Lump in throat feeling

A common symptom of stress, anxiety and panic attacks is a lump throat feeling. It is a feeling like a golf ball, fur ball is stuck in your throat, your tie is too tight, you are being strangled, or your throat feels swollen.

The problem with many sufferers, is their fears of a serious disease like cancer. In many occasions real lumps in the throat, such as a cancer, are not felt. That's why a cancer can get so big before it is discovered. The first thing you must do is to visit your doctor for a complete evaluation and diagnostic exams like: chest X-ray, endoscopy oesophageal manometry, videofluorography, barium swallow, blood tests, possibly an ultra sound examination.etc. Just knowing the tightness is not a sign of cancer frequently helps relieve the discomfort.

There are other physical causes of lump in throat sensation:

Cricopharyngeal spasm is a syndrome results from a spasm in the cricopharyngeus muscle. Feels like a golf or a tennis ball is stuck in the throat, the lump comes and goes depending on the day, symptoms are usually gone in the mornings and present later in the day and stress aggravates the symptoms. You will be better several weeks or a few months after, but almost immediately if you know what the problem is.

Larygopharrngeal reflux (LPR or 'silent reflux'): when the stomach contents reflux up to the level of the larynx, the disorder is called Larygopharrngeal reflux (LPR or 'silent reflux') which is very likely to cause symptoms such as chronic throat clearing, throat phlegm, changes in the voice and the notorious lump in the throat sensation.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, is the recurring movement of stomach acid from the stomach back up into the esophagus. It causes a retrosternal burning sensation (heartburn).

Cervical spondylitis: there are sufferers with increased muscle tension in the neck and around the larynx causing globus.

Problems with your thyroid gland: enlargement and inflammation in the thyroid gland are quite common and can occasionally cause a feeling of lump in the throat.

Medications: antihypertensives such as diuretics and ACE inhibitors as well as antimuscarinics (used in treatment of irritable bowel, urinary problems and psychiatric conditions) can have irritating or drying effects on the throat and occasionally cause the lump sensation.

Medical conditions: infections and inflamations in cases of laryngitis, pharyngitis, and certain tongue disorders may cause lump in throat sensation.

People with stress, anxiety, GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and panic attacks may experience a lump in the throat. After a medical evaluation that has excluded any physical problem, your doctor could conclude that there are psychological problems provoking the problem with your throat. You must beat your stress, anxiety or panic attacks and you will solve this feeling in your throat.

Lifestyle changes may improve stress-related physical symptoms

Here is the case of my friend Nina. This case indicates that stress-related physical symptoms may be improved through lifestyle changes.

Nina was a married young woman with many stomach problems (upset stomach, pain, cramps). She had many problems in her marriage. Her eating habits were bad (junk food). She had no time for herself. She had visited a dozen of health professionals, had all the tests done, and all the possible medication taken, but there was no improvement. Finally she decided to take the situation in her hands.

Ten months ago she made three major lifestyle changes:
1. She moved out of her marriage home, away from her husband. Guess what? Her stomach situation improved. She also mentioned me that she experiences problems with her stomach only when she has to contact her x-husband.

2. She changed her eating habits. No more junk food, no more fats. She has the time and the will to prepare healthy tasty meals. She has also kept a diary to discover foods provoking stomach upset.

3. She began a regular exercise and fitness program. Now she looks great, slim and fit.

Her conclusion is that her stomach problems improved through lifestyle changes.

If you experience problems with your stomach, try Nina's approach:

• Reduce stress in your life.

• Keep a stress diary to find sources of stress.

• Solve or avoid any stressor in your life.

• Relax. There are many relaxation technics.

• Keep a regular exercise program.

• Keep a diary of your eating habits and discover foods provoking your stomach problems.
  

• Drink fresh water or fresh juices not cola-type drinks.

• Eat healthy meals prepared at home, not junk food.

• Live and enjoy your life.

Vitamins for Stress and Anxiety Articles

Your stress or anxiety symptoms may be worsen by your nutrition. Fortunately there are foods containing minerals and vitamins for stress and anxiety that may help with your stress and anxiety symptoms.

You can check here: Nutrition Health Wellness to find articles about vitamins for stress and anxiety.

Ask a doctor about symptoms

Ask a doctor about symptoms. Why?

You may experience physical stress or anxiety signs and symptoms. We have already published a post about physical symptoms of stress you can check here: Physical Stress Signs and Symptoms.

The problem with stress and anxiety signs and symptoms is that they may also be caused by other medical problems. For example headaches and dizziness are common stress or anxiety signs. Severe and persistent headaches may also be caused by other serious disorders (like brain aneurysm, brain tumor, stroke, brain infection like meningitis or encephalitis). Most causes of dizziness are not serious and either quickly resolve on their own or are easily treated but there are serious conditions that can lead to lightheadedness include heart problems (such as abnormal heart rhythm or heart attack), stroke, tumor, and severe drop in blood pressure (shock).

So your number one priority is to ask your doctor about symptoms you experience. Your doctor will take a medical history and perform a physical examination, paying close attention to your pulse, blood pressure, and respiratory rate. Your doctor will also ask diagnostic tests that may include blood tests (CBC, thyroid function tests) as well as an electrocardiogram (ECG), etc. After excluding other serious conditions your doctor may conclude that your problem is stress or anxiety related. Your doctor can help you determine if your anxiety would be best evaluated and treated by a mental health care professional.

7 Steps Formula to Positive Thinking

Attitude and thoughts do not change overnight. Positive or negative thinking is a habit. Although changing the way you think is a simple process, it takes time and practice.

If you really want to change negative thinking to positive one, here is a 7 steps formula:

Step 1: Read about this subject, think about its benefits and persuade yourself to try the 7 steps formula .

Step 2: Use your imagination to visualize yourself in the position you want to be.

Step 3: Give yourself positive affirmations, daily. Believe me it works. In a future post I will explain you how positive affirmations helped me.

Step 4: Become aware of your thoughts. If you find yourself thinking negative things, stop immediately. Replace the negative thoughts with positive ones.

Step 5: Always consider any failure as a learning experience, and an important step toward your next success. There is something good within failure.

Step 6: Look for positive people to associate with.

Step 7: Keep a list of your goals, positive thoughts and actions.

Reasearch shows the benefits of positive thinking: decreased negative stress, better coping skills during taft situations, easier breathing, a sense of well-being, improved outlook, better relations, more chances to success, better results than the drugs and more long-lasting benefits. If you practice positive thinking you believe in yourself and your abilities, you see negative events as minor setbacks to be easily overcome, and positive events as evidence of further good things to come. You also take more risks and create more positive events in your life.

Reduce stress- Change the way you think

I believe in positive thinking. I believe that positive thinking helps with stresses in my life. Actually I believe in Buddha's quote: "We are what we think."

Yesterday I was searching for effective stress relievers. I found a very important study that was published in 2007, with an unexpected discovery: playing video games can reduce production of the stress-related hormone cortisol. What I found interesting in this study was that a significant part of daily stress comes from our social perceptions of the world. Where do you pay your attention in your social life? Do you play attention to positive things or negative, rejecting, attacking things?

If your attention is drawn during the day towards social threats like rejections and criticisms, you’re filtering the world such that you’re going to see it as more stressful, more threatening. Actually stressed people, who tended to pay more attention to frowning faces rather than smiling faces were more likely to have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their systems. On the other hand people who paid more attention to the smiling faces were more likely to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their systems.

The scientists ( Prof. Baldwin and his team) were looking for a way to help people train automatic habitual patterns of thought. They decided to design a game to use repetitive thought processes, to help people train positive, helpful thought processes. They created the game and tested it to groups of students and groups of telemarketers.

Their results were interesting. The group of students who played the game felt less stressed about their exam and less anxious during the exam. The group of telemarketers who played the game had 17 percent less of the stress hormone after just one week--and a 68 percent increase in sales. They also reported they had less stress and higher self-esteem.

Their conclusions were very interesting. The game trained people to pay attention to positive things rather than negative things. So do you pay attention to negative, rejecting, attacking things? The more important of their finding was that it is possible to change that fairly simply by practicing over and over again a certain pattern of thought at a very specific level.

So do you want to change your life? Change the way you think.

In our next post we'll discuss how you can change your thoughts to positive ones and how that will help you with your stress.

Stress Anxiety and Panic Attacks- What is the difference!

Stress is a cognitive and emotional process. Stress can come from any situation or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, nervous, or even anxious. What is stressful to one person is not necessarily stressful to another. There is also good (excitement) and bad stress. Too much stress may cause a range of health problems including infection, headaches, upset stomach, high blood pressure - even strokes and heart disease.

Anxiety is a feeling of apprehension, doubt or fear about whether an event will occur or the outcome of the event. The source of this uneasiness is not always known or recognized, which can add to the distress you feel. Anxiety is often accompanied by physical symptoms, including: twitching or trembling, muscle tension, headaches, sweating, dry mouth, difficulty swallowing, abdominal pain, and other symptoms like dizziness, irregular heart rate, rapid breathing, etc.

A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear (very frightening situation) that develops for no apparent reason and that triggers severe physical reactions. When panic attacks occur, you might think you are loosing control, going crazy, having a heart attack, stroke or even dying.

The vicious cycle of stress/anxiety 2

The good news with stress and anxiety vicious cycle are that you can turn around this cycle to create a positive cycle that will help you overcome stress and anxiety. This will lead to increased comfort zone, improved sense of confidence and better quality of life.

Key point 1: the way you think.
There are too many types of negative thoughts: "I am not able to beat my anxiety and I will never will", " I must avoid this situation", even worst " I am going insane", or " I have a serious disease", "I am the only person on earth with this problem" or "I am going to die". Your fears, the way you feel now, leads to unbalanced, negative thoughts. So challenge these thoughts with more balanced ones, refocuse on positive and constructive thoughts. Relabel troubling symptoms as a surge of adrenaline. You won't get crazy and you won't die.

Key point 2: the way you act and react to triggers and situations.
It is very difficult to tackle your biggest fears first. A better approach is the graded exposure to triggers. Expose your self to uncomfortable situations gradually, then work your way up to more difficult and challenging ones. Increase your comfort zone, build your confidence.

Initially you will be more anxious-which is normal. Changing the way you think and the way you react, challenging your fears, adopting new habits: these are not easy tasks. There are relievers that will help with your increased anxiety: breathing exercises, relaxing music, massage, beautiful scenery, etc.. By doing all these changes in a structured and repeated way, soon you will experience a decrease in physical symptoms.

By now you have increased your comfort zone, you have built your confidence, you have experienced a decrease in physical symptoms. You are feeling better, your copying abilities are greater, you can face triggers and situation in a more positive way.

You are feeling less stressed and anxious.

The vicious cycle of stress/anxiety

Suffering from negative emotions caused by problems in your life, home or workplace, will lead to stress and anxiety. After a prolonged period of stress and worry in your life, your body starts to experience physical symptoms like headaches, shortness of breath, dizziness, other symptoms like short temper etc.

All these stress symptoms may have a significant impact on how you behave and go about your daily life. Attitudes and behaviours towards others becomes altered by these physical ailments, which were originally caused by stress. Or you may try to avoid feeling stressed/anxious and escape from distressing experiences by paying more attention to possible signs of potential threat. If you cannot avoid the situation, you may use other methods like an exit plan for potenially-anxious situations (standing close to a door to make a quick escape for example). You may also take tranquillisers to deal with distressing situations. Or you make sure you have someone else with you.

The realisation that your behaviour towards others has altered leads to further bouts of stress or anxiety. Or when you become more dependent on avoiding methods or safety behaviours, it can be more distressing if one day they are not available to you.

These further bouts of stress/anxiety result in negative reactions, which then appear as negative emotions, which by their turn lead to more stress and anxiety and so it continues, and this cycle can go on.

The question is how can you reverse that vicious cycle, to create a positive cycle that will help you overcome stress/anxiety?

Analyse your Stress Diary

So you have decided to keep a stress diary. You have taken the commitement to making daily entries into your diary over a period of time. Once you have kept a stress diary for a number of weeks, now is the time to analyse it.

By now you have a number of entries. All these entries will give you information about stressors, causes of stress, situations that have caused stress, your reactions to stress, your feelings, stress symptoms you have experienced, other valuable information about nutrition, lifestyle, habits, etc.

How will you handle all these entries? Well... list them all.

• List the types of stress that you have experienced by frequency, with the most frequent stresses at the top of the list.

• List the most unpleasant stressors you have experienced with the most unpleasant at the top and the least at the bottom.

• List the causes of your stress.

• List also the situations that cause you stress by frequency.

• List your reactions to stressfull events. How well have you managed them?

• List your feelings.

• List all the stress symptoms you have experienced.

• List any lifestyle changes, nutrition, habits that have reacted with your stress symptoms.

Now you have all the information you need to understand the causes of your stress.
Now you may recognize your stress patterns.
Now you can understand what circumstances make stresses particularly unpleasant.
Now you know the levels of stress at which you operate most effectively.
Now you know how you react to stress, whether your reactions are appropriate and useful, and whether your strategies for handling the stresses are effective or not.
Now you may determine how you can handle your stress and how to react to your stressors.

How can you keep a stress diary

Every time you make an entry, record the following information:

- Date

- Time

- How happy you feel now.
Define on a scale of 0 to 10 how happy do you feel now (0 no happy at all & 10 your happiest period of your life) about yourself, family, friends, job, lifestyle.

- How stressed you feel now.
Another subjective assessment, on a scale of 0 to 10 ( 0 no stressed at all & 10 the most stressed period) about yourself, family, friends, job, lifestyle.

- The most resent stressful events:
1. what, when, where and how happened.
2. What factors made the event stressful.

- The symptoms of the stress felt (lightheaded, stomach, breathlessness, headache, etc.)

- How did you handle the stressful situation.

- The fundamental cause of the stress.

- The events outside your control that causes your stress.

- Which stressors are self induced.

- Other factors that make your symptoms worsening. For example special foods, coffee, alcohol, drugs, sleeping habits,changes in your lifestyle, travels etc.

For a sample of a simpler and not so detailed stress diary, you can check this link:
http://istudy.psu.edu