By Diana Holbourn
Becky Gives Lectures at her Old University About Overcoming Anxiety Problems
Book eight of the online Becky Bexley series.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
Some tutors at Becky's old university who'd heard the talks she'd given on the psychology programme on the radio station where she worked, where she'd given a bit of advice about getting over depression and worry, had been impressed. And after the lecture she gave at the university about a technique for forgiving people went down well, they decided to invite her back to give a series of lectures about getting over anxiety, in the psychology department where she'd studied before.
They told her they'd invite the students who were studying psychology, as well as any others who wanted to come and listen, and also members of the community who might like to come, such as trainee counsellors, and people who were suffering from anxiety problems themselves, as long as they thought they'd be able to tolerate sitting and listening to Becky talking for over an hour. ... They explained to Becky that what they meant by that was that anxious people would be encouraged to come if they thought they'd be able to concentrate on the lectures for that long, what with their anxiety possibly getting in the way of their concentration.
Becky agreed to go, although she thought giving a whole series of lectures on getting over anxiety would take some work to prepare!
She re-read a lot of the information she'd read before about anxiety problems to remind herself of it, making notes along the way. When she had, she and the tutors decided on a schedule for her lectures, and the tutors advertised them.
A few days before Becky did her first lecture, she had a chat to her auntie Diana, and told her a bit about what she planned to say.
Then the conversation started to get a bit more light-hearted. Becky said, "I remember a conversation I once had with someone I met, who said there was a time when he'd wanted to go into the army, but then he'd started feeling panicky at the thought that he might have to do some real fighting, so he changed his mind. But he was really discouraged about the fact that he'd backed out, thinking he must be a real coward and no good, hating himself for it.
"I tried to reassure him, by half-joking, 'Don't worry about being a coward. Actually, I never understood why cowardice has always got such a bad press. I've always thought it was very sensible, like self-preservation. So I admire you for being too cowardly to go and fight. I suspect all the most sensible people are cowards. Cowardice is good for the health. It must be. I bet cowards are among the most long-lived people in the world. So perhaps you'll have a long and happy life now. So I'd like to congratulate you on your wisdom. I personally don't understand Why more people don't realise that cowardice is wisdom. I mean, just imagine if everyone in the world had always been a coward. There would have been no wars ever in the world, since the beginning of time! Imagine how much of a better place it would have always been!
"'And cowardice must contribute so much to better health sometimes that I think that along with health food regimes and exercise, people ought to be taught that cowardice is part of a healthy life. Perhaps they could even have coward practice in schools, where teachers pretend to be the enemy, and the children have to practice running away as soon as they see them. They could incorporate that into lessons on healthy living. You could even go into schools to demonstrate the reflex running away technique.
"And schools could have special assemblies, where school principals could give the children little inspiring speeches about how they want them all to grow up to be fine upstanding cowards; and they could sing special hymns about the glories of cowardice.'"
Diana grinned, and said she thought that sounded like a great idea.
Then she told Becky she'd read some books about recovering from anxiety, one of which was about getting over agoraphobia. She said the author said that one problem people with agoraphobia tend to have is fear of being judged harshly by others, and feeling ashamed of doing any little thing that would make them look weird or crazy to others. So he recommends that when people are well on their way to recovery, they could confront their fears of that by deliberately doing little things in public that might make them seem weird or insane, to stand up defiantly against the shame they feel, to get over their fear of it, and so they'll realise the consequences likely won't be as bad as they've worried they would be.
Diana smiled and said, "The author actually came up with some ideas for things people can do. I think he calls them shame-attacking exercises. After I read them, I got the idea of making up some of my own just for fun, imagining what a laugh it could be if people actually plucked up the courage to do them, - not people with phobias, but people who'd find it easy, and felt like doing some just for a laugh, and because they thought they could do with getting more comfortable with doing embarrassing things themselves. I put some of the ideas on a forum I post on, some from the book, and some I made up myself. People knew I was doing it just for fun. I said,
"'These exercises are part of a special therapy for people who are too concerned about what people think of them. They're designed to persuade those people that being stared at and thought of as a fool really isn't that bad after all. ... Supposedly. ... Actually, anyone can do these exercises, just for entertainment.'
"Then I put some on there, and then a couple of other people made some up for fun too. Here's a list of ones we came up with, as far as I can remember them, as well as a few I put there from the book:
"1. Get into a crowded lift, and when it starts to move, open your bag, and say, 'Shut up in there! Do you want them to find you?' and then act as if nothing happened.
"2. Sit in an empty lift until someone comes on, and when they open the door, act really shocked and run out, screaming, 'Freedom!'
"3. Go to the supermarket and buy a box of cereal, a spoon, milk and a bowl; and as soon as you buy it, prepare the cereal and eat it right there.
"4. Behave as if you don't speak the dominant language in your area, and then suddenly start talking in it.
"5. Start a conversation with someone, talking in one accent, and continue talking to them for a while, every minute or so switching accent, so you talk with several different ones over the course of the conversation.
"6. Go to the supermarket again, and buy just one grape. Don't just ask for it; go and get it, and then go to the produce section and get someone to weigh it for you and tell you the price. Then go through the check-out and pay for it.
"7. Stop strangers in the street randomly, and give them a quick prediction about their future.
"8. Hand out dandelion bouquets to passersby.
"9. Go to a restaurant, and in the middle of the meal, drop your head forward into your dinner and pretend to fall asleep.
"10. Dial random numbers, and each time someone answers their phone, sing them one of your favourite songs.
"11. Go to a shoe shop and insist on trying on pairs of odd shoes.
"12. Go to town with an umbrella on a showery day when the showers are short, and keep the umbrella rolled up while it's raining. Keep putting it up when it stops raining, and taking it down again when it starts again.
"13. Go to the library, and ask the librarian to help you find a little children's book. Then, put it on your head, and say the reason you wanted it was to practice your deportment exercises to develop a better posture, and that you'd like her to watch you walk around with the book on your head and tell you how steady you're managing to keep it.
"14. Go into a restaurant and sit down, and when the waiter or waitress comes to ask you what you'd like to eat, say you'd like a genuine mud pie. When he or she says the restaurant doesn't do them, insist that they surely must have them!
"I can't remember if we thought of any more."
Becky giggled.
Then Diana said, "The author of the book about recovering from agoraphobia where I got the idea for making up more of those shame-attacking exercises said that a group of therapists and recovering agoraphobics once went to a supermarket, so the people recovering from agoraphobia could get used to not feeling too bad in places like that again, or something like that; and one of them was this really short woman. The author thought of a good opportunity to help her get over her fear of people thinking she was weird, and he put her in a shopping trolley, and wheeled her around in it. She would pick some of the items off the shelves. No one seemed to be taking any notice. When they got to the check-out, she put them on the conveyor belt.
"When they went through, the author couldn't resist asking the man at the check-out if he didn't think there was anything strange about it, because he didn't look surprised or anything. The man said he didn't think there was anything that unusual about it, since it was nothing compared to some of the things he'd seen going on there!
"The author says the really short woman said afterwards that going through that experience was actually a turning point in her recovery from agoraphobia, because she realised she wasn't being judged anywhere near as harshly as she'd been worrying she was, so it really increased her confidence."
Becky thought that was a nice story.
Becky began her first lecture by saying, "I'm not an expert on this kind of thing, so I'm sorry if you're disappointed by that. But I've read some books that seem to be decent about getting over anxiety, and I've got a little bit of information from other places too.
"Sorry if you think parts of these lectures are a bit repetitive and rambly, by the way; it's university policy that lecturers have to be repetitive and rambly - don't ask me why; I've got no idea. ... Sorry, that was a joke. The truth is that I've just been putting together so much stuff that I might not always remember whether I've already said something. The books I read to prepare for these lectures sometimes made fairly similar points to each other, so I might have repeated some things in the notes I took on what they say. But don't worry; it'll hopefully help if you're reminded of them anyway, since it's easy for people to forget a lot of things the first time they hear them.
"You can always walk out in disgust and contempt or annoyance if you really don't like hearing me say similar things to things I've already said. But obviously I'm hoping you won't. ... Of course if you do walk out, I won't assume you're doing it in disgust or contempt or annoyance. You might just be going to the loo or something.
"Anyway, that's enough of that! I'll start by telling you an encouraging story about someone who recovered from anxiety fairly quickly when he found a good recovery technique. I'm not saying it would work for everyone, but it might work for some of you; and for the rest of you, at least it'll reassure you that recovery's possible, and that it might not take that long. There are other techniques I'll talk about later, which might help some of you more.
"But about this story: I heard a man talking about this technique he read about to calm phobias. It helped him get over his fear of flying, which he developed for some reason he never understood, after he'd flown a lot as a child with no problem with his dad, who had some kind of high-powered job where he had to travel a lot. But one day when the man was flying alone, he suddenly started worrying about the plane crashing, and got more and more scared about the idea. And then it turned into a phobia.
"But he managed to get rid of it after a while, by following the advice of an ex-pilot who'd written a book about getting over fear of flying, where he advised that as soon as feelings of anxiety come on, it helps to counteract them with a nice emotion you can conjure up and imagine having again, by thinking of memories where you felt it strongly, such as where you felt loved and secure, or where you yourself felt loving and bonded to someone, such as a lover, or with your parents when you were young, if they gave you a lot of cuddles and you can remember them.
"The technique for re-imagining those emotions when you need them is that at first, when you're feeling calm, you practise bringing a strong loving emotion to mind quickly, again and again, till you're good at feeling it again, and you can bring the feeling on quickly at will. After that, you can imagine a situation that might make you just a bit anxious, and then immediately imagine feeling that nice strong emotion, remembering the situations where you felt it strongly, to counteract the anxiety.
"Then imagine something that makes you that little bit more anxious, so it's a little bit more of a challenge to stop, and then immediately bring the nice feelings and memories to mind, so you find you can still soothe the anxiety away with the nice emotions. Then gradually imagine things that make you slightly more and more anxious, practising soothing the anxiety away by thinking about the nice emotions each time.
"So, for instance, if you've got a fear of flying, you could start by imagining feeling apprehensive as you pack and get ready to go to the airport, and then soothe the anxiety away with the loving emotions. You could keep imagining that doing that helps in that situation, until you can easily bring the nice feelings to mind as soon as you imagine feeling a bit anxious.
"Then imagine something that makes you that little bit more anxious, and immediately bring the nice feelings to mind, such as imagining actually driving to the airport, and then imagining feeling the loving emotions when the anxiety begins to come on. Do that till you're good at soothing that anxiety away too.
"And then when you're good at that, imagine actually being at the airport, and go through the same process, till you can make the nice feelings even snuff out the anxiety of being there. And work up gradually till you're imagining something that would make you scared, such as actually being in the air on a plane. By then, you'll likely be good at quickly bringing the nice feelings to mind, so there's a good chance that the anxiety of imagining being on a plane will stop bothering you quickly.
"The idea is that after a while, when you've got good at it, you'll be able to get to bring on the loving emotions in real life when anxiety starts, to keep it from getting bad.
"My auntie Diana told me that when she was a teenager, she had to go to the dentist to have a filling, and during the parts that were a bit painful, she comforted herself and made herself feel a bit better by thinking about a celebrity she had a crush on at the time, imagining feeling love for him or something. She said it worked quite well. So it seems to me that that kind of thing might help.
"The story about the person getting over fear of flying sounds encouraging; but if the technique doesn't work for everyone, there are quite a few other techniques people can try. I don't think the one about bringing loving emotions to mind would work for me personally if I had anxiety problems, because I can't think of any nice strong loving emotions I could imagine, to soothe the anxiety away. But hopefully a lot of people will be able to. But anyone who can't will still be able to use other techniques to help them."
Becky carried on, "I'll explain some things that can sometimes make anxiety get as bad as it does, and what can keep extreme anxiety going:
"One thing is when people are afraid of their fear symptoms coming on again, because they're so horrible. It's no wonder people worry about them coming on so much, because they feel so bad. but one problem is that fear of them actually starts them up again, since it'll make people fearful after all, so just fearing them will bring on the symptoms they're scared of. So the more scared of them people are, the worse they'll get. And even just worrying about them can make them come on, since fear is a more extreme form of anxiety after all. So worrying about fear, and imagining how bad it could get, will likely tip people's anxiety over into fear.
"So becoming less scared of the fear symptoms can calm them down. Obviously people can't be expected to become less scared of them just like that. But it can become easier to become less scared of them when people understand something about the reason why the fear symptoms can get so bad. That's because part of what brings fear on is not understanding why it's happening. So when people get to understand more about exactly what's going on in the body to make it as bad as it is, and why, the fear can be easier to demystify and less scary, because people can realise it doesn't have to be taken as seriously as they've been taking it, because it doesn't necessarily mean anything as significant as they've probably been worrying it's been meaning. I'll explain what I mean by that, and quite a bit about what causes it."
Becky carried on, "One thing that can bring chronic fear and anxiety on is that the nervous system can react badly automatically to a lot of stress in a person's life, even physical stress on the body sometimes, caused by something such as an operation it takes a while to recover from, or chronic sleep deprivation; or else it can react to a lot of emotional stress, sometimes cause by things like a lot of rumination someone's been doing on something upsetting that's happened in their life.
"It can react to both by causing emotional fear feelings, alongside physical symptoms that are common when people have severe anxiety, like dizziness, and a feeling as if the heart's beating really fast, and butterflies in the stomach, and shortness of breath, that gives people an urge to gasp for breath. People can sometimes feel sick, and even be sick if their anxiety gets really bad. And they can sometimes get chest pains. And there are quite a few other severe anxiety symptoms people can get. So it's no wonder fear scares people. But part of the reason it scares people is because it feels as if there's something really wrong with them, or as if there's something about the situation they're in that they really need to be scared of, when really it can be just the body doing what it does naturally in certain circumstances, just doing it because it's over-reacting to stress, and not because there's something physically wrong, or because the person really is in danger, which fear makes people feel as if they are in.
"People's fear can sometimes start gradually, sometimes with just a scary physical sensation they feel, like their heart suddenly feeling as if it's beating wildly, that might have just come on because of anaemia or sleep deprivation, or because they've had too many drinks that contain caffeine, or something else that doesn't mean their heart itself is unhealthy, and which can easily be fixed. But some people can worry that it means they're going to have a heart attack, especially if they're prone to anxiety to begin with; and the fear of that can cause other physical fear symptoms to kick in, such as sweating, and tingling sensations in the hands, as well as causing the heart to beat even faster, because of the adrenaline fear releases into the system, which causes things like that.
"Having said that, I'm not saying physical symptoms like the heart beating extra powerfully will never mean there's something seriously wrong. I'm just saying they can often come on when there isn't anything all that wrong. It's worth going to the doctor if you're worried about something like that.
"But anyway, after an experience like that, some people can feel tense and anxious for a few days, dreading the experience coming on again. If it does come on again, it can really worry them, and they'll dread it happening even more. But that'll mean their body goes into stress mode, which will mean other horrible physical anxiety symptoms will come on. So then they'll often get even more worried, feeling even more sure there's something seriously wrong with them. And the more they worry and dread what might happen next, the more the fear symptoms will kick in, which will worry them even more; and doing that will make the fear symptoms even worse; so it'll be like a vicious cycle.
"And The more time people have to worry over what's wrong with them, instead of being preoccupied with work or other things, the more their worry will increase their fear, so the symptoms will come on more, and they'll be more likely to get new ones as well, like chest pain and headaches, that'll worry them more and more.
"And other things will likely worry them as well. For instance, they might start to be scared to be alone in case their heart starts racing powerfully and there's no one there to help, but also scared to be with people, in case that happens and panic comes on, and they do something they think looks as if they're making a fool of themselves in front of people, such as giving into an urge to run away, because they feel so desperate to get out of the place where they're feeling so much anxiety. If that's happened in the past, they can have a special reason to dread it happening again, since they'll have likely found it so embarrassing.
"And the more worry and dread they feel, the iller they'll feel, and the more sensitised their nerves will become to signs of stress; so the nerves will start to bring on the physical fear sensations for more and more minor reasons, such as the person having to do less and less worrying before they're triggered off.
"Sometimes people try to concentrate intensively on other things to keep the fear of the symptoms out of their minds; but because they're so desperate to concentrate on those other things, and worried about what'll happen if they can't, they feel tense and stressed, so the symptoms just end up coming on more.
"And when people are that stressed, even little problems can seem like a big deal, because they increase the stress they're already feeling even more; so they can become irritable with people, or even more anxious.
"And one problem is that if people's brains associate a place or a thing with a place where they've been very upset or had a panic attack before, their brains will likely instantly remember it, and trigger off the fear feelings all over again when the people are near the place or thing, or somewhere similar again, as if they're trying to warn them of a problem, when there isn't really one. It can just be a mistake the brain makes, because it thinks that if a person was really stressed in a certain place, there must be danger in places like that, so the person must need to be alerted that they're in a place like that again, and might need to get out of it for their own safety. The extreme emotional reaction will be triggered off before the person has time to think about whether that's really true.
"The same cycle can start off when people are scared of any kind of physical sensation they're worried about the cause of, or if a lot of stress has given them heart palpitations or other symptoms like butterflies in the stomach a lot of the time, and they worry about the cause of them. They can worry about them so much that any symptoms that are being caused by fear or anxiety can be with them for most or all of the day, because if they worry about the sensations, they can unwittingly bring on more of the fear symptoms that might be causing them; and they'll be increasing their fear symptoms more and more the more they worry about the cause of them; so the sensations can just get worse, which will make them worry about them more, which will make the fear symptoms worse, and then worrying about them will bring them on more, and so on, in a vicious cycle.
"And sometimes people can have panic attacks, where the fear gets really intense for a while. And then they can worry about them coming on at inappropriate moments, like when they're trying to concentrate on something important, or when they're in a meeting with their boss. But the more they worry about that happening, the more it can happen, because those are the times when they'll get most worried about them coming on; and worry triggers them off. And the panic symptoms will be so frightening that it'll be impossible to just stop worrying about them.
"When people find themselves suffering a lot of anxiety when nothing's really wrong, it's as if their nerves have got over-sensitised to things, a bit like a smoke alarm that's too sensitive so it goes off just when people spray perfume or something.
"You wouldn't want to get rid of feelings of fear altogether, because they're badly needed sometimes; they could even save your life, if, for example, you were crossing a road and a car came zooming out of nowhere, and fear kicked in, and motivated you to run across the road as fast as you could. That's the kind of thing fear's for - to help people get motivated to take action really quickly when they really are in danger.
"When fear comes on for no reason though, it's as if the dial on it's turned up too high, so your brain senses danger when there isn't really any. But the fear makes people think there must be some kind of danger.
"The fear itself can feel like the danger, because people can worry they're going to faint or get ill, or make a fool of themselves if they react to it, for instance by giving in to the urge it's giving them to run away to get out of the situation, which might only in reality be something like a big shopping queue that's really stressing them out, because they're in a hurry to buy their things and go, perhaps because they need to get back to work soon."
Becky continued, "One thing that can help people get over their dread of the physical symptoms of fear is if they sit down where they can spend some quiet time, and then imagine themselves relaxing, and then examine each physical fear symptom they have in turn for a few minutes, not letting it worry them, but just analysing it, asking themselves if it's really as bad as they think it is, given that it's probably just a fear symptom, or a tension symptom.
"For instance, a churning feeling in the stomach is unpleasant, but is it really that nasty in the great scheme of things? If you decide you can put up with it after all, and realise it's pretty harmless - just a product of tension that's made your body release more adrenaline than you need, it'll stop worrying you so much; and that'll help you on your way to making the fear symptoms subside, because less worry will likely do that.
"But even if you've done that and reassured yourself, the body can take a while to wind down, because of the stress it's been under, which might mean it takes a while to ramp down its responses to the lower levels of stress you start getting when you realise you don't need to worry as much about the fear symptoms as you thought you did. So the unpleasant sensations likely won't go away immediately, and might last for some time, because your body will have just become used to producing as much adrenaline as it's been doing for a while, which triggers off the sensations, so it'll likely take a while to change its habits.
"But if you always dismiss the sensations as just a product of too much adrenaline flowing around your system, and nothing more, they'll start to fade, because they won't frighten you any more, so they won't make your body release more of the adrenaline that keeps them going any more, since it's only the worry and fear that makes it do that. The more you can shrug the physical fear symptoms off as just a product of too much adrenaline, and not something you need to worry about, and stop caring whether they're there or not, because you stop believing they have major significance, the more they'll stop bothering you, so they'll start to fade, because you're not stirring them up with worry any more.
"For instance, if you can accept stomach churning as just a part of life for the time being, instead of trying to actively find ways to make it go away, you'll likely stop thinking of it as so significant. So after a while, you might even stop noticing whether it's there or not sometimes, especially if you're engrossed in other things.
"But try to be willing to let more time pass till it fades away, so you don't lose heart when it doesn't do it quickly. If you forget to just shrug it off as the body still not quite having adjusted to lower levels of stress, and worry about it again, it'll get worse, or take longer to fade, because it'll be being stirred up again by your worries.
"It's the same with the other near-constant fear symptoms people can have. For instance, if your hands are shaky and sweaty, and you're getting a feeling of pins and needles in them, which are often just common fear symptoms, you could spend a bit of time thinking about how significant or insignificant that really is, reflecting on the fact that your hands are still useable, and that the sensations are likely only a symptom of your body releasing too much adrenaline in response to fear feelings or tension. It's just what hands naturally do when people feel like that. If you can accept the issues as a bit of a nuisance you'll have to live with for a while, but that they don't mean more than that, and you can be willing to let time go by while your body gets used to the new normal where you don't worry so much and the symptoms are gradually fading, all the fear symptoms will gradually die down, so they eventually stop causing the problems.
"Having said that, there are a few medical conditions where physical problems cause symptoms that feel the same as fear symptoms, such as hyperthyroidism, where the body produces too much thyroid hormone; so it's worth getting checked by a doctor for that kind of thing. But if the tests come back normal, it's worth trying to just dismiss the symptoms as just your body producing more adrenaline than you need for a while.
"After you've examined the feeling of churning in your stomach, and the feelings of pins and needles in your hands, and decided you can live with them for a while, then on another day, it's worth sitting down, imagining a feeling of calmness, and then thinking about another fear symptom that often comes on, such as any constant feeling you might have of your heart beating faster and more noticeably than it should. Not necessarily the feeling of palpitation, when it really seems to be going wild, but the sensation of it shaking or beating too fast that can come on a lot with anxiety. It might be worth checking with a doctor to make sure your heart's OK, and even getting a second opinion if you're still worried. But if everything still seems OK, it's likely just another symptom of your body releasing too much adrenaline in response to a lot of tension, or the fear feelings suddenly coming on again.
"Chances are that your heart isn't really beating all that much faster than most people's do, but it's just the adrenaline making it feel more powerful and noticeable than normal. And paying attention to it because you're worried about it will make the body release more adrenaline, so you notice it more.
"Pain in the chest region can just be caused by muscle tension, caused by constant anxiety, which increases physical tension, which can actually hurt if it's really bad. Naturally it's still worth getting checked out by a doctor if you've got chest pain. But if you get tests, and the doctor says you've got no physical problems that could cause that, then anxiety could well be the culprit.
"And your heart almost certainly won't be being harmed by beating more noticeably; you'd likely notice the same thing if you did some strenuous exercise, - your heart would be beating faster and more noticeably then too. It would be pumping blood round the body faster to help your body cope with the increased demand for bloodflow to your muscles, to help them deal with the extra demands you were putting on them, since increased bloodflow can bring them more energy, because it can bring them more oxygen that the body can use for fuel to create energy.
"I was surprised when I first heard that blood contains oxygen; but apparently it does. It seems that some of the oxygen that people breathe in, and even a bit of the carbon dioxide, gets transferred into the bloodstream, where the body uses it.
"But anyway, the same adrenaline that can cause the heart to beat faster to provide energy that's sometimes actually needed can cause fear symptoms that just feel nasty, because they're not needed at the time when they come on. If they were needed at the time, they'd be useful, to spur people to take quick action, such as to run away, or to fight someone with enough energy so as to have as much chance as possible of defeating them. But the thing is that if there's no need to do such a thing as that, the symptoms the increase in adrenaline causes can just be scary, because there won't seem to be any point to them, so they'll just be worrying, unless the person suffering from them understands what the body's causing them for; so a person afflicted by them will just wonder why on earth they could be happening, if they don't know why the body's causing them.
"Part of the reason why they happen is that fear increases the heart rate to make blood pump round faster to the muscles that might be needed to work especially well if the person needs to use them to help them run away or fight an attacker. But it does that even if there isn't an attacker, and all that's happening is that a person's under a lot of stress, for instance if they're anxious already, and then for a while they're always having to wake up in the night because they've got a new baby who cries at unpredictable times, so their stress reactions suddenly increase when it happens. It's just the way the body works when anxiety's high.
"Maybe your heart will sometimes start thumping in response to little things like sudden loud noises; but that's because your nerves are over-sensitised to them and on edge because of your anxiety. When you realise that's all that's causing it, it'll start worrying you less; and less worry will help your body gradually calm down.
"Some people find it hard to sleep because heart palpitations often come on just when they're trying to drift off to sleep, and then they worry and worry about whether something's seriously wrong. It'll be worth getting checked out by a doctor if they happen to you. But in the meantime, it'll often help make the palpitations fade, or at least seem a fair bit less disturbing, if you can think of them as likely just an anxiety symptom, if you're prone to anxiety after all, and if you reassure yourself that they're probably nothing that the heart can't handle, as long as your heart's healthy.
"There are quite a few different causes of heart palpitations besides anxiety, so like I said, it's definitely worth consulting a doctor about them, although a lot of them aren't serious. Too much caffeine or nicotine or alcohol can cause them, for instance, and so can some cold or asthma medications and some other ones, and some illegal drugs. If you think a prescription or over-the-counter drug might be causing yours, it'll be worth going to the doctor to find out if you could be put on another drug that'll help with the same problem as the other one did but doesn't have that side effect.
"But there are serious causes of palpitations, like some kinds of heart disease, so those need to be ruled out. It's worth going to the doctor especially if breathlessness or dizziness or weakness or fainting come on with them.
"Things like anaemia or an overactive thyroid can sometimes cause them too. And sometimes people get them when they've got a high temperature, because the body's using up more energy to fight an illness, and the heart's having to beat faster to pump more oxygen round the body to give it more fuel to do that.
"Or sometimes low blood sugar levels can bring them on, which can sometimes happen if people have been skipping meals, which can make them feel weak and shaky, and then the body releases more adrenaline and other stress hormones in anticipation of a possible food shortage, and those can make the heart beat faster.
"Anyway, those are some possible causes of heart palpitations; but anxiety itself is often a big one on its own. And worrying and worrying about them, whatever their cause, will likely make them worse by itself, because worrying releases adrenaline and the other stress hormones that do that.
"Trying to get into a relaxed comfortable position might help make them seem more tolerable. And if their main cause is anxiety, doing something to try to relax will definitely help them fade. It might help you to relax if you can breathe really really really slowly, which can help calm anxiety symptoms. Or you could get up and have a milky drink or something. If you get to be able to relax despite the palpitations, even if they start coming on quite often, eventually you might even start falling asleep while they're going on. And the more you can come to shrug them off as probably just an anxiety symptom, perhaps after you've had them checked out, the less you'll worry about them, so the less they'll come on over time, because you'll be calmer, so your anxiety won't be triggering them off so much.
"Anxiety can occasionally bring on symptoms where people feel faint, as if the heart's actually beating more slowly than usual. The symptoms can make people feel as if it's hard to move. If you get that problem, those symptoms should fade over time too if you can accept them as probably just anxiety symptoms, although it might be worth seeing a doctor to see if there's medication that can control them.
"A similar thing people can get is bouts of trembling, where they feel weak and faint. They can come on because of low blood sugar; and eating something sweet can make them go away. Anxious people can be more likely to get them, because they're using up so much energy because of all their tension that they need something to give them more energy.
"Anyway, another symptom you can examine is the headaches that might come on when you get anxious. You might worry they mean something's seriously wrong; but tension headaches are pretty common, where people get headaches just because the muscles around their scalps have tensed up so much with their anxiety. You can tell nothing's wrong with something deep inside your head, like a brain tumour, if the headaches temporarily go away if you press your head where it hurts, or put something warm there for a while like a hot water bottle, and it eases them. But you might notice anyway that they get worse when you're feeling at your most anxious, and get better when you're feeling calmer.
"And as with the other anxiety symptoms, the more you worry about them, the worse your anxiety will get, so the worse the headaches will probably get. The more you can manage to shrug them off as probably just an anxiety symptom, the less you'll be worrying about them; and then as long as you're feeling less anxious about other things as well, they should start to fade, although they might take a while to go away altogether.
"It might take a while before it's possible to truly accept the physical anxiety symptoms and just be able to live with them without worrying about them, because they'll be bound to be pretty daunting. But if you can eventually go about your business while just dismissing the symptoms as anxiety symptoms that you refuse to let stand in your way, it might well be easier to do that without worrying about them over time.
"One experiment you can try is concentrating on each symptom in turn, and actually trying to make it worse by thinking about it. I know that sounds a bit strange. But you might be relieved when you discover you can't make it much worse at all, if it even gets any worse at all. And in fact, it might get better while you're thinking about it, since if you're examining it with interest instead of feeling scared of it, it'll mean that for the time being, you won't be feeling so anxious, because it's hard to be interested in something and to feel anxious at the same time; so the symptom might actually fade for a while, because your anxiety's gone away for a while, since it's the anxiety that causes it. You might have been worrying and worrying that even thinking much about the symptoms would make them worse. If you have, but then you deliberately concentrate on them to try to make them worse and they don't get worse, you'll know you don't have to worry about them causing worse problems than you've experienced so far after all.
"The symptoms will become less noticeable over time - maybe weeks - as you stop worrying about them, but just accept them as a product of your body releasing more adrenaline than you really need.
"One of the authors I got this information from says there was a student who was finding it hard to concentrate on his studies because of the horrible symptoms of anxiety that were scaring him, like his heart thumping and his stomach churning, and his hands sweating so much; but then just when he thought he was going to go nuts if his symptoms carried on, because they were bothering him so much, a friend of his who used to be a soldier came to visit him, and he told the man about his symptoms, and said he didn't know what to do. The ex-soldier told him he understood what he was talking about, because a lot of soldiers had had those symptoms when they were going into combat, until they realised they were being more scared by them than they needed to be, thinking they were signs that they were physically ill when they were really just anxiety symptoms. He advised the student to stop letting them make him scared and sorry for himself, and to imagine he was just floating past them.
"The student was inspired by all the advice, and tried it; and then instead of worrying that his heart was diseased, so he was scared to strain it by even walking very far, within a couple of weeks he was climbing mountains. He would still get the anxiety symptoms when he was really stressed, but he realised they would fade if he just accepted them instead of being scared of them, and if he relaxed and imagined he was just floating past them.
"What this floating thing means is that instead of trying to combat the symptoms by getting all tense and determining to fight them, which can mean a battle between your will and the symptoms, which the symptoms will likely win, because the more you tense yourself up to fight them, the worse they'll get, because tension and stress bring them on, you just imagine you're floating above them, maybe on a cloud.
"The author who recommends that says a woman who was scared of meeting people was trying to fight her fear symptoms by trying to psyche herself up to defy them, so she could do what she wanted to do anyway, like going to the shops to buy what she needed; but the more she determined to fight the symptoms, the tenser she got, since people just naturally get more tense when they psyche themselves up for combat; and the tenser she got, the more the fear symptoms came on, because tension contributes to causing them; so it puts people off doing things even more if they're already scared to do them; so she was put off doing what she wanted to do even more than she had been before by it. And her symptoms were so off-putting and scary that despite her determination, she still couldn't bring herself to go out; and the less she felt like it, the more she tried to tense herself up to fight them.
"But the author recommended that instead of trying to fight the symptoms, she imagined she was just floating above them, so she could imagine herself floating into shops instead of having to steel herself to go into them, perhaps as if she was floating into the shops on a cloud. The author said that could help her feel more relaxed. And she advised that as well as that, if a worrying thought came into the woman's head, she could imagine she was floating past that too, instead of giving it attention and taking it seriously, since after all, it would likely be over-dramatic, as if the thought was trying to manipulate her into not leaving the house by exaggerating the problems, or as if it was just a thought that didn't necessarily have any significance at all, because it might be making her worry about things she didn't really need to worry about.
"The woman tried it, and she was really really pleased with the results. Trying it made a massive difference. She was happy to go into shops after that, imagining floating into them; and she imagined floating past the tension in all kinds of other situations that used to make her feel really anxious as well.
"And there was a doctor who became over-stressed because of a series of mishaps in his family, who became so tense that he was scared to do even routine things, like giving injections, because he was worried that his tension and the distraction caused by his fear symptoms would prevent him from doing them well. He was even thinking of giving up medicine because of the effect his anxiety symptoms were having on him. But he was encouraged by the same author to accept his condition as just a temporary thing that would pass, and to imagine floating past his tension, not worrying about it or trying to control it to try to stop it getting worse - since battling with it would make him more tense; but he was told to imagine feeling relaxed and floating above it, and that when worrying thoughts of failure came to mind, he could dismiss them as just thoughts that weren't necessarily reflections of reality, and move on.
"He found it worked. Not immediately, since he needed to get used to trying it; but soon it did. The next challenge he had was giving an anaesthetic, and he got worried when he was told the patient had a weak heart. Immediately he felt so stressed he thought of giving up on the whole idea of doing it. But then he remembered the advice to imagine floating above his tension, and he tried it, and then felt more relaxed, and was able to give the patient the anaesthetic with no problem. In the weeks afterwards, he imagined floating above his tension more and more, till he seemed like a different, much more relaxed and competent person.
"Not everyone will be able to just carry on, using the technique easily. It might be harder for some people to learn to imagine floating past their tension than it is for others; or some people might be so stressed that it's harder. So for some people, taking a break from work for a while can help them to wind down from all the stresses of it, although it can help if they try to do things that interest them while they're off work, so they don't just lie around brooding on their problems, which would make them feel even worse.
"Some people find it difficult at first to do such things as imagining floating past their fear, and accepting that their anxiety symptoms are just what they are, and waiting quietly till they pass; but the knowledge that the techniques could still work for them gives them more optimism; and then over time, as they practise them, they get better at them, till they do work.
"There might well be setbacks, like bad days when the techniques don't seem so possible to do; but if a person can accept that that doesn't mean they've failed, and tries again in the days afterwards, they might well find they get the hang of them over time. Even just gaining more confidence about being able to deal with the anxiety symptoms can mean they become less severe, because confidence is an antidote to anxiety.
"It can be really dismaying for people when they become optimistic because they seem to be getting better, only to have a bad day when their stress gets to be too much, and their anxiety symptoms seem to be too bad to cope with again. It can feel like a real let-down, making them feel even worse than they did before for a while. But it doesn't mean they have to give up on hopes of progress, because despite setbacks, their brain might still be being gradually trained more and more to stop being so reactive to stress, so it'll start taking more to set the anxiety symptoms off. So over time, a person can realise that despite their dismaying setbacks, they've still made a lot of progress overall. They might gradually have more and more good days, till most days are fairly free from severe anxiety.
"So instead of measuring progress by looking back at recent days, it can help to look forward with some confidence to increased progress over time.
"Part of what holds a person back from recovery for a while is the fact that when anxiety symptoms come on, they feel so much like the ones they've had before that they can't help but remember how bad they used to be, and start worrying about them getting as bad as they were before; and then their worry will increase their anxiety till it does get that bad.
"But the more good days a person has, the more they'll be able to reassure themselves that when their anxiety does come on again, it's likely to only be a temporary setback; and the knowledge of that can help calm their symptoms, so they'll begin to get less and less severe over time, especially because the distressing memories of how severe they were in the past will gradually fade over time. And at the same time, memories of being able to overcome them for a while will likely increase as the person has more and more successes at it, which will make them more confident about being able to eventually overcome their anxiety symptoms altogether. So it can help if when the symptoms do come on, a person reminds themselves that they're only temporary.
"The author of the book that gives that advice says there are people whose muscles have become so tense with all their anxiety that they've become convinced they can't even use them, thinking they must have some illness that's made part of their body paralysed. She says one patient like that who she met had been in bed in hospital for weeks, convinced he couldn't walk, or even lift food to his mouth to feed himself. But after speaking to him for a while, she convinced him the problem was caused by fear tensing his muscles up so much he couldn't move them; and she taught him to imagine he was floating past his scared thoughts.
"After a few days, he was able to feed himself again, by imagining floating the food to his mouth; and then he said he was ready to walk again. He got up, to the surprise of some nurses, doctors and students who'd come to watch him. One nurse was worried, and said as he began to sway as he got up, - probably because he hadn't stood up for some time so his body had stopped being used to it, - 'Look out; you might fall!' At first the thought worried the man so much he lost confidence, and would have fallen over because of that; but he heard a voice in his mind saying, 'Float and you can do it. Float past fear'; and he took heart, and imagined floating as he stood up, and as he even walked all the way down the ward and back. Everyone including him was surprised he'd managed to do it.
"The author says it can help to imagine fearful thoughts floating away too, so as to get relief from them when they're plaguing the mind, such as imagining them floating out of the back or side of the head. One woman she mentions thought of them as being like little balls that she let bounce off her head.
"When people are mentally healthy, they have more control over their thoughts, so they don't need to do that kind of thing; but the more a person's exhausted with emotion, and the more worried their thoughts are, the more intrusive they are, and the harder it is to just dismiss them in the normal way.
"The author recommends that people stop trying to fight to control their fear, which people often do by tensing up, while they're anxiously trying to work out why it's so bad, and how to get rid of it. They can worry that if they just let go and let it do its thing, it'll just overwhelm them, so they collapse. But when people stop fighting it, but imagine they're just floating past it and letting time go by till it fades, that'll relax the mind, so the fear will start to gradually go away automatically by itself, because the tension of fighting it was making it worse, so not paying so much attention to it will stop that happening, and then it'll likely fade by itself, because it isn't being fuelled by extra worry.
"People can sometimes think they need to relax, and try hard to relax; but the very act of trying hard to concentrate on relaxing causes tension that makes the fear symptoms worse. So giving up concentrating on managing the feelings and just accepting them, - although it's easier said than done, - can help the relaxation process after a while. That might involve putting up with what the feelings are causing for a time, such as trembling in public; but the more you can resign yourself to putting up with things like that for the time being, the more the feelings are likely to fade over time. If you can keep the thought of relaxation and floating past the fear in mind, but not concentrate on making a great effort to make it happen, your thoughts will be more relaxed, so your feelings will become more relaxed after a while too."
Becky carried on, "There are relaxation exercises people can do that can bring some people a lot of relief from stress for a while, and bring down their general stress levels if they do them often, so their stress is less likely to get so high it tips into panic.
"Another advantage of doing them is that once relaxation kicks in, it becomes a lot easier to think clearly, because the emotions that were preventing clear thinking fade away for a while, so while in a highly anxious state, a whole lot of exaggerated worries might flow through a person's brain, because high states of emotion can make people feel as if things are a lot worse than they really are, so people can think things like, 'My girlfriend can't come and see me this weekend, and that's terrible and means my life's ruined!', not having any inkling at the time that the thought's really over-dramatic, they can find it much easier to get things in perspective when they're relaxed, for instance realising that one weekend of not seeing their girlfriend won't affect the whole of their life. It can be the same with a lot of other kinds of thoughts people have.
"So I reckon it's definitely worth people trying relaxation exercises, to see if they really reduce their anxiety for a while.
"Some people find it easiest to get into relaxation exercises if at first, they record the instructions for how to do them, and play them back to themselves, doing the exercises as they listen, so they don't have to concentrate on remembering them and doing them at the same time. Or it can help some people to have them written down, and to have a friend read each one out loud as they do them.
"Still, some of the exercises aren't hard to remember; and they're all likely to get easier and more familiar with practice.
"It's best if people use the ones that work best for them, perhaps after trying several out to see which ones work the most effectively for them. Or some people might actually discover another technique themselves that relaxes them better. But in any case, I think the advice a lot of psychologists give is that people do a relaxation exercises for about ten minutes, twice a day for a while. Relaxation exercises can become more effective the more people do them, because it can take a while for people to really get good at them, I think.
"One relaxation exercise is to concentrate on your breathing for some time, while you breathe really really slowly. One way that helps is that it can counteract the fast shallow breathing a lot of anxious people automatically do, which is what contributes to some of the panic symptoms coming on.
"Another reason it can help is because if all your attention's taken up with concentrating on your breathing, you won't be thinking all kinds of anxious thoughts, so your mind will get a break from them for a while, which will mean it'll likely automatically begin to de-stress.
"But some people find that concentrating on their breathing makes them more anxious, for some reason. And breathing too deeply too fast can make people feel light-headed. The breathing really needs to be really really really slow. But if you find you're not getting on with the breathing technique, there are other relaxation exercises you can try.
"I'll talk about those in a minute, after I've explained the instructions for the breathing technique, because at least some people might find it helpful:
"It works best if you try to create a calm atmosphere before you start it. For instance, you could sit in a comfortable chair, somewhere where you won't be disturbed, wearing loose clothing so it's not uncomfortable, with your arms and legs in a position where they're less likely to be tensed up, such as being uncrossed, with your hands perhaps in your lap, or by your sides.
"Then you could close your eyes, to make it less likely you'll be distracted by looking at what's around you, - unless you'd prefer not to close your eyes, because that would make you feel a bit spooked or something.
"Then you could focus your attention on your feet on the floor, such as noticing what the sensation of them resting against the ground feels like. Then after a little while of doing that, you could do the same with your arms and legs, feeling the gentle sensation of the pressure of your arms against your body or the chair, and the gentle pressure of the top of your legs against the chair, and the feeling of sitting comfortably.
"And then after a little while longer, you could notice the pressure of your back against the chair, and then maybe the gentle pressure of your head against a cushion or the chair back, or whatever it's leant against, if it's leant back against something.
"Focusing your attention on that kind of thing will take your mind off the worries you've been having; and that's at least partly why it might help relax you, because it'll be reversing the process that often likely happens where anxiety increases as worried thoughts build it up more and more.
"Try to keep your shoulders relaxed, imagining them relaxing, rather than having them hunched up towards your neck, which people apparently often do automatically when they're tense, which can then keep some of their muscles tense.
"Then breathe a very very slow deep breath, maybe putting a hand on your tummy if you like, so you can feel the effect, since when people are breathing in a healthy way, the stomach will feel as if it's inflating when people breathe in, whereas when they're breathing in a really fast way, where they're taking in really shallow breaths and breathing lots of air out quickly, like people do when they're really anxious, the stomach doesn't inflate much. So people can be reassured that they're breathing in a healthy way if their stomach feels as if it's inflating a fair bit when they breathe.
"The idea of this relaxation exercise is that after you've breathed in a long breath, you breathe out, but slow your breathing down even more, so breathing out takes a fair bit longer than breathing in did. The idea is that some psychologists think that breathing out slowly is more relaxing than breathing in slowly is, so if you take longer to breathe out than you do to breathe in, you might feel your body relaxing as you do, especially if you breathe out in a relaxed way.
"Apparently, the body will automatically relax as you slow your breathing right down, especially when you exhale.
"So then, you could breathe in and out very slowly continuously for a few minutes.
"It's recommended by the book where these relaxation exercises are written about that people breathe in very slowly to the count of seven, and then breathe out even more slowly and gently to the count of eleven. If you don't think you'll have enough breath to last that long when you breathe out, you could let your breath be still for a few seconds while you keep counting, before you breathe more out.
"Or you could reduce the numbers you count to, so, say, you could even count to three while you breathe in slowly, and then count to five while you slowly breathe out.
"You could count the number of times you're breathing in and out during the exercise as well if it helps, since that might give you even more distraction from worrying thoughts.
"Some people find it helpful to breathe in and out for somewhere between ten and twenty times, since people can gradually relax more the longer they do the breathing exercise for.
"One benefit of concentrating on counting while breathing in and out is that it can make the mind less likely to wander to worried thoughts during the relaxation exercise. If yours does though, don't worry about it, but just gently bring it back to focusing on counting the time it takes to breathe in and out your slow breaths.
"After a little while, start to focus your attention on the feeling of calm, as it gradually grows stronger and stronger. Focus on the feeling of how much nicer the growing relaxation feels than the anxiety did, and how nice it feels to know it's being caused by your own actions, as you slow down your breathing a lot, and keep worried frantic thoughts out of your mind by giving attention to other things instead, so they can't carry on stirring up your anxiety.
"If you find the breathing technique helps, you could do it for a little while every time you feel your anxiety rising, or when you're worried you might have a panic attack, or when you're feeling upset. You can do it in public without anyone knowing you're doing it, not necessarily by moving to a comfortable chair first, but doing it where you're already sitting. Just doing it for a couple of minutes will still bring on some relaxation.
"Another relaxation technique is to sit somewhere comfortable, close your eyes, and then clench your fists really really tightly for a minute or so, as tightly as you can, - unless you've got very long fingernails that would dig into your hands if you tried that, or a condition like arthritis that would make that painful. If you've just got long fingernails though, you could clasp your hands together with your fingers interlocking instead of clenching your fists.
"Hold the position tensely. As you squeeze your hands together more and more tightly, focus your attention on the sensations you're feeling and the way they look, - like how your knuckles are getting whiter, and the feel of your nails against your hands, and the pressure of one finger on another, and the feeling of your tension as it moves up to your elbows and shoulders, and the way your wrists feel rigid as they hold the tense position. You could close your eyes if it helps you concentrate.
"Then slowly slowly relax your hands, letting the tension gradually go, feeling the sensation of increasing relaxation in them as you do, focusing on how nice it feels.
"You might even find that the sensation of relaxation spreads throughout your body. If you do, think about how much nicer it feels than the tension. Even if the relaxation doesn't spread to other parts of your body though, imagine the sensation of relaxation spreading all over you.
"If you find it helpful, you could try tensing and relaxing your muscles again and again, feeling the difference between the tension and relaxation. As your body relaxes after each little bout of tension, your mind will likely relax too.
"Another relaxation technique is to tense up lots of different muscles in turn, and then gradually untense them, feeling the increasing relaxation in them. According to what I read, after muscles have been deliberately tensed up really tightly and then the tension has been let go, they'll be more relaxed than they were before the relaxation exercise was started. And the feeling of increased relaxation in them can soothe the mind a bit, because feelings of relaxation in the body can come as a relief to the mind.
"If you try that exercise, one way is to start with your feet, curling up your toes and tensing up the muscles in them, and then counting to ten, and then slowly slowly untensing them, feeling the sense of increasing relaxation in them, noticing how much nicer it feels than the tension did.
"Then you could move on to tensing up your leg muscles for the count of ten, and then gradually relaxing them, noticing how much nicer the increasing feeling of relaxation in them is than the tension was.
"Then you could pull your tummy in, really tightening your stomach muscles while you count to ten, and then gradually relax them, noticing how much nicer the feeling of increasing relaxation in your stomach is than the tension was.
"Then you could do the same with your arm muscles. And then you could do the same with the muscles in your face, scrunching up your face to the count of ten, and then gradually letting go of the tension, noticing how much nicer it feels to be free of the tension and to be relaxing than it was to have the muscles all tensed up. You might feel a lot more relaxed after that than you were before you started."
"Another relaxation technique is to drift off in your imagination to somewhere where you like being, where you feel as if your mind can be soothed. A lot of people find imagining being in places out in nature soothing; but it could be anywhere you'd enjoy being, or even an imaginary place you just think you'd enjoy being in.
"Some people enjoy imagining themselves walking along an empty beach, with the sun shining down on them, looking at things like the seagulls and the waves. Or some people like to imagine themselves being in a clearing in a wood, sometimes with a little stream flowing by, and sometimes imagining a cooling breeze blowing on their face, that ripples the leaves on the trees around them, while they're looking at the natural things around them, such as the beauty of the trees and plants in the area.
"Or some people like to imagine themselves in their bedrooms, among the things they like being around, or floating in outer space, where there's nothing around that could bother them, or being in a familiar place where there are other people around them who are going about their business. You could imagine being in whatever place you think would make you feel most relaxed.
"Some people can imagine themselves relaxing best while they're day-dreaming about doing something energetic, such as playing football, walking around a park, cycling, or dancing. Whatever you'd find relaxing, you could imagine doing that, maybe closing your eyes so you're not distracted by the reality of what's around you.
"Try to imagine what you're day-dreaming about as vividly as you can, for instance imagining the colours of the sand on a beach, the details of the football shirts around you if enjoying a game of football's your thing, or the details of the flowers surrounding you if relaxing in a garden or wood's what you like. And so on. Try to make the experience in your imagination real enough that you can imagine hearing the sounds of what's going on, such as the sound of leaves rustling in the wind if you're imagining you're relaxing in a wood, the sounds of the waves if you're imagining you're on a beach, or the sounds of the crowd enjoying a football match if you're imagining you're there, and so on. Imagine the smells as well, such as the smell of the sea if you're imagining yourself on a beach, the smell of the trees - all the stronger after they've been freshened up by rain - if you're imagining yourself lying in a clearing in a wood, and so on.
"Some people find they're better at imagining smells or sounds than sights, or better at imagining sights than smells, and so on. It doesn't matter, so long as whatever you're imagining relaxes you. Imagine what comes the most easily to you.
"But if you can imagine the place you like to day-dream about relaxing in being your own special safe place, whatever the details of it are, you can think of it as somewhere you can retreat to in your mind and relax in whenever you feel the need to. Then whenever your anxiety feelings start becoming too strong for you to cope with well, as long as you have the time, you can imagine yourself going there for a few minutes, to calm yourself down. It's impossible to be relaxed and have anxious thoughts at the same time.
"And as well as that, the more you relax, the more you'll be able to think of your problems in a logical way and get them in proportion, instead of just imagining they must be too terrible for you to cope with, which it's easy to do when people are full of anxiety, and the anxious emotions going on in their brains are naturally making them feel pessimistic and worried about bad things happening, because bad strong emotions will always make people assume things are worse than they really are, partly because they'll likely assume that their feelings signify that something must be really wrong, when that isn't necessarily the case.
"When their emotions have calmed down, people can question the assumptions they had in their high state of emotion that made them assume their scary or overly-negative thoughts were just realistic ones; and it can also be much easier for them to think of ideas that could help them solve their problems than it was when they were feeling anxious.
"If you do some kind of relaxation exercises every day, such as slow slow slow breathing, perhaps breathing out for longer than you breathe in for, which is what some psychologists recommend, for some reason I can't remember now, it'll hopefully reduce your stress levels, so they won't be so high that it doesn't take much more stress to tip you into a panic attack.
"Also, you can help the emotional part of your brain settle down a bit and stop sparking off panic attacks so much by training it to become less sensitive to the situations it often does that in. One way of doing that is to relax yourself when you think about having to go into a situation where you often get them, perhaps by using a breathing or muscle relaxation technique, or spending some time imagining you're in a place that gives you pleasure to be in, in the way I've described; and then you could just imagine yourself being in a situation like one that often makes you anxious, but imagine feeling calm there, and being able to spend time in the situation with no mishaps happening."
"Another relaxation technique is mindfulness, which helps people focus on what's going on around them at the time, rather than being consumed by worries about what might happen in the future, or being absorbed in regrets and thoughts about what's happened in the past, or worrying about the state of the world, or problems in their own families, or other things, all of which can increase anxiety and distress, and are common for people with anxiety problems to have.
"Mindfulness means focusing entirely on what's going on at the moment for a while, which can sometimes be hard to do at first, because it's not a natural thing to do for a person who's used to worrying about the future or their problems a lot, or upsetting themselves over what could have gone better in the past a lot of the time; but it can turn out that it really helps, and gets easier as time goes on, because focusing thoughts outwards onto something that's happening in the here and now reduces the time that people are focused on thinking about things they're worried about, such as concerns about coping with life, and about what other people think of them. Since so many worries are exaggerated, even while the person worrying doesn't realise they are, it's not as if it's urgent to think about them, even if the anxiety being sparked off in the brain gives the impression that it must be.
"The idea of mindfulness is that you focus your full attention on what you're actually doing, to quietly crowd out any anxious thoughts. Thinking about the steps involved in doing the tasks you're actually doing at the moment can help you forget about worrying things for a little while, so your mind gets a calming break, and you feel better.
"It can help to get into mindfulness if you start trying it while you're doing something you actually quite like doing, so it won't feel like too much of a hassle to pay it your full attention.
"So, for instance, if you're weeding the garden, and you're one of those people who actually likes doing that, then instead of doing it absent-mindedly while you're brooding on worries or thoughts about the past or other concerns, you could focus your attention on every movement you're making, in detail, and on the things around you, such as the beauty of the flowers around you, and the differences between them and the weeds, such as their colours and textures, and the reasons why you'd rather not have the weeds there, such as the differences between them and the flowers. Think about the information taken in by your senses, such as the nice fresh smell of the weeds as they're pulled up from the earth, and their texture.
"If your thoughts drift off to how you're feeling, such as if you start thinking about how you've started feeling bored with weeding, or if you start feeling a bit tired, and that starts bothering you, or if you start thinking about how you don't like the look of certain flowers or weeds, so you start feeling dissatisfied, or if you start thinking irrelevant thoughts about some worry you have, then you could just gently let the thoughts pass, perhaps by imagining they're like cars you're watching go past, or as if they're lying on logs that are floating down a river on a gentle current till they're out of sight, or something like that. Then refocus your attention on the experience of sensing the things around you. The idea is to focus on what's going on, not to focus on your opinions or judgments about it, or on other thoughts.
"The activity you try that with could be anything, from cooking to dusting to eating, to changing a tyre, or anything else you need to do. Focus on experiencing things like feeling the textures of what you're touching as you work on it, and the scents and colours and sounds you're experiencing, and whatever else keeps you focused on what's going on from moment to moment, so you're not absorbed in worries about what might happen if things go wrong in your life, and things like that.
"You don't have to do mindfulness for hours on end to relax. But once you get the hang of doing it, you could do it for a few minutes every now and then, to give yourself a nice break from worrying thoughts.
"Next week, I'll talk about panic attacks."
Becky ended her lecture there. Some students and tutors and other people congratulated her. She was pleased, and became more optimistic that they'd like her next one.
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