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Ch 3- Your Body is an Asshole too

If you thought your mind had a monopoly on screwing you over, you were sorely mistaken. Your body seems to be in cahoots with the boss upstairs and has its very own contributions to that lovely beast we call anxiety. Don’t worry if you are one of those lucky people who seem to have anxiety that is primarily driven by physical symptoms. You’re not S.O.L. We just need to approach things a little differently.

Physical anxiety symptoms vary from person to person, but there are some that tend to be pretty consistent:

• Pounding heartbeat

• Shakiness

• Shortness of breath or hyperventilation

• Sour stomach

• Headache

• Dizziness

• Feeling of pressure on chest

• Sweating

• Feeling of choking

• Chills or hot flashes

I bet you’ve felt a few of those suckers before. Maybe you’ve even had a panic attack, which is basically when you have intense fear plus a few of those symptoms, and it pops up all of the sudden and prevents you from functioning normally. Panic attacks and physical anxiety symptoms in general are scary as hell. I don’t get to that point often, but I have been there before and I’ve seen it occur in others countless times. When you have a panic attack, it feels like you are going to die. You might even webMD yourself (never webMD yourself) and find that your symptom profile is strikingly similar to a heart attack. I bet that realization did wonders for your anxiety. Here’s the thing, though. I know it hurts, I know it sucks and it feels like you are going to die, but you will not. People don’t die from panic attacks. It just doesn’t happen. Your body is a dick, but it’s not going to let you self-destruct like that. Even though the emotional pain and physical discomfort may be quite unbearable, anxiety will not physically hurt you.

Great. Now that we’ve gotten that out on the table, we can pack up and go home right? Problem solved? Probably not. Realizing that you are experiencing symptoms of panic and not having a legitimate medical emergency can help to bring down your stress level a little and it might stop you from needlessly calling the ambulance, but it still sucks really bad. That’s okay, there’s still more that we can do to help. I’m going to tell you something really important here and I want you to memorize it. Symptoms of panic are fundamentally incompatible with deep breathing. Let me say that again. Symptoms of panic are fundamentally incompatible with deep breathing. Got it? What I’m trying I say is that the process of breathing deeply, focusing your mind on your breath, and taking in a larger amount of oxygen will start to break down those physiological symptoms of anxiety. Imagine that your anxiety symptoms are a raging fire. Deep breathing is like turning on the sprinklers. The fire might continue to smolder, but it’s definitely not going to be raging anymore. The last time you were freaking the hell out due to anxiety and you were in the presence of someone else who told you, “Breathe. Just breathe,” you probably felt like punching them in the face, right? That’s because you suck at breathing. Let me teach you how to suck less.

The reason you haven’t been able to simply breathe your way out of a panic attack is because you haven’t effectively practiced breathing. Practice breathing? Yes. Imagine that you are playing basketball. In fact, imagine that you are on an NBA team playing in front of a ginormous crowd. Pretty sweet, right? It is until you get fouled and have to step up to the free throw line and remember that you never practiced free throws during training. Now that the heat is on and you don’t have that bionic muscle memory that most professional players have, you sure as hell aren’t going to be very consistent in your shots. Breathing is the same way.

I want you to think of breathing as a tool that you have in your tool belt. In order to effectively use that tool under pressure (like a panic attack), you need to first practice under non-stressful conditions. Then you keep practicing until it becomes second nature, and you can press that big shiny relaxation button at a moment’s notice. Once you achieve that level of comfort and mastery with deep breathing, you will have added another awesome weapon to your anxiety slaying armory. While it probably won’t solve the root of your anxiety symptoms, it WILL bring you down a couple notches and help you think more clearly. You can also think of it this way: Say you wanted to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow in order to hunt your food. Well, the first time you decide to go out and practice, it probably shouldn’t be when a lion is chasing you down. You will likely shoot wildly and miss your target. If instead you practice your shooting intentionally over time on other objects, you are much more likely to hit that lion exactly where you want to when it does show up.

What kind of breathing am I talking about? There are approximately one zillion different kinds of breathing exercises out there (seriously, google it). All of the different techniques have their own merits and most of the ones that I have tried are effective. There’s no mystic voodoo here. In my opinion, there are basically two main components that make breathing exercises effective. The first one is obvious; they prompt you to take deeper, slower breaths–basically the exact opposite of what the anxiety monster is telling you to do. The other is that they trick you into focusing on something other than your sense of impending doom. This sort of breathing is effortful, and if you are trying to keep track of how you are breathing, it is going to help take your mind off of flipping out. Here’s one that is quick and dirty, but works wonders for me.

It’s called 4-7-8 breathing. I don’t even remember where I learned this one, but it’s come to my rescue for many a close call. I hope you can count, because that’s all you have to do for this one. Breathe in for 4 counts (you can count faster or slower depending on comfort), hold that breath for 7, and then release for 8. I know I said there’s no voodoo involved in these, but for me, these numbers are magic. As soon as I hit my second or third 8 count exhale, I can feel the relaxation inject itself into my bloodstream like I’m mainlining tranquility itself.

The beauty of using this technique to cope with anxiety is that it’s not an obvious one. You don’t look like some tool sitting cross legged, touching your belly button, and exhaling “ahhhhhhhhh” with every outbreath. You can look like a tool on your own time. When you are in the middle of a coffee shop and you feel the monster creeping up, you don’t want to worry about looking like a tool. You can use 4-7-8 without anyone else knowing. If anyone is looking at you close enough to notice that you are using a breathing pattern, then they are creepy and you should probably back away slowly.

Don’t forget that this takes practice. The only reason that I can give myself a quick shot of relaxation in the middle of a stressful situation is that my body and mind have been trained to do so. You need to practice this often in non-stressful situations. When you are at home by yourself, right before you go to bed, in the car on the way to work… basically whenever you can get it in. My suggestion when starting out is to practice this at least three times per week.

Here’s what a typical practice session looks like for me: I lie down on the couch and close my eyes. I let myself breathe normally for a few seconds and just notice the rate that I am naturally breathing. I feel the rise and fall of my chest as I start to slow my breathing down. Before jumping into the 4-7-8, I will usually do a few sets of 4-4-4 just to get in the mood. Then I will start my 4-7-8s and do this for as few as 5 minutes or as long as 15 minutes. Try not to stress yourself out about the particulars. If you feel uncomfortable and thingy from breathing too deeply, that’s okay. You’re not in any danger. Just let your breathing return to normal and jump back in when you’re ready

Don’t make it an unpleasant experience, because then you will start to resent it. Breathing is your friend. Remember that whole beating your brain into submission thing from before? Well the same thing applies here. Your body is going to resist you at first. You’re going to feel like this is the most boring damn thing in the world and that you could really spend your time more effectively. Your mind will race and relaxation won’t come easily. That’s okay. Keep practicing. Once you forge those pathways and develop that muscle memory just like the basketball free throws, it will come so much more easily. This means that when you are first trying to learn a breathing technique, you need to put in a lot of work and practice as often as you can. Once you start to get the hang of it, you can back off a bit and just do some maintenance training every once in a while.

I hope that once you learn this skill, you never have to use it during a panic attack or something. I really do. But if you do find yourself in that situation, believe me when I say that you will be thanking your past self for practicing when you did.

The last thing I want to mention about breathing is another resource that is available for when you have a few minutes to really focus on your relaxation. There are a lot of great guided relaxations out there that walk you through different steps designed to bring you into a state of calm and relaxation. Guided relaxations (or guided meditations) can come in several forms including text, audio, or video. There are tons of great free ones on Youtube or through apps on your phone. Just pop in your headphones, close your eyes for a bit, and bliss out. I’m going to include a script I’ve written for a full body progressive muscle relaxation that you can listen to at the end of the disk. I guarantee that it will make you feel good if you decide to breathe along while you listen.