All memos have been reproduced by voice artists from original interviews to maintain anonimity of our sofi community. We are very grateful for your contribution.

Hi everyone! I live in Chicago. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the conditions that I’m living with and how long I’ve basically been living with those.

I have anxiety and sleeping issues, I’ve dealt with anxiety ever since the beginning of college, so about six years now. I never really tried to figure out a way to fix them in college, I just dealt with them day to day. But now, as time has progressed, over the last two years, ever since I’ve been out of college I’ve learned how or tried to learn how to cope with some of these things.

So the anxiety really happens all throughout the day, and it happenpens all throughout the week. It affects me in a lot of different ways, just being in social settings, being in unfamiliar settings, being in a new work environment. Things that really would make anybody, I guess, kind of uncomfortable. But my level of anxiety just goes through the roof where it’s hard for me to even handle the situation at hand. Any stressful situation that’s overly stressful can pique my anxiety. Even just little things sometimes pique my anxiety.

The sleeping issue began a little bit before college. I have always had a problem getting to sleep and then sometimes I have a problem staying asleep. So those are things that didn’t affect me too much in college because obviously in college you don’t have a nine to five that you have to go to. You have to make it to class but then you have time to sleep afterward or take a nap in between the day.

So the last few years have really been hard for me, trying to make sure that I’m awake throughout the day to do my everyday job. And not let the sleep issue, insomnia issue affect my day-to-day life. So that’s what motivated me to find solutions or treatments for those issues.

To cope with both basically, exercising is huge for me. I’ve seen that makes a huge impact on my day-to-day life with the anxiety and the sleep. I also think that meditation has helped me a lot, being able to calm my mind before I go to sleep and make sure that I’m not using any devices. Also the meditation has really helped with my anxiety, deep breathing, things like that.

Essential oils have helped me a lot, those are very underrated. I feel like that has helped me a ton being able to use essential oils either on my wrists or near my face or just having it on my hands or putting it in your hands and smelling it. The scent really does work for me and it’s helped me to be able to in the moment relieve that anxiety. So those are just a few things that I do to cope. I don’t take any medications really, just those remedies that I just explained.

They got introduced to me through one of my childhood friend’s wife, she sells essential oils and she’s always vouched for them. So I eventually was like, well nothing that I’m doing right now, had been helping. So I thought essential oils is natural and it’s something that I could try pretty easily, the investment is small.
So if it doesn’t work, no big deal. And the essential oils have helped a decent amount.

Obviously, I still have stress, I still have anxiety, I still have sleep issues. But I will say that in the moment, when I feel like I need to calm down and if I have an essential oil or right before I go to sleep. Or even if I just put in my diffuser and have it in my room, all of those things really help me calm down. And also helps me when I need to sleep or am having trouble sleeping. So all of those things have worked decent for me, obviously it’s not cured but it’s helped.

And there are no side effects with them. Obviously exercise and meditation and deep breathing are all natural, so I don’t really see that there would be a negative side effect to those. The essential oils, not really a side effect to them but I also don’t know the long-term effects of those. Again, you don’t know the long-term effects of a lot of things. So I guess for now it’s just helped enough to the point where I see that it’s valuable to keep continuing to use it.

I just wish my conditions were just was more consistent because you never really know your anxiety levels that are going to happen that day. I wish it was more predictive to know. Obviously, I know myself and I can kind of guestimate what those situations are going to be. But to actually know, “Hey, this is going to happen today,” wishful thinking, but yeah.

And then to know that I’m going to have trouble sleeping, I know that I’m going to have trouble sleeping certain nights, but if I knew which night it would be nice. Because again, it changes per week, it depends on if different events are going on at work. Those external things basically enhance the sleeplessness and the anxiety and the stress in me.

So exercise and meditation have been huge for me. I think that that’s something that in college I really would have benefited from, for the anxiety, stress and sleeplessness. Exercising regardless wears you out, so I think that it’s just your body tiring down to the point where it makes me want to go to sleep. And it also gets out some of that anxiety and stress that I suffer from.

If I had a treatment that helped alleviate in part or in whole the effects of my condition, I feel like my life would just be a lot different. I think it would be a lot easier to deal with things. Life is hard as it is and having these issues really just causes social problems. It honestly causes problems at work and in my homelife, it affects everything.

I am pretty motivated with managing these types of things, I feel like I’ve taken more steps in the last two years than I had when I had it previously. So I’m proud of myself for managing and improving my condition. But again, obviously you could probably do more, like if I did more research on different medications and treatments. Or bringing it up more to my doctor and making them know that this is a huge thing for me.

I do talk to a psychiatrist and they know about it, but I don’t want to take prescription medications for it, so really natural is the way that I’ve chosen to go. And if it gets more severe obviously I might have to look into other things.

This does affect me when I’m alone and when others are around me. When my friends see me stressed. Or see me anxious and they don’t really know how to handle it. Just like when I’m alone, sometimes I didn’t know how to handle it.
So obviously I’ve learned how to deal with it alone, but when I’m in front of other people. There isn’t really a way to handle it. Unless I go to the bathroom and start doing deep breathing or try and meditate. So I do think it affects me more when I’m around others, versus when I’m alone.

And I will fix this for myself, preferably when I’m alone.

All memos have been reproduced by voice artists from original interviews to maintain anonimity of our sofi community. We are very grateful for your contribution.

Hi, I am 30 years old. I currently have had anxiety and depression for probably at least 10 years. Diagnosed for the past 10 years. Definitely have mood swings, kind of up and down. Kind of an excessive fear and worry sometimes.

Sometimes even opening an email, I can feel my heart flutter and get anxiety/panic feeling. I have been trying to incorporate yoga, praying. And just try to reduce the stressors in my life that can also cause my depression to maybe flare up, or anxiety to get worse.

I do take prescription medicine. It’s an anti-depressant. It kind of helps with the depression and anxiety. Natural supplements, I take a lot of vitamin D. Which obviously living out here, we can lack because of the sun and our long winters. So, I do take vitamin D, I also drink a lot of green tea for natural caffeine. To kind of give me that-, maybe a little bit more happiness feeling.

Also any time of calming or relaxing tea, I also will diffuse lavender for some calming effects. Especially when I’m feeling a little more stressed. Sometimes with my depression, I have a hard time sleeping. With laying in bed worrying and having anxiety over things that I can’t control. So, taking some melatonin sometimes as a natural supplement will help as well.

I found out about all of those actually by going to a health food store, a local health food store that we have. And just kind of telling them my symptoms. About eight years ago. I actually just went last week and kind of asked also about some stress. And kind of started talking and thinking more about trying some CBD supplements as well.

My hope is that these remedies can treat my symptoms and also bring awareness to my symptoms. That I’m in control of them. I’m in control of my depression sometimes, and I’m in control of emotions and things that will trigger anxiety.
Not all of them are 100%.

One thing I wish I could make better would be to help improve my relationships with family members. That I just wish that more people would understand. My life would be so much better and happier if I didn’t have this depression, underlying depression and anxiety.

I have a four year old daughter, so I obviously want to be the best mom I can be for her. I’m extremely motivated in managing and improving my conditions. Because trying the prescription medicine for the past six years hasn’t cured it. And I still live with it, on a daily basis.

I have gone to the lengths of going to a hypnotist and a therapist. As well as trying different prescription medications. And this definitely affects my whole entire family. It affects me being a mom to my daughter. It affects my relationship to my husband. And to my parents, being their daughter. It definitely affects everyone involved in my life. And I’m very motivated to do anything to improve it.

All memos have been reproduced by voice artists from original interviews to maintain anonimity of our sofi community. We are very grateful for your contribution.

Hi, I’m currently living in North West London. I have lived with anxiety and partial insomnia for most of my adult life now, since I was about 18. I’m not really sure what caused it initially but it’s something that I’ve had really bad peaks and troughs with.

So I’ve gone through a spell of feeling really, really anxious, to the point where I don’t even really want to go food shopping by myself. Or even leaving the house, that being like my safe place. All the way to being able to go on work trips and actually be able to enjoy and feel like I’m completely functioning. Which is really enjoyable whilst it’s happening and there’s a real sense of accomplishment and achievement when that kind of thing happens.

Even when I get back from holiday, I’ll be really, really anxious leading up to it thinking, “Oh my god, something’s going to go wrong and I’m going to feel really panicky.” To the point where I’m not going to be able to sleep pretty much for the month before then. And then whilst I’m there my coping mechanism is almost, like if I feel a little bit anxious it’s just, go to sleep, go and relax and just figure it out.

In terms of coping, I’ve gone through an awful lot of different, mainly supplements.
So I’ve been obviously to the doctors and I’ve been put on the NHS, they had a counselling call thing which I went on, which was useless, it was awful. It basically made everything 10 times worse because they would just call you up and be like, “So how would you rate-,” like all of these different things. And they’d go into like, “Are you a harm to yourself?” And I’m like, “No, I just need some help with how to deal with this,” not being reminded that I’m just a number in this weird and wonderful system that they’ve got. So it felt very, very clinical and not really the help that you needed.

So I took it upon myself then to do a lot of research into actually what could help me and from that I went and trickled down into a few different things. So holistically I try to meditate a lot more, I used to do a lot of hypnotherapy as well. And I still do to be fair, especially when it’s a lot harder to get to sleep, I use a hypnosis app on my phone, which might not work. It just helps me with my breathing and really destressing my body and then going into quite a gentle sleep. Which works but I have also tried a few different things.

So I managed to actually dig this out from-, you can hear there’s not many left in here. But I dug out some of the magnesium that I used to take. So attributed a lot of the anxiety down to lack of sleep or something like that. So I started taking just magnesium on its own, it was my first purchase and my first dabble into that world of supplements and natural stuff.

Because I was prescribed some medication by my GP but I’m not really in that kind of-, I don’t really want something that’s going to take over my whole mindset. Or that’s my perception as to what that would do. I wanted to go slightly down the more holistic route. So I started off buying magnesium, I researched a bit more into it and found that I needed to take magnesium and calcium.

Which is them both together so that it combines and actually those are the two things that you need to activate. So I did a lot more research around that. And then I went onto do things like 5-HTP, I managed to get from Holland & Barratt, I read a bit more into that and actually the benefits of it. And that was the one thing that actually really, really worked for me. I think initially it was like a tiny bit of placebo until it really sunk in, but actually it was really improving my sleep.

And that was a contributing factor also to a lot of the anxiety. So I was kind of sleeping better, feeling a lot more refreshed and that helped me to regain my psyche a little bit in the mornings. Because that was when the worst time was for me for the anxiety.

Initially, I thought all of these supplement things were going to basically just cure it.
And that I was just going to walk out the next day and not feel anxious whatsoever, which obviously was a big lapse of judgement. Because half of the battle with things like anxiety is being really resilient with it and not letting the habitual side of anxiety take over. And think, “Okay, so that’s made me feel anxious one time, it’s just going to keep making me feel really, really anxious.” So I used to get that a lot with flying and travelling and all of that sort of thing. It’s not so bad anymore but I still get a little bit.

After 5-HTP I then tried L-theanine which I also read was quite good for anxiety.
But I think it gave me quite a lot of headaches, which I wasn’t too keen on.
And then I started reading a lot more into things like gut health and probiotics that affect on your mental health. And how the gut is essentially just this central organ which, if you’re not eating right or not drinking enough and all of that sort of thing.
That intertwines with it as well. So I read into that and started buying things like probiotics and taking those.

And then ashwagandha, which is like a natural destresser. So instead of then taking three supplements at one time I was only taking, essentially just one for my tranquillity or my mental health essentially.

I think for me it’s just about being able to balance and have control over, not necessarily how I feel but the ability to destress and not get so het up over the tiny little things. With anxiety I’ve watched a lot of TED Talks and things like that where they say it’s quite cyclic. So you latch onto one thing and that makes you feel anxious and then your body responds in a certain way and then that makes you feel more anxious.

And that’s very much the same with the sleep as well. So you latch onto one thought and then you get really nervous about that and then you can’t then relax and sleep because your heart is beating like there’s no tomorrow. So something to, not necessarily mask all of those problems but something to regulate that I think would be really, really useful.

I can’t tell you how my life would change if I had treatment that helped alleviate in part or whole how I feel. I can’t even put it into words. I had this chat with the lady in the NHS system, and it was very much, it’s really hard for me to get excited over things that a few years ago would really, really excite me. So things like going on holiday or travelling and going on public transport and stuff like that. I used to live for that sort of stuff, so I went and did six months in Austria, I used to plan to go and do Asia trips and all of that sort of thing.

And now I cannot physically imagine myself doing that. Which is really, really upsetting for me actually because when I’m kind of dreaming I’m thinking, “That would be amazing.” I watch so many YouTube documentaries where people have gone and I kind of almost live vicariously through that. But I want to be able to have the courage to go and do those sorts of things. So that for me is a really big thing.

I would go and do clinical trials if they were available, if they were saying they could alleviate anxiety and take you back to where you were. And having to force myself to go and do things that my body is naturally telling me via panic attacks and via anxiety that are like, you just shouldn’t be doing this. But I try and do it anyway.

My partner lives with me and he’s been with me since before I had anxiety. So he’s seen me when I’m really buzzing to go on holiday, going on a flight on my own to go and meet my parents somewhere. And he’s been really, really great in the whole kind of support and what I need I always get from him, which is really, really great.
And he’s always at the end of the phone and if I’ve had a bit of a panic somewhere, if I’ve had to drive myself a really long way. He’s always been there to pick me up and I’ve needed picking up or support on the phone, which is fantastic. But I do think it is something that I very much deal with by myself, it is not something that I would let on.

Like, I’m not about to have a full-on breakdown, I’ll always make sure I’m quite in control. If I do feel a bit panicky or a bit anxious, I make sure that I can either go to the ladies’ room or just take five in a very quiet and secluded place. So that I’m not making an absolute fool of myself.

Anything that’s going to be able to help me with my anxiety or the kind of insomnia that comes with that, I am so, so open to. Because this is a horrible, horrible thing to have to live with. Especially when you’ve been so free and so open for the main part of your life, to then have a bit of a dark cloud is not fun.

Thank you.

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Hello! I’m a real estate investor, my fiancé and I we buy houses and we rent them out. I also sell products on eBay and Amazon, I sell clothing, electronics, computer equipment. So that’s what I pretty much do and then I’m also taking business courses at a local community college.

And I have two dogs, I have a Labrador Retriever Mix. And I have a Pitbull, the Pitbull is my brother’s dog but we mostly take care of them, the Labrador Retriever Mix is around 10 years old. And the Pitbull is around 3 years old.

I really enjoy going to the movies, I enjoy some nights out with friends and family. But a lot of this stuff that I do is limited because I do suffer from anxiety. And I think I suffer from generalized anxiety because sometimes I’ll just be anxious for no reason.

And I also deal with sleep problems, I would say that I have a mild to moderate case of insomnia, because sometimes when I go to sleep. At around 10 o’clock, I’m still up at around 12 am or 1 am and I really struggle to go to sleep. And I’ve had this since I was 19, but I wasn’t formerly diagnosed until 29.

For the anxiety and the sleep problems I take medication. But I realized that I became so much of a zombie that I was unable to complete my school work. I was unable to complete tasks, so my psychiatrist lowered the dose, so that I’m able to still function and not sleep most of the day.

I have tried Melatonin and it worked really well for a year. And then I notice that it just stopped really working, I was still struggling going to sleep. And then I also learned that if you take Melatonin for a prolonged period of time that it will actually worsen your insomnia. So I completely stopped taking the Melatonin, and now I’m basically just going to sleep in a cool dark room, I have aromatherapy.

I play ocean waves to go to sleep. And most nights it helps, but some nights I still struggle to go to sleep, I have tried other supplements.

I was prescribed some medications at age 30 and I gained 50 pounds, so that really didn’t work out for me. And I was risking having diabetes, high blood pressure, a lot of comorbid disorders. So they stopped the meds and changed them.

My psychiatrist is the one that informed me about the Melatonin as a natural alternative. So that’s where I learned about it and I expected the Melatonin to work by putting me to sleep. So I would take a long shower, and then take the Melatonin it would work but over time the potency of the Melatonin had to be increased to result in the same effects.

And I did have side effects from prescribed meds. Sometimes I would feel extreme nervousness. If I missed the dose, even if it was for a couple of hours. So there was a lot of side effects, With the Melatonin I didn’t have any side effects. It just stopped working after a period of time.

One of the things that I wished could be made better about my condition is just being able to be social with someone. Being more outgoing, being more outspoken, not being fearful or worrying about things that might or might not happen. So that’s one thing that I wish that could be better.

I would just love to have more energy. And not really feel tired during the day, because even though they decreased the meds. I still have some bouts of tiredness and it’s a struggle to sometimes workout because I don’t have the energy to do so.
And I don’t want to resort to any energy drinks, even though I do drink coffee from time to time. But I really want to stay off the stimulants.

And my life would change if I had a treatment that would help alleviate my condition, in part or whole. By being able to continue to work on my projects, I do have a project right now that I’m working on. Which is a dog treats business, so I wish that I will have more energy to partake in that. And be able to setup a website, being able to sell to customers. Being able to earn additional income, so I think it would change my life by being able to earn more. Being able to be healthier, which healthier was really the best aspect of just my overall being, having energy, increasing my mood. Just being healthier overall.

And I am very motivated to improve my condition, I have tried different things, I’ve discussed with possibly stopping the meds. And maybe just doing a focused therapy session, so I am doing therapy. So I really would like to be off of the meds, and if there is a natural alternative, I’m more inclined to do so. Because with these prescription medications. There’s always something. Some cause involuntary muscle movement. I haven’t experienced them personally but I don’t want to experience them in the future.

I am very motivated to improve my condition and I have gone to great lengths of changing medication. I was on many different prescribed meds, and Melatonin, I’ve tried all different avenues. To try to alleviate my symptoms, so that’s what I would like to improve.

My conditions firstly affect me, no one else in my household has these anxiety or sleep problems. But my fiancé has sleep problems from time to time. But it’s not as severe as my insomnia. And me staying up at night doesn’t really affect anyone in my household but they are concerned that I’m not getting enough sleep. So I would say it affects them that way but overall it’s my problem that I’m dealing with.

It’s the anxiety that I really need help with because I feel it on a constant basis. I feel stressed out about worrying about mundane things like bills. Or tasks that I have to complete, or doing something wrong, I wish I could fix that area in my life.
To be able to improve my overall health.

All memos have been reproduced by voice artists from original interviews to maintain anonimity of our sofi community. We are very grateful for your contribution.

Hi, I’m 28, I live in Pennsylvania I am on vacation and decided to record this audio journal. I suffer from severe chronic migraines and I go in and out with having anxiety, it’s very strange. I, at one time, did have post-traumatic stress disorder, I don’t really have it anymore,

With the migraines it affects me a lot because I can’t work when I have them, I can’t drive, I can’t work, I can’t go outside, I can’t do anything. I am basically in my bed all day, I can’t really eat sometimes. Sometimes they go away faster than others.

It’s not really anything that we’ve been able to pinpoint, it just happened because of the weather, any certain kinds of foods, we’re still trying to figure that out. Even though I’ve had migraines now for years. The only way I can really cope is by taking medication, so we’re still trying to figure out, am I on the right medication or not?

We think we’ve figured it out but we’re not 100% sure, I still don’t think it’s right but you’ve got to try until you figure these kinds of things out. And with the anxiety, when I go in and out of it, I was out of it until last summer and I got put back on the meds. Which, it affects my life just because I get really agitated easily.

That’s really the only thing. I get really angry. Not that I want to punch anybody or anything like that, not that kind of angry, I just bottle it up and I end up going to the gym and I just let it out there. It’s not anything like I’m angry that I let it out at people. I just get agitated and I just like to be left alone.

I guess you could say I socially distance myself, even though social distancing is actually a thing now. So that’s how I cope with that, I just leave myself alone. Sometimes I feel great, sometimes I still feel like I’m going to have headaches.
But I always know a week or two before my next treatment I’m going to have at least three migraines, I know it. I don’t know when but I know I am.

What I need to live more easily, I guess that is just something that I think is going to work more efficiently than the meds. So it’s not really something that I’m in love with having, the meds.

My life would change if I could find something that works because I would not be calling out of work whenever I get a migraine. But my life would change greatly if I could find something that would work for my migraines because I would feel like when I got one it might not be as frequent. I might not have five to six a month, I might only have one a month or maybe two. I could deal with two a month but then anymore, I’ve been having up to seven a month, which is awful.

Some meds just flat out didn’t even work. Yeah, it was bad, one of them made me so dizzy I couldn’t even get out of bed, it was like, “Do I want to be dizzy or do I just want to have a migraine every once in a while?” I didn’t know what was worse.

I’m extremely motivated to find something that would work for my migraines, just because of the fact that it affects everyone around me and myself because I can’t be myself at work whenever I get a migraine. I could be in the middle-, I’m a flight attendant, I could be in the middle of a trip.

If I get a migraine I’m in the bathroom throwing up or I can’t get out of bed because I can’t open my eyes. Because the minute I open my eyes and I see a color, my head is just throbbing. I have to call out of the trip. If there is not another flight attendant available, that’s going to really screw up things, they’ve got to find one in the hotel, they’ve got to find one that’s coming in on a flight. The flight is still going to go out but it might not go out on time. From at home when I have call out of a trip, they’ve got to find someone to cover for me.

It affects me because I’m losing time, it affects those around me because now they’ve got to work extra to find somebody else to cover for me. It’s just not an ideal situation and even if I had a different job it wouldn’t be an ideal situation. Having migraines just flat out sucks, it’s awful, I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody.

I remember the first time I ever had one I didn’t even know what it was and I thought that my head was going to fall off. So it affects everybody around me and I’m extremely motivated to find something that works.

All memos have been reproduced by voice artists from original interviews to maintain anonimity of our sofi community. We are very grateful for your contribution.

Hi guys, I’m going to be talking to you about various pains and issues that I experience. To give you some perspective, I co-run an events company, I’ve got two young children. And yes so, it’s a pretty busy lifestyle, a lot of what we do at work involves building stages, fences, that kind of thing so, a lot of heavy lifting, rigging, yes, lots of quite labour-intensive sort of stuff.

And I generally found that my issues cropped up about the same time as I got quite seriously into the events world. Which was some time ago.

I’ve always suffered from anxiety. More recent times so, about ten years, with the business and things. And the tight deadlines we work to, I think that’s quite a large contributing factor. I constantly am worried about things and generally, just don’t process things as well, mentally, as I could.

Things I do so, I consume a lot of lavender based products, lavender tea, which I get from an herbal shop. I also purchase vitamin A supplements as well, top that up, I also get the B-complex supplements, as well. Essentially, the body needs those and I think, we don’t make enough ourselves, I believe that’s correct.

It affects my everyday life, it puts me off in a big way, on a social level. I love socialising, but I’m always anxious, you know, what could go wrong or shall I come out today? So that has an effect on my social life, with work we’re so busy it has less of an affect. But it does cross my mind, sort of, more so what if things go wrong, what if a client’s not happy? That kind of thing so, that’s a bit of a worry and then, it also ties in with another condition, which is sleep issues. Which I’ll talk about, as you can imagine, they’re quite closely linked.

So yes, I have tried medication and over the counter remedies, but generally. The natural supplements I find work a bit better, I found out about the lavender and the vitamin A. And B-complex supplements from my doctor, I expected it to put my mind at ease, generally, it helps. Hard to know exactly how much, no side effects,

The one thing I wish could be made better is for it to be reduced to a level where I don’t really notice it and to be able to live with my conditions more easily. I’m not going to get cured. Just want to live with it more easily. Just need some more understanding and I think, the herbal remedies could continue.

My life would be a lot easier and more simple if the anxiety was removed or reduced. I’d be a lot more free to get on with things, I wouldn’t feel restricted.
I wouldn’t feel anxious, obviously so, a lot more easy going and therefore, probably a lot more productive. And a lot more social, I think it effects people around me because I cancel plans and often make excuses. And I think at an adult age, most people don’t do that anymore without reason so, it does affect those around me. Because it frustrates them and friends mostly and family, but it also worries them as well.

Then the other issue, one of the main issues I face is sleep problems. I’ve really only had those again, since I’ve got into events. I think that’s partly due to anxiety, obviously, a lot going through my head, it doesn’t help having two small children. And a business that I’m partly responsible for and a huge increase in workload, like many of us.

So in terms of my everyday life, it detracts from my concentration, obviously. I usually don’t get a good night’s sleep. I’m often awake until sort of, crazy hours, combined with the need to finish work. It’s not always great, medication, so, I take again, various teas to help me sleep and they are from Holland and Barrett. Which they do their own range and yes, I also have a lot of hot baths before I go to bed, a glass of milk. Kind of, which are things that seem to help quite a lot and again, I use lavender shower gel, as well. Found out about it, as I said, when I sort of got more into the events industry. Many issues sleeping, it was quite a sudden change.

One thing I wish could be made better, just being able to fall asleep quicker, my body obviously needs to recharge and that’s not really happening sufficiently at the moment. Life would definitely change if there was a treatment, I travel a lot for work and it would be great to be able to utilize sleep even on coaches and planes, although it’s not a good sleep, at least it contributes. But I just sit there awake, in fact, flying to Australia and New Zealand, which I often do is awful. You just sit there for 26 hours, yes, alcohol helps obviously, makes you nod off, but it’s not ideal.

I am really motivated in managing and improving my condition, as I am with the anxiety. I’ve spoken to doctors, I’ve spoken to therapists, I’ve done a lot of research online, hard to know exactly what’s the most effective way of treating these conditions, I guess you could call them that. Thx for listening.

All memos have been reproduced by voice artists from original interviews to maintain anonimity of our sofi community. We are very grateful for your contribution.

Hello, I am 29 years old. I have been living with anxiety for about 12 years. And generalized elbow and knee pain. For the last maybe six months to a year off and on insomnia, that is more situational.

It affects my everyday life mostly just by taking up extra space in my brain for me to focus on those conditions and not allowing me to focus on my job. Or certain things that really need focus on, so that diverts my attention away from the more important things. To just either pain or anxiety.

I have tried, medication and supplements. For the pain, I have tried ibuprofen, natural supplements I’ve tried taking fish oil and turmeric to decrease inflammation.
They work fine, the turmeric and fish oil, I haven’t noticed a huge difference, but with the ibuprofen I do notice a difference. But that’s not something that I can do long term.

I also have taken melatonin off and on for insomnia. I don’t really have any side effects from the supplements but they don’t always work. I wish I could turn them off, they would just be made non-existent. Even just a decrease in all of them, or if I could get rid of one of them, that would be great, any decrease.

My life would change, if I had treatment for them because it takes up a lot of space to have anxiety or it takes up a lot of time in my brain to worry about the pain. Rather than focusing on the task at hand, or focusing on having fun at an event or something. It would just make life easier.

I am super motivated in managing or changing this. I am constantly on YouTube and Googling tons of different things, that people do for conditions to try to make it easier, either naturally. Or different doctors to go to certain different medications.
I had knee surgery about a year ago and it hasn’t even really gotten better, in fact my knee is probably worse now than it was prior to the surgery. So, I’m always on the lookout for something to help me cope.

My condition affects me and those around me. I would say both. It probably affects me the most obviously because it’s happening to me. But the one person that it probably affects just as much is my partner. Because he’s the one that I am always complaining about them to. And he’s very supportive and understanding but I’m sure he would probably like for me to stop talking about them at some point.

It also limits what I can do in terms of exercising and going on hikes So, I would like to do those things with him. With family and friends.

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Good afternoon. I’m here to talk a little bit about some long-term health issues that I’ve had throughout my life. And how I’ve been trying to treat them and have been affecting with them in various. I’m 55 years old, we live in Pasadena, California. We have two older children, who have left the house. So we’re empty nesters at this point, just my wife and I.

About 20 years ago, I think it was about 20 years ago, I had back surgery, it was lower disc, blew-out my disc. Hereditary degenerative disc, they won’t give me a full answer, but nothing that I caused, like a sports injury or anything. So ever since then I’ve constantly had chronic back pain, lower back definitely. Back then there wasn’t a lot of herbal type remedies, there was just pain medicine to manage the pain 27 years ago. I started going to a chiropractor 10, 15 years ago. That helped a little bit with that and managing the pain, but over the years it’s just not the lower back, it’s come up to the upper back area, neck area.

So lately that’s been really chronic with me, with that pain, working on a computer six, eight hours a day. Probably not sitting up straight like I should. Things like that I know my chiropractor tells me I’ve got to do. So I keep up with the exercise, the chiropractor, stretching, but it just doesn’t totally affect that. That’s crept into sleep issues.

So having sleep issues for the last two or three years. Just not getting the full night’s sleep that I need. A lot of it’s with the pain, either in the neck or the shoulder, the lower back. I’ve tried a heating pad, an ice pad. So then I went to various remedies.

So initially I went to my primary care physician, I really like my primary care, but she’s primarily medicine, medicine based. So you get the pain pads, you get the muscle relaxers. Those help but I only take them when it gets really bad, I don’t want to be addicted to any kinds of pain medicines.

The side effects of pain medications, constipation, I mean that’s like a number one, everybody knows that now. And then I just don’t want to be addicted to anything, I don’t want the side effects of that. “So you go to herbal remedies. So years ago I tried Bengay, icy hot kind of things, you’d go to the creams. Arnica cream, I started figuring that out, much better rubbing it on for arnica cream and stuff like that, RockSauce.
Moving on I tried essential oils, essential oils that help sleep a little bit longer, those seemed to help a little bit. And then CBD came along, so you have this wide spectrum of CBD products that hit the market. My chiropractor put me onto a few.
Then I tried the creams and the balms and then you’ve got the liquid drops to help calm you, you’ve got the hemp oil pills.

So I’ll take those at night, but I don’t know, what are the doses, what’s the proper way to take them? You read on what they recommend, I don’t want to take a lot of them as I’m not sure about the side effects. But I use the creams, the creams are great, they’re topical, they help the pain for a few hours but they don’t last really long. So definitely the hemp oil pills. And then what are you getting, what’s the quality? You read up on this, what’s the full spectrum, not full spectrum, you should get this, you shouldn’t get that. There’s a lot out there to try to manage on your own.

So I try to do the best I can with the various remedies and treatments. But overall the quality of life could definitely be improved. Without sleep and constant pain I become that grumpy old guy, like my wife tells me all of the time, “I don’t want that grumpy old guy in my life.” Particularly if you get up, you don’t have a good night’s sleep, you wake up, it just takes you a while to get kickstarted. You just don’t feel the greatest because you didn’t get a good night’s sleep, still things in your back still aches a little bit.

So if there was a way to get an improvement of the pain management and then also for the sleep, that’s something that would definitely be beneficial for me. To be able to have a good night’s sleep on a constant basis, not just one out of five nights or something like that. But to get that good night’s sleep, reduce that pain and know that what you were taking was good for you and not going to have a ton of side effects. Would just improve the quality of life.

To be able to go to parties or just be at night and not have to get tired at eight, nine o’clock at night because you didn’t get a good night’s sleep. With friends and family, even with my own wife, that would be such a benefit to be able to do that. And not be that old guy that has to go to bed early because he didn’t get a good night’s sleep because he’s that way.

So overall, definitely trying different things, definitely looking at ways to manage the back pain and then manage a good night’s sleep. And it’s just always a hit or miss of what you want to try, where you want to go with it. So I’ve been through a gamut of drugs, to various products and remedies. So I try and manage it the best I can. And I still am looking. Thank you.