If you’ve tried breathing exercises you’ve probably tried that body scan type of meditation?
Otherwise Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is meant to have some success with managing panic attacks?
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Thank you.
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Hopefully you can find an answer that works
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Cognitive behavioural therapy is helpful for long term treatment.
I’m in a highly stressful job and suffer anxiety which is not a great combination. But if I’m having a panic attack I use 333 rule.
- identify 3 objects
- 3 sounds
- 3 body parts
It then lowers my heart rate and then i can use breathing techniques.
I’ve come to accept I will always suffer a level of anxiety and have tools to deal with it.
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Conversely, I will always suffer a level of anxiety because I have to deal with tools.
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Me too.
Barracking for Essendon is anxiety inducing too.
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In the early stages of the panic attack, those few weird seconds where you know it’s coming, try and force yourself to have the panic attack. Hard to explain. Counterintuitive but when you see of one or two with this method they basically go away.
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I talk about it. Better out than in.
I’ve suffered from anxiety for the last 15 plus years and it seems to have reduced a lot in that time. Probably to a level below when I had a mental health breakdown.
But if you have had one of those you know there’s life before and life after. Your never going to be the same.
I credit my enjoyment in life too
Finding genuine love, leaving my old job and finding a new one, new hobbies and my dog.
And find acceptance at where I am in life.
Now I feel like I’m actually growing, doing exactly what I want.
Can’t put it down to anything in particular. But I don’t take my mental health for granted.
The good news if mental health symptoms come back I feel super equipped to deal with them.
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Yes. I suffered through these a lot when I was younger and I found the following things helpful:
- Getting some more regular exercise - this meant I had less energy to put towards nervousness. It’s probably a placebo but it did help.
- Limiting the amount of coffee I had
- Promising myself I would think about the thing(s) that were making me stressed, but only between a certain time of day (Say 6-6.15pm). My mind somehow accepted those terms
- Consuming less media and instead, finding a new hobby with (low risk) challenges and problems to sink mindpower into.
- Fejo and Handy’s points are really useful
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I’m enjoying a coffee right now.
Even the best medical specialists say you generally dont need to go cold turkey.
Just give yourself enough time to flush most of it out of the system by bed time each day.
I don’t do arvo coffee.
Alcohol is much worse than caffeine. So if you’re gonna have something in moderation make it the coffee.(imho).
I totally get people who don’t have any or drink decaf. It’s a thing as to how sensitive you are.
I still will have the odd beer or enjoy some wine . But it’s gotta be when the juice is worth the squeeze. And I keep a diary on that. It means I’m drinking less and less booze because it’s just not worth it the next day.
Another thing where you might need to cut it off completely.
But there are some positive side effects to both drugs to counter the negative aspects.
The post cycling coffee is one of the best aspects of the sport I think!
And cycling imho is one of the best activities to maintain good mental health.
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my go-to immediate move, with probably 90% success, is to remove myself from the current environment
ie: go outside, walk/drive to a park or beach. if already out, go home.
it being a deliberate decision that i am in full control of and have full autonomy over usually does the job
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Ok blitz, time for you all to play shrink and offer up your collective wisdom to a fellow blitzer that needs it.
Chatting recently with a person I admire and he said that ‘unemployment is never justified.’
As someone that has chosen to take time away from work, I found this odd and decided to dig a little deeper. I explained my current circumstances by responding with ‘Even when taking time off work to deal with mental health issues stemming from childhood trauma?’ His response? ‘Yes.’
Can’t say I was pleased. In fact, it was pretty disappointing and what surprised me the most is that this guy is a kind, caring person that possesses emotional intelligence (yes, I know it doesn’t sound like it but it’s true).
Recently I’ve started reading a book titled, “No More Mr Nice Guy.” It in no way encourages men to be jerks but instead promotes healthy mindsets. It rightly points out that healthy guys are nice but nice guys aren’t necessarily healthy.
The book speaks of boundaries and speaking up when you’ve had one violated. I’m currently mulling over whether or not to voice my concern to this guy.
On one hand, it wasn’t as if I was publicly disrespected and as I prefer to take a glass half full approach to people and their intentions, there’s the side to me that is aware that his heart was entirely free of ill-will.
I also would rather not come across as especially sensitive. I mean, maybe I’m making more of this than is necessary. Maybe it’s me. I maintain that especially sensitive people should always be treated with, well, sensitivity (and patience, compassion etc) but make no mistake, easily offended people that don’t have a condition have at least some degree of work to do on themselves. Perhaps this idea should be my first impulse.
But could that also be my compromised, intellectualising, ‘nice guy’ mindset trivialising something that is worth bringing up? Surely somebody should be aware that a comment like that, to somebody that is struggling spiritually, is not just incorrect, but will also be poorly received.
Finally, the other thing that’s worth noting is that maybe I’ve got this all wrong and the guy is absolutely correct.
It’s complicated. Even if I’d be expressing an invalid concern and would ultimately feel slight regret for raising the matter, I’d likely still take a valuable lesson from the experience. For the record, great tact will be utilised if I decided to reach out to him. Afterall, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Any and all thoughts welcome. Thanks legends!
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You have taken a considered, nuanced stance, so l don’t believe you have got this all wrong. The other guy with his one size fits all approach is in error. When it comes to mental health one size most definitely does not fit all.
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As a blanket statement devoid of context and background on the many potential variables, it’s rubbish.
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I’ve taken two voluntary unemployment stints in my life. As much as it hurt my pride, I needed it. I would have shown anybody else doing this compassion, compassion that I never had for myself. So ■■■■ what anybody else thinks, you know in your heart if it’s the right thing to do.
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Its the comment of someone whos entire self value comes from their work.
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playing shrink.
I don’t believe they were taking a pot shot at you, so don’t get worked up.
it seems an odd statement. i.e what if you were given a redundancy. Yeh you might find something else but will take time. most people once employed won’t leave a job until they have secured another one to move on to. Others are happy to have some time off between jobs, especiallly when they are assured their skills will easily find them a job.
Then you have people that are independently wealthy that don’t need to work at all that choose to.
I had a friend who when he was unemployed / between jobs
used to say Thanks for the holiday Johnny Howard. He was generally a hard worker but saw it as a time to relax and wait until next opportunity came up.
Life can be good when your unemployed and mentally free.
Also you can disagree with someone on topics / their point of view and still admire them due to other things you like about them.
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I grew out of that strongly held belief within a year of working in my chosen profession lol.
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Mindset definetly matters.
But being around the wrong people I think really affects your mindset.
People you have a committed relationship with:
- Your other half
- Family 2.
3 the boss,clients, business partners or coworker
All these people are really important and I definitely think cultivating a healthy relationship with them is super important.
(It is for them too).
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From my point of view I’d be I treated in your relationship to this person, and also what it is that you admire about them before working out what and how to say something. They are obviously wrong, and then holding onto their position when you prodded them suggests they may not have the capacity to understand your position, even if you raise it explicitly again.
What would you like to achieve? Reinforcement that your admiration of this person is still reasonable? Change their mind? Have a meaningful conversation where you get your point across, even if they don’t “get it”?
I guess all I’d say is, just be comfortable that you are right, as any reasonable person can see, so this is their problem. However you deal with that make sure you are protective of yourself.
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