FAO Anxiety Sufferers

[davebhoy]

Hello everyone

My first post on this great-looking forum.

I am just starting week 5 of the 8 week mindfulness course and am being encouraged to turn towards troublesome feelings, thoughts and experiences. I have suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for nearly twenty years and I have become aware that the anxiety that seems to perpetuate my condition stems in a large part from a terror of being tired or unwell. As soon as I become aware of tiredness and, in particular, exhaustion I become anxious, angry and have feelings of helplessness. Any form of mental or physical tiredness or weakness has me spinning out.

Am I correct in thinking these are exactly the sort of experiences, thoughts and feelings that I should be turning my attention to instead of fighting against at this moment. In my practice today, the first of week 5, I did start, accepting that my reaction to tiredness was my mind doing what i thought was best to protect me from danger (the danger of being exhausted, vulnerable and stupid), but I found myself becoming upset and uneasy. It doesn't feel right, it feels very uncomfortable.

I have done the 8 week course as part of a group but I am revisiting using the audiobook of Michael Chaskalson's "Mindfulness in eight weeks," and Mark Williams and Danny Penman's "Mindfulness." Both are really good and work well together

[Gareth]

Hi Dave,

Great post, I'll give you my advice for what it's worth.

Do us a favour though and paste this into a new topic. I like to give these questions some coverage via the Twitter account, and this is kinda buried at the end of another topic. We have lots of followers and plenty will see the topic and any advice that is given.

Thanks.

[JonW]

Hi davebhoy ,
Welcome to the forum.
If memory serves, Williams and Penman advise going very gently when turning towards difficulty in week five. Rather than focus on your most troublesome feelings, thoughts and experiences at first, choose less challenging ones. Test the water, as it were. When it feels right to focus on the bigger issues, lean in gently rather than stare them full in the face.
Do let us know how you get on.
Cheers,
Jon, Hove

[davebhoy]

Thanks Gareth, I started a new topic

Thanks Jon, it goes against my nature to take the "easy" route, another thing I have to bear in mind when I'm practicing

[Kennedy05]

I completely agree. James even with my brother anxiety is an issue throughout his life. You can search internet that there are celebrities diagnosed with ocd but they cope things quite successfully with medication, exercise and medicines.

[KernelOfWisdom]

Wow, there are some great responses to this post. I am not sure there is a TON more I can add, but I did want to mention a few things from my experience, as I found mindfulness helped me deal with anxiety in a few ways (and I have recently been studying it as a counsellor too).

First, there are some specific techniques that really helped me. First, taking three-to-five, very deep belly breaths really helped. I completely agree that, when anxious, I find it really hard to sustain focus on the breath, but these three-to-five deep breaths I could do AND those deep belly breaths tend to stimulate the vagus nerve which can trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. That's the system that helps physiologically calm your body down and, more specifically, can break the hold of threat related attentional bias which is what keeps us feeling anxious. So, even a little "moment" of mindful deep breathing helped when I first woke up, and when I started feeling anxious. ALSO, in practicing I started to notice that eating regularly often helped me with anxiety. SO, I started keeping a handful of nuts and a tangerine/piece of fruit on my nightstand and so when I woke up the very first thing I did was drink a cup of water and eat my morning snack there. Scientifically, this helps regulate your blood sugar levels first thing as waiting even 15 minutes to brush your teeth or change or do other things before eating can sometimes be enough to have blood sugar drop which isn't great for anxiety.

Otherwise, I have been experimenting with various techniques to help with anxiety. I agree that part of the challenge for anxiety sufferers is that the feeling itself scares us (vs. those without anxiety who are fine with those feelings/where it doesn't affect them as much). This is SO related to a really key concept in mindfulness - the idea that there is a difference between "pain" and "suffering". Essentially "pain" is an uncomfortable feeling, and then "suffering" is our feelings about that feeling, so we might experience discomfort (fear) but when we fear/resist/struggle with that discomfort it heightens our experience of the feeling and our discomfort and can make it feel unbearable. Mindfulness is a great opportunity to separate the "pain" from the "suffering" of anxiety and decrease its impact.

There are a few meditations that can help with anxiety and I find, which one really depends on how I am feeling the anxiety that day. Some days the anxiety is intense and overwhelming and so meditations that help me focus on anything else really help because it "breaks" the cycle of the amygdala and gives my executive function a chance to chime in and gain control again. These are meditations like "external awareness" or "body scans" (unless I have body-related anxiety) or visualizations like "grounding" or "expansion". Other times, when the anxiety is less severe and I feel like I am ready to tackle a little bit of it I use self-compassionate problem solving techniques, meditations that work directly with feelings, or even tonglen and self-compassion meditations. BUT, ultimately I agree with Matt Y, that you will likely need to explore your needs and what works for you and feel it out a bit, this is simply what worked for me personally.

Furthermore, I have also found there can be really interesting ways to explore anxiety in meditation too. Gently, and when ready, meditation can give the opportunity to explore difficult feelings in a safe and controlled environment, so the more I go into the feeling and understand it - the more I find I can get to the root of various issues and realize the modes of thinking that cause it. That understanding tends to automatically change the anxiety, even just least a bit, so it gets easier to cope with over time. I have also been, personally, experimenting with a kind of "self CBT" process, or anxiety-focused meditations, that would be easier for someone with an intermediate-advanced level practice (not as much beginners I am thinking). Essentially, on days I feel up to it, I start to notice my fearful thoughts and validity-test them within a mindfulness meditation. This is actually pretty effective in meditation because we dis-associate with our typical/habitual thought patterns and, therefore, have the opportunity to explore different ways of thinking/reasoning with less attachment. Once I have found "flaws" in my thinking I can then develop more realistic coping thoughts that come from within, feeling out what feels more positive and realistic to me, and so they feel believable for me. I can then test out these thought patterns through visualizations, and in my walking life. I am not saying it works perfectly every time - sometimes we need someone to help us find the flaws in our thinking, especially when we are really used to those thoughts, but I find mindfulness makes us SO much better at doing this for ourselves so it can help a lot in between.

Finally, I really loved what Matt Y also mentioned about being careful around wanting to get rid of or "fix" your anxiety. I know it doesn't always feel good but for people who feel anxious, and I have been there, it really is and has been a part of us. One of the things I noticed was that I have even had times I feel afraid to get RID of my anxiety as much as I dislike it, because sometimes I feel like it DOES keep me safe/protects me. It felt like part of who I was and there are ALWAYS positives and negatives to every aspect of who we are - even with anxiety. So I too encourage you to try and be with it, try not to fight it or hate it, just know it is there and try to understand it. Healing comes from a loving space, not a fighting one, and so understanding things really helps us so much more that we sometimes expect than it might.

Alright, super long responses there so I'm ending it. Hope it helps even a little!

[Rob89]

Hi


New anxiety sufferer here

Can't find new post button so I'll tagg along here

Mornings are also my worst

Will try some of these tips

And trying to breathe mindful every day for twenty

But I can focus on my breath and day dream about my next therapy session simultaneously

What now

Rob

[JonW]

Hi Rob89,
Welcome to the forum.
How are you going about mindfulness? Have you completed an 8-week course with a teacher? Are you using a book? How's your practice going?
All best,
Jon, Hove

[Rob89]

Hi

My body and the Internet taught me yoga very effectively so I'm hoping to do the same with mindfulness

I'm trying to start small with the breath one which is so much discussed

Once I feel it working ill move on to teachers and courses

Do you think that will work

Thanks

Rob

[JonW]

Hi Rob,
I think it can be tricky to ground yourself in mindfulness without a structured approach. I've yet to meet anyone who has stuck with it simply by following their own instincts.
If you're not ready to go with a teacher, the 8-week course can be followed with the aid of a good book. The one I always warmly recommend is Finding Peace In A Frantic World by Mark Williams & Danny Penman which comes with a CD of guided meditations. That will provide you with excellent guidance.
Meanwhile, do feel free to stick around the forum and ask any questions that pop up. We'll always do our best to answer them.
All good things,
Jon, Hove