The Panic Pod

In this episode, Joshua and Ella discuss when panic disorder is centred around the fear of developing a serious mental health problem. This is referred to as Mental Health Anxiety. The pattern of mental health anxiety is the disorder of mental health anxiety. Seeing thoughts for what they are (mere, passing thoughts) and remembering that “What If”s can’t lead you towards further anxiety or depression are important things to note when one feels they are in a pattern of mental health anxiety (the fear of developing mental health problems). Ella has a realisation when she says that the pattern that we fall into with mental health anxiety is doing something to compensate for the feeling of control that we desire. Sometimes we fabricate control which eventually drives us towards disorder. Things we talked about: Josh’s New Book! Untangling Your Anxiety by Joshua Fletcher and Dean Stott Brene Brown - Daring Greatly (book) Krista Tippett - On Being Podcast Episode “What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems?” We appreciate you leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast. Thanks for listening to the Panic Pod! Reach out to us: talk@thepanicroom.co.uk or @thepanicpod on facebook and instagram.

In this episode Josh asks the question "where is your attention at?" and talks about the importance of attention with special guest, Drew Linsalata of The Anxious Truth. They draw upon some great analogies to help you understand why attention is important and what you can do with it when you're anxious and also when you're not!

It helps to remove yourself and re-centre for a moment before you start mentally justifying why you are anxious. There’s a lot of wellness narrative around “listening to your body” but when we’re experiencing disordered anxiety then somatic experiencing isn’t easy. Say you’re at therapy and your therapist is trying to get you to notice what some subtle sensations in the body are telling you about how you feel talking about something. A chronically anxious person may have to respond with, “As much as I’m trying to do what you say, I’d like to experience my body when my anxious response isn’t firing at all cylinders with cortisol and adrenaline.” Not trying to deter anyone from slowing down and listening to their body, this conversation between Ella and Josh attempts to unpick where “body scanning” and “mindfully assessing the body” are two very different activities for people with chronic anxiety - when the body is in a hyper-aroused state, body scanning (where one assesses their own physical comfort for harm) tends to replace a mindful examination of the internal sensations we all experience. Josh’s advice is to catch and notice your nervous compulsions before you try to notice other sensations in the body. Things we talked about: Dr. Clare Weeks Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Id8tkvdzc Untangle Your Anxiety - by Joshua Fletcher and Dean Stott: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08YQM9SPY/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_5T7W0A04NN4NGGDTX8QB We appreciate you leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast. Thanks for listening to the Panic Pod! Reach out to us: talk@thepanicroom.co.uk or @thepanicpod on facebook and instagram.

In this episode Josh is joined by special guest, Ben Aldridge, who is the author of the popular book, How to be Comfortable with being Uncomfortable: 43 Weird and Wonderful ways to build a strong and resilient mindset. Josh and Ben discuss how being uncomfortable can push us through to feelings of empowerment and freedom, particular from the clutches of anxiety disorders. Ben shares some absolutely fascinating achievements he has done, too (which are really quite inspiring). Josh on Instagram is @anxietyjosh Ben on Instagram is @dothingsthatchallengeyou www.benaldridge.com

Unlike other types of anxiety responses, derealisation and depersonalisation are stress responses which can make you feel like you are having an out-of-body or not-fully-lucid experience. Since anxious responses affect both the mind and body, experiences vary from person-to-person or relate to the situation you’re in. They are a result of stress, hyperventilating, or over-breathing over a long period of time. When something triggers an anxious response, it makes blood flow attend to the large muscles of our body (think fight, flight, freeze response behaviour in animals). There is increased blood pressure in the brain and blood oxygen levels. Derealisation means things may feel and look weird, and you can recognise your environment but it doesn’t feel like you’re there. You might even feel off-balance or have temporary tinnitus. Depersonalisation is when you feel like you are in a dream. You may “hear” your own voice louder, and have existential thoughts. Both derealisation and depersonalisation are harmless though the feelings that arise from the body’s response can feel scary. Dissociation is a response to trauma. People with PTSD may dissociate when they feel like they are back in their traumatic situation. This reaction is our minds’ way of experiencing less trauma by blocking out the experience we find ourselves in, even if the situation is only triggering a memory. Dissociation may be when we have a flashback whether we want to or not. As discussed in this episode, vasovagal syncope is a similar but different body response. Similar to a panic episode like derealisation, depersonalisation, or dissociation, vasovagal syncope can happen simply by being triggered by a conversation or image. In some circumstances it can also be triggered by dehydration or constipation, and it may cause people to faint. Unlike derealisation, depersonalisation, or dissociation, vasovagal syncope decreases blood pressure in the brain, opens blood vessels in the calves and lower body, and is unique in that it is triggered specifically by the sight or graphic description of blood or injury. If you feel like it is coming on, your only injury may come from fainting, so it is advised to sit down or stabilise yourself against a wall. We hope you found this episode informative and encourage you to share it with a friend you know who has experienced a dramatic body response, especially if they are unsure what it was. Thanks for reaching out to us at talk@thepanicroom.co.uk or following us on instagram @thepanicpod or facebook @thepanicpod. All our episodes are available at thepanicroom.com

Could procrastination be a symptom of your anxiety? Is it really procrastination or a nagging feeling that's guilting you for not enjoying yourself when necessary? Did you ever consider that the disordered thinking that occurs when we’re anxious is because of the low level threat response occurring in our bodies? Generalised Anxiety Disorder (or GAD) is the diagnosis of chronic anxiety. Every human on the planet has felt anxious, but anxiety disorder is when our threat response runs out of control like a faulty fire alarm. Having “I should…” thoughts or self-criticism can be healthy in small doses, but when that thinking gets out of control, it can just lead to more confusion. It’s not good to be self-sabotaging your decision making like a well-intentioned but overly critical family member. There are even times when the feeling of being in control of your life can become addictive, and the evidence is seen by our friends and family when darker behaviours like depression, addiction, over/under-spending, over/under-eating, or angry outbursts emerge. It doesn’t cease so long as we continue to validate an anxious response by responding to the feeling of being threatened. It can take some experimenting along your own personal journey to find what works for you among the long list of solutions: exercise, meditation, diet, medication, removing yourself from external situations like an abusive partner, friend, or family member, or changing your own habits with the help of a therapist. In this episode, Josh and Ella chat about Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). We mentioned: Having an addiction to cortisol: Living in SURVIVAL vs. Living in CREATION - Dr. Joe Dispenza - YouTube Reach out to us for questions or comments at talk@thepanicroom.co.uk. You can also follow us on @thepanicpod instagram and facebook. Thanks for bringing us to Season TWO!

Josh's dog represents the adrenal response by being hyper-vigilant for part of the discussion and completely tiring out by the end. This episode is about anticipatory anxiety! Have you ever been more tired out by the dread of doing something that scares you than the actual act of doing it? How can a smaller queue on a giant roller coaster be less scary than a long one in the eyes of someone who's scared to ride? If your wise mind knows that the cortisol and adrenaline are going to mess with you, then it's better to jump straight into “it” without giving yourself too much time to let those emotions destroy your confidence. Anticipatory anxiety is the stress that we feel when we have to do something that has stakes attached to it. Mix a little anticipatory anxiety with the ability to procrastinate, and the feeling of ”I don't want to leave this state of anticipation" becomes an addictive cocktail of worry. Hope isn’t far, in fact, in may have been in front of you the whole time, but with a little support and self-compassion, you can rip the plaster off and see what healing lies on the other side. Learn more about CAS - Cognitive Attentional Syndrome Reach out to us for questions or comments at talk@thepanicroom.co.uk. You can also follow us on @thepanicpod instagram and facebook. Thanks for bringing us to Season TWO!

We’ve been posting our Instagram prompts for the end-of-year hashtag #itsjustanxiety to the Panic Pod Community since the 21st of December. Please go on and share your own answer to your instagram story for other listeners to read. Let’s help each other and share the knowledge we’ve gained about anxiety. 💪 Going into 2021, the world is going to look and feel a lot different. Even when we are aware of challenging nature of what we face, anxious feelings arise. When we haven’t done something that is moderately fearful for a long time, those anxious feelings can be even more escalated. We ask ourselves, “How do I prepare?” Anxiety’s whole purpose is to make you doubt - especially anticipatory anxiety, which is the particular anxiety that comes from knowing that a challenge is in our near future and doing what we can to prepare for it. When it’s been studied, anticipatory anxiety has been found to derive from a different place in the brain than performance anxiety. Many people remark after-the-fact that the anticipatory anxiety they felt before an event was worse (or made worse) than the anxiety that they felt in the act of doing something challenging (delivering a speech, during a performance review, traveling on an airplane, etc.) This is because anticipatory anxiety can still trigger a threat response: palms get sweaty, we disassociate, we can’t sleep, and we keep thinking about the threat. The primal parts of our brains haven’t grown in tandem with the rest of our brain. Therefore, judgement, disapproving looks, failure, or even the idea of a panic attack cause our bodies to respond as though the threat was as real as a lion. Defining what we are threatened by can help us not to feel so much anticipatory fear. We are so grateful for your kind words, follows, and feedback! Keep in touch with us to know when we upload new episodes! @thepanicpod on Instagram and Facebook Ella is @ellaofthenet and Josh is @anxietyjosh Email talk@thepanicroom.co.uk with a question or feedback.

Starting out this week’s episode with a bit of slam poetry, Josh and Ella discuss anxious relapse. It’s a term that can evoke the feeling that anxiety is a vice that we fall back into or succumb to but, as we know, anxiety is not a wanted or enjoyable experience. On the other hand, we can consider anxiety an addiction to reassurance. It can manifest in our behaviour as safety behaviours: carrying first aid kits, emergency snacks, or other tools with us when we fear our anxiety will resurface, seeking out people that comfort us, or avoid things that challenge us. These are the compulsions that frame our anxiety. So long as we live in the loss of confidence in our ability to tolerate anxiety, we are still “in” anxiety, which is sometimes felt as a “relapse”. Ella’s background with addiction and recovery sheds a little light on how actually the stress of anxiety and the substance abuse cycle can link up to create a cycle of bad behaviour. Josh redefines “anxiety relapse” with a phrase that’s as self-compassionate as it is accurate about what’s actually happening to us. We are so grateful for your kind words, follows, and feedback! Keep in touch with us to know when we upload new episodes! @thepanicpod on Instagram and Facebook Ella is @ellaofthenet and Josh is @anxietyjosh Email talk@thepanicroom.co.uk with a question or feedback.

When you have a panic episode, adrenaline floods the system in a way that was biologically developed to help our survival. As chronic anxiety sufferers know, this adrenal flood happens when there is no tangible threat around us, so it feels like a biological response that is "out of control". Cortisol is another hormone that makes us feel stressed, but it operates differently. Cortisol flows in the morning, which helps regulate our sleep schedule, but it is also a hormone scientists believe serves a greater self-regulatory purpose: it reduces the amount of adrenaline we need to produce in order to survive. It’s a stress response that helps us to guide our attention to potential threats around us. If this served a purpose in our primitive days as humans, it might have been the hormone which helped to remind us that the bears come out to eat at dusk, so we need to do our berry-picking and hunting beforehand, lest we become their food. Now that you know cortisol’s role, you have the opportunity to use it in a way that feels balanced for you! Note on the audio: Thank you listeners for putting up with the steady beeping that was coming from Ella’s side of the recording. New recording space caused some issues! We apologise if it annoyed you throughout the episode, but we have resolved the issue for episode 25 and onwards! We are so grateful for your kind words, follows, and feedback! Keep in touch with us to know when we upload new episodes! @thepanicpod on Instagram and Facebook Email talk@thepanicroom.co.uk with a question or feedback.