Somewhere along the way we lost our quiet minds. Disappointment, toxic relationships, overwork, grief, loss and money worries are just some of the things that can take us beyond the threshold of normal anxiety into the dark world of anxiety disorder.
We are left bewildered and fearful searching for an easy solution to restore former happy times. Or perhaps hoping we will wake up one morning and feel normal once more.
Slowly we realise there is no easy solution, no wave of the magic wand that will make it all better again. Eventually it dawns on us that it's unlikely to go away - unless we do something about it.
If we are determined then through understanding and reassurance we can regain good mental health - but we must take the initiative to bring it about. Panic attacks, feelings of doom, derealisation, health anxiety and intrusive thoughts can be dispelled if we are willing to take control of our recovery, working with doctors, therapists and psychiatrists or simply through self help.
What has happened is easy to understand. Once normal levels of anxiety have been exceeded our nervous system has become super sensitive. In this state it exaggerates all our normal fears and concerns ten fold. Simple to solve concerns become insurmountable problems and we enter a cycle of fear causing further symptoms causing further fear causing further symptoms.
The natural reaction is to fight our symptoms but this only causes more strain and stress. Instead we are better employed practicing Claire Weekes self-help method based on learning to accept (for the time being) that which causes us so much distress: the symptoms of anxiety caused by over sensitive nerves.
As acceptance replaces fear and bewilderment we stop flooding our nervous system with the hormones of fear: cortisol and adrenaline. As time passes our nerves return to normal levels of sensitivity and the symptoms of anxiety slowly yield.
Of course, we must resolve the pressures that caused us so much anxiety in the first place and this may require ruthless action on your part. High anxiety cannot kill you, disable you or make you lose your mind. But it certainly can make your life a misery.
Happy days can make a come back but it will take practice and persistence. Great things are not easily won.
Written by
Jeff1943
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Siri’ve spoken to you before regarding my bp fears it’s been better at times then worse you helped me emensley once.
I have read claire weeks books.
she was amazing.
I’m 68 now and moved out of state love it here.
my white coat syndrome has gone beyond the doctors office to not being able to get any decent numbers at home as before.
there all super high trickle down a bit.
i’m on 25 mg losartan 4 times a day the anxiety of the fear to take it doesn’t help my situation .
I will be seeing a new doctor here in Texas in a month or so and i’m terrified but trying to practice breathing and hoping to try and get a decent number before.
my numbers can jump up to 217 them slowly climb down after the 3rd reading to 193/90.
ugggggg i’m sure during the day it isn’t that high or i’d have died.
so any suggestions you have but please don’t say to run to the emergency room all they do is keep me in the past until it would drop down to maybe 140/90.
Leticia, I'm no medical professional as you know but I have a similar problem to you: blood pressure taken in a medical environment is always 30 points higher on the systolic than taken in the quiet of home. But even the anxiety of taking your BP at home can produce white coat syndrome: you're expecting a high reading and that is anxiety enough to send the reading artificially high.What my doctor did is to put me on a 24hr bp machine that straps onto your body and takes readings every 30 minutes. Trouble is when it suddenly springs into life and automatically inflates to take a reading, well, bp rockets as a reaction.
Maybe if you took your own bp at home every couple of hours for a few days so your nervous system gets so used to it that it stops over reacting? Worth a try.
Somewhere in one of her books Claire Weekes mentions a woman who was seriously worried about her high bp which meant she was three times more likely to have a heart attack. The woman took this to mean her certain demise was on the way. Weekes pointed out that the normal chance of having a heart attack was 1 in 300 so now her chances were 1 in 100. Even at 1 in 100 the chances of a heart attack are still quite small. The woman in question lived to 90 and died of a non cardiac condition. Worth bearing in mind.
Very true. For me I was hit with many very bad things at once. Staying active doing what needed to be done is the only way I didn’t crash. I think my anxiety or depression is situational. Before my son left I put things in place knowing I would be susceptible to crashing. Made arrangements with friends. Cleaned my house. Etc. sometimes forcing myself but knowing I could not slide back into the darkness. It can for me be a choice before it happens. Once it does I have a much harder time beating it!
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