Neurologist about anxiety

[quitter333]

youtu.be/6DWvKAgwe_0(Not working as expected?)

[Beevee]

Interesting. In summary, he talks about the principles taught by the late Dr Claire Weekes 50+ years ago and pioneered self help to overcome anxiety and depression.

If you stay in familiar territory, you remain emotionally stable because you have nothing to fear.

Fire. It can harm but also has its uses, like cooking. Your emotions on how you react to fire. Adjust your behaviour to it. Adjust your behaviour to the symptoms of anxiety. In other words, accept instead of fighting, suppressing, avoiding.

Learn to cope with the symptoms. The wisdom to cope will be found. You learn how to deal with it. [Acceptance]

Face what you fear. You have the strength. [Face your fears]

He goes on to make reference to agoraphobics. Agoraphobics are afraid of the symptoms. That is the basis of their fear. Not the place or situation which their brain wrongly associates with the feeling of fear. It’s not about coping with the place or situation by constantly exposing yourself to what you fear (e.g. an elevator) it is about learning to cope with the feelings of fear. If you are in a sensitised state, the feelings of fear can pop up anywhere. Outside your house, in the car, out shopping, in the queue at the bank, the cinema, on a plane etc etc. Agoraphobics withdraw from all of these places because they have become afraid. They are not afraid of these places. They are afraid of the feelings of fear. Exposure therapy might work if they get used to being afraid in a specific situation but doesn’t necessarily remove anxiety in its entirety unless the sufferer exposes themselves to everything [face and accept].

An anxious brain is irrational. It produces irrational thoughts. Trying to think your way out of the mire simply adds to the problem because you are trying to fix anxiety with an anxious mind, this is why trying to think your way out of the problem doesn’t help. It just adds more fuel to the fire and the reason why accepting all those anxious thoughts and feelings and not doing anything to get rid of them is the way to recover.

Face, accept, float past, let time pass as Dr Claire Weekes said. That woman was way ahead of her time and cannot stress enough to sufferers of chronic anxiety, which is interfering with their lives, should read her books and apply her teachings in full.