Stop Anxiety from Stopping You: The Breakthrough Program For Conquering Panic and Social Anxiety(8)

During a panic attack, your body will go through a predictable stage of physiological activation: an area in your brain called the amygdala sends an alarm signal to your entire system. The amygdala is a complex system and is part of the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. One of its functions is fear perception and making fear associated memories. The amygdala houses the fight or flight response, or the survival alarm in the brain. The fight or flight alarm system is so simple that it only has an “ON” and “OFF” switch. This helps with quick reaction time when faced with a bear on your hike through the woods, or with a car that slams on the brakes too quickly right in front of you. What this also means is that when this alarm system goes off, there is no input from your thinking brain as to the true degree of danger.

Like any alarm system, the one inside our brain is vulnerable to false alarms. The panic attack we experience in the absence of real life danger is not life preserving – it is simply a false alarm. The problem is that it feels identical to the signal you get during a truly dangerous situation. Like any other alarm system, our internal false alarm will sound the same every time it is triggered, even if it gets accidentally tripped. Learning to identify a panic attack as a false alarm will help you in winning the panic attack mind game.



Lie Number 5: If it makes me anxious I should avoid it.

The Truth: Repeated panic attacks can cause a lot of distress, even when you have been told they will not harm you. For this reason, many people begin to avoid situations that they associate with the onset of anxiety or panic symptoms. These situations can run the gamut of avoiding places where you have had a panic attack (like a car, if you have had a panic attack while driving) to places that you perceive as dangerous because it would be difficult to get help should you need it (like an airplane, subway or a large, crowded mall). While avoidance may make you feel better in the short run, it is guaranteed to strengthen your panic and anxiety response.

Many people force themselves to endure feared situations and do not experience a reduction in panic or anxiety. In my experience, this is typically due to the mind game and thinking patterns that can keep anxiety lingering. If the entire time you are facing a feared situation you are just hoping to get it over with, you are unlikely to get the positive anxiety-reducing value from it. You need to get back to working on your thinking game first. Otherwise, you are actually strengthening your beliefs about the dangerousness of the situation or your symptoms.

For example, if you are afraid of water, you may force yourself to go the lake and walk in ankle deep. If the entire time your thoughts are, “This is awful. I cannot wait until it is over! I hope I never have to do this again!” then no new learning is taking place. That means that you are not likely to benefit from this exercise, because what you are actually doing is cementing the learning that being around water feels awful and should be avoided.

What we want to happen during the experiential part of facing anxiety-provoking situations is to create a different type of learning. I will cover this more later in the book.



Lie Number 6: Only weak people get panic attacks.

The Truth: Having panic attacks or experiencing anxiety has nothing to do with being weak or strong. In my experience, this is a particularly difficult concept for men, but it can be for women as well. If you believe that experiencing or expressing strong emotions, any emotions, is a sign of weakness, then managing panic or anxiety will be very difficult. I offer an alternative view here. Having emotions, any and all emotions, even strong emotions, simply makes you human – and able to appreciate life fully and respond to your experience as it happens.

I frequently hear people judging themselves after a diagnosis of panic or anxiety disorder, or even just the experience of strong anxiety symptoms. Consider having hypertension, diabetes, or eczema – would you judge yourself harshly if you were diagnosed with one of these conditions? How is it different with panic or anxiety? In my view, it is not. You are simply addressing a real-life concern that you have as opposed to sweeping it under the rug and pretending it is not a problem. It takes strength and courage to do that!



Lie Number 7: I have to know when the next panic attack is coming.

The Truth: Panic creates a sense of urgency. It feels like you need to know for sure when the next attack is coming. Think about the rest of your life for a moment. Do you need to know the next time you will get the flu or a cold? Get stuck in a thunderstorm? Get a flat tire? You may be thinking that although you would like to have this information, it is not necessary and you can get along fine without it. Panic attacks are no different. This is a lie that panic tells you to get you to play by different rules so that it can divert your time, energy, and attention. The next time this happens, try to remind yourself that it is just not possible or necessary to have this information.





CHAPTER V.





Panic-Thinking Games





“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to

stop letting them control you.”—Dan Millman





In the last chapter we covered the lies panic uses to get to you. Probably the biggest lie of all is the mind game panic draws you into. Therefore, we will now go over the thinking games that panic uses to deceive you. Panic wants you to believe that the false alarms your brain receives are really dangerous, and so it tries to engage you in several thinking games that only work out in its favor and harm you. Here are the most common thinking mistakes we make when we panic or experience strong anxiety.