Descartes and his duality strike again.
I also think it is silly that people don't think that "your body == your mind".
It is simple to discard neurons that are scattered through the body, but those are also neurons.
Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
211–220 of 243 posts
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#212I think the advice of focusing on how to turn anxiety symptoms down and moderate physical responses are fine, but it's kind of missing the point, at least for serious cases of anxiety. I suffered pretty badly from it in my early 20s (apparently typical age for this kind of stuff), and you go very quickly from particular anxiety attacks being the issue, to fear of anxiety itself being the bigger issue. An anxiety/pani…
Try changing your thought process a little bit. Tell yourself that you’re bigger than anxiety. Remember friend, things aren’t happening to you, you’re happening to things.
Things ARE happening. Anxiety isn't just being nervous. There are strong physical symptoms due to the release of hormones to put your body on alert. You end up with things like palpitations and increased blood pressure. The mind goes on alert in a way that you have very little ability to control. Trying to consciously suppress the effects of cortisol and adrenaline on the brain is like trying to consciously stop yourself from being drunk. As long as the chemicals are still flowing through your blood stream, they will affect your brain.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#213I think the advice of focusing on how to turn anxiety symptoms down and moderate physical responses are fine, but it's kind of missing the point, at least for serious cases of anxiety. I suffered pretty badly from it in my early 20s (apparently typical age for this kind of stuff), and you go very quickly from particular anxiety attacks being the issue, to fear of anxiety itself being the bigger issue. An anxiety/pani…
Interesting to see it framed this way. In July of 2020 (a high stress point in my life), following two weeks of job-related sleep deprivation (had to be up at 5 to get to work at 6:30 to troubleshoot an automation), noisy home environment making it impossible to sleep early, a night of high blood sugar, hung over, and following a two hour drive I had some kind of 'brain event' while pulling into my friend's driveway.
I call it a 'brain event' because at the time I thought I was going into DKA, after the event I was worried I'd had an aneurysm or something, the symptoms were similar to the negative parts of coming up on LSD, and I basically felt like I was tripping for about 3 days. I had to call out of work for that time and slept for about 12-14 hours the following few days.
My doctor told me that it was a panic attack, and that they can last three days. I've never had a panic attack before in my life, but I can't describe how much more fragile I feel now. Often when driving now the sensation of cresting a small hill during a turn will trigger something that will make me feel 'off', which leads to a deep fear. It doesn't feel like what I used to call anxiety, it's much closer to an external stimulus. Now I hate driving (for reference, I used to be a delivery driver, and I loved that job back in the day).
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do now. It seems like you're describing something similar to what I've experienced, though. I don't worry about 'what if it doesn't work the next time,' but I am distressed by anxiety that comes on completely disconnected from the reality of the moment or my thoughts at the time. Sometimes I think it just cracked the veneer of normalcy enough to make me understand on a deep level that driving is itself a terrifying thing to participate in, but I don't think that can possibly be true because I don't feel the same anxiety when riding a motorcycle, which should be much more terrifying.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#214One 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.
Also I thought I was developing anxiety attacks at one point but turns out it was just heart burn. Didn't find out until it got worse. The symptom was that it messes up your breathing to the point where you have to consciously start breathing and can't take deep breaths with your diaphragm. As soon as the heartburn goes away you're able to breath normally again.
LOL
I'm 99% anxiety free after I learned to manage my allergies and diet!
I make light of the situation now but at one point in my life I was confused and freaked out because of the symptoms you mentioned and everyone including the doctors thought it was stress. After thousands of dollars in medical all I really needed was Benedryl, a better diet and a new primary care physician.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah. "...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in t…
Sapiens is an apt book to quote for this. There is also a chapter on brain chemicals: "Some air-conditioning systems are set at twenty-five degrees Celsius. Others are set at twenty degrees. Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person. On a scale from one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and ten, stabilising w…
Is this the link to the actual book text, or a summary? Thanks.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#216For people interested in addressing anxiety/depression disorders via "the body", check out SGB (stellate ganglion block) and ketamine treatments.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#217This was discovered thousands of years ago in the east(indian subcontinent) by meditation practitioners(i.e Buddha, Mahavira etc) solely through thousands of hours of practice and self-realization. These have been codified into various texts which form a major part of vipassana teachings.
Interesting how scientists in the west either conveniently pick up the theory, conduct some a/b tests and publish them as new discoveries without credit. Even if they had arrived on these conclusions, independently on their own, it's important to understand the mind boggling amount of progress in psychology, neuroscience that was made with the limited knowledge of scientific rigor in the east thousands of years ago.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#218This was discovered thousands of years ago in the east(indian subcontinent) by meditation practitioners(i.e Buddha, Mahavira etc) solely through thousands of hours of practice and self-realization. These have been codified into various texts which form a major part of vipassana teachings. Interesting how scientists in the west either conveniently pick up the theory, conduct some a/b tests and publish them as new disc…
I disagree. If it's not empirical, it doesn't count. There are millions of people with ideas, but ideas aren't good enough. Prove your idea is true, then we'll talk about deserving credit.
Exception: mathematical ideas which are difficult to come up with.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#219I 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…
Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah. "...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in t…
I had a friend who rather enjoyed being sad. He would purposely watch sad movies just to experience the tear jerker moments.
He was otherwise a generally happy person.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#220This was discovered thousands of years ago in the east(indian subcontinent) by meditation practitioners(i.e Buddha, Mahavira etc) solely through thousands of hours of practice and self-realization. These have been codified into various texts which form a major part of vipassana teachings. Interesting how scientists in the west either conveniently pick up the theory, conduct some a/b tests and publish them as new disc…
I disagree. If it's not empirical, it doesn't count. There are millions of people with ideas, but ideas aren't good enough. Prove your idea is true, then we'll talk about deserving credit. Exception: mathematical ideas which are difficult to come up with.
How is it fair to pick up/completely ignore published experiential observations, in continued practice for millennia from another culture elsewhere in the world, conduct a/b tests and publish results without credit? I'm pretty sure the western world is going to continue swindling wellness techniques/practices from ancient texts, quickly run half-baked experiments, cherry pick data to suit a result and "publish" findings.
When these techniques were in development, in the golden era for spirituality, most of the rest of the world were still hunter-gatherers. Empirical rigor was just not a thing.
It's a question of providing due credit for those who developed and practice these techniques as a way of life. If not share some of the capitalistic spoils in the billions from delivering stress relief(meditation based content) through shiny, addictive apps (Yes, meditation apps can be addictive! Surprise! i.e, Headspace, Calm), At least provide credit where it's due.