angiebaby
05-09-08, 17:27
As some of you may remember, we had a guest a while ago by the name of RLR. I visit his site regularly and he wrote a great post about anxiety and i have a asked him if it would be ok for me to copy and paste it on here as a post to help other's on this site. He has gratiously given me his approval and here is the post.
(I find it most reassuring to re-read and confirm things)
I want you to carefully listen to what I'm about to share with you so that you can begin to rely upon self-assurance and logic to belay your fears and maintain a proper perspective; Diagnostic equipment is designed based upon what medical science knows about cardiovascular pathology and heart disease, and it's an incredible knowledge base of data or information. In other words, this equipment is looking for anything and everything that can go wrong with your heart and vascular system.
Diagnostic equipment is sort of a tier system as well. In other words, the ECG is one of the most broad-spectrum pieces of equipment available and it's why you hear about it most commonly or the reason that it's available in just about every medical setting known. It can tell us whether everything is okay with your heart. The ECG provides either 3 or 12 axis views from an electrical standpoint that sort of give us a 3-D image of the heart's performance from a conduction and performance standpoint. Any problems with the heart's conductivity can be observed on ECG and what's even more critical is that even if you're not experiencing any symptoms, the ECG can demonstrate potential problems due to subtle changes in ECG measurement.
If the ECG notes any irregularities, we can choose to obtain other tests for further investigation and confirmation like the echocardiogram, which provides a real-time observation of how the heart's tissues are functioning and whether any physical anomoly is evident. If we see problems there, we can obtain a nuclear scan, angiogram, MRI or a host of other diagnostic aids from equipment and laboratory procedures to accurately define the problem.
So if the ECG is negative and shows a normal functioning heart, then we can be confident that your heart is free of pathology. Understand that disease like atherosclerosis takes many years to develop and it's impossible for it to manifest in some type of incomprehensibly compressed timeframe. It's medically impossible.
Furthermore, and most critical of all, when you begin to subjectively wonder what may be wrong with you as a consequence of a symptom, you absolutely must employ logic and real-world probability when performing self-assessment. In other words, if you experience a palpitation, in order for it to represent any type of dangerous pathology like atherosclerosis, the palpitation would have to be the consequence of some type of actual degredation of performance by the heart tissues as a consequence of ischemia(restriction of blood) and/or change in electrical conductivity necessary to permit the palpitation to occur. While the heart's pacer can be disturbed by certain drugs or even metabolic processes via the thyroid, etc., there is always an underlying reason which will be revealed through diagnostic testing.
The problem for people who experience a physical symptom from a disorder like anxiety or panic is that they are unable to separate the presence of a physical symptom with physical disease. And since in this case it involves the heart, then it constitutes a life-threatening event. In other words, it becomes a very finite conclusion in the mind of the affected individual and it can very readily produce fear and panic as a consequence. It is erroneous and uninformed analysis on the part of the individual that creates a threat to one's safety. Keep this in mind as we discuss the matter further.
The type of palpitation being experienced by persons with anxiety disorder is the consequence of stimulation of the heart by the vagus nerve. It is a parasympathetic response as part of a normal physiological reaction to fear. You have to realize that under perfectly normal circumstances, this same response takes place when you are faced with fear such as being suddenly startled. An even better example for patients with panic disorder is the thought patterns that take place while watching a scary movie. It's not as much the last moment impact as it is the anticipation of something horrible about to take place that can't yet be defined which produces symptoms of pounding heart, increased respiration, tension, sweating and among many other signs, palpitations. Surely everyone who is frightened by a movie doesn't walk away with the notion that they have something wrong with their heart. It's only in the absence of a rational stimulus like a scary movie that the transformation is made in the mind of the person with anxiety disorder or panic disorder.
The body naturally responds to fear through a process known as fight or flight, which prepares the body to defend itself or escape. In order to do so, everything goes on high alert. The sympathetic nervous system increases norepinephrine(adrenalin), increases heart rate and respiration, blood flow is altered and vigilence(awareness) becomes intensified. These are just some of the activities that the body performs because the brain has received feedback that a threat is imminent.
So when the body alters its physiology, the person becomes immediately aware that these changes are a departure from what they know to be normal and since it's autonomic, or at least unintentional on the part of the individual, the person's vigilence is focused upon these physiological manifestations. The fear is now internalized.
In the case of panic disorder, the centers in the brain known as the Locus Ceruleus and The Amygdala are responsible for how the brain deals with fear. Realize that because the fight or flight response has increased a person's vigilence or awareness to themselves or the environment, together with the fact that the body's senses are at some point well above normal, then any slight change in the receptive information by the senses, ie visual, auditory, olfactory, taste or tactile, will be amplified so to speak. Understand that this type of stimulation of the senses doesn't necessarily equate with sharper vision, increased hearing ability or sense of smell, but can oftentimes produce distortion in the way of what the person experiences or what the brain receives as feedback because all the dials are turned up to 10 so to speak and you get a mixture of false sensory information as a consequence depending upon the individual's physiology, genetics, ect.
This is why in the case of panic disorder, a person can experience panic threshold or attack due to a stimulus like certain light, sounds or even visual in nature. Because the fight or flight response is constantly engaged, the senses remain at an intensified level. Realize that for the person with anxiety disorder or panic disorder, there most often is no external stimulus of fear. It is most always internalized and in the context of future events, whether only moments away or longer.
So the cycle that ensues is centered upon intense and oftentimes distorted feedback from the senses to the Locus Ceruleus and Amydala, which respond by increasing the body's preparedness through fight or flight changes in physiology. The affected individual's thoughts become focused on the changes in the senses and as they become increasingly elevated, it establishes an overall sensation that the body is on a runaway train to some disasterous conclusion of unidentifiable proportions. Changes in blood gases as a consequence of hyperventilation which typically occurs, together with nausea resulting from norepinephrine production, changes in neurotransmitter activity, are all combined with mental confusion sufficient enough that the individual experiences incapacitation of some form. Typically, in the minutes that follow the threshold, physiological processes begin to return toward normal levels and even in the absence of an icon of reassurance like a familiar location or person, the fear begins to subside.
It's not necessary for panic threshold to occur for a person with anxiety disorder to sense some type of incapacitation as a consequence of their irrational fear. Constant experience of this process alone can diminish one's self-confidence that they are well or capable of maintaining their comfort level in the presence of others or in certain environments. In other words, there is a nagging and rumanative thought that something will go wrong at any given time which is of a nature that will result in incapacitation of some type or at least the inability to avoid it. It becomes the establishment of a life based on fear. A person under such perspective becomes less bold and assertive, more cautionary, even withdrawn from most social engagements or activities that represent a departure from their established comfort zone, typically the person's home.
These persons typically begin making broad lifestyle changes and develop compulsory habits of preparedness for events that are entirely unreal in nature. Since the arrival of an unreal event cannot be anticipated or identified, every subtle departure from normal can potentially constitute the initiation of the catastrophic event. It only takes the active thought that something is wrong based upon the individual's perception of what the changes in physiology or the environment represent in order to start the ball rolling.
So the ability to overcome such circumstances is to effectively defeat it with knowledge and logic that the individual must come to rely upon rather than subjective speculation and perspectives that are baseless.
For the person with health anxiety, for instance, they begin a comparison of their symptoms to those which represent the worst case scenario because they are compelled to know "what's the worst thing this could possibly be?" Once they develop any loose association between their symptoms and that of a certain disease, it becomes an irreversible task to determine whether the person's fears are in fact, accurate. They condemn themselves for ever having read the information and add regret to their list of worries.
At this point, the affected individual must now seek out medical help and this typically splits into two variations; they either are too afraid to learn the truth which has all but consumed their thoughts, or; they very apprehensively appear before their physician to get the news first-hand and direct.
And so this becomes the established pattern for the person with health anxiety. Once they experience reassurance that nothing is actually wrong, it not only reinforces the fact that medical reassurance seems to represent the only method to alleviate their fears and physical symptoms, but that it actually comes to represent the catharsis for them. This is an extremely powerful event and it establishes a repetitive process wherein the patient continues to rely upon their defective rationale and relieves it through visiting their medical professional for reassurance. Trouble can often arise because patients find themselves experiencing a moving target phenomenon as a means to continue obtaining the cathartic effect of reassurance from their doctor or the ER.
In other words, the patient finds that after being told countless times that they are in fact healthy and that their fears are inaccurate, a new symptom has arisen that becomes the focus. It relieves the patient of the mounting internal pressure they feel because their doctor has either told them it's all in their head or that they feel guilty or embarassed in having to constantly appear to obtain reassurance.
With a new symptom, their justification is now renewed and they can comfortably obtain reassurance, which when reduced to its essence is merely the compulsion to be examined from head to toe if necessary to eradicate their unbridled fears.
The health-anxious patient's life is attenuated by large and they become consumed by undertaking habits which they believe will diminish or prevent their symptoms and help belay their fears. It becomes a conflicted approach to life that can result in emotional weakness if chronic enough. The conflict lies in wanting to do so much with their lives that is now been stripped away by the irrational belief that physical problems have now dictated a shortened lifespan or one riddled by disease. There is a tremendous sense of loss for the things they will now never experience as a consequence and often a sense of guilt that they will suddenly abandon loved ones and concern for their future welfare.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The health-anxious patient has established their perspective of what life now constitutes and their frustration and even anger is directed to their symptoms, with the sense of unfairness bestowed upon them that it all continues despite their best efforts. What these patients fail to realize is that they are the harbinger of their own dilemma. The most difficult transformation for these patients is for them to accept that their entire rationale is faulty and constitutes the very source of their entire negative perspective with regard to their health and life itself. One of the most resistant patterns is one wherein the affected person feels by pure intuition, is unswervibly accurate despite all evidence to the contrary.
The health-anxious person must acknowledge that they are experiencing difficulty with trust, both in themselves and the world around them. They must also realize that thought patterns associated with fear are almost always based upon fictituous or irrational beliefs.
They must come to realize that they truly are in control of their destiny and other than taking the traditional precautions to be as healthy as possible, turn their attentions and focus from fears about premature death and loss to productive efforts directed toward the experience and enjoyment of life. The conflict for these persons is that thier health fears are preventing them from seeking out and experiencing the very same things which are driving their remorse of having lost as a consequence.
Nothing is lost having never been gained. Setting one's health fears aside will never create an actual increased health risk. The focus must be redirected to what life can offer rather than what death can deal. It is simply irrational to allow one's fears to spend away the very life that they fear losing to some tragic health problem. If there is no disease by virtue of all pragmatic efforts to reveal it, then it must be accepted as fact and not illusion or inaccuracy in some manner. It is fact.
You're all going to be just fine. Take a little risk and go have fun with your lives. The symptoms you are experiencing have absolutely nothing to do with warning signs that something is wrong and they are medically incapable of causing actual risk to your life in any manner.
You must refrain from thinking your case is different or that you are somehow unique. Persons with anxiety and panic disorder form a life that is based upon exception rather than the rule. The problem is within your thought patterns and erroneous beliefs. Nothing more. The reassurance must come from within, a sense of self-trust and self-reliance. This is the key.
(I hope this is of some help!)x
(I find it most reassuring to re-read and confirm things)
I want you to carefully listen to what I'm about to share with you so that you can begin to rely upon self-assurance and logic to belay your fears and maintain a proper perspective; Diagnostic equipment is designed based upon what medical science knows about cardiovascular pathology and heart disease, and it's an incredible knowledge base of data or information. In other words, this equipment is looking for anything and everything that can go wrong with your heart and vascular system.
Diagnostic equipment is sort of a tier system as well. In other words, the ECG is one of the most broad-spectrum pieces of equipment available and it's why you hear about it most commonly or the reason that it's available in just about every medical setting known. It can tell us whether everything is okay with your heart. The ECG provides either 3 or 12 axis views from an electrical standpoint that sort of give us a 3-D image of the heart's performance from a conduction and performance standpoint. Any problems with the heart's conductivity can be observed on ECG and what's even more critical is that even if you're not experiencing any symptoms, the ECG can demonstrate potential problems due to subtle changes in ECG measurement.
If the ECG notes any irregularities, we can choose to obtain other tests for further investigation and confirmation like the echocardiogram, which provides a real-time observation of how the heart's tissues are functioning and whether any physical anomoly is evident. If we see problems there, we can obtain a nuclear scan, angiogram, MRI or a host of other diagnostic aids from equipment and laboratory procedures to accurately define the problem.
So if the ECG is negative and shows a normal functioning heart, then we can be confident that your heart is free of pathology. Understand that disease like atherosclerosis takes many years to develop and it's impossible for it to manifest in some type of incomprehensibly compressed timeframe. It's medically impossible.
Furthermore, and most critical of all, when you begin to subjectively wonder what may be wrong with you as a consequence of a symptom, you absolutely must employ logic and real-world probability when performing self-assessment. In other words, if you experience a palpitation, in order for it to represent any type of dangerous pathology like atherosclerosis, the palpitation would have to be the consequence of some type of actual degredation of performance by the heart tissues as a consequence of ischemia(restriction of blood) and/or change in electrical conductivity necessary to permit the palpitation to occur. While the heart's pacer can be disturbed by certain drugs or even metabolic processes via the thyroid, etc., there is always an underlying reason which will be revealed through diagnostic testing.
The problem for people who experience a physical symptom from a disorder like anxiety or panic is that they are unable to separate the presence of a physical symptom with physical disease. And since in this case it involves the heart, then it constitutes a life-threatening event. In other words, it becomes a very finite conclusion in the mind of the affected individual and it can very readily produce fear and panic as a consequence. It is erroneous and uninformed analysis on the part of the individual that creates a threat to one's safety. Keep this in mind as we discuss the matter further.
The type of palpitation being experienced by persons with anxiety disorder is the consequence of stimulation of the heart by the vagus nerve. It is a parasympathetic response as part of a normal physiological reaction to fear. You have to realize that under perfectly normal circumstances, this same response takes place when you are faced with fear such as being suddenly startled. An even better example for patients with panic disorder is the thought patterns that take place while watching a scary movie. It's not as much the last moment impact as it is the anticipation of something horrible about to take place that can't yet be defined which produces symptoms of pounding heart, increased respiration, tension, sweating and among many other signs, palpitations. Surely everyone who is frightened by a movie doesn't walk away with the notion that they have something wrong with their heart. It's only in the absence of a rational stimulus like a scary movie that the transformation is made in the mind of the person with anxiety disorder or panic disorder.
The body naturally responds to fear through a process known as fight or flight, which prepares the body to defend itself or escape. In order to do so, everything goes on high alert. The sympathetic nervous system increases norepinephrine(adrenalin), increases heart rate and respiration, blood flow is altered and vigilence(awareness) becomes intensified. These are just some of the activities that the body performs because the brain has received feedback that a threat is imminent.
So when the body alters its physiology, the person becomes immediately aware that these changes are a departure from what they know to be normal and since it's autonomic, or at least unintentional on the part of the individual, the person's vigilence is focused upon these physiological manifestations. The fear is now internalized.
In the case of panic disorder, the centers in the brain known as the Locus Ceruleus and The Amygdala are responsible for how the brain deals with fear. Realize that because the fight or flight response has increased a person's vigilence or awareness to themselves or the environment, together with the fact that the body's senses are at some point well above normal, then any slight change in the receptive information by the senses, ie visual, auditory, olfactory, taste or tactile, will be amplified so to speak. Understand that this type of stimulation of the senses doesn't necessarily equate with sharper vision, increased hearing ability or sense of smell, but can oftentimes produce distortion in the way of what the person experiences or what the brain receives as feedback because all the dials are turned up to 10 so to speak and you get a mixture of false sensory information as a consequence depending upon the individual's physiology, genetics, ect.
This is why in the case of panic disorder, a person can experience panic threshold or attack due to a stimulus like certain light, sounds or even visual in nature. Because the fight or flight response is constantly engaged, the senses remain at an intensified level. Realize that for the person with anxiety disorder or panic disorder, there most often is no external stimulus of fear. It is most always internalized and in the context of future events, whether only moments away or longer.
So the cycle that ensues is centered upon intense and oftentimes distorted feedback from the senses to the Locus Ceruleus and Amydala, which respond by increasing the body's preparedness through fight or flight changes in physiology. The affected individual's thoughts become focused on the changes in the senses and as they become increasingly elevated, it establishes an overall sensation that the body is on a runaway train to some disasterous conclusion of unidentifiable proportions. Changes in blood gases as a consequence of hyperventilation which typically occurs, together with nausea resulting from norepinephrine production, changes in neurotransmitter activity, are all combined with mental confusion sufficient enough that the individual experiences incapacitation of some form. Typically, in the minutes that follow the threshold, physiological processes begin to return toward normal levels and even in the absence of an icon of reassurance like a familiar location or person, the fear begins to subside.
It's not necessary for panic threshold to occur for a person with anxiety disorder to sense some type of incapacitation as a consequence of their irrational fear. Constant experience of this process alone can diminish one's self-confidence that they are well or capable of maintaining their comfort level in the presence of others or in certain environments. In other words, there is a nagging and rumanative thought that something will go wrong at any given time which is of a nature that will result in incapacitation of some type or at least the inability to avoid it. It becomes the establishment of a life based on fear. A person under such perspective becomes less bold and assertive, more cautionary, even withdrawn from most social engagements or activities that represent a departure from their established comfort zone, typically the person's home.
These persons typically begin making broad lifestyle changes and develop compulsory habits of preparedness for events that are entirely unreal in nature. Since the arrival of an unreal event cannot be anticipated or identified, every subtle departure from normal can potentially constitute the initiation of the catastrophic event. It only takes the active thought that something is wrong based upon the individual's perception of what the changes in physiology or the environment represent in order to start the ball rolling.
So the ability to overcome such circumstances is to effectively defeat it with knowledge and logic that the individual must come to rely upon rather than subjective speculation and perspectives that are baseless.
For the person with health anxiety, for instance, they begin a comparison of their symptoms to those which represent the worst case scenario because they are compelled to know "what's the worst thing this could possibly be?" Once they develop any loose association between their symptoms and that of a certain disease, it becomes an irreversible task to determine whether the person's fears are in fact, accurate. They condemn themselves for ever having read the information and add regret to their list of worries.
At this point, the affected individual must now seek out medical help and this typically splits into two variations; they either are too afraid to learn the truth which has all but consumed their thoughts, or; they very apprehensively appear before their physician to get the news first-hand and direct.
And so this becomes the established pattern for the person with health anxiety. Once they experience reassurance that nothing is actually wrong, it not only reinforces the fact that medical reassurance seems to represent the only method to alleviate their fears and physical symptoms, but that it actually comes to represent the catharsis for them. This is an extremely powerful event and it establishes a repetitive process wherein the patient continues to rely upon their defective rationale and relieves it through visiting their medical professional for reassurance. Trouble can often arise because patients find themselves experiencing a moving target phenomenon as a means to continue obtaining the cathartic effect of reassurance from their doctor or the ER.
In other words, the patient finds that after being told countless times that they are in fact healthy and that their fears are inaccurate, a new symptom has arisen that becomes the focus. It relieves the patient of the mounting internal pressure they feel because their doctor has either told them it's all in their head or that they feel guilty or embarassed in having to constantly appear to obtain reassurance.
With a new symptom, their justification is now renewed and they can comfortably obtain reassurance, which when reduced to its essence is merely the compulsion to be examined from head to toe if necessary to eradicate their unbridled fears.
The health-anxious patient's life is attenuated by large and they become consumed by undertaking habits which they believe will diminish or prevent their symptoms and help belay their fears. It becomes a conflicted approach to life that can result in emotional weakness if chronic enough. The conflict lies in wanting to do so much with their lives that is now been stripped away by the irrational belief that physical problems have now dictated a shortened lifespan or one riddled by disease. There is a tremendous sense of loss for the things they will now never experience as a consequence and often a sense of guilt that they will suddenly abandon loved ones and concern for their future welfare.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The health-anxious patient has established their perspective of what life now constitutes and their frustration and even anger is directed to their symptoms, with the sense of unfairness bestowed upon them that it all continues despite their best efforts. What these patients fail to realize is that they are the harbinger of their own dilemma. The most difficult transformation for these patients is for them to accept that their entire rationale is faulty and constitutes the very source of their entire negative perspective with regard to their health and life itself. One of the most resistant patterns is one wherein the affected person feels by pure intuition, is unswervibly accurate despite all evidence to the contrary.
The health-anxious person must acknowledge that they are experiencing difficulty with trust, both in themselves and the world around them. They must also realize that thought patterns associated with fear are almost always based upon fictituous or irrational beliefs.
They must come to realize that they truly are in control of their destiny and other than taking the traditional precautions to be as healthy as possible, turn their attentions and focus from fears about premature death and loss to productive efforts directed toward the experience and enjoyment of life. The conflict for these persons is that thier health fears are preventing them from seeking out and experiencing the very same things which are driving their remorse of having lost as a consequence.
Nothing is lost having never been gained. Setting one's health fears aside will never create an actual increased health risk. The focus must be redirected to what life can offer rather than what death can deal. It is simply irrational to allow one's fears to spend away the very life that they fear losing to some tragic health problem. If there is no disease by virtue of all pragmatic efforts to reveal it, then it must be accepted as fact and not illusion or inaccuracy in some manner. It is fact.
You're all going to be just fine. Take a little risk and go have fun with your lives. The symptoms you are experiencing have absolutely nothing to do with warning signs that something is wrong and they are medically incapable of causing actual risk to your life in any manner.
You must refrain from thinking your case is different or that you are somehow unique. Persons with anxiety and panic disorder form a life that is based upon exception rather than the rule. The problem is within your thought patterns and erroneous beliefs. Nothing more. The reassurance must come from within, a sense of self-trust and self-reliance. This is the key.
(I hope this is of some help!)x