Control your anxiety

Are you one of the many people who struggle with anxiety or panic attacks? Perhaps they suddenly appear when you least expect it? Or perhaps you get some warning before the panic sets in? Could you also be one of those people who feel a sense of unease or are scared all the time? Do you sometimes wonder if it actually IS anxiety, or if something is seriously wrong with you? Heart attack? Cancer? I can guarantee that you are not alone.

Anxiety can manifest in an enormous number of ways, and it can therefore be a long time before you realise it’s actually anxiety that troubles you. The anxiety itself isn’t dangerous, just incredibly uncomfortable. The symptoms, however, are just as physical and real as if it were a heart attack or another serious illness. It should therefore be taken as seriously as any physical illness. A lot can be done to better this condition through simple breathing techniques.

Many of my clients find that they have developed a fear of their anxiety. They are terrified of having another anxiety attack because it’s such an unpleasant experience. The panic therefore becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that can even trigger a new panic attack. It can then feel natural to avoid situations or places where you’ve experienced anxiety before, which unfortunately isn’t beneficial to you, but rather contributes to keeping the anxiety alive. You’re giving the anxiety control over your life, instead of taking the control back yourself. Eventually, you may find new places where anxiety occurs, and start avoiding more and more places and situations.

By learning to use your breathing consciously and practising this when you’re not experiencing anxiety, you’ll grow able to stop a panic attack in its tracks. I firmly believe it is impossible to have a panic attack when you breathe slowly in and out, provided you have practised beforehand and know exactly how to do it. Slow exhalation is the easiest way to activate the part of the nervous system that calms us down – the parasympathetic nervous system.

It’s not just panic attacks my clients have suffered from, but also generalised anxiety, strong inner unease and various phobias.

Anxiety or anxiety disorders are collective terms for irrational fears – meaning fears triggered when there’s not a real danger present. This anxiety can either be a continuous condition, wherein you suffer from unease, restlessness, irritability and worry – called generalised anxiety – or it can be tied to specific situations or objects. Anxiety can also occur as sudden panic attacks.

What often happens when we suffer from anxiety is that we try to avoid places or situations where we think anxiety will occur. Unfortunately, this mostly contributes to maintaining the anxiety. It’s also very common to develop a fear of the anxiety itself.

• muscle tension and/or muscle pain
• trouble swallowing
• breathing difficulties
• trouble concentrating
• tremors or twitches
• tiredness
• inner turmoil
• tension headaches
• nausea
• numbness in the hands and feet
• irritability
• sweating
• restlessness
• sleep issues or sleeplessness
• dizziness
• heart palpitations
• fear of dying
• sadness
• chest pressure.

As mentioned, it’s not always easy to tell if it’s anxiety we’re suffering from, as the symptoms can vary and appear very physical. My experience is also that they vary tremendously from person to person, and also from day to day. I’ll therefore mention some symptoms I’ve come across in my clients. As you’ll notice, some of them are symptoms of physical conditions – breathing difficulties, chest pressure and heart palpitations, for example. It is therefore, of course, important to check your heart at the doctor’s the first time you experience these symptoms. But at the same time, be aware that if your doctor can’t find anything wrong with your heart and tells you it’s anxiety, you should accept it the next time you experience these symptoms.

ANXIETY IS NOT DANGEROUS – and this is important to remember.

With generalised anxiety, the anxiety isn’t tied to specific situations or objects.

The condition is characterised by strong, continuous tension, unease, restlessness and worry. You may also have somatic symptoms like tremors and dizziness. Often, things or activities in your daily life become the focus of irrational anxiety – for example, worrying that your children will be in an accident, worrying that you’ll become ill or die, worrying that your finances will take a turn for the worse or that something bad will happen to your partner, etc.

When we experience generalised anxiety, we’re in constant fight-or-flight mode – a condition that is usually reserved for real danger. We get elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol; our breathing becomes quicker and superficial; we can’t think straight, focus, concentrate or memorise; over time, our immune system will be weakened and we will experience more and more of the symptoms above.

By training our voluntary breathing, we can balance the autonomous nervous system to achieve a balance between “fight or flight” (the sympathetic nervous system) and “rest and digest” (the parasympathetic nervous system). Several research reports show that by breathing in slower patterns, we activate the vagus nerve, the primary component in the parasympathetic nervous system.

I strongly recommend that you regularly train your breathing. Do you want guidance on how you can use your breathing consciously? I have developed 24 guided breathing meditations in video and audio format, in which I tell you exactly when to breathe in and out in various patterns. All the exercises are based on research done on breathing, to create this balance in the nervous system and soothe unwanted nervousness.

You’ll find them here: https://pusteteknikk.samcart.com/products/enkle-pustemeditasjoner

During a panic attack, anxiety appears suddenly and without warning, often in combination with physical reactions like difficulty breathing and a sense of suffocation, heart palpitations, an increased or irregular heart rhythm, sweating, shivering, chest pain, nausea, dizziness, numbness, feeling like you’re about to faint or fear of dying. These attacks can be very scary.

Because the physical symptoms can be so strong, they can easily be misinterpreted and you may think you’re having a major medical episode, like a heart attack or a stroke. This, in turn, can make you overly aware of any changes in your body; concerned with when your pulse increases, your heart beats stronger, your breath quickens, and so on.

Panic attacks are, in my experience, one of the easiest things to influence, stop and lessen through calm breathing exercises. This is because we breathe way too quickly when we’re having a panic attack. Our breathing becomes shallow and we only breathe into the top of our chest, plus we breathe too quickly, so we’re also breathing in too much air. This breathing pattern escalates our anxiety, so the panic attack lasts much longer than it has to.

When we breathe superficially and quickly, the level of CO2 in our blood sinks dramatically. This causes the oxygen in our blood to “stick” to the haemoglobin molecules in the red blood cells, where a normal, healthy person already has more than enough oxygen. Where we do need oxygen, however, is in all the other cells in the body that have mitochondria, or powerhouses. These powerhouses are entirely dependent on oxygen to produce energy. At the same time, our brain cells are dependent on oxygen to be able to think rationally, focus and remember, and our muscle cells need oxygen to perform.

By changing our breathing pattern to a slower and deeper one, CO2 levels will rise, the haemoglobin molecules will release oxygen to the other cells that need it, and WE WILL BECOME CALMER!

It is incredibly important to note, however, that this has to be practised daily. It’s not something we can start doing the second we get a panic attack if we haven’t already practised how to do it when we’re relatively calm.

A phobia is an irrational and intense fear of a specific situation, object or activity. It is common to divide phobias into three main types: social phobias, specific phobias and agoraphobia.

Social phobias

In the case of social phobias, you are scared of being with other people. There may be specific groups of people or it may just be other people in general. It may be triggered by specific situations, and it may involve a fear of making a fool of yourself or being humiliated

Specific phobias

Specific phobias are very common and are tied to specific objects or situations, like snakes, spiders, dogs, heights or traveling by plane. I personally believe we all have some phobia or other, but I also believe it’s possible to actively work to get rid of – or at least handle – them. As a kid, I wouldn’t even touch a stuffed animal if it was shaped like a spider, but today I “rescue” spiders that find their way into our home or cabin.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the fear of leaving your home and walking into areas that feel unsafe. This phobia is especially tied to open spaces and places with loads of people, like shops, public transport, etc. I’ve had several clients use my breathing techniques with great results when they’ve experienced anxiety at, for example, large shopping centres.

PTSD – Post-traumatic stress disorder

We often associate PTSD with war veterans, but there are many types of trauma that can cause this condition. Examples include rape, major accidents, life-threatening situations and other extremely scary situations. PTSD is a delayed or continuous reaction to an extremely scary or mentally painful event. It’s often characterised by the threat feeling more overwhelming than what the individual is able to handle.

The original trauma is relived again and again, often through mental images/flashbacks, thoughts or nightmares. Other symptoms can include tension, startling easily, anger, physical pain and trouble sleeping. At the same time, you’ll often try to avoid anything that reminds you of the traumatic incident. This can be very draining.

The US Department of Defense recommends breathing techniques to war veterans suffering from PTSD. After a week’s practise with breathing techniques, the veterans were close to being symptom-free, even a year later. It’s important to be clear that this is also a situation where the exercises have to be done regularly.

I, myself, have had great success with my techniques when working with people with PTSD. They often experience great challenges with concentration and memory. By breathing optimally and more slowly, you automatically release more oxygen to the brain, which, again, facilitates better memory and concentration.

“I use your guided breathing meditation on Nettpust daily, and I’ve noticed changes in my body. I have a little more energy, my body is less stressed and a little less on high alert, and I’m much more conscious of how much I’ve been holding my breath over the years. I can now practise having freer breath, and more flow and energy in my body.

My body has been on its last legs, with symptom overload from both complex PTSD and ME. This past year has been the first time I feel I’m living without threats in my life, and can finally start calming down my body. And with your breathing techniques, I have – for the first time – found a way to work on my breath that isn’t triggering.”

– Anonymous client

Compulsive disorders can present as compulsive thoughts and compulsive actions. Compulsive actions are things we do because our compulsive thoughts make us. Doing them will release the anxiety in the moment, but it can quickly snowball with more and more compulsive thoughts, and thereby more compulsive actions.

Compulsive thoughts are often related to anxiety-driven ideas like “if I don’t do this, my wife will die” or “if I don’t throw up, I’ll become fat”.

It’s very common to have compulsive thoughts about not stepping on cracks in the pavement or not walking under ladders when you’re a child, and this can be a comfort to those who struggle with compulsive disorders. It is NOT dangerous, and it is also usually not dangerous to perform the action we’re compelled to do. I had quite a few compulsive tendencies as a child, and had to place all my jewellery in a perfectly straight line or count this or that number of houses before pulling the curtains shut.

If I didn’t do this, I was convinced that one of my parents would die. I remember it feeling absolutely awful, as this belief was so strong. It was when my mother convinced me to toss all the jewellery in a pile and not count the houses, so that I would see she was still alive the next day, that that I managed to stop it. That night, however, I remember it was incredibly hard to fall asleep. If I had known then what I know today about breathing, I would definitely have had a better night.

By training our breathing, it becomes possible to balance our nervous system and get more oxygen to the brain so we can make better decisions. This can be a major factor in being able to resist compulsive thoughts and actions.

Slow, conscious exhales soothe anxiety. No matter what type of anxiety you suffer from, what they all have in common is that you’ll have elevated activity in the sympathetic nervous system – fight-or-flight mode. When we achieve a balance between the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) nervous systems in our autonomous nervous system, we can balance our mental state and release our anxiety. The easiest way to activate this calming part of our nervous system is through slow, conscious exhalations.

https://www.psych.theclinics.com/article/S0193-953X(13)00002-6/abstract (Breathing Practices for Treatment of Psychiatric and Stress-Related Medical Conditions

Richard P.Brown, MD – Patricia L. Gerbarg MD – Fred Muench PhD.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2013.01.001)

In Norwegian: http://www.apotek.no/nyhetsarkiv/statistikk/2017/statistikk-antidepressiva

In Norwegian: https://sykepleien.no/2018/01/tenaringsjenter-med-psykiske-lidelser-oker-med-40-prosent

Åsa-Helena Nilsson shows that there is less anxiety among people who do yoga or exercise regularly: https://drjaykumar.posthaven.com/breathe-your-way-to-health-happiness-with-dr

http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/59/2/209.short Shows how people with COPD see benefits in both anxiety and depression from practising breathing techniques.

Effectiveness of Controlled Breathing Techniques on Anxiety and Depression in Hospitalized Patients with COPD: A Randomized Clinical Trial: Marie Carmen Valenza, Geraldine Valenza-Peña, Irene Torres-Sánchez, Emilio González-Jiménez, Alicia Conde-Valero and Gerald Valenza-Demet
Respiratory Care February 2014, 59 (2) 209-215; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4187/respcare.02565)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201905/longer-exhalations-are-easy-way-hack-your-vagus-nerve

Christopher Bergland The Athlete’s Way