Conquering Anxiety and Panic Attacks

[corpus callosum]

How does one get tested for an adrenal insufficiency?

The test you need is the Short Synacthen Test which tests the adrenal response (ie ability to produce cortisol) in response to an injection of ACTH.Adrenal insufficiency can be a primary or secondary disorder; this needs determining once an impaired Synacthen test result is obtained.

 

[۩]

Sit or lay down. Back straight is good or laying down completely relaxed arms to the side. Eyes closed.

You can listen to calm music or silence. Brown noise, fans, or the sound of flowing water are good too.

Stretch out before hand, this helps if you feel jittery.

Relax, breathe deep, breathe slow.
Breathe in belly out
breathe out belly in.

Practice using only your nose. If this is hard breathe in with the nose and out of the mouth until you are comfortable using just your nose.
You should find with time the ability to do this silently so it is not a distraction.

This can be done in public, in meditation, or in bed as a way to calm the mind and body.

Do at least 10 minutes a day whenever you feel is right. Maybe before bjj or before sleep.

Just be. Nothing more.

 

[anon_003]

I'll echo what others have said about meditation and daily routine. If cannabis is consistently giving you bad experiences, it is probably a good time to take break. Because the mental and physical body are so connected, in almost all mental illnesses, an improvement in physical health can help manage less desirable symptoms. In my experiences, things like a healthy diet and sleep ESPECIALLY have helped me with racing thoughts.

I think one of the best things you can do is confront this anxiety. Is there a pattern to this anxiety? Recurring themes? If so, ask yourself..... is there reason to be anxious about these things that keep buggin me out? If so, DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM! Sometimes anxiety is just something being repressed that needs to be turned around.

Now with that being said, sometimes anxiety seems to surface in every aspect of our lives, over trivial things where worry is absolutely not warranted. It can be debilitating, even. But again, I encourage you.... when these panic attacks happen, get to the root of them! Is there a valid cause for concern???? If not..... try as hard as you can to let it go. This is where meditation comes into play, for me. It doesn't always work, but it's all you can do, and most of the time it will at least make things easier to deal with. My parents were/are perfectionist and growing up, nothing I did was right. Everything was critiqued and I was constantly being yelled at. It took me years to realize that this was why I was anxious of messing things up; in my eyes, if I hadn't done something as best as I possibly could, I would just sit there and freak out.... it was mushrooms that taught me that in the end, it doesn't actually matter a whole lot whether or not I get a B in history and not an A. Or whether or not I look like a slob in public. Or whether or not I like sports. Or whether or not I cut my food with my fork perfectly upright in my right hand and knife horizontal in my left, setting down my knife in between bites. I tell ya, they are nuts.

So yeah, try and figure out whether or not there is a validity to these anxious episodes, and (try to) confront them! It may not do anything, but I have a feeling it might.

Also, while it is absolutely true that mental disorders such as anxiety and depression can be linked to chemical imbalances in the brain..... does correlation always equal causation? Something else to think about.

I wish you nothing the best of luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Much love.

 

[endlessness]

۩ , unfortunately not at my school, only the `moving meditation` of the activity itself. As mentioned, this colleague said that training definitely helps him, and I do also notice that my mind is really empty of thoughts when i´m training, it´s amazing. And the tranquility does carry over to some extent to real life but not as much as he´d need I guess. He´d need something that could help him more directly when he´s in a public place and has an anxiety episode and can´t just take down and choke a random person out to feel calm, LOL

So I definintely think your meditation tips can be helpful, thanks I wonder how he will take the meditation suggestions because he is very ´non-hippie´.

As a layman here, can you guys please clarify a bit more what you mean with meditation, how can you describe what you do? I can suggest he join a group or class but I think, as mentioned, due to his ´non-hippie´ style, he ´d probably be put off by it. I think I`d have more success suggesting something he can do by himself.

So the idea is to sit in a comfortable position, and try to ¨empty the mind¨ and just let thoughts flow without holding them, focus on gradually deeper breathing through the nose? Anything else? Should he visualize something? Some kind of mantra ?

 

[SpartanII]

So the idea is to sit in a comfortable position, and try to ¨empty the mind¨ and just let thoughts flow without holding them, focus on gradually deeper breathing through the nose? Anything else? Should he visualize something? Some kind of mantra ?

Ideally in meditation, goal-oriented attitudes are dropped, as a more present "being" mode of mind is formed.

There are so many different forms as well as definitions of meditation or mindfulness but one that I like in particular describes it as "the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose (intentionally), in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are."

 

[۩]

I dehippified my post and converted it to laymans for yous.

 

[Ryusaki]

When i was younger, weed made me slightly paranoid. But the thing was: i allowed it, i enjoyed it, i liked the adrenaline rush coming with the paranoia. I used it to dive into my own exciting phantasy world. It was a game, and it was never really serious.

A year ago i smoked some weed + drank half a beer after a longer sober period. I got a terrible panic attack, something i never experienced before (without tryptamines). It was clearly related to my tolerance.

It made me feel so uncomfortable it was like having a difficult shroom trip.

I know now that i have to be very carefully with dosing when having a cannabismetabolism-free system.
It was 100% related to my body, not my psyche. I had taken Ayahuasca earlier that year and my mind felt more stable than ever before.
That moment of weed and beer panic was of a different quality.
Like fear of body failure as it felt relative to the circulatory system.


What i do first is usually some kind of Autogenic training.
While focussing on my breathing pattern i can slow down or rise my heartrate and pulse (don't ask me how, i just visualize it and it happends)
Getting out of the flight or fight mode is half the deal.

When i have relaxed my body function to a degree, i explore my mind pattern and search for interactions between the anxiety and certain thoughts.

If i can make out a connection (by going and out of thoughts/feelings and observing the anxiety level) i try to take out the energy by either moving the attention away or by visualizing the source of the problem solved.

In this case i took recovery postion on my bed and watched an anime, while breathing controlled and slowly.

The anime was good enough to suck me in (and out of the anxiety) and after half an hour it was over.

 

[DreaMTripper]

A number of practices helped me cope but in the end what helped most was changing my life, think if there is anything making you feel trapped?
If so make changes to step out of it, envisioning a different future at peace works wonders in itself and acting to realize this strengthens belief.
We know from ptsd studies how dramatically the body can react to the imagination.

Changing cigarette brand helped, also low dose dmt , stretching, and particularly Paul Mckennas self-hypnosis. They only last 20 minutes and can be played just before bed or after waking.
If cannabis gives anxiety try less and add some blue lotus for a positive push. Ive found sativas tend to cause the most intense anxiety.

 

[anon_003]

Endlessness, while in my experiences traditional methods of meditation have worked well for lessening anxious episodes in the first place, I find that even more beneficial than that is the trained ability to deter the anxious thoughts. Which I guess is what meditation is really about in the end; controlling your thoughts.

If your person isn't super keen on the idea of traditional meditation, there are other less traditional ways I have found that help me curb panic attacks. Many activities can work with this idea; the key is that the activity is something you can focus 100% of your attention on.

Examples

- Playing a Djembe (or any musical instrument so long as it is a continuous thing)
-ACTIVELY listening to music (classical music is great)
-Painting/drawing
-Vigorous excercise

Now obviously these activities on their own aren't gonna help significantly, the important part is making sure he understands to focus exclusively on these activities. Like developing an excercise regime or like actual, traditional meditation, it will definitely take some time and effort before he sees improvement. Hope this helps.

all the best

 

[SpartanII]

Endlessness, while in my experiences traditional methods of meditation have worked well for lessening anxious episodes in the first place, I find that even more beneficial than that is the trained ability to deter the anxious thoughts. Which I guess is what meditation is really about in the end; controlling your thoughts.

I don't know if thoughts can be reliably controlled, but through attention/intention gathering and awareness we can control our reactions to the thoughts.

 

[anon_003]

this is a better way of wording what I was trying to say. I should have said, by controlling our reactions to the initial anxious thoughts, we can (with practice) become better at steering our trains of thought away from these anxieties. Thank you for clarifying.

But I also do feel that regular mindfulness meditation is effective for me in lessening the frequency of these anxious thoughts from occuring in the first place. maybe this has to do with regular meditation promoting thoughts centered around the current moment, while anxious thoughts are commonly grounded in the past and future?

 

[Jox]

Regarding Zen, it is nothing hippie nor "spiritual feeling about it. Most of Zen is of Japanese lineages, it used to be samurai religion.

In some dojos, after the martial arts practice Zen meditation is included on some days.

Thus Japanese Zen mostly, but others too have some doses of machismo, yelling if you move, being unpleasant, correcting posture with a wooden stick, and having pretty heavy metaphors as teaching tools, like: if you see Buddha kill him, her.

The teacher is usually ruthless and los blooded, the overall feel is heavy.

I call it a martial art of spiritual practice or inner work.

 

[thymamai]

There are so many different forms as well as definitions of meditation or mindfulness but one that I like in particular describes it as "the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose (intentionally), in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are."

Good, I like that best I think.

Jox said something about meditation not necessarily always being helpful, possibly if the person is in a depression. Which also makes sense to me. Sometimes the opposite is helpful. Movement and work with the body. Passing off of energy, or catharsis.

Also like the idea of a clenched fist.. affirming both physically and mentally picturing to oneself that that fear and that disembodied energy is all going somewhere and finds it's release in the firm conviction of ones own grip on the moment.