Anxiety & Stress Blog http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog Helping you overcome stress and anxiety Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Creating My Own Panic http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/creating-my-own-panic/ http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/creating-my-own-panic/#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:40 +0000 Andrew http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/creating-my-own-panic/ I learned recently that you can actually create your own panic attack. You can do this in several ways. One of the most frequent ways is by anticipating something too much. The old expression “all worked up” probably described someone creating their own panic attack. There are plenty of reasons why someone gets anxious. A lot of times it goes right back to the what-if syndrome. What if something bad happens? What if I lose control? What if no one likes me? The what-ifs can be endless.

The problem gets worse when your body starts to react to all this negative thinking. During a panic attack, blood pressure can rise, you may start sweating and then everything gets confusing. Panic attacks can cause excessive adrenaline to be produced too. That makes everything escalate. So when you realize you’re worrying about something that might never happen, then you should try to break the process before it becomes a full fledged attack.

]]> http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/creating-my-own-panic/feed/ I’ll Do It Myself http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i%e2%80%99ll-do-it-myself/ http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i%e2%80%99ll-do-it-myself/#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:39 +0000 Andrew http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i%e2%80%99ll-do-it-myself/ It’s nice to be able to choose the perfect therapy for anxiety, but not everyone can afford to pay for counseling sessions and doctors. In many cases of anxiety, you can help yourself which can be very effective. But this only works if you are determined to accept responsibility for your healing. Too often people are disappointed in the results of their formal therapy sessions and blame everyone except themselves. They blame the doctor or the therapist or the people in group sessions or heredity or anything else they can find. It’s the blame game. The reality is that when you recognize you have anxiety, it means you can recognize that the quickest route to improvement is accepting responsibility.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to undergo therapy all alone. Even if you choose to see a licensed professional, you still have to be willing to work towards improvement. You also need to let your family and friends help you however possible. Anxiety can be very isolating which means you have a tendency to push people away. Having a good support system is important when you’re trying to overcome anxiety.

]]> http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i%e2%80%99ll-do-it-myself/feed/ I Really Am Obsessive and Compulsive http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i-really-am-obsessive-and-compulsive/ http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i-really-am-obsessive-and-compulsive/#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:38 +0000 Andrew http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i-really-am-obsessive-and-compulsive/ I had a friend who cleaned her house to the point I was afraid to sit anywhere. She had all her furniture covered with clear plastic covers and would continually dust and sweep even when it didn’t need it. I finally convinced her to talk to a therapist, and she has obsessive-compulsive disorder. With this disorder, a person will have compulsions to do something over and over again. But apparently the compulsive acts are really attempts to stop anxiety.

Some people diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder only have obsessions. These are thoughts and feelings that happen over and over again. They may be really unpleasant thoughts too. This disorder often goes hand-in-hand with depression. No one really knows why this disorder exists though. There are ways to treat it which is good. This disorder can be really life disrupting because you spend so much time doing the same thing over and over again.

]]> http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/i-really-am-obsessive-and-compulsive/feed/ Sudden Anxiety http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/sudden-anxiety/ http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/sudden-anxiety/#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:37 +0000 Andrew http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/sudden-anxiety/ It’s a fact that a sudden stressful situation can signal the start of panic attacks. The groundwork has been laid long before the actual attack though. I had my first panic attack shortly after changing jobs. I wanted the job and was ready to start the job, but I panicked for no apparent reason. The point is that that I was experiencing various levels of anxiety up to that point. I had experienced a lot of nervousness and started worrying about how well I was handling my job and family. I began waking up in the middle of the night. But I never had a panic attack until I had to give that speech.

When you are looking at anxiety in your life, you have to look at the big picture. It wasn’t really the speech that caused my anxiety. It was the fact I was feeling my life was on the verge of collapse, because I was barely balancing my work and personal life. Changing jobs added to the worry, because it was so important I do well. I recommend you don’t do what I did – ignore the warning signs. A panic attack is just one event away.

]]> http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/sudden-anxiety/feed/ Ancient Meditations http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/ancient-meditations/ http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/ancient-meditations/#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:36 +0000 Andrew http://www.health-anxiety-stress.com/blog/ancient-meditations/ I used to be very skeptical of meditation as a relaxation method until I tried it. There’s a reason it’s been practiced for over 3,000 years. Meditation was originally based in spirituality. The goal of meditation is to learn how to avoid automatic self-defeating thoughts and replace them with freeing thoughts. My anxiety disorder was a classic case of lack of self-esteem. I would begin thinking I’m really not a very good person and that I have a right to be afraid much of the time. There’s so much to worry about after all!

What learning to meditate did for me was give me a tool for analyzing my thoughts so I could stop creating my own turmoil. No one else was purposely making me anxious. I was doing it all on my own. Meditation forces you to take the time to explore your innermost thoughts and feelings, while avoiding reacting as you would if you were not in a meditative state. This disassociation between emotions and thoughts is the perfect treatment for anxiety. As I learn to enter a deeper state of calm through practice, I now find I can almost view myself from a distance. So I picture myself calm and at peace.