The anxiety trap
Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. As funny as this may sound (or scary for some), but 4 months ago hearing, saying or even seeing the word “anxiety” would set my mind off like a volcano (and for some of you reading this now, you may be in that current position and I deeply apologise for what I’ve just done). “Oh, here we go again. I managed to clear my head and forget about anxiety for 2 minutes, and what do you know? I’m back to being in that same anxious state again.” Essentially, I became anxious about being anxious. Weird, right? But for many people, this is a common occurrence – this is called generalised anxiety. Call it a disorder if you like, call it a disease, call it a state of mind, but honestly whatever it is, it’s not a pleasant position to be in. Now, I’m not writing this to reap attention, nor am I writing this to make a profit in any way. I’m sharing this story and the process I went through to reassure people who are going through the same struggle that I was, and hopefully to prevent others from entering that state in the first place.
For some, a worry will float away just like every other thought that passes through our mind does; for some, these worries hold their ground for days, sometimes weeks. But eventually, similar to the first person, they pass just like every other thought. Unfortunately, there are some of us that worry…and worry…and worry…and worry, until a) worrying becomes a habit, and b) our body reacts with fear. Our body is installed with what is called our fight/flight response. This response is used to prepare our mind and body for situations where we may be faced with life-threatening situations, e.g., a T-rex breathing down your neck (I recently watched Jurassic world and I actually experienced that response from the cinema chair). Anyway, we worry so much that we begin to fear things, and as a result start to avoid situations, places, words, or whatever it may be that makes you feel uncomfortable. We have now associated fear with whatever that is, and what do you know… if you have to go into that situation you feel horrendous, your head starts to spin, your mind starts to race, you start sweating like a pedo at a Wiggles concert and eventually you will break down into what is deemed a full blown panic attack. For those who have not experienced this, it’s absolutely horrible.
A lot of people claim not to be worriers and lead a non-stressful lifestyle. In fact, I’ve even heard someone once say, “I’m not a worrier; I'm more of a warrior”. All right then big balls – let’s see how you like T-Rex breath. Unfortunately, I don't have any pet dinosaurs, or access to dinosaurs for that matter, so I was unable to proceed with that experiment, but his comment actually hit home a bit and made me realise something. Ok – you may deem yourself to be a warrior, and for some people that really is the case and nothing actually seems to worry them (kudos to those people). But for the majority of civilisation, and I’m talking elite athletes, movie stars, television stars, you name it, they all have some form of worry in their life. These people are deemed to be warriors. They live in outrageous villas, drive around in big-dog vehicles and manage to obtain thousands of likes for Instagramming a piece of food they pulled from between their teeth that’s not even cool – you’re basically showing us a decomposed piece of food that has a similar biological makeup to your stool… cheers. Basically, what I’m getting at is that a lot of these people are in and out of rehab each week because of drug addictions, alcoholism, and assault, commonly initiated by psychological difficulties (in my opinion, over-worrying). These guys worry just like we do. And like a lot of people today, they try and distract themselves with things like drugs and alcohol. Worrying is pointless. Take a second now and think about this: how many times has what you've been worrying about – whether it be how are you going to initiate a kiss for the first time or how are you going to pay a bill that is due next week – how many times has what you’ve been so profusely worried about actually occurred? I guarantee you that 9 times out of 10 that fearful outcome doesn't occur, and why? Because our minds can play some sick tricks on us, especially when we are in a sensitive and vulnerable state.
When worrying becomes a habit, we become extremely sensitive. We put so much pressure on ourselves daily and our mind becomes sensitive to what we have been told. For me, I had lectures on all sorts of horrible diseases each week; all it took was for those symptoms to pop up on the board and BAM! I think one week I had type 2 diabetes, the next week I had hyperthyroidism and I think one week I even had Alzheimer’s – I can’t really remember…WHEYYYY! But honestly, a habitual worrying mind will take what it's given, spin it around, sprinkle it with a bit of horrible dust and 100% convince you that you have that disease. You'll somehow have every symptom on that board and in some cases, you'll be straight to the emergency room that day only to find out there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Until next week comes around of course…
Fortunately, I have now discovered a way around this cycle of worrying, and have since learned how to cope with a racing mind, irregular heart beats, dizziness, a lack of motivation, being constantly on edge and all in all feeling rubbish. Acceptance. Acceptance is an incredible thing. It is extremely uncommon to find acceptance among society (besides monks and a selection of yogis that actually meditate correctly, not just to upload images of themselves posing on their social media accounts). We all try to correct what is wrong, better ourselves, and try and force happiness. The reality is that we are at our happiest when we accept what we have and what we are fortunate enough to be given, and when we allow worrying thoughts to pass through our minds just as equally as a positive thought would do. Accept that someday you are unable to train and that's ok – you aren’t going to shrink or lose all your gains from the previous month of solid training. Accept that you may have to go out for dinner a few nights a week and eat something different to what you would normally eat (read my previous post on creating a diet and this can be dealt with easily). And accept that some days you may feel terrible and nothing is going your way but that is life, whether it’s fantastic or horrible – just accept it.
I want you to try something. Take yourself to a room or place you deem to be fairly quiet (your bedroom, living room, bathroom perhaps), and close your eyes (not right now because this next part is important). For some, this next part may seem like the worst thing you could ever imagine. If that’s the case, come back and try again when you've built up a little more courage. But let me tell you, it will be twice as scary the next time you give it a crack and even more so as you continue to put it off as you are just fuelling the fire with fear. Take my word for it and trust me on this. After all, I am living proof of going through this and coming out the other side in a far more peaceful state of mind. Now, instead of trying to control your thoughts in this quiet state, and making everything seem like rainbows and unicorns, let those bad thoughts come and accept them (this is why I suggested a quiet place as it’s about to get rather loud). You don't have to enjoy their presence but just accept that they are they. At first this will seem ridiculous and downright disgusting. In fact, my first time attempting this I genuinely felt like I was going to vomit. I understand it may take a few attempts to actually put yourself in this situation and allow whatever thoughts into your head, but over time it will become habitual, just as the constant fear of these thoughts are now (not for long). I’m not going to put a time limit on how long it takes to feel a sense of peacefulness. Some people will find it easier than others to accept these bad thoughts racing through their mind and horrible sensations associated with them. And some may fight, and fight, and fight until their mind becomes so tired that eventually they have to accept those bad thoughts because they have no energy to fight them anymore (a common state of mind for anxious people in the evenings as they have spent all day fighting with their thoughts and feelings, only to be left with a well-cooked and fatigued brain). But I’ll say this again – until you accept these thoughts and feelings and see them for what they are (a thought or feeling brought upon by anxiety), you will never find that peaceful state of mind.
One last thing I want to clear up is adrenaline, as I found this helped me a lot with understanding why these horrible feelings come about, i.e., irregular heartbeats, dizziness, brain fog, eye floaters, irritation and a number of other symptoms I am unable to fit in this post. Adrenaline is released as a response to our inbuilt fight/flight mechanism, which I mentioned earlier. All of these symptoms associated with anxiety (and I mean all of them – don't think that because I haven't mentioned a symptom you have/are experiencing that it is related to some other horrible disease) are all due to an uncontrollable release of adrenaline. What you'll find is that when you start to fear things less you will release less adrenaline. Therefore, the symptoms will subside and eventually diminish as you learn that there is actually nothing to fear, batman is here (no batman, but you should know what I’m getting at by now).
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