Techniques I Used to Overcome My Panic/Anxiety Disorder

[Struggle Town]

great great stuff mate thanks a lot.

[PanicCured]

I'm here to help!

[comikisses]

14) Realize that there is no safe place or safe person. Having said that, there is no unsafe place and unsafe person either. It's just places and people. Crowds are no more dangerous than quiet areas. Actually, if you think about it, its probably safer being in public then inside your home. I was always afraid if I went out I would drop and noone would help me, but in reality, you would probably be helped by lots of people if something happened outside. I had the most wonderful people come to my aid when I panicked in public. This brings me to:

14) You're not a freak! You're not weak! You do not need to be ashamed! I had a complete massive panic attack in a shopping mall all alone, where the guy from the juice bar came by and held my hand while I cried on the floor in pure agony. People gathered around and some thought I was having a heart attack. An ambulance came and there were people surrounding watching with cars going by watching. 2 strangers came in the ambulance with me for support. After hours at the hospital, they told me I am fine and can go home.

You know what? Who cares! That event sucked, but you know what? It's ok. Noone remembers and noone cares. I sure don't care. Now I just think like, "What the hell was I thinking?" Don't worry. Are you laughing at this story? You should be. It's funny. What a moron I was, right? haha, it's ok. My life is completely different now.

15) You must cultivate courage. I know how hard it is to be alone or go out sometimes. It's like you are frozen in fear. I know. I really know. But you must look fear in the eye and know it's just fear! Baby steps. But do the steps. Use your will to overcome fear. It happens slowly, but if you keep going for it, you will get there. I found getting the right amount of sun everyday helped my mood a lot. Don't get too much sun, but the right amount of sun on as much of your body as you can expose.

17) I highly recommend no alcohol whatsoever until you have recovered. I found the next day, my adrenaline is out of control and it brings on palpitations and anxiety big time. Just tell your friends you're taking a break. Getting healthy.

18) Reduce sugar tremendously. Don't drink caffeine. No black or green tea either. Your new drink is chamomile and/or mint tea.

19) F*CK IT! Sometimes you just have to smile, wink and say F*CK IT! There is much more to life than this. F*CK IT!

20) Fake it til you make it! You feel nervous out with friends or at the store? Do your best to keep your cool. Don't wait until you are all better before you go out. Going out and forcing yourself out of your comfort zone is the path to getting better. If you totally break down in public and freak out and lose it, hey, I did! I'm ok. I didn't lose any friends over it. If you see someone having a full on panic attack in public, don't you want to just help him? Will you judge him and laugh at him? No, of course not. You would wanna help the person.

Everyone has her or her own healing path. Stay on it. Create new pathways in your brain. Override these crapy ones with new ones. Instead of automatically wanting to stay in bed, force yourself to jump out of bed. Instead of being scared of enclosed spaces, force yourself to go there. Create new neural pathways.

Find a hobby to focus your attention on. Play an instrument, do photography, paint, draw, whatever! Take your focus off yourself and into something else.

Do charity work! Give to those in need. Take your mind off your troubles and help those with much worse troubles than you.

If you have kids to play with such as a niece, nephew or son or daughter, go outside and play fun activities with a kid or kids. I found playing frisbee with my 5 year old niece took all my worries about myself away. Watch how they just want to play play and play.

ALWAYS know that this takes time. It took me about a year. That year went by fast. If I knew then what I know now it could have been quicker. It doesn't matter. All that matters is you keep moving forward and don't look at the time. People get cured of cancer, hepatitis, stokes, heart attacks. You think you cant overcome anxiety? Or what Claire Weekes calls, "Nervous Illness".

Remember, the fight or flight response is a built in mechanism part of your biology. Your brain tells that you're dying so you are motivated to run from the saber toothed tiger. Look around you. Do you see a wild animal about to pounce on you? Your brain has mis-calculated the danger. Retrain it.


And most important, please smile. Don't take it all so seriously! And please, learn to say, "F*CK IT!"

Good luck!

hello. my name is cosmina and im from romania. i have some prbs with anxiety too and i could really use some help. my skype is cosmina_velcea. i know u are prolly busy and dont have time dealing or talking about my prbs, but its my first time on this forum and usually dont talk on forums so i could really use a friend on skype to talk about my prbs when you have time( anxiety problems and symptoms) . i would really really appreciate it .please can i use like 20 min of your time for some advices? thank you so much, i look forward on talking to you on skype. thank you

[comikisses]

hello. my name is cosmina and im from romania. i have some prbs with anxiety too and i could really use some help. my skype is cosmina_velcea. i know u are prolly busy and dont have time dealing or talking about my prbs, but its my first time on this forum and usually dont talk on forums so i could really use a friend on skype to talk about my prbs when you have time( anxiety problems and symptoms) . i would really really appreciate it .please can i use like 20 min of your time for some advices? thank you so much, i look forward on talking to you on skype. thank you

[PanicCured]

I could not find cosmina_velcea on Skype.

[theoryofchoice78]

Good advice PanicCured... I think what you say about the nervous system being on high alert makes sense from a practical stand-point (especially when I consider that it feels like my anxiety and associated symptoms come and go in cycles of some kind.. that it feels to me like it builds up).

The part I wondered about -- I actually have anxiety surges / attacks caused by my breathing. What I mean is that I start "noticing" my breathing when in an anxiety state, and it typically causes more anxiety. By notice I mean I pay attention to it, scrutinize it even, which inevitably causes me to mildly hyperventilate (as you said, never feels like I'm getting enough air) making some symptoms worse. This is one of the reasons I've avoided deep breathing techniques... personal experience has taught me that not thinking about how I breath is better for my personal anxiety state in general. Can you relate to any of what I'm saying, and do you have any suggestions?

[pammy]

So much GREAT info in all these posts!!! One thing that helped me a lot was understanding that the anxiety I experience is a symptom of an underlying cause(s) that causes a poor adrenal response to stress (good or bad...including physical activity too). Identifying allergy triggers and the accompanying adrenal/histamine response has helped me much!! Iodine seems to be a biggie...I've always been sensitive/allergic. This most likely caused my thyroid to malfunction many years ago. Now that I don't have a functioning thyroid gland, I have to be even more careful with iodine because I don't have a functioning thyroid to metabolize it...so it accumulates.

A simple test for iodine sensitivity is a skin patch test (and be ready to flush it off if you react). If one reacts badly to topical iodine, you will internally as well. I hadn't been careful and although the fish oil I had been taking was "shellfish" free...evidently there was still enough iodine in the marine fish that caused an allergic reaction. One way I realized that I was having an allergic reaction and mild anaphylaxis was when my blood pressure fell below normal.

I was getting most of the symptoms several hours after taking the fish oil so I didn't make the connection right away. And now I've also found out that iodine can be present in most any animal product (even milk, although it's not listed on the container) because iodine is in animal feed. Hamburger (whether cattle, turkey, chicken) is particularly bad because the animal's thyroid (where the most concentration of iodine would be) is ground up too. Iodine is in most multi-V's...so I have to be careful there and to watch out for "hidden" sources, such as kelp.

A couple of "quick fixes" for techniques I've use to temporarily ease anxiety symptoms are those that help to downbeat a quickening heartrate. Massaging the vagal nerve in the neck (carefully so it doesn't cause dizziness) and/or taking a deep breath, holding it and bearing down as if taking a poop. If you check your heartrate before and after....you can verify the slower heartrate.

For me, my docs kept over and under dosing my thyroid medication so I had to micro-dose and titrate into a normal range (it's a very narrow therapeutic range). I've also had to identify and treat all sensitivity/allergy issues and treat every single symptom caused by these as well as continuing to recover one my thyroid levels were stabilized (including low blood sugar, restoring circadian cortisol patterns).

I eliminated caffeine going on 2 years now and that's helped greatly! I'm careful about other stimulants such as those found in herbal supplements, etc. Although consuming low/no sugar by eating cruciferous veggies is supposed to help adrenal function and stabilize blood sugar....they're also goitrogens grrrrrrrrr!!

[Zeus]

HAHAH the sabre tooth tiger thing made me laugh felt nice

[PanicCured]

A couple of "quick fixes" for techniques I've use to temporarily ease anxiety symptoms are those that help to downbeat a quickening heartrate. Massaging the vagal nerve in the neck (carefully so it doesn't cause dizziness)

THIS IS HORRIBLE ADVICE! THIS CAN KILL YOU! DO NOT DO THIS!

A cardiologist told me if you are not a trained cardiologist this is not safe to do and it can cause a stroke if you do it wrong. I heard it from the cardiologists mouth. You are not a cardiologist so you don't know if you are doing it wrong or not. I don't mean you touch your neck and you have a stroke, so don't panic, but this technique you are talking about is dangerous and it should not be done.

[plumb]

hi panic cured. i bought the buteyko book and have recently started reading and trying the exercises, what i am finding is that i can take a much bigger breath in through my nose but not really much exhaling through my nose, did you find this aswell?