Anxiety and Panic

The last fortnight I have been dealing with a lot of cases of Anxiety and its evil cousin Panic.

For those of you who don’t know the difference, anxiety can be a feeling of uneasiness all the way up to a “Panic Attack” which is an overwhelming fear of imminent death.

I know I suffered from them 10 years ago and despite being stabbed in the heart as a 19 year old and nearly dying (on arrival in hospital I had no pulse, no blood pressure or heartbeat – clinically dead) I would say these are worse.

Don’t get me wrong the whole experience of facing “real” death filled me with a fear so great you cannot quantify it, but I slipped into a peaceful sleep and when I woke in intensive care I was heavily sedated. The journey back to health was hard and painful but I knew what had to happen each step of the way of my recovery.

The problem with panic attacks is that they give you this same overwhelming sense of imminent death, time and time again, and you often get no warning when they will strike.

The problem with Anxiety or Panic is that it is not visible i.e. you don’t have your leg in plaster or burns all over your body, so people do not understand why you are experiencing these symptoms. Often people can be quite patronising or condescending because they cannot understand what you are experiencing inside of your mind.

Trust me, only someone who has experienced a panic attack can understand what it is like!

After taking some anti-Anxiety tablets prescribed by my Doctor that made my head crackle and lose my sight temporarily, I decided to seek out other ways to overcome this problem.

After reading as many books that I could get my hands on I discovered some interesting concepts that worked for me and this is what I will share with you now:

I want you to imagine filling a bathtub with water by turning on the taps about half way.

Suddenly the phone rings and you end up having a long conversation and then suddenly you realise you’ve left the taps on and rush to turn them off.

Because the bath has an overflow pipe, the extra water is filtered off down into the drainage safely and the bath does not overflow.

This is how we deal with everyday stresses when things are normal, however when things are left unchecked and become overwhelming, imagine the following:

You have turned both taps on fully, the phone goes again and you have the same lengthy conversation. However this time the volume of water is too great for the overflow outlet, so water cascades over the top of the bath everywhere.

This water represents the uncontrolled stress that is overwhelming your mental bathtub and when it pours over the sides it creates Anxiety and Panic.

So if you’re luckily enough to only be experiencing mild anxiety, you can solve this by reducing the stress in your life and getting more quality rest.

Now for those of you at the other end of the scale I will share with you the methods I used to overcome my own and help lots of other people.

Firstly, accept the experience.

I would relax my posture as much as possible, sitting back, legs outstretched, soften my vision and ensure there was no tightness in any muscle groups, especially the neck and shoulders.

Anxiety and Panic need energy to grow, so by sitting and not reacting to any thoughts, feelings or sensations, just allowing them to flow through you in whatever way, the feelings will begin to subside.

I then would say to myself in a calm reassuring voice “I am fine, this has happened before and has passed, I am fine.”

Also I would recommend becoming an expert at “Diaphragmatic Breathing” (do a Google search).

When we are suffering with anxiety our breathing quickens and we breathe short shallow breaths into the top third of our lungs. This activates our “Sympathetic Nervous System” which triggers our “Stress Response” also known as “Fight or Flight” as our minds assume we are under some kind of threat.

Our blood and oxygen is diverted away from things like digestion and creative thinking, to the bigger muscles in our body to help us fight this imagined foe or to run away from it. This is why anxious and/or stressed people struggle with stomach and memory problems.

Our bodies need to be as light as possible to help us react and move quickly, so often we will be left with an urgent need to use the toilet.

Diaphragmatic Breathing (Breathing all the way down into the bottom two thirds of our lungs by pushing out stomachs out on the in breath) switches off or “Sympathetic Nervous System” and switches on our “Parasympathetic Nervous System” which produces calming chemicals and restores our minds and bodies back to its equilibrium.

This process should happen naturally. However, it is my belief, that because our lives are so much busier than in previous times, we are beginning to unconsciously override this to get more done.

If you know anybody who suffers with Anxiety or Panic, please pass this on and recommend they join the newsletter as I’d like to reach out and help as many people who are suffering as I did.

Look after yourselves and take care,

Nick