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Secret Poster
06-07-08, 16:26
...for me, I'm in school to get over whatever the heck I'm dealing with. My own panic school LOL. I thought journaling this out in this forum, may help me.

I'm new here, the "Secret Poster". Long and short of my issues began with a terrible car accident in 2006. I picked up driving anxiety when I had a stressful week about a month later. My grandpa died, I got my period back after being on depo for many years and I was on a birth control pill that drove me nuts..hence...the start of my pain. Just to include, my driving issues are mostly "pre-worry", I generally do fine with the driving, but have added on a few other things that bug me, like construction areas.

I've tried therapy, hypotherapy and Lexapro. I decided against pills as I hate feeling speedy and therapy has helped some. I had a panic attack 2 mos ago in front of an audience and just yesterday for no reason, I had a small panic attack at the dog park. I did deep breathing and it stopped, thank god. I have no idea why it came out at that point, I go to the dog park 5 times a week! So I tried to figure out what may have triggered it. I have been under a bit of stress in the past year, as I've been building my own business from scratch. And I think I drank way too much caffeine in the morning, and drank some weird "relaxing" drink from Target right about an hour before the attack came. (aha, no more drinks like that for me either way!).

I did drive home fine from the dog park and took one of my panic pills and just relaxed all night. Then I decided that I can control this from now on and wrote up my own Anxiety 101 lesson plan and unlike past efforts, I will follow this plan for one week and see how it goes. I do not want to go back to therapy or pills. I want to do this myself. Mind you, I came up with all these ideas from searching the internet.

Feel free to add on anything else you feel can help me, I would really appreciate it!

In the AM, I will do the following.
-cut way back on the caffeine, 90decaf/10caf
-journal
-take all my vitamins
-20 min walk
-48 oz of water
-relax with no noise for 20 min
-do some step climbing for cardio

In the PM, I will do the following.
-take a kava pill
-20 min walk
-32 oz of water
-shower/relax

I also have some relaxation cd's that I have from therapy that I will listen to when I layout on the deck. It's the only time I really enjoy listening to them.

For what it's worth, I had a longer list of issues prior to therapy, but they have gone away. My biggest issue I need to deal with is what happened yesterday, it scared me a bit. But I did learn that I can deal with an attack by breathing it down, even though I wasn't comfortable, it did pass.

tHamera
07-07-08, 04:05
Hi,

thats sounds like a solid lesson plan. i've been advised by my therapist to do a lot of that stuff as well as reading the works of Dr. Claire Weekes. i dont really get the exercise that i should due to the fact that i'm still a bit afraid of getting the 'ol heart rate up, but i have been feeling much better of late. this site helped out a great deal as well.

Secret Poster
07-07-08, 13:27
tham, I think a lot of my issues are being more calm in my life. I'm a very excited person naturally, so it doesn't help for the past 20 years I had a pot of coffee every morning and a Red Bull in the afternoon LOL.

As for exercise, I'm not afraid of the heart rate, I'm just lazy and it's hot out now as it's summer. I'm lazy!

So far this am, I'm still "on the lesson plan"....I had a computer muck up a bit ago with my Blackberry so I had to troubleshoot, but I'm back on plan. My 2nd cup of decaf. boo.

Secret Poster
08-07-08, 16:06
Report from day one....doing well, felt way more relaxed and woke up today, excited for day 2. I also had to make a decision about something that was bugging me, so I decided to go with my gut and feel really relieved that I made the decision that felt right for ME. I got in 2 rounds of exercise too yesterday, walk and a long bike ride.

Day 2, still on decaf and ready to go on my walk for the morning.

Considering doing acupuncture for whatever is lingering around in a few weeks.

Stressed92
09-07-08, 19:23
Sound like you're doing well-well done=)

Also,try yoga..it really helps.

jenfromdenver
09-07-08, 21:19
tai chi and chi gong have both helped me. i do yoga as well. but strangly once i started doing aerobic exercise my mood improved significantly.