Life Changes and Sudden Anxiety

Emily Mullikin, Owner, Harmonious Brain, LLC

I have always been someone with some low level anxiety, I hate to be late to events, I like to have set plans and I like things to go as I have planned. I have never had high levels of anxiety until July 2022. At this time we had a major life change, we adopted 2 boys which doubled the number of children in our family. We had gone through an incredibly long adoption process which had many bumps along the way. During the process I experienced some worry and anxiety as different things went wrong or took much longer than expected but nothing that affected how I was functioning on a daily basis.

On the day we traveled to pick up our boys I felt nauseous, I didn’t think anything of it, it was a big day, we were flying all day (which typically makes me nauseous), and big changes were happening. The next couple of days I hardly ate a thing, if something did sound good to eat I didn’t eat much of it. I felt nauseous for a couple of weeks and lost almost 20 lbs. I am a fairly petite person so this was concerning. I assumed that I just needed to adjust to our new life and then the anxiety would subside, so I lived with it and waited. Months went by and the anxiety was not budging. I was feeling little joy in the good moments of life and I was constantly impatient with my kids, it was effecting the whole mood in our home. I met with a counselor, and while this had it’s moments that were helpful, the anxiety remained. I tried multiple supplements, breathing techniques and meditation with no improvement. I was so frustrated.

As I was doing research (initially intended to help my son) I ran across Neuroptimal® Neurofeedback and was intrigued. It seemed to good to be true. After doing more research and thinking my husband and I decided to rent a unit and see what happened thinking everyone in our family could benefit. I was cautiously optimistic and as I started doing sessions I could feel the anxiety starting to lift, my joy was returning and my patience was increasing. Now 17 sessions in my anxiety is much better, I am waking up easier in the morning and able to stay up later, my motivation has increased, my memory is improving and I am in a better mood throughout the day. I am continuing to train on a regular basis as I love how I am feeling now.