It’s the physical symptoms that overwhelm us…
- Adrenaline pumping
- Fast breathing
- Heart racing
- Stomach churning
- Vision narrowing
- Muscles tightening
- Palms sweating
- Dizziness
Surviving this body onslaught seems impossible to halt. But you can handle it, and not just with the proper medications, though they may help this process. When your brain has been hijacked this way, thought itself is altered, hijacked, with reason and logic a distant memory. Whether it is worry, anxiety, trauma, or fear, you can learn to handle it.
And the physical skills that may help contain it:
First try a little experiment, right where you are. Take in a very gentle breath through your nose (just as you would for yoga) and sending it to the lower lobes of your lungs, under your diaphragm. (You remember your music teacher telling you to breathe from your diaphragm in grade school, right?) Hold that breath a few seconds, and now, narrowing your mouth to the shape of a straw, gently let that breath out through your mouth verrrrrrrrry slowly. Ahh! You have just begun to gain control over your anxiety.
Over the course of several sessions, you can learn many more skills to manage the “hijacking” and regain control. These are concrete skills, tailored to bring down anxiety and panic to a manageable level. Let’s work together to put worry and anxiety in their place.
