How to get rid of your anxiety and start living again
It is estimated that worldwide 264 million suffer from an anxiety disorder. This condition has gained recognition in the past years. Being somebody who frequently suffers from panic attack episodes, I would like to share the critical knowledge that helps me overcome it daily. I will start with a description of what is happening in our body when we do anxiety. I will follow with advice on how to tame anxiety attacks and feel prepared for them.
Your body’s response to a natural sensation
What’s funny when you try to gather information about anxiety is that it is almost systematically associated with the word disorder. We talk about an Anxiety disorder. I chose to understand what anxiety exactly was before understanding how it can become a disease. So let’s check-up on the facts.
We will differentiate anxiety from fear; fear is an external signal that will create a sense of danger in your brain and cause a fight or flight response of your body by creating adrenaline. In the case of anxiety, the same fight or flight response will be triggered but sometimes for no apparent reason or danger. You need to understand that even though your brain is the one triggering anxiety, the physical symptoms you can experience during a panic attack exist in your body. They are signals that are supposed to make you able to save your life in a dangerous situation. Back in the stone age, if a bear chased you, your body gave you the alert state that could allow you to save yourself. Nowadays, when you face a stressful situation at work, you have the same fight or flight mechanism triggered in your body but running away or killing your boss is not likely to solve it.
This fight or flight mechanism comes from your brain, and how it interprets information, there are two main protagonists in your brain that can trigger this :
- Your cortex
- Your amygdala
Let’s get a quick detour in neurosciences to see what is at stake here.
A neuroscience explanation of how your brain works
Learn about you cortex
Your cortex is what you think of when you think of your brain. It is the part of your brain that allows you to think and interpret. It is also the part of your brain that is going to predict things. When it faces a situation, your cortex tries to guess this situation’s outcome to prepare you for the latter. However, we can see how it can cause anxiety.
When your brain tries to imagine the outcomes of a situation, it can become a little unreasonable. For instance, if you have a plane phobia, you can enter the plane, expecting it to crash during the way. It might be an outcome of this situation, but it remains an implausible one. The cortex can think of outcomes that could endanger you and communicate with the hypothalamus to ask it to release cortisol and adrenaline in your body to make it ready for the anticipated outcome.
You need to know that the cortex is slower to process information sent by the thalamus because it processes it through its lobes. It makes the cortex slowlier to react than the amygdala, which will build your reptilian response.
Learn about you amygdala
Your amygdalae are two almond-shaped parts of your brain that are part of the limbic system, which have a crucial role in long-term memory and behavior. They attach emotional significance to objects or experiences; this process influences our decision-making and emotional reactions. The latter part is the one that interests us because fear and anxiety are emotional reactions. The amygdala is an old part of the brain that is here to ensure our survival.
When you go by in your daily life, the amygdala analyses stimuli around you to check if you are not in a life-threatening situation. Suppose the amygdala decides a situation is dangerous. In that case, it will trigger a response in your Sympathetic Nervous System. The latter is a system of neurons connected to almost every organ, which create a fight or flight response of your body. At the same time, your amygdala will connect to another part of your body: the hypothalamus. This little guy is the one who is going to release two types of hormones in your body; cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, and adrenaline. Both will prepare your body to liberate a tremendous amount of energy that would be very useful in a life-threatening situation.
More than this, the amygdala is closer to your senses than your cortex, so your body can feel fear and anxiety before your cortex can even interpret the situation. This process can cause even more anxiety because your cortex will create more anxiety, trying to explain your body’s reaction.
In the case of phobias, emotional memory can intervene. Your brain will remember similar situations that caused you great distress and will anticipate a similar reaction. For instance, for the plane phobia, you might have been shocked by a documentary about planes and know a bit too much about what can go wrong with them. Your amygdala will associate those memories with the action of taking the plane and will trigger a physical response. Your cortex will try to understand what is causing this physical stress and think of all the harmful outcomes of taking the plane. It will trigger a chain reaction where your amygdala caused a physical anxiety reaction topped up by your cortex, which feeds the amygdala until you manage to stop it.
To sum up
Your thalamus is going to receive all the information gathered by your senses. It is going to communicate it to your amygdala and your cortex. If the amygdalae think you are in danger, they’re going to tell their friend the Sympathetic Nervous System to create a fight or flight response in your body. They will also tell their friend the hypothalamus to release cortisol and adrenaline in your body so you can stay alert. Your cortex will receive information about your body freaking out; it will try to understand why and freak out even more and ask the hypothalamus to release even more cortisol and adrenaline.
Another option is that what your thalamus sends is of no worry to your amygdalae. But the situation you face has different possible outcomes. Your cortex might deem that there is a high likelihood that this outcome will endanger you. It will ask the hypothalamus to release the hormones that are going to help you face this situation.
When does it become a disorder?
Fear and a fight or flight response are natural body reactions. However, anxiety becomes a disorder when it prevents you from living your life the way you want to when you’re afraid of doing things because you’re dreading the anxiety attack or having so many phobias that you don’t know how to feel right anymore.
I suffer mostly from my anxiety attacks, so I can tell you more about those and how to cope with them. I am not a professional shrink, and if this list of advice is not enough for you, don’t hesitate to seek professional help; there is absolutely no shame in doing so.
How to cope with anxiety and panic attacks
Know the facts
First, read what I wrote above on the processes at stake when anxiety happens. Why? Because it helps to know that what’s happening in your body is real and related to your anxiety. Those symptoms can be scary because the effect of adrenaline in your body triggers the same effects as a heart attack; you can feel like you will pass out, that you’re having a stroke and that your limbs are tingling. Knowing that your nervous system can send you these symptoms can help you create this little rational voice in your head. Try to live a healthy life on the side; that way, the statistics can help you be less scared. For instance, if you’re a smoker, I refer you to this article on quitting smoking.
You are going to be okay.
Most people having anxiety attacks are afraid they will pass out; it is highly implausible. As your body releases adrenaline, your blood pressure goes up and not down, and you are more alert, you will not pass out. You can sometimes feel paralyzed; it is part of the fight or flight mechanism. It is also alright.
Do not try to fight it; embrace it instead.
I know, it is easier said than done. However, the more you will fight the panic attack, the more it can come. Let me put it this way; when you have a panic attack, if you add some more stress trying to block it out, it will send more stress signals to your brain, increasing the release of stress hormones. Like we said earlier. Once the panic is here, you need to accept it, let it in, face it, and let it go. If you focus on the facts, you will be able to send yourself calming signals to help you get out of it.
Prepare for it; create the tools you’ll need to be able to face them.
That is the most significant piece of advice I can get you.
Prepare while you are fine.
Find a technique that works for you; it can be meditation, guided relaxation, breathing exercises, anything. Most important is that it works for YOU and that you are willing to exercise it repeatedly to use it without having to think about it in a moment of crisis. I’ll probably write an article about the different meditation techniques that I found useful and the meditative routine that I started.
No matter what technique you use, you need to exercise it repeatedly. Why? Because that is how your brain functions. You have two types of knowledge in your brain. You can find more information about it here.
To make it short, you have two systems to accomplish actions. The first system is very effortful and requires a lot of attention. It concerns the activities you are learning to achieve. For instance, when you learned how to drive, you had to consciously think about every detail to do it correctly.
The second system is very quick. It concerns things that you learned how to do repeatedly. For the driving example, the more you drive, the more you know how to drive. And with time and practice, you barely have to think about it when you know the road you’re taking.
The same goes for the relaxation exercises and the tools you want to use to tame your panic attacks. The panic attack is going to take up all the space available in your brain. You will not be able to perform an action you can’t perform on autopilot. If you want to be able to use the above techniques, you need to perform your favorite technique without having to think about it. For this, it needs to be anchored somewhere in your daily routine. It can be 3 minutes of breathing exercises in the morning or before you sleep and a bigger meditation session once a week. You need to find the schedule that fits you best and stick to it.
Remember, the more you feel prepared for an anxiety attack, the more you will be able to tame it, and the less it will appear.
It will be my last piece of advice here; it appears that many people got traumatized by their first panic attack, and the memory of the first one triggers a part of the following panic attacks. If you want to overcome it, you need to try to make peace with this first anxiety attack and accept it. You need to accept that others might occur. Still, if you prepare yourself enough, if you inform yourself sufficiently and surround yourself with a welcoming environment, you should not be afraid of them occurring again. It won’t mean they will be gone forever, but they won’t be as bad when they occur. And maybe someday, they will stop happening altogether.
I hope this article gave you some insights on how to manage your anxiety. It took me several years of experiencing anxiety to find acceptable ways to cope with it. If you want to share your own experience with other readers, do not hesitate to hit the comment section.
I wish you a fulfilling journey towards a better you.
Note: The information in this article is purely informational and not intended to be medical advice. Please seek a medical professional before making any health-related decisions.
