Hi everyone, i’m a 1st year college student in NYC. I’ve been anxious and stressed all week, sleeping like shit, tired, and as a result not having a great 1st week. Luckily classes don’t start for 2 days. I know i’ll have a massive workload with my nutrition major and pre-med req’s.
I also am at this time dieting since this takes the stress away from eating large amounts of food all day. I train reverse pyramid style 3x a week, just to maintain my muscle. However i am struggling to lift the usual weights, i feel shaky, anxious, and fatigued neurally more so than physically. I am looking for some supplement strategies to combat this.
Currently taking → ALCAR 1-2g a day, Rhodiola, L-theanine, Bacopa.
[quote]lzqosoz94 wrote:
Hi everyone, i’m a 1st year college student in NYC. I’ve been anxious and stressed all week, sleeping like shit, tired, and as a result not having a great 1st week. Luckily classes don’t start for 2 days. I know i’ll have a massive workload with my nutrition major and pre-med req’s. I also am at this time dieting since this takes the stress away from eating large amounts of food all day. I train reverse pyramid style 3x a week, just to maintain my muscle. However i am struggling to lift the usual weights, i feel shaky, anxious, and fatigued neurally more so than physically. I am looking for some supplement strategies to combat this.
Currently taking → ALCAR 1-2g a day, Rhodiola, L-theanine, Bacopa.[/quote]
You’re dieting and introducing a major life change, these are both sources of stress to your body. It may be smarter to focus on maintenance while getting into the swing of things with school. Work on quality food sources.
Should you be successfull in the pre-med route, life will eventually be a lot more stressfull. Learning to mentally manage stress will be a lot more beneficial then trying to find some magic supplement (that doesn’t exist) to take away the stress.
I’m in agreement with the above. I realize that long sterm stress relief will be through a mindset change and introspection, i’m of course looking for a short term solution at the moment. Believe it or not i didn’t really consider moving to a maintenance calorie plan for the time being, i’ll strongly consider it.
If you have a bathtub (if you’re in an apt), and you can deal with whatever grief roommates might give you, a hot bath – where you’re genuinely sweating – might help ease the stress. You can add 2 cups epsom salt, 1 cup baking soda and a few drops of lavender oil. Skip the lavender if you don’t want to smell like flowers, but it does help ease stress.
B-complex but make sure it is the full spectrum and especially includes inositol
Magnesium
Fish oil
Nothing exotic but definitely effective. Google search each with “stress” and read up. Magnesium in my experience is great at night on an empty stomach for sleep.
200mg in the morning, 200mg in the afternoon, and if i’m going out to a party i’ll take an extra 200mg. I don’t normally dose this heavily, usually just 200mg in the morning or before a presentation.
I don’t want to sound alarmist here, but if you genuinely need supplements in order to manage your own stress/anxiety levels, it might do you some good to work with a psychologist/therapist and then, based on that, a psychiatrist.
Very likely the university has some sort of “counseling” service, which they offer for free and it’s entirely anonymous with your privacy protected. The kind of anxiety you’re describing might benefit from some time spent with a therapist.
If you’ve never been down that path, it’s not as scary as it sounds. They’re there to help, whether it be “I’m having trouble managing the partying and the schoolwork, and I don’t want to let anyone down” to “my girlfriend just left me, and I’ve got this huge exam coming up, and I’m having trouble thinking straight” to more serious issues. Basically, you don’t have to be ‘crazy’ to get something out of it.
I just wanted to let you know that option is out there.
I find fish oil helpful with anxiety. It could be the placebo effect, who knows. I just notice that when I’m taking it, I seem to feel better in general.
[quote]CargoCapable wrote:
B-complex but make sure it is the full spectrum and especially includes inositol
Magnesium
Fish oil
Nothing exotic but definitely effective. Google search each with “stress” and read up. Magnesium in my experience is great at night on an empty stomach for sleep.[/quote]
I spent three years in the natural supps industry and very much agree with this post.
Magnesium is commonly deficient in even healthy diets… it is extremely valuable for the central nervous system. Over 200 enzyme processes etc.
Fish oil, thats a given.
Rhodiola is not bad, but I believe Cordyceps is superior because it also helps immunity, athletic performance, oxygen support, in addition to being adaptogenic.
KAVA KAVA is probably the very best, but oddly the least known Anti-Stress Concoction
in the USA, (Quite a statement I know) but KAVA you actually can “feel”, the trick however is to
get the GOOD High Quality stuff…here’s a trusted review site…the “instant” Kavas reviewed here
are the good, the Health Food Store Kava Capsules (If you can find 'em),are TOTALLY stripped of their power.
The CO2 Extract KAVA Paste will…blow…you…away…A million times safer than a “LUNESTA” for sleep,
(see review site)
'Blows my mind how KAVA is still relatively unknown in the U.S.
[quote]Karado wrote:
KAVA KAVA is probably the very best, but oddly the least known Anti-Stress Concoction
in the USA, (Quite a statement I know) but KAVA you actually can “feel”, the trick however is to
get the GOOD High Quality stuff…here’s a trusted review site…the “instant” Kavas reviewed here
are the good, the Health Food Store Kava Capsules (If you can find 'em),are TOTALLY stripped of their power.
The CO2 Extract KAVA Paste will…blow…you…away…A million times safer than a “LUNESTA” for sleep,
(see review site)
'Blows my mind how KAVA is still relatively unknown in the U.S.
[/quote]
I’ve had the real deal in kava huts and nakamal all over the South Pacific. Kava definitely has an anti-stress effect to it. I’d compare it to a low-dose of valium. Not sure why it never took off in the US. The taste certainly doesn’t help its cause. It also made me really sensitive to light…nakamal are always very dimly lit for this reason. I can’t imagine drinking a few shells of it and heading out on a sunny day.
'Never had that problem, but KAVA is the shit, if you will…Awesome stuff.
The reason it hasn’t gone mainstream is probaly in the past, it’s took some “effort” to prepare it,
but NO MORE as there are great “instants” and Sweet Tasting Pastes you can take now with all the Actives
intact…a Pea sized sweet paste of Kava under the Tongue…then bliss!
Yet never a reported case of Liver Issues with Kava among the Islanders that consume it daily
and in Ceremony for Hundreds of years…What you read and what the truth is
regarding safety are two different things.
Alcohol Based tinctures were the Culprit in that one when american supplement makers started to fuck with it.
And even those were isolated cases that inspired unwarranted fear and rumor among the gullible.
Mess with the Natural “Chemistry” of a substance and sooner or later it will come around
and bite you in the Ass.
L-Tyrosine is a precursor to dopamine, and supplementing it has shown to help people deal with stressors, either physical or emotional. Seratonin is important for good sleep and in treating depression. You didn’t mention depression specifically, but it often goes hand-in-hand with the stress and life-changes you described. Seratonin can be increased with 5-hydroxytryptophan. 5-HTP typically comes in 50 or 100 mg. capsules. Some sources suggest a 10:1 ratio of tyrosine/5-HTP.
I, personally take 500mg of tyrosine in the morning and at noon, and 100 mg of 5-HTP at bedtime, along with melatonin. This has helped my sleep greatly. The kava kava others have mentioned is great for quick effects during acutely stressful times. I use it if I wake up with a panic attack, and I can go back to sleep in 15 minutes feeling MUCH better.
This is a personal favorite topic of mine, as I’m guilty of sometimes being a guy who lets things build up and it manifests as a low-grade stress.
First, magnesium is pretty damned important for this sort of thing. As another poster mentioned, it’s often woefully low in the majority of industrial-living folks. There’s a product called Natural Calm (and probably a dozen similar) that’s a form of easily dissolving magnesium that you add to water. Take a teaspoon of it in water before bed, its effects add up and it helps your sleep quality.
Kava is fantastic as an occasional alternative to a serving of alcohol, but a good preparation can leave you with a bit of an inebriated feeling. So its great for blowing off steam but not so hot for realistically handling an ongoing stressful situation.
There were plenty of other good recommendations on this thread, so I’ll skip ahead to my present personal favorite. I hate to sound like a bitch for Biotest, but Brain Candy is absolutely awesome for daily, realistic stress management.
Now, just from reading some of the other BC threads, it seems like it doesn’t work that well for about 10% of people, but if it does work for you, I think you will in no way regret its cost of just under $3 a day.
If you’re feeling really ambitious, maybe you can try replicating the formula for a lower cost, but that’ll take some trial and error. Anyhow, it’s really, truly worth giving a shot.
Now only if they’d start making it in a mixable powder…
to be honest, it sounds like you have absolutely zero ability to handle stress. Classes haven’t even started, and already you’re stressed out?
And you’re a nutrition major. That major im sure isn’t unbelievably easy, but it’s not like it’s considered one of the more taxing majors. Pre-med yeah there are some rough classes in there like Chem but if you plan on going to med school a couple of difficult classes in undergrad shouldn’t be giving you so much stress that you can’t function.
Put it this way, im a 3rd year engineering student. EVERY class is high workload, math and science intensive taught by teachers we can barely understand. If we can handle it, you can survive 2 or 3 classes that require serious study hours.
So basically, figure out how to deal with stress cause in 4 years it’s going to be 10x worse. If that means going to a therapist, do it. If that means just figuring out you’re own way of coping then do that.
But if supplements help you, sure use them. Probably a much better idea though to figure out how to deal with stress. Much more useful life skill then popping pills.