One of the most effective techniques you can master in helping you to overcome anxiety, is to learn how to breathe slowly and deeply. 7/11 breathing as described in my earlier blog “Breathing Like a Baby”, is the simplest and easiest way to begin to take control.

Simply breathe in to the count of 7 and out to the count of 11. The secret is to have a longer outbreath than inbreath. This activity has a physiological effect on the body and will immediately have a calming effect.

To feel inspired and encourage you to learn how to control your breathing, take a look at this Ted talk. “The Exhilarating Peace of Free Diving” by Guillaume Néry.

In my previous blog “Fear – Fight or Flight”, I discussed “the stress response” and how this occurs automatically in reaction to a threatening situation. The stress response can be triggered by either a physical or mental threat. If we are in physical danger the stress response readies our bodies for fight or flight. The brain does this by releasing the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol into our blood streams. If faced with a physical threat, these extra hormones are rapidly used up as we fight or run away, and our bodies quickly return to normal.

However, if the stress response is triggered by a mental threat, for instance, opening your gas bill and realising that you have used far more than you thought. And your only physical exertion is to sink onto your chair head in hands. The stress hormones are not used and remain in your system until your body has time to stabilise.

If this happens occasionally it will not significantly impair your health, but where people suffer from chronic stress it can lead to serious problems.

http://www.healthline.com/health/stress/effects-on-body

In my previous blog “Fear – Fight or Flight”, I also mentioned the abc model of anxiety. Where a thought becomes the reason for anxiety rather than a real and present danger.

(a) The situation….gives rise to….. (b) The thought……which in turn causes…

(c) The anxiety.

(The Situation -> The Thought -> The Anxiety)

This abc sequence can escalate by virtue of a feedback loop.

This happens when the feeling of the anxiety itself becomes the stimulus for a further catastrophic thought.

You make a second prediction to yourself, such as “I can’t cope with this; it’s really dangerous; I am so frightened”

The new catastrophic thought makes you feel even more anxious, which prompts more thoughts about the danger and so on.

This type of anxiety escalation is particularly difficult to stop when you are in a situation that you can’t avoid or where you feel out of control: in a large crowd of people, on an aeroplane, out at sea, angry at work but you can’t go home. Or when you feel an unusual pain in your body.

In these circumstances, it’s easy to imagine small changes that could create a situation where you may become overwhelmed and this often causes the anxiety escalator to kick in.

Your anxiety can be managed as long as your thoughts about difficult situations are realistic and accurate. But if you over estimate the danger and continually predict disaster, your anxiety will increase dramatically.

If you tell yourself every time you board a bus “It’s going to crash”, that’s not a rational belief. You are predicting danger, where statistics show that little exists.

The anxiety escalator usually has four phases.

1. You begin to say unrealistic things to yourself that keep you in a constant state of alarm.

Your body tenses in the fight-or-flight reaction: your heart beats faster, you feel short of breath, you have butterflies in your stomach etc.

This chronic state of arousal makes you “sensitized” to any hint of possible danger.

Sensitization means that your nerves are set on a hair trigger. And the least unpleasant surprise, or conflict can set off a siege of panic.

2. You begin to fear, fear itself.

As your body becomes more sensitized, you begin to anticipate panic attacks. You try to avoid them at all costs. Now you have a new fear. You not only fear boarding a bus, you also dread the symptoms that fear causes in your body.

3.You fight your own feelings as your fear of fear escalates.

You hate experiencing the symptoms of your fear: the pounding heart, the dizziness, the shortness of breath, the trembling legs, the lump in your throat, hot flashes and the confusion you feel in your mind. You battle against anything unusual happening in your body. You become hyper-vigilant for symptoms of an approaching panic. You come to fear any emotion or experience that triggers physical sensations that remind you of panic. Even feeling excited, exercising, or contracting illnesses like flu seems dangerous because the symptoms remind you of the feeling of panic.

4. Finally you begin to avoid, any situation, person, or thing that reminds you of the feelings of anxiety.

What perhaps started as nervousness walking empty streets becomes avoidance of going anywhere alone. What started as anxious thoughts when talking to the boss becomes avoidance of work altogether. What started as painful shyness at parties becomes avoidance of every social contact.

Fortunately there is a way to cope with this cycle of anxiety and panic. Hypnotherapy can help you to relax, accept alarming symptoms of panic, replace irrational beliefs with new responses, and shut off anxious feelings instead of intensifying them.

I came across this video on Ted.com and found it very encouraging, so I thought I would share it with you.

The Stress Response.

Fear is a very useful, natural human reaction and we certainly wouldn’t last long without it. When we are in danger, it is important that our bodies react in a way that will enable us to deal effectively with the situation.

So what happens when we experience fear?

How would we feel, in the middle of the night, if a bogey man jumped out of the wardrobe, dagger in hand?!

Fortunately, we don’t have to think too hard, because in that situation our bodies will automatically release certain hormones that trigger the “stress” response. These hormones prepare our bodies, either to stay and fight or flee from danger.  It is essential that our muscles have the necessary energy to protect us from the threat. So our bodies tense; our hearts beat faster for extra blood flow; we breathe more rapidly, for more oxygen, and have butterflies in our stomachs etc.

If we decide to fight; leaping from our beds with a blood curdling scream, clobbering the bogey man unconscious with the bedside lamp; or run as fast as we can out of the room; the extra hormones we have produced are quickly used up. The body fulfils its natural function and soon returns to normal.

However, many people suffer fear and have the symptoms of anxiety, in situations where they imagine a threat to be far worse than it actually is. When we believe there is potential danger our bodies prepare us for it, by releasing the stress hormones in just the same way as when we are faced with an immediate threat.

Consider the following example:-

It’s a snowy winter’s night, but you are safe and snug in your house. The curtains are drawn, you’ve just had a warm bath and you are in your dressing gown making a hot drink before bed. The radio is playing relaxing music and you are winding down after your day.

As you prepare the drink you notice the air has become slightly chilly and you feel an unexpected draught. You are just looking around to see where it may be coming from, when there is a loud click that makes you jump. You laugh as you realise that it is just the central heating switching off and go back to what you were doing. But then there is a second noise…what’s that? Your body is more alert, you turn the radio off and listen more intently. It sounds as though there is someone upstairs. You can definitely hear movements. As you go into the hallway the sounds become louder.

Convinced that there is an intruder, a burglar or maybe even a murderer. You grab a walking stick for protection and begin to creep up the stairs. Your heart starts to race, your cheeks become flushed. You suddenly feel very dizzy, as though you will faint where you stand. At the point when you become certain you can’t tolerate the fear, there is a loud thud and your cat scoots out of your bedroom and down the stairs. On further investigation there is no burglar, no murderer and no need to be frightened.

There is also no need to flee or fight, so the extra hormones produced by your body are now not required and they remain unused. This means that until your body has time to stabilise you will have an excess of the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, in your system and this can take a toll on your health.

Contrary to popular belief, anxiety does not arise directly out of dangerous or painful situations. Anxiety actually arises out of your thoughts.

This example demonstrates what is often described as the abc model of anxiety.

(a) The situation….gives rise to….. (b) The thought……which in turn causes…

(c) The anxiety.

(situation – thought – anxiety)

In any given situation, it’s the thought of potential danger not the actual danger that produces the symptoms of anxiety.

This is actually, very good news, because it means that it is possible to ease unwanted feelings of anxiety by training ourselves to control our thinking.

And with hypnotherapy to help you, changing your thinking is easier than you think it is!

 

If I was adding one of my favourite books to The Reading Agency’s list of mood boosters; I would be tempted to choose Life of Pi by Yann Martel. (readingagency.org.uk)

It was while I was reading this book that I came upon a brilliant description of fear. Often, it’s hard to find the right words to describe how we feel when experiencing emotion. So perhaps, Yann Martel can help to show us the way! This is why I would like to share the following excerpt with you.

I identified with these feelings, maybe you will too.

A Word About Fear – Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Chapter 56, page 161.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease.

It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy.

Then, fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.

Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons of technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactic and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake.

Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much.

And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

 

Pick up a pick – me – up at your local library! These are the words on a leaflet given out by The Reading Agency this autumn. (readingagency.org.uk/readingwell)

And it certainly sounds like a good way to take our imaginations for a spin during the cold winter months. Selecting two of the books on the list whisked me off to the continent for a while.

“The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth Von Arnim is a wonderful feel good book and a light funny read. The story of a holiday in Italy in the spring, it’s a great escape.

I also enjoyed “Miss Garnet’s Angel” by Salley Vickers, which is set in Venice. It’s an interesting book and shows just how much we humans can change when taken away from our everyday routines.

Other suggested titles include:

Bee Journal by Sean Borodale.

Dart by Alice Oswald.

Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy by Neil Astley.

The Help by Karen Stockett.

A Sea Change by Veronica Henry.

A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen.

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro.

Turned Out Nice Again by Richard Mabey.

and yet another goody that I absolutely loved…. “A Redbird Christmas” by Fannie Flagg, a book that cannot fail to lift you up!

As everyone’s reading tastes are different, if you have a book that you feel particularly enthusiastic about, you are invited to share it with others by e mailing moodboosting@readingagency.org.uk

Simply include, the title, author and a short comment, alternatively tweet your recommendation using #moodboosting.

Imagine a baby sleeping peacefully in a cot.

So relaxed, warm and comfortable.

As the baby breathes you notice its stomach rises and falls in a gentle regular, rhythm.

This is how we are born to breathe, it’s not something we learn, our brains already have the information and our sub-conscious takes care of everything. Luckily, we don’t normally have to think about our breathing, it just happens automatically, allowing us to get on with other things.

Our lives are busy, we grow, change, go to school, find jobs, raise families and in amongst all of that we sometimes forget how to breathe like a baby.

Often as teenagers our breathing changes, we stop using our stomach muscles to fill our lungs preferring to use our chest muscles instead. This tends to result in faster, shallower breathing.

Unfortunately, this is not the best or most efficient way to breathe and for better health, it is a good idea to take a little time and relearn what you knew instinctively as a new born.

The following exercise has many health benefits and is particularly effective if you are suffering with anxiety. Controlling your breathing gives you the technique you need to combat unwanted panicky feelings. It is very simple, easy and natural and the more you practise it, the easier and more automatic it becomes.

Find a quiet place where you can concentrate.

Start by placing one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach between your navel and your rib cage.

Relax (say the word to yourself) and notice your breathing, just concentrate on your breathing. Which muscles are you using to inhale and exhale?

Exhale with a sigh…

Then breathing through your nose, inhale so your stomach inflates and your chest stays still….

Exhale using your stomach muscles….

Continue to practise breathing in this way, noticing your stomach rising and falling, while your chest stays still…just like a baby’s.

Once you have mastered this, you can then incorporate another technique.

The technique is called 7/11 breathing and is an incredibly simple but effective way of controlling anxiety. The idea is that your out-breath is longer than your in-breath.

You inhale to the count of 7 and exhale to the count of 11. So you are breathing out more slowly than you breathe in and this has a physiological effect on your body. You naturally begin to relax and feel in control once again. Unwanted anxious feelings simply, subside and disappear.

This exercise may be a little tricky at first, so just rest in between with normal breathing if necessary; the more you practise the easier it becomes. You can also adjust it to suit yourself, as long as the golden rule of a longer out-breath remains intact. So 7/11 breathing can become 4/6 or whatever you choose.

Exercises like this one give you the ability to cope and put you back in control.

We will be blogging soon, but for the moment see the home page.