SIX STONES WELLNESS CENTER

Welcome

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety definition from Medical

Community

What is Anxiety really?

Recognizing signs of Anxiety.

How you can reduce symptoms.

Fear

Self-Help for Anxiety

Self Love

Build Self Esteem

Mindfulness Meditation

Eating Disorders

What you can do.

Reduce heart Risks.

Red Flags

Heart Disease Awareness

Veterans

Contact Six Stones Wellness Center

with any questions at 841-0810.

Six Stones Wellness Center is a peer centered, agency driven site to

support the needs of individuals with mental and/or emotional

challenges. Learning the impact of a health life style. What we eat,

the amount of sleep we get directly impacts how we feel.

Encouraged by peers and staff., individuals may learn health coping

skills to assist in responding in a positive manner to situations,

problems or difficulties. Appreciating what is in our life right now,

being grateful and accepting help efforts in honoring one’s journey

and lived experiences.

Six Stones Staff and Members are here to support your efforts.

Reminding participants that this site is a peer driven site geared

toward individuals 18 or older who desires wellness and recovery

Educate yourself to help reduce stigma, encourage assisting others

or support personal needs while honoring their lived experiences.

No longer allowing negativity to reflect personal wellness.

Join us for a group or activity. We hope to see you soon!

Six Stones Wellness Center Newsletter February 2020

What Is Anxiety? Anxiety Definition https://www.healthyplace.com/anxiety-panic/anxiety-information/what-is-anxiety-anxiety-definition

What is anxiety? The term anxiety refers to feelings of worry, nervousness, apprehension, or fear commonly experienced by people when faced with something they view as challenging. A test, speaking in public, performing in public, a job interview, divorce, layoff, or any number of other stress-inducing events.

Sometimes anxiety is characterized by vague, unsettling feelings of nervousness and apprehension, often with the person having no idea what he or she is anxious about.

An Anxiety Definition From the Medical Community

According to the anxiety definition in Mosby's Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Professions, anxiety is the anticipation of impending danger and dread accompanied by restlessness, tension, rapid heartbeat, and rapid breathing that may or may not be associated with a certain event or situation.

While technically accurate, this anxiety definition fails to explain that anxiety is a normal, and possibly life-saving, reaction to danger. Imagine that you're walking down the street, alone at night. A couple of the street light bulbs need replacing, causing darkness to overtake the normally well-lit area. Suddenly you hear footsteps behind you. Rapid footsteps getting closer by the second. Your heart begins to pound, your mind races with impulses about what to do, run or fight. In this case, your anxiety may save your life. Of course, the person running up behind you may be out for a late evening jog and pose no threat to you. But it's your body's fight or flight reaction to the sound of footsteps that could save your life if the runner meant you harm.

A less extreme example could involve a final exam or important project at work. As your anxiety builds around the test or project, it could cause you to work harder on the project or focus more on studying for the exam. In these and many other situations, anxiety is a good and normal thing. If you never felt anxious about doing well on your tests or having your project well received by the boss, you may not go very far in school or work. Further, if you took no heed to footsteps hurtling toward you on a lonely, dark street, you may not live to see another day, or at the very least, you may end up mugged and robbed of valuables.

What Is Anxiety, Really?

So, to understand the answer to the question, "What Is Anxiety?" you must understand that it's a normal, and beneficial, reaction to stress. Anxiety is an adaptive way to cope with the various stressors and challenges in the world. It's short-lived and doesn't have a dramatic effect on your life. However, when anxious feelings, like worry and fear, begin to interfere with daily life on a regular basis, seem unreasonable and excessive, or have no apparent association with any external stimuli or stresses, it can become an anxiety disorder and that's a whole other story.

Anxiety Symptoms: Recognizing Signs of Anxiety

https://www.healthyplace.com/anxiety-panic/anxiety-information/anxiety-symptoms-recognizing-signs-of-anxiety

Everyone knows what it feels like to experience a rush of anxiety symptoms. Your stomach twists and turns and sweat begins to bead on your forehead before getting in front of your entire management team to give a presentation. Or you begin to tremble before approaching your boss to ask for a promotion or raise. Almost everyone has felt the icy fingers of fear creeping up his or her spine when caught in a dark parking lot or street after dark.

Recognizing Signs of Anxiety

Recognizing signs of anxiety before your nervousness and other symptoms of anxiety get out of hand can help you reduce their intensity. Typically, anxiety symptoms can fit into one of two categories: physical symptoms and emotional symptoms.

Physical symptoms of anxiety include physical reactions to the stress that others could notice. Emotional anxiety symptoms would include reactions to stress or a challenging situation that people on the outside usually cannot detect.

Physical Symptoms of Anxiety: Nausea or dizziness

Frequent need to urinate

Diarrhea not caused by illness

Trembling

Headaches

Fatigue

Insomnia

Sweating

Rapid heartbeat and breathing

Muscle tension (

Emotional Anxiety Symptoms:

Feelings of dread

Difficulty concentrating

Irritability

Feeling tense and jittery

Anticipating the worst outcome

Over-alertness for signs of danger

Feelings of apprehension

Feeling as if your mind has gone blank

For some, the level of anxiety escalates to the point where they have an anxiety attack.

How Can You Reduce Anxiety Symptoms?

https://www.healthyplace.com/anxiety-panic/anxiety-information/anxiety-symptoms-recognizing-signs-of-anxiety

One way to treat anxiety is to face your worries and apprehension associated with upcoming challenges in advance to reduce anxiety symptoms. Perhaps your boss asked you to deliver a speech to a large group of prospects or executives in two weeks, or you have a doctor visit scheduled several days from now at which your doctor will order specific lab tests because of symptoms you've been having. You may not feel anxious about the event yet, so this is the perfect time to face the nervousness and fears that you know will come as the big date approaches.

Keep a worry journal. Think about an upcoming event that you know will stir up anxious feelings and negative thoughts. Write down any negative thoughts, worries, and fears that crop up as a result of thinking about the event. Include your fears about what could go wrong, worst outcomes, and physical symptoms that occur just prior to challenges that result in anxiety for you. Writing feelings and worries down is harder work than simply thinking about them. As you write them down, these negative thought patterns lose some of their power to control you.

Set aside a worry time. Look over your daily schedule and pick two 10 to 15 minute worry periods for each day. Make it the same time each day. For example, you can set aside 10 minutes each morning at 7:00 a.m. and 10 minutes each afternoon at 3:00 p.m., whatever works best for you, but keep to the same worry schedule everyday and strictly monitor the time allowed to worry. During this time, you can focus on your fears and worries without trying to "fix" them.

The rest of the day, however, must be worry free. If you feel anxious during the day, or if negative thoughts invade, record them in a notebook and put off thinking about them until your next worry period.

Accept the uncertainties of life. Worrying about all the things that could go wrong (or right, for that matter) in life doesn't make life any more predictable. Learn to enjoy the here and now, the good things going on in your life right now. Learning to accept uncertainty will help you overcome many of your anxiety symptoms.

Fear – The Root Symptom of Anxiety

Fear, a very common symptom of anxiety, dissipates and loses its power when faced head-on. The other signs of anxiety, listed above will follow suit when addressed prior to your upcoming challenges or stress-inducing event. Anxiety symptoms, although not pleasant, are normal provided they're short lived and don't overwhelm you to the point of preventing you from engaging in daily activities.

Anxiety Self-Help: Ways to Help Anxiety

https://www.healthyplace.com/anxiety-panic/anxiety-information/anxiety-symptoms-recognizing-signs-of-anxiety

Anxiety help comes in many forms including medication, therapy, alternative treatments and anxiety self-help. Self-help for anxiety is simply anything you can do to help improve your anxiety symptoms. These ways of helping your anxiety may be particularly beneficial when combined with other anxiety treatments.

Some ways to help your anxiety include:

Learning about your illness

Making anxiety-reducing lifestyle changes

Creating a support network

Anxiety Self-Help – Learning about Anxiety

Learning about any mental illness can be the first step to conquering it. This may be done through a doctor, therapist or other professional. You can also do this on your own.

Self-Help for Anxiety Includes Lifestyle Changes

While learning about anxiety is a good first step, the next step is putting what you learn into practice. Anyone's life can be unhealthy and overly demanding, but these tips can help create a lifestyle more conducive to helping calm anxiety:

Eat right and exercise – this may seem obvious but if you don't take care of your body and keep it in good shape, other anxiety self-help may not have a chance to work. Try to cut down on refined foods and unhealthy fats and instead focus on healthy fats like omega-3s. You can find these in cold watcher fish like salmon as well as flax seeds and other foods.

Use relaxation exercises – relaxation exercises focus on relieving stress and creating calm. Many find this type of anxiety self-help beneficial. Breathing exercises, mediation and yoga may all help.

Make time for yourself – often when we feel overwhelmed we forget to make time for ourselves. By making time for friends, spending time on hobbies or just getting some fresh air, overall stress can be reduced.

Don't take on more than you can handle – no one can do everything so make sure and ask for help from others when you feel you have taken on too many responsibilities.

Change your attitude – a pessimistic and bleak attitude will not help anxiety symptoms. Instead, focus on the positive and things for which you are grateful.

Using a Support Network Self-help for anxiety doesn't mean you have to go it alone. One anxiety self-help technique is building a support network of people who can help you through the rough times. Sometimes, nothing relieves anxiety better than watching a sporting event with a friend or spending the day out shoe-shopping. Having people in your life you can talk to about your health is a key way of helping anxiety. People who can become part of an anxiety support network include:

Friends

Family

Those from community organizations

Faith leaders or those from faith groups

Those in mental health support groups

Eating Disorders

While the symptoms of eating disorders revolve around eating, they are more about coping with feelings than they are about food.

If you have an eating disorder, you may believe that being thin is the key to being happy, or that if you can control what you eat, you’ll be able to control your life. But the truth is that happiness, confidence, and self-empowerment come from accepting yourself for who you truly are and that’s only possible with recovery.

Overcoming an eating disorder involves rediscovering who you are beyond your eating habits, weight and body image.

Helping Someone with an Eating Disorder

Advice for Parents, Family Members, and Friends

What you can do: 1. Learn about eating disorders 2. Watch for warning signs 3. Speak up if you're worried 4. Be patient and supportive, yet honest 5. Set a positive example 6. Encourage treatment 7. Take care of yourself

What do I need to know about my loved one's eating disorder?

Eating disorders involve extreme disturbances in eating behaviors following rigid diets, bingeing on food in secret, throwing up after meals, obsessively counting calories. But eating disorders are more complicated than just unhealthy dietary habits. At their core, eating disorders involve distorted, self-critical attitudes about weight, food, and body image. It’s these negative thoughts and feelings that fuel the damaging behaviors.

People with eating disorders use food to deal with uncomfortable or painful emotions. Restricting food is used to feel in control. Overeating temporarily soothes sadness, anger, or loneliness. Purging is used to combat feelings of helplessness and self-loathing. Over time, people with eating disorders lose the ability to see themselves objectively and obsessions over food and weight come to dominate everything else in life.

Helpguide.org

Who should use the Lifeline Crisis Chat program?

Anyone who is depressed, despairing, going through a hard time, or just needs to talk, including people who are thinking about suicide.

Any life issues may be discussed on the Chat program. The chat specialists are there to listen and support you through whatever difficult times you may

be facing.

1-800-273-8255

Types of eating disorders

The most common eating disorders are anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder.

Anorexia – People with anorexia starve themselves out of an intense fear of becoming fat. Despite being underweight, they never believe they’re thin enough. In addition to restricting calories, people with anorexia may also control their weight with exercise, diet pills, or purging.

Bulimia – Bulimia involves a destructive cycle of bingeing and purging. Following an episode of out-of-control binge eating, people with bulimia take drastic steps to purge themselves of the extra calories. In order to avoid weight gain they vomit, exercise, fast, or take laxatives.

Binge Eating Disorder – People with binge eating disorder compulsively overeat, rapidly consuming thousands of calories in a short period of time. Despite feelings of guilt and shame over these secret binges, they feel unable to control their behavior.

SUICIDEPREVENTIONLIFELINE.ORG

Seek professional help if you need it.

Despite your best efforts, you may find yourself feeling persistently sad or anxious, plagued by physical complaints, unable to sleep, irritable and hopeless, and unable to

face routine chores. If these feelings last for a while, talk to your doctor or a mental health

professional. You are worth it!

Myth: Eating disorders aren’t really that dangerous. Fact: Eating disorders are serious conditions that cause both physical and

emotional damage. All eating disorders can lead to irreversible and even

life-threatening health problems, such as heart disease, bone loss, stunted

growth, infertility, and kidney damage

Many people worry about their weight, what they eat, and how they look

and may face extra pressure to fit in. Individuals with eating disorders

will often go to great lengths to hide the problem.

Worried about a loved one? Speak out!

If you notice the warning signs of an eating disorder in a friend or family member, it’s important to

speak up. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The very idea can seem overwhelming. You may be afraid that you’re mistaken, or that you’ll say the wrong thing, or you might alienate the person.

However, it’s important that you don’t let these worries stop you from voicing your concerns.

People with eating disorders are often afraid to ask for help. Some are struggling just as much as

you are to find a way to start a conversation about their problem, while others have such low self-esteem they simply don’t feel that they deserve any help. Whatever the case, eating disorders will only get worse without treatment, and the physical and emotional damage can be severe. The

sooner you start to help a loved one, the better their chances of recovery. Encourage reaching out

to a professional.

https://www.helpguide.org

Red flag feelings and behaviors that may require immediate attention

Inability to sleep

Feeling down, hopeless, or helpless most of the time

Concentration problems that interfere with work or home life

Using nicotine, food, drugs, or alcohol to cope with difficult emotions

Negative or self-destructive thoughts or fears that you can't control

Thoughts of death or suicide If you identify with any of these red flag symptoms, make an appointment with a mental health professional.

Don’t wait to get help if you experience any heart attack warning

signs.

Although some heart attacks are sudden and

intense, most start slowly, with mild pain or

discomfort.

Pay attention to your body and call 911 if you

have any concerns.

South County

Peer Support Group

At South County BHS Office

909 Ream Avenue in Mt. Shasta, CA

on Friday at 9:30 am to 11:30 am

Join us for

Veterans Coffee &

Services on February 14

at 10:00 am

No matter when, where, or how you served, or what you’ve experienced in military or civilian life, you may be facing challenges that affect your health, relationships, and life. Whether your military role ended two decades ago or two days ago, you share with Veterans everywhere the common bonds of duty, honor, and service to our nation.

Every day, Veterans connect with resources and support to manage and confront the issues they may have and find solutions for improving their lives.

http://maketheconnection.net

Veterans' Services

Office Hours: 8:00am - noon, 1:00 - 5:00pm, Monday - Thursday

Address: 105 East Oberlin Road, Yreka.

Phone: 530-842-8010

Fax: 530-841-4314

Department Head: Victor Magdangal, CVSO

The Veterans Affairs VA Outpatient Clinic Yreka is located at 101 E. Oberlin Drive,. The clinic is open

from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday.

To contact the Clinic, call (530) 841-8500.

Contact Us

Give us a call for more

information about our program.

Northern Valley Catholic

Social Service

Six Stones Wellness Center

1501 South Main Street

Yreka, CA 96097

(530) 841-0810

Hours: 10 am to 3 pm, M-F

Where and when are Commodities

given out?

Canned, fresh and frozen foods are distributed

at 22 sites throughout Siskiyou County every

other month to residents where their nearest site

is located.

Call 530-938-4115 ext.134 for a recorded list of

all sites and dates for the upcoming month.

Dates are determined a year in advance by the

Federal government.

Cal-Fresh

Snap-Ed stands for Supplemental Nutrition

Assistance Program Education. This pro-

gram focuses on bettering the lives of others

through nutrition and physical educa-

tion. SNAP-Ed is a program of NVCSS and is

coming to Six Stones Wellness Center.

Come join us! We will share nutrition

information & activities while promoting a

healthy life style.

Six Stones Wellness Center is a program of Northern Valley Catholic Social Service.

Program is funded by Siskiyou County Health and Human Services Department with

Mental Health Services Act Funds, Prop 63.