When Anxiety Takes Over
Some 12 years ago, I was suffering from panic attacks; every time I would get on an underground train and the doors would close (accompanied with the little ‘ding-ding-ding’ sound), I would be overwhelmed by fear that I couldn’t reach a toilet in time and that I was going to have an accident whilst on the train. It was a very physical sensation, with heart palpitations and feeling hot and sweaty, and it would hit me like a wave. I would push my nails into my palms hard, so I could feel pain as distraction. When we would reach the next station I would run out and find a toilet.
I needed to take the train to and from work, so these attacks would happen most days and I knew all the public toilets along the train-lines. My psychologist said it was common in IBD-sufferers to have panic attacks, as physically there is a lot of abdominal discomfort and pain, which can trigger fear of accidents. So when there is a situation where a toilet isn’t available, there is a trigger (ding-ding-ding) and the fear will take over.
This continued for months, and nothing I tried seemed to help, until one day I read the PanicAway program, and it was like a switch had been flicked; I’ve not had a panic attack since. The program encouraged to not resist the fear, which is what we instinctively do when we panic; automatically we will try to push the fear away as we don’t want whatever the bad thing it is we fear, to happen. The thing is when we resist, the feeling gets stronger. So the program said something along the lines of, ‘the next time the fear comes, recognise the fear is here and try and make it stronger’. You say to the fear “is this the best you have, come on then, make it stronger”. For me, it was good to think about of the worst that could happen, embarrassment (people on the train would see me) and inconvenience (I would have to waddle home with soiled pants and wash my clothes and shower). Surely I could deal with embarrassment and the laundry and shower weren’t too bad either. So it was that fear of something that I knew I could deal with, that became bigger than the issue itself. That was a revelation. So I did it, the next time the fear came, I was ready for it, “come on then, bring it on, is that the worst you can do?”. And it stopped. Just as fast as it had begun, the fear went, and it never came back.
That is the power the mind has. It plays tricks that can feel so real that it has physical and emotional consequences. The beauty is that you can train the mind, become mindful and have real, lasting results. PanicAway was simple, yet for me, life-changing, and there are many other programs which focus on recognising the emotions in the body; Kripalu has BRFWA , Tara Brach has RAIN , the fabulous Jill Bolte-Taylor has a BRAIN huddle (in Whole Brain Living) and I’m sure there are many. I feel like I need to make a sidenote here as I realise there are perhaps people with a deep rooted fear, which might stem from a trauma and this perhaps goes beyond the ability to help yourself; I’m not trying to say that it’s always as easy reading a book and something clicking into place. But I do want to say that for me, seeing a psychologist and trying various other things didn’t work, whereas the program worked instantly. I am much more aware of my emotions and feelings in my body and I believe it is very important to allow feelings to move through you, rather than to push them away.
From a yogic perspective
This all happened before I was introduced to Yoga and I understand now that these techniques (awareness, feeling and allowing the sensations) are a big part of Yoga; recognising the tricks the mind plays, observing the body, mind and breath, and allowing whatever is to be and looking at yourself with compassion.
When yoga became popular in the West, the emphasis was very much on the physical part of the practice, but originally a large part of the yogic philosophy has to do with the mind. The original yoga posture is a seated meditation seat and in the Yoga sutras (1.2), Patanjali wrote: “Chitta vritti nirodha” translated as “Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind.”
In yogic philosophy, the subconscious mind suffers due to our egos clinging to the world we have created; our attachment to the things we like, our aversion to the things we dislike, our ignorance of the bigger picture and a fear of the inevitability of death, all creates a lot of suffering.
Yoga provides tools that may help us relieve this suffering, so that we do not have to be slaves to our moods, being it anxious or depressed, but working towards equanimity and balance. Yoga can help increase this space of equanimity and balance (our ‘window of tolerance’); it means we are able to deal with change and our general lack of control of external things, in a much healthier way.
Noticing how different postures can have a real impact on your mental state (eg. forward folds are calming, backbends are energising) and that breath practices have similar if not more profound effects (for instance try lengthening your exhale when you feel anxious) can help you tailor your practice to make a real change the way you are feeling physically, mentally and emotionally. Moving your awareness to sensations in the body, gets you out of your (overactive) mind.
After an hour of focussed movement and breath, the mind is focussed, the gaps between the thoughts lengthen, you feel more spacious in body and mind and maybe you start to realise what Patanjali meant with quieting the mind.
If you are suffering from an anxious mind, have a look at the material. Also try a mind-body practice like Yoga; it has made a profound difference in my life.