The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast

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"What if I forget how to breathe?"

"What if I just stop breathing?"

"I can't get enough air in my lungs."

"I can't take a deep breath."

Breath and breathing focused anxiety is quite common among people that suffer from anxiety disorders like panic disorder and agoraphobia.  In this episode I discuss the two most common forms of this anxiety.

For full show notes: https://theanxioustruth.com/89

[1:30] "I Am Afraid That I Will Forget How To Breathe"

The first is an obsession with the thought that you have to actively, manually breathe, or your body will somehow forget to breathe or you will stop breathing.  This obsessive, irrational thought may grip you during every waking moment, tricking you into thinking that you must stay involved in the process of breathing to avoid some horrible fate.

[12:19] "It Feels Like I Can't Breathe.  I Can't Take a Deep Breath!"

This is the second common form of breath and breathing focused anxiety.  You may walk around all day suffering from "air hunger", feeling like you can't breathe or that you can't get a deep enough breath.  You may feel like there is a tight band around your chest, which causes you to attempt to expand your ribcage and "fill" your lungs to maximum capacity to relieve that sensation.

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My Links (social media, podcasts, etc.)
——————————————–
https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Intro and outro music - Afterglow by Ben Drake (with permission)

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

My friend Joyce joined me to talk about her slide into severe panic disorder and agoraphobia, which was followed by an aggressive recovery and rebuilding of her life.  Listen to Joyce describe her journey from being frozen in fear on her sofa to being back at work and feeling limitless.  Of particular note is the way Joyce used anger and frustration to fuel her recovery efforts. For many, this can be an excellent strategy and I really appreciate Joyce being so open and honest about how she was feeling and how it helped to propel her forward.  As always, comments and questions are welcomed.  I will do my best to relay any questions or messages to Joyce as they are asked.

My Links (website, podcast, social. mailing list, etc.)

----------------------

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

Holly and I discuss chapter 9 of Claire Weekes' "Hope And Help For Your Nerves". This chapter discusses the nature of recovery and the road to being yourself again. Some of the highlights:

• Your symptoms will not immediately go away, and may even worsen during recovery.
• You cannot simply decide to not be afraid. You must LEARN to not be afraid.
• We discuss the use of medication in conjunction with recovery.
• Keeping occupied - not being wholly consumed at all times with recovery - is essential.
• Quick recovery is possible and does happen for some people.
• A big part of recovery is understanding that what you think is keeping you stuck.
• Setbacks can and likely will happen, but they're not really setbacks if you frame them properly and learn from them.

You can buy Hope and Help From Your Nerves by following the Amazon links from my website:

https://theanxioustruth.com/shop/ 

Join The Discussion Group
——————————————–
https://facebook.com/groups/TAGForum

My Links (social media, podcasts, etc.)
——————————————–
https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

When confronted with uncomfortable and scary feelings of anxiety, panic or emotions based on past trauma, the immediate response is to "talk yourself down".  Trying convince yourself that you are OK using words, phrases and thoughts often does not work.  When this happens, you are at a fork in the road.  You can enlist the aid of your support system to argue with your anxiety or trauma for you, or you can resign yourself to just feel everything without resistance to let it pass through you and end naturally.

Spoiler alert ... you want option two.  Facing and accepting anxiety, panic, and feelings based on your past is harder, but its the path that leads to long term change and lasting recovery.  Continuing to argue, or using your support team to argue by proxy for you, may be an attractive option because it's the "easier" option and may seem like the fast path to feeling better in the moment, but there's no learning or changing to found there.

Joe and I speak about this process, the need to face and feel what's in front of you, and how this leads to a deeper understanding of the reality of being capable, competent and safe. This is the direction you want to go.  Trust us.

Thanks to Joe for taking the time to chat!

Comments and questions are always welcomed.

Join The Discussion Group
——————————————–
https://facebook.com/groups/TAGForum

My Links (social media, podcasts, etc.)
——————————————–
https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Find Joe at https://joeryan.com or on Instagram at @joeryan.

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

If you are a regular listener of the podcast, odds are that you've had anxiety, worry and fear focused on your heart at least once or twice.  This is quite common.  Heart-centered anxiety generally involves being afraid of a rapid, strong, or irregular (flutters/palpitations) heartbeat.  This is either due to an underlying fear that something is wrong with your heart or will go wrong, or due to the link between a rapid/strong heartbeat and a panic attack.  In either case, the way out, as always, is through.  We can use interoceptive exposure techniques to intentionally create the rapid or strong heartbeat we fear in order to desensitize and learn that there is no reason to fear your heartbeat.  Yes, this involves intentionally experiencing that which you fear, but this is almost always the case when solving these problems.

Comments and questions always welcomed.

Find this episode on my website:

https://theanxioustruth.com/85

My Links:

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Music - Afterglow by Ben Drake (with permission)

https://facebook.com/BenDrakeMusic

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

Today I chatted with Christa Holmans about some of the overlapping issues found in both anxiety disorders and autism and other neurodivesity conditions such as ADHD.  Christa had so much excellent insight on how autism influences how one may deal with anxiety issues!  I really enjoyed this discussion and I hope you will too!

My Links (Website, podcast, social media, etc.)

---------------------

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Find Christa Online

-----------------------

https://neurodivergentrebel.com

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

Today I was fortunate to spend about 30 minutes with Dr. Martin Seif, a psychologist and author specializing in anxiety disorders.  Dr. Seif and I talked about intrusive, obsessive and unwanted thoughts.  What are they?  How do they become so troublesome?  How should we approach this problem? 

For the full notes on this episode and all links, go to https://theanxioustruth.com/83

Find all my links at https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Find Dr. Martin Seif at http://drmartinseif.com

Find the Anxiety And Depression Association of America at https://aada.org

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

Reading, listening to podcasts, watching videos, and otherwise educating yourself about your anxiety disorder is a good idea ...until its becomes a safety and avoidance behavior  Ultimately, overcoming an anxiety disorder only happens by DOING, not by reading.  So after you've read the book for the fifth time, or you've read 10 anxiety books and want to read an 11th, you must realize that its time to actually put what you've learned into action.  There is no lasting progress without action.  There's hard, scary stuff to do here, but its so worth doing, so put down the book and lets actually do the things you've been reading about!

My Links

---------------

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

Today Monique and I spent some time discussing the memories of past trauma and abuse, and how the old feeling of being unable to escape can often live on.  This can represent an obstacle to recovery when it leads to viewing attempts at recovery and improvement as being futile or not worth the effort or energy. Monique shares some amazing insight about the role of compassion and how we can combine this with the tools and techniques we've discussed so often as being so effective in recovering from an anxiety disorder.  A great listen for anyone dealing with past trauma and/or abuse alongside an anxiety disorder.  Thank you Monique!

Find the episode Monique and I discussed here:  https://anchor.fm/monique34/episodes/The-Underlying-Fear-In-Trauma-e5dhrj

My Links

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Intro/Outro Music:  "Afterglow" by The Ben Drake Collective.  Used with permission.  Find Ben Drake on Facebook or at bendrakemusic.com.

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.

How my friend Raven went from homebound agoraphobic, crippled with panic and intrusive thoughts and fears, to living her life, not being afraid of anxiety, and making plans for her future.  If there was every an uplifting story from a lovely human being, it would be this one.   If you think you can't, here's 30 minutes that will show you that you CAN! Thank you Raven, for taking the time to share with us! 

My Links

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Intro/Outro Music:  "Afterglow" by The Ben Drake Collective.  Used with permission.  Find Ben Drake on Facebook or at bendrakemusic.com.

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.