Dealing With Anxiety Disorder Symptoms
Dealing With Anxiety Disorder Symptoms
How do you know you are experiencing an anxiety disorder? Your heart rate is increased, you are sweating, you feel extreme fear and vulnerability…but are you sure it’s just a panic attack? We say “just” because a panic attack can’t harm you, but there exists other ailments which might have some of these same anxiety disorder symptoms, and they could. These other ailments might be very serious, so it’s important right at the start to determine exactly what it is you have.
It is imperative that you check with your physician before deciding to take any action to determine exactly what may be going on. Anxiety disorder symptoms usually start slowly and then build up over time and become more intense. Eventually, it will become an obsessive part of your life.
Since it will tend to feed upon itself and grow, it will also create an increased sensitivity in the sufferer to the point where the expectations themselves feed the growth and a terrible cycle is born. The best solution would be if the individual were capable of developing enough self awareness to separate themselves from the panic attack (“I am not that panic attack.”). Then, by having become the observer and not the attack itself, they can proceed to calm down the effects it has had on the body with slow breathing, Yoga, meditation, or many other techniques.
The bottom line for dealing with many anxiety disorders is, after all, just that; becoming more aware of your thinking patterns and thoughts. Learning to separate yourself from your thoughts is made easier if you stop for a moment to consider that if you are thinking about something, then that something has to be something “else,” not you.
It’s a little like the trick of an eyeball not being able to see itself, but through a reflection can. Similarly, the mind can “reflect” a thought and thereby see that they and the thought are indeed not the same. Once this is done, the mind has great potential power over what to do with that thought without any consideration or confusion of the self.
All of this has been discussed for ages. It is nothing “new.” Philosophers and great religious leaders have discussed this phenomena in many different ways and it all comes down to the same thing: awareness and honesty. It is important to awaken, open your eyes, and be totally honest with yourself.
A common response to an anxiety is to “tough it out,” repress it, deny it and it will go away. The truth is just the opposite. Doing these things only give the anxiety more strength, not less. It is better here, as elsewhere in life, to deal head on directly with them. Another technique to gain power over these anxieties or obsessions is to name them. Put a face on them. By separating yourself from them you can gain the upper hand, and if they are defined more clearly it makes it easier for you to do that.
Certainly there are many situations where some individuals will just not be capable of approaching their distress in this way, for whatever reasons. So for that as well as the possibilities that something more serious than an anxiety attack is what’s happening, the first course of action should be to seek professional help. Medication with therapy is usually the best recourse for those who are most in need, while medication alone is never a good idea.
Keep your eye on the ball. Even when you can’t see the ball.
