Natural remedies for anxiety

As I have mentioned in a previous post I have anxiety and specifically social anxiety disorder.
When you are having an anxiety attack your heart beats faster, breathing is shallow and you enter a state of panic unable to relax. However there are a number of natural remedies that you can take that will help with calming you down:

• Tea

It is a well established British tradition that in times of worry or panic somebody will offer to make a cup of tea yet as caffeine is seen as being a stimulant for anxiety you should stay away from black tea and rather choose a green tea or herbal variety.



Passion flower, lemon balm and chamomile teas are all considered to be good for anxiety because of their calming, sedative properties. However these sedative herbs should not be taken for more than a period of a month and you are advised not to ingest any of these herbs if you are taking any sedative medication. 

I haven't been able to find any passion flower tea yet despite my hunt of health food shops

• Eat Breakfast

 I'm sure that you all know by now that breakfast in the most important meal of the day as it kick starts your metabolism. Yet Dr Ramsey of health.com is of the opinion that many people who suffer from anxiety skip breakfast! Try eating eggs for breakfast which contain large amounts of choline (important in the synthesis and transport of lipids in the body) studies suggest that people whose diet is low in choline have increased anxiety. Peanut butter is also apparently a good source of choline so there! Having peanut butter on toast for breakfast is good for me!

• Lavender

The calming aroma of lavender does a lot more than making your sock drawer smell nice! Studies have proved that lavender oil and scent is very calming so having a spare Lavender candle handy and lighting it when you are feeling anxious can work wonders.



Other herb remedies include liquorice root, valerian and the odd and rather sinister sounding Skullcap and Mother wort.

Hibiscus tea and poppy seed shortbread

Shortbread is super simple and tasty biscuit to make and its a great recipe to make with kids of any age - yes even I can just about manage this one.

Hibiscus tea has a huge variety of health benefits, not least that it helps lower lower blood pressure and stops you from having nose bleeds (which led me to discovering this tea in the first place.) to find out more about the health benefits of Hibiscus tea click here 
I buy my hibiscus tea tea here 

I used the simple BBC recipe of:

125g butter

55g sugar

180g flour

Additional ingredients that I used are:          2-3 tbsp of hibiscus loose leaf tea

     25g poppy seeds

When I first decided to make tea infused baked goods I wondered how I was even going to do so without the mixture being very runny; the key I have found is to make a tea infused butter. This should normally be made a few hours before you make your shortbread or even the night before.

The shortbread recipe requires 125g butter yet for the infusion stage I would advise that you use a little extra. Therefore I added 150g of butter to a pan and melted it. As the melted butter comes to the boil remove from the heat and add 2-3 tbsp of hibiscus tea depending on how strong you want the flavours to be.  Leave to steep for about fives minutes and then strain the tea. Use a spoon to make sure that you get as much of the butter out of the tea leaves.

Once cooled move the butter into a small container and put it into the fridge to set.

yay the infused butter set- or as my dad likes to refer to it: a culture with bacteria

Place the sugar and flour in a bowl and rub in the butter much like you would do with a crumb;e/ However unlike a crumble the crumb doesn't need to be that fine you just want to make sure that the butter is evenly mixed in.

At this stage add the poppy seeds and bring the mixture together to form a smooth dough. You shouldn't need any liquid to do this but a dash of water or indeed hibiscus tea may be required if your mixture is very dry.

As with most biscuit doughs, shortbread works best if it is left to rest therefore put your dough in a freezer bag or wrap it up in some cling film and place in the fridge for half an hour.

Now would be a good time to preheat your oven to 190 degrees c and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

After it has rested a while take out your dough and using plenty of flour to dust the work surface and rolling pin roll out your dough to about a 2cm thickness. I cut mine out into rounds but you can use whatever shape that you like or stick to the traditional shapes such as fingers.

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden depending on the size and thickness of your biscuits. Leave to cool completely before removing from the sheet of greaseproof paper and demolishing your biscuits with a cup of (hibiscus) tea.