponsive or clumsy among other things.

Immobility is like the mouse playing dead when caught by the cat. It stops the predator from feeling the thrill of the case and may make them disinterested. This is the last resort defense mechanism used by the brain stem to protect ourselves. In humans, this can in disorders like non-epileptic attack disorder lead to collapsing, fainting and seizures. While very scary particularly in non-epileptic attack disorder it isn’t life threatening but can be dangerous depending on where the seizures happen.

The trauma trigger can get very sensitive and the best way to decrease that is to learn how to feel your body again. This grounds you to the here and now and along with techniques such as rubbing ones hands together helps a person not to dissociate and not progress to the Immobility stage. This allows the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex more of a chance to take over and stop the trauma response and for the person to regain control.

World Mental Health Day is upon us once more, and this year’s theme is all about the workplace.

The financial cost of mental illnesses in the UK is massive, as you can see from the figures in the above infographic, costing an estimated £70 billion annually in lost productivity, benefits, and health care.

Such figures highlight just how important addressing mental health conditions is to the welfare of the country. 1 in 4 people in the UK experience a mental health problem each year, yet many people with anxiety, depression, and other mental conditions still don’t have the confidence to be open about it, and seek the required professional help.

How employers can help

More companies are realising that it in their interest to support employees with mental health conditions, and create an environment where people feel comfortable talking about such issues. After all, ‘presenteeism,’ whereby people continue to work despite their illness, and are less productive as a result, is estimated to be 1.5 times costlier than absenteeism. Those who take time off to address their mental health are more beneficial to the company, yet it’s estimated that two-thirds of cases go untreated. Companies who take a holistic approach to mental illness, and actively encourage their employees to be open and honest about it, will have a happier and more productive workforce.

Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index recognises companies who have taken such measures, with the Environment Agency coming out as the top performers in this year’s inaugural awards. Such initiatives, combined with World Mental Health Day focusing on the workplace, will hopefully encourage more companies to be proactive in improving their mental health practices.

Help your colleagues

If you work for even a modest-sized company, there’s a good chance at least one of your colleagues lives with a mental health condition. Many people keep quiet for fear of the stigma associated with such conditions, and that their colleagues may look at them differently once aware of their illness. By not shying away from the topic of mental health, you can do your small part in creating an environment in which those in need of help feel comfortable seeking it.

In order to effectively tackle mental health conditions, those in need of medical help must have the confidence to access it. The UK has come a long way in changing the negative stigma, but there is clearly progress to be made. Once it is, the human and financial benefits are clear for all to see.

This infographic was produced by MyTherapy (available for iOS and Android).