All cool and great, but can you now give me something to shut that feeling off? I would be, like, million times happier (and financially stable) if I didn't feel constant anxiety towards things ranging from existential questions to work to relationships, anxiety that reduces me to someone who needs to read HN at work and watch sci-fi shows in huge batches just to stay sane. I'll side with Kant here, anxiety is a feeling that keeps you from 'having your capacities under your control'.
I've been struggling with that for over six years now. Big part of the problem is that anxiety is the very way for your mind to answer the question "is this right or wrong"? It's hard to think your way out of things if your brain fires up "it's still wrong!" alarm randomly.
In my case, one day I had a huge panic attack. Woke up the next day a complete nervous wreck. Looked through yellow pages for therapist. Decided to give it a few day to see if
the intense daily anxiety would get a little bit better. It didn't.
A couple of weeks later I found a therapist. Great--He will
help me. Well, I was seeing him two times a week for months. I paid
his fees through what was left of my student loans. Months
went by. I cried, and cried. We talked about my childhood.
I went to a Behaviorist--followed his instructions--still nothing. Finally was referred to a Psychatrist--who didn't
seem to have a clue to what was wrong with me. Finally, on my last referal I found a Psychiatrist who at least acted like he knew what was going on. Yes, he did prescribe
a addictive drug, after trying most of the non addictive drugs. In my case, Klonopin is the only drug that seemed to
alleviate my misery, but it was not enough; I still needed to self medicate. More importantly, this Psychiatrist reassured me that the crazy thoughts I was having was
nothing to worry about. It was the way he told me--I could
see in his face that he has heard my symptomology before, and
I was not going crazy. That was priceless!
I can say anxiety ruined the life I was preparing for, but my anxiety symptoms eventually got better over the years. I look back on the Therapy and I sometimes think it did more damage than good? I really was honest in Therapy, and so
wanted it to work, but I got nothing out of it in the slightest?
I don't have any advise because every patient is
different. I can offer this, if you go on an addicive drug keep the level of medication low. You might be suprised just how long you will live? You don't
want to work that liver to the brink of failure. It's ironic, that my biggest fear when I had my breakdown was The
fear of Death. I just couldn't come to terms with it. I literally felt I only had a few years/months left--while I was beyond healthy at that point in my life. I wouldn't wish the way I was feeling on my worst enemy. I felt like I was in Hell. It does get better with time. I'm glad I didn't commit suicide.
Thank you for the honest story. I've also been there. The huge panic attack is how my anxiety issues started. I lived for years with the cosntant fear of death, that I'm going to be damned and that the whole world will collapse.
At some point it went away. Maybe by itself, maybe thanks to SSRIs, but the fear, while still lurkinng deep in me, is hardly noticeable anymore. What's left is just random anxiety and an aversion for long-term planning. I just can't do it. I spent years thinking my life is about to end, and as a result I made myself unable to think many years forward. A coping strategy that is hindering me now.
And I agree. This state was Hell. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy as well.
So I'll second what a lot of people are saying here with CBT and mindfulness. No experience with medication so I won't comment on that.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned this: exercise.
Seriously, instead of compulsively checking HN, go for a run or even a walk somewhere in nature. It'll get rid of that excess adrenaline that prevents you from relaxing. If you've got a legitimate hard decision to make, freeing up your mind a bit (rather than focussing on tech news or sci-fi) is the best way to come up with a decent solution to things.
The running shoes I got a year and a half ago were pretty expensive, but they have been one of my most useful purchases to date. I go running 2-3 times a week - when I'm feeling down, when I need to make a hard decision, when I'm about to go on a date - and it might not always be a 100% panacea but it makes things a whole damn lot easier.
Since I'm past my edit window - I sincerely thank you all for your great and helpful responses.
In a way, I guess I've heard most of them already. Part of me wished there was an easier way than diet + exercise + meditation + therapy + wait, wait and wait. Some magic pill, or maybe a powerful quote that could instantly short-circuit my anxiety loop. Having your brain second-guessing every other thought doesn't help in developing and keeping habits.
I've tried SSRI - they did help reduce the baseline, so panic attacks are mostly things of the past, and I have little bit more willpower (at the cost of the usual side effects I won't name).
I've tried diet and exercise before and didn't notice significant improvement in anxiety levels or cognitive abilities - but then again I was optimizing for weight loss, not for well-being, so maybe I should just try a different diet.
I'm having hard time getting myself to trust any other therapy than CBT and the only CBT practitioner in my town that I know about is a private, expensive doctor. I guess I have to get back to "Feeling Good" and try to self-CBT until I save up some money.
"You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other
"normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't
necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or "mental movies." Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.
The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence."
CBT almost entirely resolved my baseline 'mental' anxiety of the nature you seem to explain. YMMV.
For the less controllable situational physical "fight or flight" anxiety, however, I've found low dosage beta blockers work very well. Apparently a lot of musicians and surgeons use them for similar purposes, but you'd need to have the mental anxiety sorted out first, I suspect.
I can relate 100% to what the comment above here said. I plan to go see a therapist or similar when I have time to try to sort things out, but I'm so anxious I can't even really bother to figure out where I need to go / who to talk to.
I've used beta blockers in the past for things like speeches, and they are quite miraculous in my opinion. I'd like to get another subscription. In any case, they definitely do not help for longer-term problems in the sense that I will have anxiety for the days / weeks building up to things.
> CBT almost entirely resolved my baseline 'mental' anxiety of the nature you seem to explain. YMMV.
That is CBT with a therapist, or self-applied CBT? I've been meaning to go through "Feeling Good" book, it seems to be widely regarded as an effective way to apply CBT to yourself.
Thanks. I hope I'll find some non-stupidly-expensive CBT therapist at some point. Did you use any resources for self-applied CBT, or were just basing on the things you learned on therapy?
Interesting. I can't get myself to fully accept this attitude, though searching for ways to cope with the existential part of my anxiety I basically learned not to think about those problems much.
Usually, if you have two options and you're debating which is right or wrong, both options are right and you're just trying to figure out which is more right. Often it doesn't matter. There are probably many better options that you haven't considered. Most of the time, it's best just to pick one, you can observe what happens (the negative impacts are far less dramatic than anxiety would have you believe) and adjust. Sometimes the right option is merely to make a choice. The choice doesn't have to be final, it just has to allow you to make progress.
As a child, I stopped worrying about religion when I heard and adapted a Buddhist belief; no matter how much we ask is there a God, we will never know. And this doesn't matter. We accept that there might or might not be. We choose to live the life that we consider correct. That may not be the same life for everyone, but their choice is neither correct or incorrect.
Check out Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I found a therapist who treats GAD and Panic Disorder using an ACT based therapy model and it has changed my life.
For a good introduction you can get The Happiness Trap by Dr. Russ Harris. Still, if you find your anxiety is interfering in your ability to live a productive and meaningful life I highly recommend finding a good therapist at http://contextualscience.org/civicrm/profile?gid=17&reset=1&....
I struggle with anxiety on a daily basis as well. I don't have any solutions, but one thing that has helped a lot is taking time out of my day to just be, with nothing hanging over my head and nothing to do. It's remarkable how the mind manages to work things out for itself when given enough space and time.
You may also find the chaper on fear in the book The Issue at Hand to be helpful. I know I did.
A while ago I switched to drinking plain old green tea instead of tea/coffee. Great stuff, feel clearer-headed, more relaxed, more energetic, and more productive. All of the good effects of tea/coffee, but without the unnecessary caffeine highs, lows and tweakiness.
Caffeine + Theanine together have a synergistic effect - I do 150mg caffeine pill + 300mg theanine pill as soon as I wake up - can't recommend highly enough :)
Magnesium is worth checking out as well, even if you're eating a proper diet (nutrient bioavailability can be affected by a lot of things).
There's been quite a bit of research and interest in the role of magnesium in anxiety, depression and several other common medical conditions.
I take it along with a benzodiazepine and the difference now after supplementing mag. is very noticeable (sleep quality, functionality, anxiety) compared to the benzo alone, though in my specific case some level of mag. deficiency is quite possible, which could explain the change.
Make sure to get a form of magnesium that is actually bioavailable though. The oxide is apparently near useless as a supplement despite being very common, while chelated forms like magnesium glycinate are supposed to be much more bioavailable, and that form in particular doesn't seem to cause digestive problems like some other forms do (the citrate is actually marketed as a laxative if I'm not mistaken).
There are less addictive anxiolytics out there that won't kill you upon cessation. Opinion is shifting towards doling a few of them out to stop severe panic attacks and using other methods for treating anxiety.
Go to a psychiatrist and they'll tell you the best things for anxiety and mental health are: Exercise + a proper diet + sleep habits, reasonable to no alcohol/drug use, meditation, therapy and medication as last resort.
Try those first five things before popping pills, there are steps you can follow to make that feeling manageable and eventually extinguish the anxiety loop.
>All cool and great, but can you now give me something to shut that feeling off?
Yes. This is what therapy is. It's a professional teaching you tools to deal with anxiety. Find a style (Cognitive Behavior, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, etc) that makes sense to you and then find a therapist who practices it and give them a call. Say everything you said here and see what they say. If you like it, go in for a session or two and see how it feels. Repeat until it feels right.
It's work. Very hard, very difficult, very nervewracking, all-consuming work. But it is so worth it. The anxiety still exists, but it doesn't have power over you. You recognize it for what it is (another data point your subconscious is giving you) and move on. I feel more like me than I ever have before and I'm in control.
You can also medicate - you'll want a psychiatrist for that (psychiatrist is a psychologist who is licensed to prescribe you meds). But that never worked for me, it just buried the anxiety under other strange feelings but never made it go away and usually made it worse cause I knew I wasn't fixing the problem.
I've been struggling with that for over six years now. Big part of the problem is that anxiety is the very way for your mind to answer the question "is this right or wrong"? It's hard to think your way out of things if your brain fires up "it's still wrong!" alarm randomly.