Mmkay, let's get started.
The three primary anxiety disorders are believed to be related to seratonin levels in the brain. This is why SSRIs may be helpful in treatment. To treat anxiety, you need to either fuck with seratonin or with GABA-a.
5-hydroxytryptophan, or 5-htp is a seratonin precursor (and eventually a melatonin precursor if you're having sleep issues). It might help a little with anxiety, but I've never read of it really being used for anything other than depression. Won't hurt you to try, though. Seratonin is broken down into melatonin, which is a hormone which regulates the sleep cycle. Many people claim to get relief from it, but it doesn't do shit for me.
OP mentioned using SJW for anxiety. If you're using a cheap brand only standardized for hypericin, good. It's a dopamine beta-hydroxylase inhibitor (enzyme that breaks dopamine down into noripinephrine, which is one of the neurotransmitters that causes the fear-response). So that increases dopamine levels, which increases mood, and lowers norepinephrine levels, which lessens anxiety. The more expensive brands, however, contain hyperforin as well, which is a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. This would probably counteract the lowering effect of the hypericin.
I've heard great things about kava, but have never tried it myself. It increases GABA activity (like valium or other benzodiazepines), producing relaxation.
Valerian has an unknown mechanism of action. I've used it before, but found that it doesn't help with racing thoughts or anxiety, neither in the day nor when trying to sleep. It produces significant sedation, though, and if you're the kind of person who gets any kind of relief from a H1 antagonist like benadryl, it might work for you. It also works great for achieving vivid, memorable, or lucid dreams, especially when combined with melatonin.
Marijuana is also decent for sleep. It's really the only reason I ever smoke it, actually, other than nausea. However, it can definitely worsen anxiety, and even cause outright panic attacks.
Basically, the herbal shit works for some people, but not me. Anxiety sometimes requires the prescribing of benzodiazepines, which act on the GABA-a receptors in the brain.
For generalized anxiety disorder, you want something with a long half-life, such as valium (60hrs) or klonopin (~14hrs, iirc). For panic attacks, you want something like xanax or ativan. For sleep issues, you want something like temazepam, with more hypnotic properties than an anxiety benzo.
If you decide to go the pharmaceutical path, and lack insuance, you might want to look into phenazepam. It's an unscheduled benzo in most countries, and can easily/legally be sourced online.
If I missed anything feel free to ask?
mike
