Forums > Social Discussion > anxiety?

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
in my view anxiety was something useful in times you had to be aware of threats in your environment to survive... it is still left in us but the environment changed and that system reacts sometimes in situations it should not or then there is not actually a need for it involves you physically so much as if your life is threatened ... man I would like to speak German now to express myself better

What is psychology?- Looking for a black cat in a dark room. What is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis is looking for a black cat in a dark room -- in which there is no cat -- but finding one anyway.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
post in German and I'll try to translate

"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)

Owner of Dragosani's left half

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
na I think in general it was understandable what I wanted to say... my mother was suffering it for her whole life she couldnt stay one night alone cos she thought it would start again her whole body reacted so much

What is psychology?- Looking for a black cat in a dark room. What is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis is looking for a black cat in a dark room -- in which there is no cat -- but finding one anyway.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
In her case, I think anxiety is perfectly understandable though. She lived through the bombings of Berlin as well as the wall going both up and down. It's people our age that haven't had to live through such traumatic wars that I'm trying to understand better. People living in the states their whole lives have not had to endure a war based in our country, or even any major squabbles in the city I live in. The worst damage we've seen was from a tropical storm majorly flooding the streets.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
thats what I meant it comes in situation for "no reason" the system gives signals of threat and your psyche and body shows symptoms in various ways... no bombings for my mother she was 57 not really old and there was never really a life's threat but still in her attacks she was scared to death what an irony, her fate....

What is psychology?- Looking for a black cat in a dark room. What is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis is looking for a black cat in a dark room -- in which there is no cat -- but finding one anyway.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
this warning system was pretty useful in old times and is still left , I guess

What is psychology?- Looking for a black cat in a dark room. What is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis is looking for a black cat in a dark room -- in which there is no cat -- but finding one anyway.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
hmmm... they've found (sorry, it's getting scientific!), that if you inject mice with something causing a very mild allergic response that should be below what the mice could actually notice along with a particular sound, the mouse would still have the same or even higher stress response just from the sound... so that does suggest that even subconscious things (and definitely things we've forgotten about!) can cause us stress without us knowing why...

"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)

Owner of Dragosani's left half

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
I know that experiment there are a lot it is kind of fear conditioning... thats from another angle of view than from evolutionary I did but still convincing... often we dont know what we are scared of... it can be conditioned somehow but there are also fears which are just so basic like e.g. death, isolation, being helpless... I dont think they are conditioned they stuck in us and everybody is dealing it different some deny some bring in another shape some just dont wanna know(it will show in strange ways then) and so on...



dealing fears of whatever is a hard fight I wished I could help sometimes and admire people who can make their life to a huge extend free of it

What is psychology?- Looking for a black cat in a dark room. What is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis is looking for a black cat in a dark room -- in which there is no cat -- but finding one anyway.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
i think to fight against attacks you should find out what is the basic fear? What am I actually scared of? and that is sometimes so twisted and hard to find out...

What is psychology?- Looking for a black cat in a dark room. What is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis is looking for a black cat in a dark room -- in which there is no cat -- but finding one anyway.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
I get anxious when i dont know what to expect ie get nervous, stress is another one-getting heavy work loads or falling out with friends and family. it usually affects me in the form of irritable bowel or having problems with eating and drinking.

Posted: 8th Mar 2005
I don't know if it's anxiety, or something else, but in the past year or so, when I'm in a large crowd/crowded area etc. my heart rate goes up to a point where it's uncomfortable, and sometimes a bit scary which makes it worse! I was waiting in a crowd last Saturday oustide(!) for a concert, and my heart was racing - between 105 - 120 at times, for no reason. Along with that is a little nausea, and sometimes fear of not enough air...? Maybe not anxiety, but a new phobia popping up

In anycase, it's not fun. I just slow my breathing, and talk about something, or distract myself, because when you think about it, it just gets worse...

~ Bobo

wie weit, wie weit noch?
fragst mich, wo wir gewesen sind...
du fehlst hier

Posted: 9th Mar 2005
I just wrote an article about this topic for work...(counselling for people with serious illness) I think that there is a difference between fear and anxiety.
They both relate to the action of adrenalin in our bodies, which is a 'lizard brain' response. The flight or fight thing.. and people do tend to react to fear or anxiety in one or other of those ways... All those symptoms people have mentioned, heart rate, digestive disurbances etc can be caused by adrenalin overload.

However, fear is of something specific (eg 'I am afraid of whacking myself in the head with glo poi'). It can be helped by better information, skills, protective devices, whatever. Whereas Anxiety is non-specific (eg 'I feel that the pace of change is so fast I don't know what's coming next' or " my life is out of control'). So anxiety is harder to resolve. Because you can't necessarily act to prevent the unknown. People do try to though, by becoming shut off (flight) or generally controlling...of themselves, others, etc (fight)

If we also have other threats to our wellbeing, eg illness, poisons in body, then the underlying stress/adrenal levels rise as well ( supposed to make us DO something about it.. evenif we don't know what 'it' is!!)

Also our thinking can generate more adrenalin by giving us scary thoughts (specific ones like 'glo poi are really hard'' or fantasy ones like 'what if someone comes in the window". SO resolving anxiety depends on teaching people to discipline or heal their thoughts processes as well as doing something to use up the adrenalin: laughing crying, exercise or even... spinning poi! I have been using this approach with a teenager in my life who is prone to a lot of anxiety due to leaving home/ relationship problems. Keeping him in the present: 'you don't have to work out your life right now, you have to make a healthy choice for the next five minutes' ( to increase a healthy sense of control) and getting him into devil sticks/juggling etc. And reducing less healthy self medication like coffee and the weed!

Most of us just don't get enough exercise and expression to 'soak up' the adrenalin from our over stimulating environments, and we get long term overloaded by it.

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Posted: 9th Mar 2005
ther is a booh called "feel the fear but do it any way" i think its by susan jeffers it may be of help
however i find that by airing an anxitiety in good company i am able to disspell it Sometime when we bounce a thought around to long in our heads its bounce can be deafening by expresing it the thought or feeling may take it due course

Posted: 9th Mar 2005
yeah rikstik, that is good advice and a good book.

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Posted: 12th Mar 2005
I have suffered from heightened anxiety for about 5 years now and have just finished a group therapy course in stress management and am currently being assessed for some sort of therapy to start controlling it.

I don't know where my anxiety stems; I'm just almost constantly anxious. When I am relaxed, I'll jump to an abnormally heightened state of anxiety very quickly if something occurs that could worry me. It's caused a lot of problems and it's limited me in terms of my social circle, how far from my home I can go for Uni (answer = not far at all) as well as bruising my self esteem very gradually for a long time.

Thankfully I'm getting a good amount of support from various people and have my stubbornness aimed at helping myself rather than just ignoring the whole thing, so life is getting easier and more liveable.

My advice to anyone who suffers to a degree where anxiety interferes with you daily is to see small succesess as big achievements, write stuff down (it really does help) and take some steady steps towards your doctor and then to some sort of psychiatric-based help. It can (and has) taken years but it is worth it, even though it's a terrifying process at times.

I can't be evil; I'm wearing pink.

Posted: 12th Mar 2005
acupuncture is really effective in the tx of anxiety.

those that know, dont say. those that say, dont know.