Changing Your Anxiety Equation

One of the worst things about panic attacks is the feeling that they can happen to you at any time. The reality of the situation is that there tends to be a formula for panic. In the same way that we are taught simple equations at school such as: 2 and 2 equals 4, different events and circumstances can also add up to provoke an anxiety attack. 

If we take care of just one of those aspects of the equation, then we can reduce the possibility of x + x equaling an anxiety attack. For example the simple equation of 2+2=4 doesn't work if you change one of those 2s to a 3. One of the most rewarding and empowering things in dealing with panic and anxiety is learning to master it by learning to notice the circumstances that tend to come before an attack then taking steps to change some of those precursors so that you can protect yourself.

Time Travel & Clue Hunting

Whenever you experience an anxiety spike, allow yourself to travel back mentally over the last few hours and see if you can notice what may have built up below the level of your awareness to induce that state of anxiety. It never is as mysterious or as random as it seems, the confusion that comes with anxiety is one of it's symptoms, and the feeling that you are under attack and that you are an hapless victim of circumstance is also one of it's symptoms. It's not your fault, it's simply that anxiety messes with your head and your nervous system so much that it's hard to see the wood from the trees.

So firstly just start noticing - when anxiety peaks, what was going on before that peak? Were you under any additional stress? Were you feeling particularly tired? Hungry? Were you alone or with someone else? Were you in a new situation? What kind of mood were you in - think back. Were you already beginning to feel a little bit anxious? Were you feeling sad, excited, irritated? Had you had a quarrel with someone? What was your body temperature like? Were you restless or calm? Had you had caffeine or sugar just before your anxiety spiked? Or can you think of any other circumstances that might have caused an increase in your stress levels - below the surface, below your conscious awareness, but that could have contributed to a state of anxiety?

Start watching yourself and monitoring any time you experience an increase in anxiety level, by doing this you can look into altering the circumstances of your daily life in a direction that supports you and reduces the odds of anxiety increasing. It can be overwhelming to try and tackle this alone and to try and change everything, so to begin with just try to look out for definite triggers. 

Sometimes our bodies can manifest the subtlest physical sensation that the mind will begin to worry over and interpret as the beginning of an anxiety attack. For example a dry mouth, keeping water with you to sip regularly stops that dry sensation from occurring. Otherwise this sensation can trigger the mind to manifest other symptoms too. Carry some gum or boiled sweets, if your mouth is relaxed and not experiencing dryness then that's one symptom of anxiety taken care of that you mind can start to worry over.

For myself, when I used to suffer panic attacks in my teenage years I used to get really hot, and for years afterwards if I felt hot I would feel that niggling beginning of an anxiety sensation - sometimes I still do. I don't suffer from anxiety attacks any more, but the nearest I'll come to one is if I feel over hot and contained, and I'll have to immediately tell myself, "you haven't had a panic attack for years, you're just hot and your mind is making that connection because it got so sensitised by that before", and then I just have to take a few deep breaths, calm down and cool down and it's over in seconds. I can preoccupy my mind and get on with what I need to be doing.

Begin to develop awareness of the things in your day that may add up to increasing your anxiety and seeing which ones you can change, start with the easy ones. If heat begins to provoke anxiety feelings for you too, carry a fan, carry a cool drink, carry some lavender spray or some rose water - something pleasant and refreshing that you can use to counteract the feelings of heat. 

Sometimes people feel anxious after their heart begins to race due to exertion, they may not even be in a stressful situation. I know of people who engaged in heavy digging or lifting can begin to feel panicky because their heart races and their breathing becomes short, and their mind latches onto that and thinks, "this is what happens when I feel anxious", but at that time they were not anxious, they were just doing something that made the heart go faster and their breathing rate increase, and the mind latched on to it. 

By knowing yourself you can understand - this doesn't have to be a panic attack, I was just puffed out because I was doing this, so you sit down, take some deep breaths, take a drink and allow yourself to recover, your heart to slow down, your breathing to slow down. It's a very comforting feeling to be able to sort those things out, to be able to discriminate between physical symptoms that might feel like anxiety but aren't. 

The more you notice and begin to adjust, the more you can gain mastery over anxiety states. Even by just committing every day to sitting down and practising some slow deep gentle breathing, just for five minutes you can begin to teach your nervous system it doesn't need to be on red alert all the time. You can use your intelligence and awareness to step above your mind and tell it, "I'm taking control of this, you can begin to calm down now because I'm changing my anxiety equation and learning to do things differently". 

photo by *Zara

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