Calming Medication

Does anyone know of any over-the-counter medication that treats anxiety, please? I'm tense *all* the time - even when nothing stressful is imminent, even as I try to sleep. I've looked but, most times, the medication is aimed at people lacking sleep; these days, I sometimes sleep for 12 hours or more without cause...which is alarming and tension-creating in itself.

Thank you.

  • Magnesium. There is a great mixture, called “Calm Magnesium. You can buy it just about anywhere, but definitely in health food stores. You can also buy it from Amazon. Call magnesium is my go to. It works really well.

  • No, no it is not!!! Jumping off a tall building, for example, or that fake weed stuff you can get in newsagencies that laughingly claims to be intended for use as incense, and permanently damages your brain and makes people do sh*t like trying to eat their own hands. Not everything is worth a go, bud. Not everything.

  • CBD, legal cannabinoids, can be as oil (tastes bad), capsules or gummies - like fruit pastilles. The chemical that creates the high in cannabis is removed. They can be bought at places like Holland and Barrett, tend not to be cheap. The 20mg capsules by 'Love Hemp', have helped lessen anxiety in me, which is all I can say in recommendation.

  • Thanks again, folks. Very kind of you. Slight smile

  • I’m not sure if you are taking any prescribed medications for your anxiety but if you are I think any herbal meds that contain St John’s wort should be avoided. I can’t remember why it’s just one of those pointless facts you drag from the back of your brain.

    At the risk of being shot down…. Have you tried Lavender? I use a pillow mist by Avon on my clothes and I find it helps. It doesn’t smell like a typical old ladies knicker drawer either.

  • Cannabis, can dial it back or it can aggravate it.

    In me it dials it all back to an acceptable level and reduces my tendency to act on impulse. 

    I'm transitioning from smoking blunts to vaping the stuff, or smoking it neat in a long stemmed (has to be) pipe.

    It is ultimately better without the tobacco I remember and am rapidly wondering why I ever restarted my tobacco habit. Any form of new start focusses me away from trying to "take the edge off" to "embracing reality" for quite a while..

    Until it goes crap.

  • Hi Steven,

    There is a day time Kalms that I've been told has been helpful to people. The night one wasn't helpful to me for sleep but I never tried the day one.

    Jay said rescue remedy, and I've heard of it, never tried it though.

  • Thanks for your help, everyone. Much obliged to you.

  • Anything is worth a go though I reckon. 

  • It’s so difficult to know what helps. I’m normally trying multiple things at the same time like counselling, medication and lifestyle changes. That’s as well as the fact that my situation is often changing with how much I have to deal with in my life at any one time. 

  • A doctor once recommended Kalms to me. I can't recall if it made any difference.

  • I tried some stuff many years ago that was just off the shelf. Something in a yellow tin called rescue remedy.  It comes in lots of different formulations.  I cant say that any of it helped but you might have a different experience. The over the counter stuff they offer does seem to be geared towards sleep as you say. The pharmacist would be able to advise though. They are really knowledgeable and helpful people in my experience and generally have a little side room if you don’t want to talk out in the open. 

  • I'm sorry, I don't have the answer you're looking for.. but I did want to chime in (without knowing how applicable this is to your situation), just incase, with my personal observation that just being in nature, and being the *** away from NTs, has the biggest effect for me.. Not that I've tried any drugs for it except weed, which makes it worse. But the point is, with being in nature, having nice views and a relaxing world around you not demanding anything of you, I don't need any drugs.. I even gave up the smoking without noticing it, in like two weeks..
    Inversely, living in a fearful situation is a very bad contributor, but I've also starved a bunch of times and been living in the face of unreasonably aggressive threats to my existence from both people and government (in Australia), and after my wife tried to kill me I was lucky enough to get dragged out of there by a friend and given refuge at his farm on a mountain for a few months.. The things that did for me.. If I'd had another 6 months there before getting kicked out I think I would have been living my real best life lol.
    So now I'm focusing on fixing transport for myself so I can go to places like that again. If you don't have your own transport, I think it's something well worth prioritising. When you have access to nature and open space without other people, you get to focus on what you want and your world changes.