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Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

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Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#131

Post by AlexCoventry »

osacial wrote: post #23
burlesona wrote: post #6

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…

Mindfulness has been removed from its traditional context, and some fundamental concepts and practices have been abandoned along the way. This has severely weakened most western mindfulness practices.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/mindf...

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#132

Post by AlexCoventry »

murukesh_s wrote: post #81
graderjs wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you need to do yoga. Relaxing the body is so important and Meditation, without yoga, can be harmful. Simple, long holding, hatha yoga, beginning with deep part by part body relaxation and pranayama prepares you for meditation and allows you to handle the energies that can be released during mediation. So much stress is held in the body. Western productization of more eastern traditional practices unfortuna…

> if you do mediation, you also need yoga Not sure Gautama Buddha did yoga? Don't get me wrong, i am not against yoga, but wondering if great saints who never did yoga also attained greater heights including moksha..

To the best of my knowledge, the only physical yoga he recommended was sitting cross-legged, and even that was likely just because he was teaching forest medicants (among others) who could not rely on having a chair.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#133

Post by throwaway_kufu »

agumonkey wrote: post #105
hnick wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.

If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of. I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.

> it revives my soul like nothing else.

Beautifully said.

I have numerous sayings about music, for example I used to do 20 mile runs every Saturday and Sunday and 10 miles every weekday. No David goggins but people always ask question, I tend to tell them I don’t run, I listen to music and the miles run themselves.

And I used to tell people that the music allows me to feel every single cell in my body and the music makes them happy. And truthfully I think there is something to that down to the quantum level, where the music causes your atoms to vibrate putting them in higher states of energy.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#134

Post by tern »

zepto wrote: post #53
tern wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mindfulness here is meant as a synonym for a particular type of meditation. This article is broadly correct from my perspective—we should approach meditation with some caution, because it is not a well-defined self-therapy modality. It's quite possible, with the wrong practice instruction, to end up hurting yourself, or just getting nowhere. Meditation—and even just mindfulness meditation—is a domain of pract…

> I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions). How many teachers actually have this, and how can one know that the one you’ve chosen is one of them?

I loved loopz's answer, but it's also important to grapple with the fact that you can never truly know whether a teacher is good. The path is always a risk. It's best to learn as much as you can and assess for yourself as you go.

In any event, the common wisdom is "you'll know." Or to put it plainly, do you like the person and feel like they have something to teach you?

I like the term "spiritual friend," because it's easy to understand the dynamic by analogy. How do you know one of your friends is truly your friend?

As for how many there are: I don't know. I live in the Bay Area, where the concentration of practitioners is perhaps highest in the US, and I'm aware of maybe a handful of teachers I would consider consider studying with. I'm aware of many more I would not.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#136

Post by agumonkey »

throwaway_kufu wrote: post #133
agumonkey wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of. I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.

> it revives my soul like nothing else. Beautifully said. I have numerous sayings about music, for example I used to do 20 mile runs every Saturday and Sunday and 10 miles every weekday. No David goggins but people always ask question, I tend to tell them I don’t run, I listen to music and the miles run themselves. And I used to tell people that the music allows me to feel every single cell in my body and the music m…

I don't subscribe to quantum / soul connection but I guess the abstract relationships between notes and rhythm tickles the brain very very deep.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#137

Post by taneq »

dimal wrote: post #80
h0l0cube wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument makes more sense when you realise that Valium/Diazepam is basically a muscle relaxant. Edit: Source here, happy to hear from another domain expert refuting this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAOnSbDSaOw&list=PL848F2368C...

That's not really true. They act on GABA, which is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter throughout the central nervous system. So one of the effects is muscle relaxation, but that's only part of their effect.

Side note, alcohol also does things with GABA and that (plus its easy availability) is probably why so many people self-medicate with it for anxiety-type issues.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#138

Post by taneq »

ineedasername wrote: post #109
peteretep wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe relevant > Klein is a professor of psychiatry who studies the delightful field of “experimental panicogens”, ie chemicals that cause panic attacks if you inject them in someone. These include lactate, bicarbonate, and carbon dioxide, all of which naturally occur in the body under conditions of decreased respiration. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/05/the-case-of-the-suffoc...

Isn't that the basic outline of a Batman villain? He could be one professional setback away from becoming the Scarecrow.

My first thought too, this guy is basically Scarecrow before the incident.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#139

Post by slibhb »

dkarras wrote: post #25

Eh, a gross oversimplification. Feeling troubled by being anxious in the modern world is a "cerebral" issue. The guy who mistook an innocent animal as a tiger and freaked out because of it didn't feel bad for feeling anxious for no reason. We do. Because it interferes with our daily functioning / responsibilities in the modern world. Anxiety is also very frequently comorbid with other mental disorders. Especially OCD…

> Feeling troubled by being anxious in the modern world is a "cerebral" issue.

How do you know the modern world is behind your anxiety?

I'm more or less with the article (though I have no opinion about the supposed treatment). I think it's a mistake to think it's easy to tell that you're anxious. Anxiety is something you notice by observing yourself, it's not something you know by querying some inner state. And even if you observe anxiety in yourself, you don't have any insight as to why it's there.

You might think "the modern world should rationally make me anxious," which seems reasonable. But that's not the same thing as being anxious. I think a lot of people confuse these things. Conversely, I notice I have symptoms of anxiety that seem related (based on proximity) to things that I do not consciously think of as anxiety-causing at all.

Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

#140

Post by taneq »

wombatmobile wrote: post #10

> Anxiety Is in Your Body, Not Your Mind Yes, and, your mind is in your body, not just your brain. That's why human consciousness is different to any common conception of computer consciousness. The difference between computers and humans is that human thoughts are driven by the needs of the body - to respirate, to eat, to defecate, to reproduce, to sleep, and to avoid being predated.

Exactly, and this is why all those "YOU don't do X, your brain does it" type things are so silly. "You" are your body. Your mind is something your body does to figure out where to get food and sex and how not to get eaten by tigers. Everything else is a crazy side-effect of this process.
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