41–50 of 243 posts
I was almost 30 when I had my first ever panic attack. I was alone and convinced it was a heart attack, called 911, and felt fine by the time the ambulance reached the hospital. Embarrassed, I was ready to brush it off, but instead saw a therapist for the first time. She took out a stopwatch and had me breathe through a narrow straw. Within seconds, my face and limbs went completely numb; I couldn't move, and was ama…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just realized that there was nothing I could really do about anxiety or the physical symptoms that came along with it. I decided to mostly try to quit noticing and thinking about it. And that really helped. I think this is mission accomplished from your mindfulness practice, you realized that you're not really doing anything and that anxiety just appears, you accepted it and it felt better.
There are some problems with that type of approach - there are some things that won't vanish, if you stop thinking about them.
One other thing to consider, that I rarely hear anyone talk about, is that anxiety can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying physiological condition or disease. For example, hypoglycemia-related anxiety is a common complaint.
This is true, but it’s more rare than it sounds. It’s a challenge for doctors because mental health still carries a stigma of weakness, whereas physical ailments don’t. Many patients are resistant to mental health diagnoses, instead insisting that they are suffering from undiagnosed physical ailments. Doctors do consider physical causes for issues like anxiety, but they’ll avoid proposing it directly to the patient i…
It took me time to realize, that my headaches and back pain at the same time were not physical symptoms, but from the times when I was (even extremely) worried and it was hard to come to that conclusion, that they were not part of physical problems, because pain was real. So, it is more about how person is experiencing these symptoms.
I was almost 30 when I had my first ever panic attack. I was alone and convinced it was a heart attack, called 911, and felt fine by the time the ambulance reached the hospital. Embarrassed, I was ready to brush it off, but instead saw a therapist for the first time. She took out a stopwatch and had me breathe through a narrow straw. Within seconds, my face and limbs went completely numb; I couldn't move, and was ama…
I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
So much stress is held in the body. Western productization of more eastern traditional practices unfortunately often seems to divide them up into small consumable pieces and deliver them stripped of an awareness of both their larger context, their interactions and the importance of how you need to do some together. It also seems to teach people advanced techniques as if they were nothing, which can be extremely dangerous.
I meant to make this comment on that story about a woman who had committed suicide after a mediation retreat. Yoga is required if you're going to do mediation. Unfortunately, much of the yoga practiced in the west is nothing more than sort of an aerobic mindset, like pilates or calisthenics. Even when teachers stick to traditional sequences and focus on breath, they seem to miss the point of how important relaxation and only going to your limit is.
I was lucky that i had a fantastic teacher from India when i started yoga in Sydney 20 years ago. The difference an excellent teacher makes is amazing.
I watch videos on Gaia and see teachers doing advanced locks and hand positions, combined with meditative practices... These things can be extremely dangerous because you're unlocking and accessing all sorts of energies you're not used to. Doing advanced stuff before you're ready, or doing any stuff without a solid grounding in hatha yoga to allow your body to handle it, is toxic and unhealthy. In the productization of the yoga and meditation industry in the west people have forgot to focus on the basics, and have forgotten the advanced knowledge that allows you to do advanced techniques safely. Practices have been divided up, stripped of awareness of how to do them safely, and delivered in little consumable pieces. It's fucking dangerous, but everyone's out there practicing yoga and meditation like it's calisthenics or pilates or a warm up for rugby, and even the teachers who aren't mostly don't have the awareness or knowledge of the energies they're accessing to do it safely, or to do it with the most benefit.
This probably came across as saying yoga will cure your anxiety. I'm not saying that, just that if you do mediation, you also need yoga. But doing yoga well will probably make your anxiety better... Maybe an actual psych therapist can help unravel any beliefs and stories you have that you're reacting to but aren't actually true, or maybe if your fear has a rational basis (ie, you are actually in danger or at risk in some way, and the things you fear keep happening and you keep getting hurt) then you can adopt some practical strategies to create better boundaries for yourself so you feel safer and are safer.
I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
Recent mentions of mindfulness have made it obsolete as it is something that akkktually does not work and it should not be advised as something that works(for everyone). Well, the reason here is that I tried mindfulness(because I was probably extremelly stressed out from what was going on around me at that time) and it was not working and here is why(from REAL expert): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-r…
Nothing works for everyone.
I was almost 30 when I had my first ever panic attack. I was alone and convinced it was a heart attack, called 911, and felt fine by the time the ambulance reached the hospital. Embarrassed, I was ready to brush it off, but instead saw a therapist for the first time. She took out a stopwatch and had me breathe through a narrow straw. Within seconds, my face and limbs went completely numb; I couldn't move, and was ama…
Why did breathing through the straw cause that reaction?
I'm sure there are any number of reasons why this way of thinking won't help others, but I totally get why lots of ADHD sufferers have started calling it "bees in my head" instead of ADHD. What we call things affects how we think about it.
I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole software career. I finally identified the big triggers for me - morning standup when I was late on a ticket, when a test would inexplicably fail, when a coworker wound comment in a PR asking me to redo a chunk of work that I knew would take more time. And I identified them based on how my BODY felt.
And once I could identify the actually environmental triggers, I could start to resolve them.
A lot like this article talks about! My conscious mind wasn’t in control of my anxiety, and the looping thoughts in my head didn’t even have much to do with the trigger. They were the symptom, not the cause.
Another software engineer friend and I are starting a company to help software engineers reduce stress and anxiety! We’ve seen some pretty miraculous results so far.
We’d love to hear from all of you anxious software engineers :)
Tinyurl.com/happyhackers
Who in their right mind would take their psychological advice from a fiction writer?!? First, no, anxiety is not in your body. Fear, just like any other emotion is in your brain. You might get physiological responses in the form of chemicals in your body. That is an effect, not a cause. Second, neocortex is not "thinking brain," its role is to manage social interactions. Cognition is a small part of that. Third, mind…
The slate star codex blog has a post about the gulf between therapist book and reality
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/20/book-review-all-therap...