Shame and guilt are two feelings that aren’t uncommon if you’re going through anxiety. If you’re a guy, you know very well that letting go of your feelings and expressing extremely negative emotions sometimes isn’t the best action to take. Anxiety in men is no different from anxiety in women, as it takes a dark toll on the mental state, emotions, and overall sense of motivation in both genders. As a stressed out college student, I’ve had my fair share of these types of feelings as I’m always trying to keep up with school, sleep, and still having somewhat of a social life. Some people can easily succumb to the effect that anxiety can bring, and who can blame them? When you’re trapped in that kind of mindset, it’s really hard to break that cycle of not feeling like you can conquer your goals and get on with day.

What I’ve found to best help my anxiety is practicing meditation and yoga in the morning. Yoga for men is actually pretty popular these days as it can release pent up tension, stress, and stiff muscles from all the work coming at them throughout the day. Let’s break down how it can help with the shame anxiety can cause and the best ways to recognize when an anxiety attack could strike.

Anxiety Symptoms in Men

Symptoms of anxiety in men can be both subtle and obvious to someone who’s not experiencing the stomach churning feelings they are going through. For lots of men I know, the upset of anxiety can be highly unsettling, but usually it’s not enough to make them take action to get rid of it. This is a damaging mistake, as chronic anxiety won’t just disappear if it’s set on the back burner of your mind.

If any symptoms of anxiety are starting to creep on your life, be sure to look for your urge to initially tough it out in an effort to avoid being seen as “weak”. You will want to make sure that if you need help, you seek it. Anxiety is a natural emotion, and everyone goes through it from time to time when something negative happens. The worst thing to do when you feel it is to subdue it or hide it from your family and friends. Having a strong social support system is key to communicating your struggles and just having a shoulder lean on. Anxiety disorders are also treatable if you seek the resources to deal with it effectively, so if you’re suffering from intense symptoms I would advise you to find a professional to talk to as soon as possible.

Besides ignoring the initial signs of anxiety, men can also be prone to turning to drugs and alcohol to cover the shame and guilt they are feeling. Anxiety disorders and substance abuse go hand in hand as they create synergy in a highly negative cycle. In fact, approximately one-fifth of all people who suffer from an anxiety disorder also have a co-occurring drug or alcohol addiction to deal with. Men make up a large portion of this group and can find it tempting to turn it its effects to escape from their dark reality.

Confronting Your Anxiety

My first tip for dealing with your stress, especially for helping anxiety in men, is to first adopt a healthy and wholesome diet. Most people don’t realize that eating the wrong foods on a daily basis plays a huge role in your mental and physical health. Foods high in fat, sugar, and simple carbs are not the best way to decrease anxiety and boost energy levels. What you do want to do though is eat fresh fruits, veggies, and a diet high in protein to keep your mind clear throughout the day. Make sure to take your vitamins as well and drink plenty of water during the morning and night as well to keep yourself nourished!

Another way to combat anxiety is to develop a regular habit in the exercise you enjoy the most. This doesn’t mean you have to blast through five miles of running every day or lift two hundred pounds. As long as you get your heart rate up for at least half an hour to an hour a day, you’ll reap the benefits and positive hormones that exercise can release. Studies show that patients who struggled with symptoms of depression and anxiety showed significant
improvement when they paired a healthy diet with ample and consistent exercise. Exercise effectively shifts your focus away from your sessions of anxiety and helps you literally sweat out your sweat. My go-to exercise is doing yoga, especially during the morning and evening. Yoga for men includes lots of movements to build strength and widen flexibility over time. If you supplement your regular exercise routine with yoga classes, you’ll also be able to activate sections of muscle that are sometimes neglected. Most yoga classes also begin with a basic reminder to treat your body right and acknowledge its limits. Being in touch with your body helps you practice reducing anxiety overall and the risk of injury when you’re doing other exercises. Additionally, muscles that are well stretched recover faster and keep you strong!

Final Thoughts

Don’t let anxiety and stress take over your life. Take action and confront your fears. If any of your anxiety symptoms have dimmed your sense of happiness and life, certainly don’t give up. Take proactive measures to get the type of treatment you need from a professional before waiting too long. I know that I definitely regretted waiting weeks on end by trying to solve issues with my own anxiety alone. Trust me, it’s much harder to find the answers and do things right when no one else is holding you accountable. You’ll see that acting sooner and later will reap all the great benefits!

Every day we’re exposed to thousands of images and standards of beauty from the media. Facebook videos, Instagram ads, magazine spreads, and television clips are all projecting different brands that show off men and women with toned and lean physiques. While we may turn a blind eye and think that these images won’t affect us, they are rotating through our mind when we’re not aware and can stimulate negative body image. With that pressure comes the urge to look great and lose weight fast, and many who feel necessary turn to dangerous diet pills that are sometimes even FDA banned to burn off fat.

It’s important to know why these pills are so dangerous to the body and what the healthier ways are to lose weight. While the process to get a leaner body isn’t a magic fix like these brands promise, with enough consistency and effort you can get the physique of your dreams! Make sure to learn the wholesome ways to teach your body healthy habits so you can build a stronger self both mentally and physically.

Avoid An Eating Disorder

You might think that stopping all your daily meals will help contribute to losing weight, but the opposite is true. Doing that will only shut your metabolism down over time and leave you feeling incredibly tired, cranky, and disheartened from becoming healthier. In general, try to avoid any types of behaviors or attitudes that focus too much on your weight loss, dieting, and controlling of food out of proportion. If you’re spending hours every day counting your calories down to each number, you might be expending too much concentration rather than focusing on getting enough exercise and eating whole foods. However, counting certain aspects of nutrition like macronutrients is a great idea (ie. your daily volume of carbohydrates, fats, and protein) as you’re looking at your daily eating habits in the bigger picture. The worst thing to do is to completely refuse to eat certain foods that make you weak. We all have that amazing food item we crave from time to time like chocolate, pizza, ice cream, fried chicken, you name it. Mine personally is Oreos and it’s sometimes incredibly hard to not have it as a treat! The key is to enjoy it in moderation and not fall into an abstinence and binge cycle with those unhealthier foods.

If you feel that you are experiencing an urge to control your eating too much, it’s important to know that there’s many misconceptions about going about them. Studies within nutrition have recently shown that genetics account for up to 80% of the chance for developing eating disorders. Such disorders can drastically affect your brain and if left untreated can damage your bones, reproductive health, skin, and other organs for life. Regardless of background, men and women of all types of backgrounds can suffer from eating disorders and even seek out banned weight loss pills to cope. That vicious cycle of under eating and taking pills with a strong substance doesn’t treat the body well at all.

Pill Precaution

Supplements are awesome to take as part of your weight loss, especially when paired with proper diet and exercise. Creatine, protein powder, and amino acids are all popular choices that help fuel your muscles before and after a workout. These give them the proper endurance to work out properly, maintain your building lean muscle, and burn fat in a healthy way by  boosting your metabolism naturally. The wrong supplements to take are FDA banned diet pills that some people may say works like a charm. Whoever they are, they’re telling a flat out lie as relying on a strong drug to lose weight never works well. Fad diets that include taking diet pills everyday usually cut your calories too low and can decrease your ability to use energy to fuel your body. Some of the fad diet dangers associated with under-eating for a long period of time include having trouble sleeping, problems with infertility, consistent acne, increases in body fat, reduced strength and even mental disorders like depression. It’s best to stay away from this alternative, even if you are just looking to drop a couple pounds.

Healthy Alternatives

There’s no reason to revert to a fad diet, under eating, or using dangerous diet pills to get the body you’ve always wanted. Being proactive about your options is the best way to go when you want to lose weight or build more muscle. It will take a lot of time and consistent effort to get the results you want, but you’ll feel so much better about working hard toward your goal. Be wary of what the media tells you as brands can build a facade of what works, or promote images of models who are otherwise pretty touched up and Photoshopped before being published mainstream. The unrealistic body image that’s widely shared within the media seriously distorts our reality and allows thousands of people to believe they’re abnormally over weight. Shoot for health instead of a measurement, and you’ll so much more happy being a better version of yourself!

Physical Symptoms of Alcoholism in Our Life

Our world today praises the idea of sipping on drinks day in and day out. From alcohol being offered in nearly every store and served at every popular function to being encouraged by the mass media, it’s hard not to give into the dialogue to drink alcohol whenever possible.

No matter what their reasoning is, most people don’t view alcohol consumption as a huge threat. Yet, drinking it too often each week could spark various physical alcohol symptoms that are difficult to manage in the short and long-term.

A healthy person attending college or a highly experienced in the professional workforce isn’t immune from this social pressure either, as happy hours, daily specials, and weekly bar crawls encourage that there’s no harm in alcohol at all. The mantra is that drinking a few shots, margaritas, or beers can make us appear sociable, relaxed, and even more attractive to others especially.

With that belief in mind, one study focusing on college students found that almost sixty percent of all of them drank alcohol heavily in the past month while almost two thirds of that group engaged in binge drinking during that same time.

That’s a huge statistic that can’t be ignored, and it’s not unusual to know someone who has struggled with the post effects of a drunk night out. Stumbling home alone, ending up with a stranger, or losing something important is the typical story that is passed along from friend to friend when alcohol is involved.  While you can be naive and believe that being more responsible will be enough, the truth is that we can still get tempted often.

To prevent harmful damage, we all must be completely educated about alcohol’s effects and seek treatment if any addiction is present.

Signs of Alcoholism

Drinking a lot brings on many physical symptoms of alcoholism in the short and long-term.   Someone could experience subtle to intense drowsiness, slurred speech, and painful headaches when they drink for a few hours.

If they continue, uncomfortable vomiting, blacking out, and impaired motor skills take over and lead to dangerous decisions. Drinking frequently also increases a person’s short and long-term risk of health consequences from doing something regrettable like participating in drunk  driving, falling victim to sexual harassment, and other mishaps and experiences. What’s more, a person who keeps up this level of drinking can eventually develop a tolerance to get the same effect from before. This means that what used to be a few drinks to get drunk can turn into five to ten drinks in one night as the body gets more used to consuming the substance over time.

Besides severe short-term symptoms, they may also develop memory loss or experience a loss in concentration on tasks throughout the day. They could also develop anxiety and depression, increase risk of cancer in the colon, liver, throat, breast, etc., high blood pressure, and a damaged digestive system. There’s also a striking statistic that the number of people in three years who developed heart failure, heart attack, or a condition of irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, were three times more likely in their risk if they drank a lot of alcohol in the past. It’s in your best interest to steer clear of binge drinking habits!

Stress and Its Causes of Alcoholism

Feeling discomfort and daily stress from your social life, work, and family background can unknowingly contribute to developing alcoholism. Thousands of employees in the workforce can’t sufficiently deal with the extremely high stress that they have to face to combat the high expectations in their profession.

Tight deadlines, a nasty boss, and fear of failure can cause a person to seek outside relief whether it’s healthy for them or not. People who fall into the wealthy population can also fall victim as they find a thrill from a boring lifestyle or seek other ways to spend money.

Since people born into wealthier backgrounds can ultimately experience unwarranted financial freedom, it’s easy to fall into a cycle of purchasing drinks to feel superior, fit in, or network more often with others at the bars.

Most of society doesn’t realize that when having money is a given with your family’s name, it can be hard to discover your personal mark and create genuine friendships who don’t only value your latest gear. Combining all these factors can lead to incredibly low self-esteem, constant boredom, and even loneliness which light the fire of substance abuse and physical symptoms of alcoholism.

PTSD, Depression and Alcoholism

Having a mental disorder plays a huge role as to whether alcohol abuse may develop or not. People who are young kids, teenagers, and even young adults who are not yet completely developed may be at a much higher risk for developing alcohol abuse symptoms and co-occurring mental disorders later in life.

Their own individual personality and genetics are also key factors when help isn’t introduced quickly enough by a professional.

At the end of the day, alcohol addiction is a long-term problem that not everyone may want to discuss with their loved ones, let alone a stranger.

Finding an alcohol rehab center in Florida or taking a simple alcohol assessment can be helpful.

Moving Forward

If you notice that you’ve been struggling with physical or mental symptoms of alcohol abuse and desire to rewrite the path of your future health, there’s no time to waste by behaving naively and ignoring the risks.

It will help so much more for your overall success to see an educated expert who can create an action plan catered to work around your schedule and hobbies. By taking an alcohol assessment, you can also become more reflective of how your current attitude towards alcohol is like and encourage you to think more about the current state of your being.

There’s no need to worry about what others may think about your new decision to stay sober. Instead, focus your time and energy on the positive future you can gain. Put the work in now for a new you!

Staying Sober After Detox and Preventing Relapse

Even after completing a sobriety program, the act of relapsing can still take the lives of people all over the world.  An addiction is classified as a chronic brain disease, which attacks stress management, overall mental health, physical behavior, and spirituality, and is characterized by an individual’s inability to control substance abuse. In fact, according to recent studies by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the likeliness for relapse with addiction matches the rates of other chronic diseases like asthma, hypertension, and type I diabetes at around 40 and 60 percent. That’s a huge amount, so it is pertinent that those who have succesfully detoxed and/or graduated from a rehabilitation program are armed with the tools they need to strengthen their relapse prevention coping skills, and therefore decrease the likelihood of relapsing.

How Does Relapsing Happen?

Staying sober after detox for a former addict can be incredibly hard, and is often considered as a common aspect of the disease of addiction. This indicates that developing strong techniques to avoid relapsing or being exposed to triggers is important.

When a person experiences a long-term addiction to mind-altering substances, be it alcohol or another type of drug, the process in which their brain functions is indefinitely disrupted by the repeated alcohol or drug abuse. The pathways that decide how a person feels pleasure or happiness towards rewards, manages impulse control, controls memory, and establishes decision-making are all shifted through frequent substance abuse.

As a result, the body starts to build a dependency that can negatively lead someone’s mental health down a dark path.

When a person checks into rehabilitation and undergoes a drug detox, they are trying to reteach their body how to build those pathways without the use of substances. A mental health and addiction treatment program may also try to teach the individual better stress management techniques, as well as guidelines for avoiding a relapse once they check out of the treatment center.

Unfortunately, even after the physical dependence is treated, people may still have a strong psychological dependence. Even with a strong aftercare program, some people may still relapse. This can be dangerous as there are many cases of people overdosing on a substance the first time they relapse. Thy overestimate their tolerance, and consume more drugs than their body can handle.

Common Relapse Triggers

As someone going through recovery, the strongest technique for preventing relapse is to identify your personal relapse triggers and create a step by step plan on how to manage them. While some common relapse triggers are obvious, others fall in a grey area that makes staying sober after detox tough for a beginner.

Often, relapse triggers are broken into the categories of affecting the emotional, mental, or environmental aspect of a person’s life.  

If recovery is your top priority, make sure you avoid becoming too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired during your daily activities. The acronym HALT is used to describe the most common high-risk situations for people going through recovery. HALT can be helped by planning meals, sticking to a strict sleep schedule, and aiming to have better stress management techniques.

Another common root of the problem of relapse is also a reluctance to reach out to others for support or accessing different interests outside of engaging in addictive substances. The more a person becomes socially isolated, the easier it is to rationalize drug or alcohol by themselves after they are influenced by their peer’s values. Social anxiety can also be an imminent struggle for many recovering addicts as they aim to become sober after detox. To help with this feeling, having a supportive group can help, such as joining a local sports team, art class, or any other group in the community who can encourage activities that truly wholesome and rewarding (and drug-free).

Lastly, one of the most damaging triggers is voluntarily putting oneself in social situations where drugs and alcohol are widely available. In order to build stronger relapse prevention and coping skills, sit down with someone and make a list of the people, locations, or activities that draw back memories of the old lifestyle that included frequent substance abuse. Then, make a plan of action for strictly avoiding these triggers. Some triggers may be less obvious, such as specific sounds, scents, or visuals that could trigger cravings in yourself.  

Final Thoughts

Having a relapse after you became clean is difficult to accept, but it’s not the end of the world. A relapse after completing treatment does not mean that treatment has totally failed. Seek expert resources that provide customized care and supportive insight for preventing triggers in the future. When a relapse occurs, steps should be taken to reduce the severity and duration of the relapse episode. Make sure you lay out the thought process you experience during a relapse to better realize how to stay substance free.  

If you consider yourself a patient who is struggling to overcome your addiction, consider the holistic therapy approach as well for a more effective recovery. While it may sound complicated, there’s many methods that are simple to try to practice holistic therapy and help you recognize triggers. One tip is setting time throughout the day to exercise mindfulness by taking a few minutes every day to meditate on the present moment.

Because we are constantly infiltrated by technology throughout the day, taking a short break from social media or our smartphones can help fill our mind with ease and force us to address our psychological health. Another method for mindfulness is by doing yoga and meditation, as it combines the body and mind to focus during the strength and flexibility exercise.

In combination with preventing relapse episodes, your mental and physical health can become stronger with the help of a rehab expert. Finding support that understands the importance of catering to each person’s needs is crucial. Put the work in for your future and you won’t regret the results!

There are many reasons people find themselves with alcohol in their system. Sometimes it’s at a party where everyone is having a fun time and being social. Other times it might be a relaxing night in and a way to unwind. Whatever the reason may be, many situations where alcohol is present can seem harmless to most. However, sometimes these situations can lead to an over consumption of alcohol which is described by the term binge drinking. Heavy consumption of alcohol on a consistent basis can take a toll on your body, this toll can lead to some serious short term and long term consequences. Once an addiction has started it can be hard to pull away from it, make sure if you know someone heading down this road that you get them the effective alcohol treatment they need.

Short term consequences of binge drinking

Even when people decide to binge drink for one night, there can still be short term consequences to their actions. The worst of these, of course, being that the drinking causes a fatality. This could range from having too much alcohol present in your system, or that a drunk driving accident is caused by being way too intoxicated. Or irrational decisions being made while feeling fearless under the influence of alcohol. The statistics below indicate how large of a problem alcohol is across the United States.

• Every year at least 10,000 people die in drunk driving incidents.
• Acute alcohol poisoning kills over 1,000 people each year.
• In one year 18,146 people died of alcoholic liver disease
• In one year there were 29,001 alcohol-induced deaths (excluding accidents and homicides)

These figures are the cold hard facts behind binge drinking and the serious effects it can have on your body and your life. Not only this, but the consequences of binge drinking can affect innocent people who do not deserve to be drawn into such situations. The main example being drunk driving accidents which have killed people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are many reasons why people may feel they need to binge drink. Although whatever someone’s personal reasons may be, when you look at the statistics and the amount of deaths from alcohol, it is clearly not worth the risk. If you think you know someone who could benefit from an individualized addiction treatment method, do not be embarrassed to reach out to treatment facilities to try and find the care and attention your loved one deserves. Alcohol addiction only grows if it is not treated correctly and even if the short term consequences do not kill someone, the long term consequences most definitely can.

Long term consequences of binge drinking

Not only can binge drinking have some serious effects during and right after, it can have prolonged serious effects on your body and mind. Even though it is a widely accepted substance, alcohol is still a drug in its own right. It is highly addictive and once someone develops a habit of heavy alcohol consumption it can be very hard for them to function without it. Not drinking can throw addicts into violent mood swings and give them serious withdrawals. If this is the case, then they have definitely reached a stage where the addiction has manifested itself into the person’s daily routine. Some fatal long term consequences range from liver disease, neurological damage, a higher risk of stroke, high blood pressure, depression and there is a chance of developing cancer. Once you weigh up all these different factors, it becomes evidently clear that whatever your situation may be, using drinking as a coping method is not a smart choice.

Strategies to combat binge drinking

There are many different ways for someone to overcome their alcohol addiction. Some of these options can be way more suited to one type of individual than another. Whichever method someone decides to use the end goal is always the same. Some people feel like enlisting the help of family and friends is a good starting point. This is a way to be held accountable for their actions and a way to feel supported throughout their journey to sobriety. Another method may be picking up a hobby that they are interested in in order to spend more of their time doing something they love. This also goes very well with increasing the amount they exercise as that can lead to higher self-esteem and less negative thoughts. There are also a few holistic recovery program choices if they feel they need further guidance and help along the way. Alcohol is a more dangerous substance than a lot of people think and the road to recovery can be a grueling one. So act now before it is too late!

On a college campus, it is a well-known fact that drugs are readily available in this day and age. If a student wants to get his hands on any type of drugs, there are ways he can do so. Drug use among college students may happen for a number of reasons. There is a lot of pressure that comes with having to perform well on exams. Some students will eventually break under this pressure and look for an outlet to ease their anxiety. One of these outlets could be common street drugs, it would allow them to escape the reality they are in and give them a short term sense of freedom. Free from their obligations and worries. Another reason may be because they want to fit into a certain social group and are being pressured to do so. Drugs are an addictive substance; after someone uses them once, it may be too late to turn back. Having a drug addiction is dangerous as it can damage many vital organs in your body and impair brain functions. Abusing drugs can be a life threatening issue and therefore should be taken seriously. If you believe a loved one or friend is having drug problems but doesn’t want to tell you, there are a few ways to find out for yourself.

What are some of the signs of drug abuse?

There are some clear indicators that can surface if someone has started to abuse drugs in college. One of the most common indicators is having irregular eating habits or infrequent sleep patterns. Once an addiction becomes a daily habit, it can take over someone’s life. This means that they lose sight of other important things throughout the day. Their addiction becomes more important than anything else and therefore could miss meals because of it and can lose sleep most days due to what their addiction has done to them. Another sign is if they are continuously asking to borrow money. Drugs are not a cheap commodity and therefore users need to acquire the money for them somewhere. If they are refusing to tell you where the money is being spent there is a good chance it isn’t being put to good use. Finally, the most obvious sign is if you have found drugs hidden from the public. This means they don’t want people to see what they are up to and may even be embarrassed by their addiction. Drug addicts will try to mask their addiction to the best of their ability so picking up on some of the signs can always be tough. If you are struggling to find some of the signs but are still worried it may be worth learning some of street names for these illegal drugs.

Common street drug names

There are surprising amounts of ways to refer to different street drugs, and therefore, if you aren’t up to date with the modern slang it can be tough to detect what a young adult is talking about. For example, cocaine can be referred to as Blow, C, Coke, Nose, Snow, White, Freeze, Powder, Base, Yayo, 8 Ball, White Girl/White Lady, Key, Crack, Piff, Baking Soda, Sugar, Chalk, Flake, Nose Candy, Base-balling. Heroin is another drug with a lot of slang terms, it can be described as H, Smack, Tar, Junk, Brown Sugar, Skag, Mud, Dope, White Horse, Black Pearl, Black Eagle, Black Tar, Black Pearl, Brown Crystal, Black Tape, Brown Rhine, Dirt, Chinese Red, Chinese White, Smack, Chasing the Dragon. This is a crazy amount of slang names for just two types of drugs. Yayo and cocaine have no resemblance whatsoever so how are you meant to know that they are the same thing. Even after attending college for four years I did not know most of these terms. The best way to educate yourself is to get familiarized with a list of illegal drugs and street names. This is why drug use is so hard to detect as it’s not a simple thing to pick up on. However the more knowledgeable you become about the different types of names and the different signs an addict shows, the more chance you have on picking up on someone’s addiction.

The college weekend

At college the weekend is a time to unwind for many students. No classes to worry about so many students want to enjoy themselves as much as possible. Enjoying the weekend can mean many different things, some students just want to get blacked out and forget about all their responsibilities, others may just want to relax and watch a movie, and there are some students who will take this time to use drugs putting themselves in danger. The college weekend is a dangerous time as there is no telling what a college student may get up to. It can also be the starting point of many additions as a few days a week can slowly become every day of the week. This means picking up on drug abuse early is a key to stopping someone acquiring life damaging habits. Getting in touch with a drug and alcohol rehab center is never a bad idea if you feel a loved one or a friend needs help.