Deeply understanding the symptoms of anxiety

Understanding the symptoms of anxiety

I’m John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind Process for overcoming Anxiety, OCD and Depression.

In this video we are going to explore the core symptoms of anxiety, which I believe are often misunderstood and occasionally medicated inappropriately.

This is a bit of a house keeping video because, although most people understand the symptoms of anxiety – I am still shocked that so many don’t!

I have purposely waited until this point in the course, because now I can use far more complex perspectives that in the beginning you may have rejected.

Many of you have already contacted me – to say that, as you have embraced these understandings – your anxiety has begun to lessen – and some of your self- sabotaging behaviours are slowly backing down.

How did this happen? Well, some of it has come about by you thinking differently, seeing things differently, tricking your body, letting things go, placebo-ing yourself, talking to yourself more softly and slowly.

Perhaps, worrying less and reducing the chemical stress from over activation of your sympathetic nervous system – lessening the secretion of adrenaline and cortisone into your blood stream (as I discussed in video 7).

It was NOT by medical intervention, or avoiding certain foods, or taking supplements – it was by thinking less and communicating with your own mind in more effective ways.

You could say, you are slowly seeing a more complete map, of the very complex relationship, between the unconscious, the conscious, the body, the conditioning of our minds – trapped energy from childhood trauma –

And the “story” of who we think we ought to be (which could also be called our identity, with all its learned behaviours, values and beliefs – some of which may (or may not) be good for our own emotional wellbeing.)

By having all your processes in as much harmony as possible – you will benefit from reduced biological stress – and with your immune system spending more time para- sympathetically activated – you are naturally repairing and recharging yourself, and decreasing inflammation.

So, I am going to explain many of the symptoms of anxiety – and a breathing technique, you can use to calm yourself down.

Remember, I am not medically trained; I am an engineer, a therapist, a deep thinker, an avid researcher and a person who has both experienced, and recovered from, anxiety, OCD and depression.

I have listened to thousands of people talk about their experiences – and I’m documenting all the underlying patterns I’ve seen – and detailing, for you, what worked for me.

You should always be working closely with your own Doctor, as well as, trying these new ways of understanding yourself.

So, I am going to use non-medical concepts to help you get a better grasp your symptoms.

And I am urging you to do your own research – because the medical world seems to be treating the symptoms of anxiety, but they are not necessarily addressing the underlying causes of those symptoms.

For example; a sedative may calm your symptoms of anxiety but it is not treating your underlying fear of conflict, being judged or standing up for yourself.

So, let me remind you about a couple of things;

Firstly, emotions are your unconscious minds way of telling your body what (it thinks) is good or bad.

This is done by the gentle or harsh release of chemicals which agitate your organs – which mean yes, move towards or no, move away from.

As I keep saying – we are emotional creatures who learned to think – and if you are acting like a thinking creature who is trying to control their emotions – It’s the wrong way around and will never work!

Therefore, if you are afraid of your own feelings (even though they are currently out of balance), they are your natural, unconscious yes / no communication system – so it makes sense to focus on and recalibrate – rather than avoid them.

Which is why the exposure therapy (from video 8) is so important.

Secondly, the body is a bit of a one trick pony! If it releases adrenaline while you are taking off in an aeroplane, we might call this emotion, anxiety.

If it releases adrenaline – as you kiss someone for the first time, we might call it a wonderfully, exciting and moving experience.

Or, if you are parachuting, we might call it an exhilarating thrill or a rush (or terrifying.)

In all these different experiences, your heart raced, you had butterflies in your stomach, your mouth went dry, you sweated, your body trembled.

It was only your interpretation of the moment (and your interpretation of the unrequested stories in your head) that classified the event as good or bad.

And even then, which aspect of your mind was interpreting and classifying?

One part of your mind may be thinking “I look cool in my parachute suit” yet at the same time, another part it’s trying to stop you from leaping out of a plane to keep you safe!

What I am pointing to – is, we need not fear our emotions.

Overwhelm to one person, is exhilaration to another – so, how can we accept, that we can’t overly control our emotions?

And how can we give them less meaning – and see them differently?

Emotions are our unconscious mind, giving commands to the body – preparing us for what “it” expects to happen – as nudges us towards – that which, we need like, food, connection, reproduction and safety.

Remember, our brain sits in the darkness of the skull – making blind interpretations from the input of our various senses, our movements, our tonality, speed of talking – and from however our amygdala was trained to react.

The brain makes “best guess” interpretations – and what it comes up with is not necessarily the truth! So, it would be very beneficial for us to take our emotions less literally.

And this works in both ways – just because you feel down, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something – it just means you feel down.

A good place to start our exploration is with our adrenal glands – these mushroom shaped organs, sit at the top of each kidney, and they can, in a fraction of a second, secrete adrenaline – directly into our organs and blood stream – to give us emotional and physiological, internal reactions.

And for the sake of clarity, I am going to group all the many differing chemicals, hormones, adrenaline, cortisol and peptides that are released during anxiety – and just refer to them all as adrenaline.

I know this is very loose, however, we explored cells, peptides and receptors in video 7 – and in the next video, I hope to shock you (in a good way) about the incredible and complex things our bodies can do!

So, the more anxious we feel, the more “adrenalin” our body will release.
If we panic at the thought of panic, we are in fact making things even worse!

Which is why I have been asking you to sag your body, consciously talk softly over the unconscious negative fearful talk – and where possible, trick the senses that are feeding your brain – which sits in darkness, guessing what to do.

And as adrenalin is released into our blood stream it immediately affects the muscles around our heart, which, in-turn begins to pump faster.

Arteries and veins dilate to allow more blood to flow around the body, and this is all in response to the old animal instinct, of fight or flight.

Our body is sensing danger and is preparing the muscles of the body – by flooding them with aerated blood, to make them primed and ready, for action.

Now bear with me here, because, I’m not stupid, I know this is common knowledge, but sometimes we need to be reminded – of just how normal the symptoms of anxiety really are.

These are the right emotions, just firing off at the wrong time and the wrong intensity.

Your heart may pound against the chest, as if it might explode – however, this is just the heart being efficient and forcing more blood through on each beat. This is nothing to be afraid of.

The heart beat rate may rise from around 72 to 160 beats per minute, and although this may feel scary – for a relatively healthy person, the heart is capable of operating at 160 bpm for long periods of time, in fact, it is good exercise for the heart muscle.

Difficulty breathing is often encountered too; your chest may constrict and feel tight, almost like a crushing feeling, making it hard to breathe.

This is caused by the chest & diaphragm muscles tightening due to the presence of the adrenalin, which naturally causes muscles and fibrous materials, such as your lungs, to stiffen and tense up, to become more rigid – so it feels like it is harder to breathe – but it’s not bad, nothing is wrong.

Many people (especially men) during panicky moments fear they are having a heart attack – and may even end up in hospital, only to be told, that it was only anxiety.

For some, it’s hard to accept this diagnosis, because the feelings are so overwhelmingly intense – and although the Doctor gave them the all clear, they still don’t trust that there isn’t a problem with their heart.

A quick comment too, on the word trust – can you begin to trust your own body a little more?

Your body was designed to keep you alive, without all your conscious thinking interventions.

When you were a baby you stayed alive, grew – and you didn’t even know how to worry – it did just fine – I truly believe we need to get out of our own way.

I remember my first full on panic attack – on an aeroplane where I was convinced I was having a heart attack (but it was just the effect of – nearly all my adrenaline being dumped into my blood stream in about one second.)

Looking back on it – through the whole panic episode, although I really thought I was going to die – I was probably just as concerned about what everybody else in the cabin was thinking about me freaking out!

Worrying about what others think of us, is a big part of anxiety and I will be teaching you many new ways to increase, self-esteem, self-worth and confidence in future videos.

Panic attacks, typically cause people to breathe shallow and very quickly, this causes more oxygen to enter, and more carbon dioxide to leave the body creating an imbalance.

This is important to understand, as carbon dioxide is required to facilitate the chemical reaction that permits the oxygen to pass into the blood stream.

So, to avoid hyperventilation, we take long slow breaths in -and we ensure the long slow breath out – completely empties our lungs.

It’s best to begin this slow breathing, the moment the feelings of anxiety begin – or even better, learn to breathe deeper and slower all through the day.

I would really recommend you explore Diaphragmatic Breathing (you can Google it, there are lots of videos out there.)

And to know if you are breathing properly place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach and take a deep breath in – see which hand moves. And we want it to be your stomach not your chest.

For me, what worked best, to calm me down, was to sit down (if possible) if not, I would lie on the floor or lean against something, so I could sag or slump my body.

Remember, we are trying to fool our own brain by physically pretending there is no problem “out there.”

If we are all-tense and restricted, the message our (sitting in darkness brain) is getting via our senses – is a bad thing is about to happen to us.

So, I would (as best I could) slump my body, if it was safe, I would close my eyes – and take a slow long breath until my lungs were full.

Then breathe out slowly and with some slight resistance from my pursed lips until my lungs were totally empty.

Now, when you have completely expelled all the air in your lungs, what happens is, your own diaphragm pulls the air back into your lungs.

Then gently and slowly blow it all back out again with some slight resistance.

Don’t worry about counting how long it takes – it takes as long as it takes – and you are keeping a percentage of your conscious mind focused on the resistance you feel against the inside of your pursed lips. (show)

Really feel it. So, if a part of your conscious mind is focused on the pressure at your lips, there is less of your mind that can be hijacked by all fear stories – remember, we are just trying to work smart.

Breathe all the way out until there is nothing in your lungs, and then let your own diaphragm pull the air back in – you will need to work on this.

Now, for some people, when anxiety comes on – a feeling of light headedness or dizziness may be experienced, I used to have that, but for some reason it didn’t bother me, I used to think, it’s just my anxiety – other people get really scared (I guess we’re all different?)

But, it’s because our blood pools down from the top of our body, via gravity, as the arteries and in our legs and arms dilate to facilitate the delivery of blood to our large muscle groups.

If you feel lightheaded sit down or lie down. I am also asking you – to not be afraid of doing, what ever you need to do, regardless of your situation.

I remember being really impressed at a business conference, when the key note speaker, mid speech, asked for a chair –

they brought one out next to the podium – he sat down and said “sorry, I feel a bit light headed, public speaking still makes me anxious, even after all these years – and he smiled.

He just carried on his lecture sitting down – and I loved the fact – that, even though he had anxiety, it didn’t stop him, plus I really respected the way he wasn’t embarrassed by it!

Because why should he be? When anxiety is a normal part of the human condition, I say we should be more wary about the people who never get nervous!

Ans as we begin to panic, blood gets drawn away from our hands and feet – this facilitates for less pain, should we need to fight predators or run across rocky land.

This naturally causes numbness, tingling, pins and needles, temperature changes, this may feel disturbing – especially if you are driving, but it is a natural response.

When I was a child, I used to like laying on my arm until it went numb and floppy – and I strangely enjoyed the shocks, temperature changes and zaps, even the slight pain as the blood flowed back in and everything was re-oxygenated and started working again.

Other people hate that sensation – it’s just a perspective – one view makes you feel bad the other good.

I am really asking you to just accept what is happening in that moment. Detach from having an opinion, a story, an expectation, it just is what it is.

Now, when, anxiety escalates up towards becoming a panic attack, there is a certain threshold where we, consciously lose control and become totally overwhelmed.

This occurs, due to the blood vessels supplying our prefrontal cortex or thinking mind being restricted – causing our mid or hindbrain to take over executive control.

This enables us to react from instinctual, quick animal like responses that keep us alive 

Rather than wasting time consciously thinking about a solution, should I do this? Or, should I do that? – no, bam, we just respond – and in real danger this is good.

This explains why we often do silly things or lash out, get angry (and why we can’t listen to advice) because our thinking mind, in that moment, was disabled, for our own safety.

Then, afterwards, when the thinking mind comes back online – we wonder why we acted that way – but in that moment we had no choice!

Therefore, it makes sense to interrupt the anxiety as soon as it starts bubbling up – or even before it starts, if we know we are about to do something that invokes our fear.

We talk softly and slowly, sag our body, start the breathing process, become the observer, let go of control, remember, you can only respond, retreat or accept in any moment.

Where appropriate, we start the tapping we explored in video number 8. There are so many options available to us – however, we need to practice them when we are calm, so they are already second nature when anxiety arises.

If you experience a tight head or a stress headache, it’s often due to adrenaline causing the many muscles in the scalp to contract and tighten – causing a feeling of tension around the head – people say “I felt like my head was in a vice.”

Just so you know, the pain is on the outside of the skull and not within the brain (as the brain has no receptors for pain.)

For some people, the adrenalin causes blurred vision, as the tiny delicate muscles at the back of the eyes (used for focusing) become more rigid, and later they ache, causing what feels like a frontal headache.

Nausea, a churning stomach and a knot in the stomach are all very common symptoms of anxiety and. (chart)

The unconscious nervous system has many feeder lines that run to your stomach, these each gently release small drops of adrenalin during times of anxiety – onto the structure of the stomach causing continuous and random contractions.

This is natural, and is the feeling we call “butterflies” – it alerts us to pay attention to something “out there.”

As our fear rises, more adrenalin is released, it no longer drips into our stomach, it begins to flow – and this causes our stomach to stop digestion – because in that moment (our survival) is more useful than digestion.

With more adrenalin flowing to the structure of our stomach, it contracts and shrinks, feels like it is knotted – and what was only a half full stomach, suddenly feels full – and this causes the feeling of nausea.

Or a feeling you may vomit, which of course, could kick off more anxious thoughts and a further release of more adrenaline.

A dry mouth is common too; as digestion is halted, our saliva glands cease working, thus making our mouth dry – we can also experience this when we have to speak at a meeting or in public – give it no meaning, it’s natural!

I was taught that if you are about to present to an audience, you should take 3 or 4 seconds to nod, smile, acknowledge them, then take a sip of water, then begin your speech. It always worked for me.

When I am presenting, my goal is not for my body to feel calm, but for my mind to be ok with any bodily discomfort – and not give it any meaning.

I can be calm in my mind, even if my body has been emotionally triggered in some way.

Another scary symptom is the effect adrenalin may have on our Globus muscle. This half egg shaped muscle sits at the back of our throat, and during anxiety the adrenalin makes it swell and stiffen, making it feel like your airways are closing and causing difficulty swallowing.

It feels like a lump in the throat, medically this is called Globus Hystericus and many people with OCD have this without realizing, so erroneously, they feel the need to breathe or swallow in certain ways hoping to avoid it being triggered.

Much like the stomach, our intestines, bowel and colon are also subject to the continuous agitation caused by the release of the adrenalin and this “stirs things up.‟

Which leads to the release of gas, bloating, wind and in extreme cases diarrhea – along with the subsequent fearful story of being “caught short‟ which just adds more worry!

In the wild, animals under attack, immediately defecate – as a distraction in the face of the predator – and to make them lighter to escape faster, and I think this basic system is within us too – though we rarely need it.

However, if the body is subjected to long bouts of anxiety, it plays havoc with your system and we may call that IBS or irritable bowel syndrome.

Another note on IBS, rarely have I met a person with IBS who is not either; a worrier, or stressed, or both.

It just doesn’t happen to calm, happy people – so a good question to ponder is “what are they doing differently?” Well, they worry less.

Now, as the waste in your body nears the end of its journey, it enters the colon and rises up the right-hand side of your lower abdomen, across to the other side, then drops down to where it can be released from you.

The vertical rise on your right-hand side (just under your ribs) often traps gas and can cause transient pain; and men in particular, really fear this natural sensation.

Now, I am not saying people don’t have intolerances or allergies, what I am saying is, you may need to go deeper, than diet, supplements and medication – and explore how your intestines and bowel system – would respond to a quiet mind, minimal adrenaline release and lots of relaxation?

Have you noticed how intolerances and allergies diminish during times we are less stressed? Like in the mid part of a vacation – where the worry of getting there is over – and just before you start worrying about going home.

Another common symptom is the need to urinate when anxious; adrenalin shrinks the body of the bladder making it instantly feel full, even if it was only half full.

You rush to the bathroom but hardly anything comes out (why? Because it was only half full!) Then you start a cycle of “what if“ worrying about needing the bathroom, which makes it all worse.

Many people tremble, or shake when anxious, this is just the adrenalin rushing around in the blood stream – continuously contracting and relaxing whole muscle groups.

The more worked up you become, the more adrenalin is released – and the more you may shake.

As the release of adrenalin abates and its effects wear off, so does the shaking.

If, during the day, you are releasing more adrenalin (through worry or stress) than can be burnt off –

That which remains tends to accumulate around the neck, shoulders and upper back causing tension, stiffness and various aches.

You go for a massage – and the stored adrenaline is released back into the blood stream – your shoulders relaxe, your neck softens and it feels good.

But this is just a temporary respite, because usually within a couple of hours – it just returns – because it’s still in your blood system, unless you have taken action to burn it off – or more sensibly think and worry less to stop it being released in the first place.

Many symptoms of anxiety can be hidden – people can’t see, if you have a headache – however, if you suddenly become all sweaty, they can, which may make you feel self-conscious or even more anxious.

However, sweating is an absolutely natural part of the fight or flight response, sweat glands are stimulated to begin to pre-cool the body, in anticipation for a huge expenditure of energy – in biological terms it makes sense!

This can manifest itself as profuse sweating, moist hands, blushing or your neck and chest going red – or even night sweats in response to anxious dreams.

And if we stay with dreams for a moment, anxious or depressed individuals seem to dream twice as much, as calm people, I think it’s probably to do with the unconscious mind trying to “figure things out” as you sleep.

And if you are unconsciously dreaming all night, it’s not uncommon to wake up, already feeling anxious – because, like I said in earlier videos – your body thinks dreams are real and gives you corresponding emotional responses.

You then wake up, thinking the anxiety is about what’s coming up – when it was only from your dreams, often, which you can’t even remember.

For some people, adrenalin makes the jaw tense and may cause clenching or grinding of the teeth, whilst awake or even asleep.

So, I have been discussing the physical symptoms of anxiety – however, I think scary thoughts, intrusive ruminations, a catastrophising mind and worrisome “what if” stories – these could be classified as symptoms of anxiety too.

They will get their own video, in fact, many videos, because I am going to teach you – what they are, how they operate – which parts are you – which parts are not you – and what you can do – to quieten them down or, at least be able to ignore them.

As you think less, worry less, recharge your emotional battery, discharge your atomic battery, relax more, let go of control, retrain you amygdala – breathe properly – reduce pumping adrenaline into your blood stream – your unconscious, your little eight year old will slowly back off from sabotaging you – and you will begin to find glimpses of calmness.

So, your homework.

Practice the breath work I talked about earlier – deep long breaths out, through pursed lips, until your lungs are empty.

Focus your mind on the slight resistance as you do this. Then let your diaphragm pull the air back into your lungs automatically.

As you continue the breathing – sag your body, surrender to what is happening, unhook from unconscious scary “what if” stories, by either talking over them with a new calm placebo story “everything’s fine” or just by totally focusing on all aspects of your conscious breathing.

Ensure that all sensory feedback to your “sitting in darkness brain” is as consciously modified as possible – sag, close your eyes, drop your arms, slow breathing, a soft gentle dialogue.

These are the only conscious things you can do – everything else is unconscious – stop trying to argue with, or understand your unconscious –

Just bring your awareness back into consciousness – learn that consciously you can be calm in your mind, regardless of what your body is doing.

There is, in fact, a stillness in there – which I will teach you how to find (if you haven’t yet stumbled upon it.)

The next video is a big one! I am going to bring in one of the most important missing links to understanding why; pain, exhaustion, anxiety, stiffness, sinus problems, IBS, headache, joint inflammation and skin conditions occur – and why the medical world struggles to explain or effectively cure these conditions.