Choosing Your Life (Part 2)

If you have not yet read my original post titled Choosing Your Life, please do so! I promised to continue that train of thought with a follow-up post. Some of the things I talked about in that post needed a little time to sink in and do their work. If you did read it, hopefully you have applied some of the positive thinking strategies to your life and worked on rejecting negative beliefs and thought patterns. You must do that first, before making any more tangible changes to your life or you will find yourself wondering why you still aren't happy.

If you don't change your perspective of the world, you will find yourself falling into the same old rut. Moving to a more beautiful climate, acquiring wealth or possessions, meeting the man or woman of your dreams. You may think these things will make you happy, and for some they can be a component of happiness, but if you still have that self-defeating or negative outlook it will never be good enough. So it's important to examine yourself and be sure that you are ready to know happiness when you find it. The things that I discussed in the last post are just a start. There will be much more work to do and it won't be easy but it will be rewarding every step of the way.

Self-defeating beliefs and negative thought patterns need to be eliminated before you can get down to the real work at hand: getting to know and love yourself. It sounds simple, but we all know that it isn't. We all have flaws and we tend to be our worst critics. Mental illness such as an anxiety disorder is not helpful and can make confidence hard to find. But as you learn to think in more positive terms, it will become easier.

Getting to know yourself-

Before you can love yourself, you need to get to know yourself. You don't spend more time with anybody in this world but yourself, yet it often takes people a long time to figure out who they really are. The reasons for this and how to attain self-discovery could easily fill up their own post, so I won't delve into it them here.

“He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise.”
Lao-tzu

Here are some basic things you can do to get to know yourself better:

Look at those around you. Or more importantly, look at how you view them. Often attributes that we find positive in others are the things we really like about selves, and the things that irritate us about others are attributes that we may be unhappy with in ourselves. Take a look at how these relate and you may find some very positive attributes hiding in the shadows, waiting to be developed. Or you may find some areas that you will want to work on, but at least this gives you a starting point.

Journal. Expression is a great way to get more in touch with your emotions, your wants and needs, and your personality. Starting a journal or blog can be a great way to do this! It has definitely helped to make a lot of things clearer for me! I suggest giving it a try. It may feel awkward at first, but once you get going you may not want to stop.

Spend time with yourself. Humans are social creatures. We tend to spend most of our lives surrounded by other people. And even when we are alone, we aren't really alone. We're strapped to a computer or in front of a TV if not occupied with some other task. And don't even get me started on smart phones! They are great. I have one and use it often, but the smart phone keeps us constantly connected and occupied. It's important to spend some time alone once in a while, without these distractions. Spend some time in thought and spend some time without even that, just listening to your heart beat or concentrating on your breathing.

Learning to love yourself-

It's important to love yourself. You're going to be spending a lot of time with yourself. You can't really avoid that. Everywhere you go, there you are. So if you don't love yourself, how can you expect to be happy? Much of the things already address will have done a lot of the work for you. By adapting to more positive ways of thinking and getting to know yourself, your self-esteem will be on the rise. You simply have to take that momentum and keep going with it. Here are some ways to improve your self-image, self-esteem, and love for yourself.

Forgive yourself. We've all had disappointments and failures in our past. You have to forgive yourself for these things. Holding a grudge against yourself won't get you anywhere. I have written another extensive two-part post on forgiveness and self-forgiveness. I highly suggest giving that a look-see.

Let go of the past. Get those skeletons out of your closet and move on with your life so you can focus on the present. Grant yourself a tabula rasa or blank slate. Today is a new day. Leave the worries of the past behind.

Start working toward living your life the way you want to live it. Clear out all the "can't" and "what-if" ideas in your mind and just ask yourself "what do I want in life?" Let me be clear that I am not referring to material things or ideas here, but core values. Too many people spend their lives living out of harmony with who they really are. We conform to who we think we should (there goes that word again!) be or are confused as to who we want to be because we haven't yet fully gotten to know and love ourselves. In either case, it's time to realign your life with who you really are.

Be yourself. Live, love, laugh, enjoy life! Don't apologize to anyone for being you!

Treat yourself like you treat your best friend. Don't be your own worst enemy, be your own best friend. Give yourself the same respect, understanding, and compassion that you give to ones you love most. Whenever you catch yourself beating up on yourself emotionally, and think of how you'd talk to your best friend.

Love others. Being kind to those around you boost your spirits. You'll likely find that the way that they react to you on a daily basis will reflect your own kindness. These positive responses from others will make you feel like a million-bucks. You get what you give in this world.

Adopt an attitude of gratitude. November was the season for being thankful, but it really should be practiced year round. Identifying something that you are grateful for each day can lift your spirits up a great deal. Identifying something about yourself to be thankful for can increase your self-esteem.

Once you've come to know, understand, and love yourself the world will open up for you. You'll be back in alignment with who you really are more positive experiences will naturally find you. You'll be free to choose the life that you really want. This can mean many different things; following your dreams, changing your surroundings, or just embracing all that is you and living a fuller life. Realize that great power comes from becoming in touch with yourself. A person who truly knows and loves his or her self is a force to be reckoned with. The sky is the limit! You'll be able to pull out the barriers that have been stopping you from doing the things you've always wanted to do by realizing that they were never there in the first place.

Stop taking "no" for an answer. If you can daydream it, you can achieve it. The only thing stopping you was yourself! Today is the day to get after it! Best of luck!

Thank you for reading.
-Aaron

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a topic that I find discussed often in mental health circles. It is a very powerful concept, yet extremely simple. When was the last time you stopped to listen your breathing or to focus on your heartbeat? Most of us live very busy lives, whether we are busy chasing after our dreams, busy tending to our families, or busy being anxious and depressed. We seldom take the time to just listen to our bodies. We rarely take the time to focus on the current moment and the current moment only.

Mindfulness is Buddhist idea that focuses on living in the present moment and becoming fully attuned to the body's primary functions, feelings, and awareness itself. Another more modern definition calls mindfulness a psychological quality that involves bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis. It is something that can be very soul-cleansing and therapeutic if used properly.

It is very simple in concept, but not so simple in application. It calls for focusing on the current moment and only the current moment. It sounds easy, but if it was so simple there would not be all this talk about it. It requires casting aside all thoughts of the past and future in order to think only of the present moment.I think we've all discovered this to be easier said than done.

It very closely mirrors the ideas of meditation. I have not have tons of success with meditation yet myself, for the same reasons. It is hard to dispel those past memories or ideas of the future. It causes anxiety for me at times, at first, when I try. But when I am able to get past that initial nervousness and realize that it just comes from this being such a different experience for me, I am able to relax. We just spend so little time in this state in our regular lives that this (entirely natural) state becomes extremely foreign to us.

Meditation, however, is a whole different animal. Mindfulness is relatively easy to achieve and to achieve satisfaction from. It starts with just listening to your body's autonomic functions that you take for granted. Listen to the sound of your breathing, watch as your chest inhales and exhales. Listen to your heartbeat and feel it in your chest. Even if you can feeling beating in your abdomen and that worries you because it is a symptom of your anxiety. Just listen to it until it abates and goes back into your chest where it belongs.

It is so rarely that we take the time to just stop. Stop and listen, look, and appreciate what is going on around us.  By becoming fully attuned to what is going on with your body and around you in the present moment you can open up a new appreciation for the world. It is such a simple solution to such a complicated problem, but I promise that by spending even a few moments in each day in this mindful state you will see improvement in your everyday life.

-Aaron

Worry Well

I stumbled upon this video on YouTube this evening and found it very interesting. The guy talks about some very interesting things and explains the correlations and differences in anxiety, stress, and worry.

 Enjoy!

Thanks,

Aaron

Jimmy V Week

Watching my Purdue Boilermakers destroy the Clemson Tigers in basketball tonight on ESPN reminded me of something. This is Jimmy V Week!

Jimmy Valvano's 1993 ESPY speech was and still is one of the most moving and inspirational things that I have ever seen. If you have not before seen it, it's a MUST! You'd have to Hitler to not be moved by this man speaking. If you have seen it, I encourage you to watch again. It is just as inspirational the 100th time as it was the 1st.

In honor of Jimmy Valvano, this week make an effort to laugh, think, and cry every day. As he says in his speech, "that's a full day!"

Choosing Your Life

Life is a great teacher. Often it puts obstacles in our path in order to redirect us to where we need to be. I believe that anxiety can be a sign that something in your life needs to change. If you are experiencing anxiety there may be something out of balance about the way that you are living your life. Most likely, this is something so simply complicated as the way you view and react to the world around you. But sometimes there can be external factors as well. You will probably find that these situations you find yourself wanting to change are symptoms of some patterns of flawed or negative thinking, which is why it is important that you address these things first. It is crucial to carefully examine yourself before seeking to change the things around you. So first we will address what these flawed thinking patterns may be and how to overcome them, then we will get into where you can go from there to choose a more positive and happy life.

Self-defeating beliefs and flawed thinking patterns-

Our beliefs are with us all the time. They are our core values that have developed and grown with us through our entire lives and influence every decision that we make. Most of your beliefs are probably very positive, but most people hold onto and develop some harmful ones throughout life. If you believe that your value as a person depends primarily by who you are as a person and how you treat those around you, those are beliefs worth holding onto. But if you believe that your self-worth relies on wealth or popularity, these might be beliefs that warrant some examination.

There are two types of self-defeating beliefs: Intrapersonal and interpersonal. Intrapersonal beliefs have to do with how you view yourself and interpersonal beliefs deal with how you perceive relationships with others. Intrapersonal beliefs deal with expectations you have for yourself and deal with things like perfectionism or drive for success. Self-defeating interpersonal beliefs deal largely with fear of how others perceive you and striving to meet their expectations.

It's important to identify what your beliefs are. I would encourage you to actually write them down. This exercise won't do you any good if you are not able to be completely introspective and honest with yourself. Then identify which beliefs are healthy ones that you wish to keep, which are unhealthy ones that need to go, and which have potential to be healthy but need a little healing. Work daily to embrace the positive beliefs that you hold. Do something each day that directly enforces one of these beliefs. Put forth effort daily as well to resist the negative ones. Embracing the positive ones will often help with combating the negative as many times they conflict directly with each other. The ones in the "potential" categories require you to actually "split them up". Identify what are the aspects that are worth keeping and rewrite these as their own separate positive beliefs. Identify what needs to go and put that part in the "trash pile". Changing these beliefs will require some persistence. They have been, after all, developing unchecked for some time so it will take some time to effectively replace them.

EX: A belief that I hold very dear to my heart is that it's important, above all else, to be good to those around me. Daily I make an effort to do something to do something good for someone else.

A negative belief that I have been trying to get rid of, is a desire to "keep up with the Jones'", and achieve superficially to show that I am a successful person. I try and replace this everyday with another positive belief: The best kind of success one can have is to live a life that makes them happy. I'd rather be a poor man with a smile than a rich man with a scowl. 

An in between belief for me was a drive for perfection and achievement. I see both good and bad in this. It is important to me to be productive and achieve good things in life. I choose to hold on to this and discard the part of that belief that calls for perfection. Total perfection is a myth, and very self-defeating. So to the trash it goes.

Negative thinking patterns are different in that they are not with us at all times. They simply surface from time to time when called upon by certain situations. For example, if you hold a self-defeating belief of striving to over-achieve, you may be happy as a clam when you are achieving the success you crave, but when set-backs occur you may blow them out of proportion and get overly discouraged my them. Being aware of the situations which trigger these negative thought patterns is a good step toward overcoming them. If you can identify when these negative thinking patterns are taking hold, you can simply turn them around and send them back where they came from. Examine your negative thoughts and ask yourself if they are legitimate. Do people really see you as a failure? Probably not.

 

"All-or-nothing" thinking- 

This type of thinking can be harmful as it causes us to see things in purely black and white terms, ignoring the grey areas that exist in life. It causes us to see only perfection or failure, with no in between. Nobody is perfect, so we are doomed to see primarily failure if we continue this way of thinking. Words like always, never, or impossible don't allow much flexibility. We'll say things like "I always mess that up!" "I never do anything right!" or "that's impossible, so I won't even try!"  The truth of it probably lies somewhere in the middle. I'm sure you do lots of things right, just not this one thing at this time that you're honed in on. While many things are difficult and require immense sacrifice, few things are impossible.

Some more positive alternatives might go something like:
I can be a strong person even if I have some moments of weakness.
Just because I forgot to pick up Charlie up from school doesn't mean that I don't love him!
I can love my wife and still have disagreements.
I'm a smart person even if I do make some mistakes.
Even though I had a panic attack today, I am still making great progress.

There is always a grey area. Allowing yourself to think in more flexible terms will allow you to acknowledge the good as well as the bad in your life.

Words to beware of-

 

Should. Should puts a lot of negative judgments upon ourselves. We tell ourselves that we should have a better career, should make better grades in school, should be a better friend. This focuses on where we see ourselves as not good enough. If we seek to improve these situations, we should replace should with could, followed with a positive outcome: "I could apply myself more at work to get that promotion." "I could spend a little more time studying to ace that chemistry exam." By adding this possible outcome to the end of the statement, we push our focus onto the positive aspect of the situation.

But. Many times we tack a "but" on the end of a positive statement to take it for a turn to a negative.  "I beat my personal best time, but it still wasn't as good as Jenny's." "I would go and ask this girl out, but she might say no." "I would go to the gym today, but (insert excuse here)." Leave those buts alone! By putting those "but..." statements on the end of your sentences you just give yourself a negative to focus because you may fear the positive statement standing alone. Just take them out of your vocabulary, turn around and face that original positive statement. Embrace it! Celebrate your personal victories! Ask that girl out! She could be the love of your life or a complete troll, but it's like the lottery; you can't win if you don't play!

Can't. Can't is an extremely harmful word. We tell ourselves that we can't do something. The best way to ensure that you can't achieve your dreams is to sit at home and tell yourself that you can't do it. Remind yourself that you can do anything you put your mind to. You want to become an oceanographer, what's stopping you? Many of us look around our everyday lives and see a lot of mediocrity or even failure, or we see successful people as inherently having something that we do not. While sometimes it may be true that the well-to-do people of the world seem to have been handed the world on a silver platter, wealth and fame are not synonymous with success. If your dream is to become a high-school teacher and you achieve that dream, you are arguably no less successful than someone who achieves their dream of becoming an Olympic athlete. By achieving your dreams, you are doing you think will make you most happy in life, whatever that may be. People all over the world have come from complete poverty to become successful in life. Aside from leaping tall buildings in a single bound, there isn't much in this world that is out of your reach if you choose to go out and get it.

I am going to leave off here for now. I feel this stuff needs a little time for digestion. I hope you will take some time to examine your beliefs and thought patterns. I think you will begin to see positive changes in your life if you implement the more positive ways of thinking into your everyday routine. I will continue later this evening with a part II as promised discussing how to implement positive change and choose the life you want.

Thanks for reading,

Aaron

 

A Little About Me.

Hello and welcome to Misdirected Anxiety! My name is Aaron. I originally created this blog as a way to express and share my thoughts and feelings about my battles with anxiety and panic disorder. As my journey has progressed, though it has begun to turn into so much more! I have found myself in my love for writing.

About two years ago, I was at a very low point in my life. Panic attacks were consuming my life. In many other ways, I had a lot to love about my life. I was newly married, my career was moving along nicely, and money was not a major worry in my life. I was loving my life and making grand plans with my wife. But I was quietly grappling with anxiety on a daily basis and my world was becoming smaller and smaller as the panic attacks became more intrusive. My relationship with my wife was becoming strained. Although she was a complete angel and as supportive as could be, I knew it was taking it’s toll. My job was becoming increasingly difficult as well. I began to avoid most of the things that I used to enjoy because of associations established with panic attacks. I was now spending most of my days alone at home and when the panic attacks began to find me there, in my own bed, shower, on the couch, or while eating dinner I really began to lose hope.

I spent a lot of time diligently reading book after book on anxiety. I was on a mission to understand just what was happening to me and to find a way to reclaim my life. I tried just about everything under the sun. Some things worked, some did not. With time I was able to learn a lot about my mind and body and come to a good understanding of this anxiety disorder that was destroying my world. Writing about it also became a great way for me to gain better understanding of it all.

Fast forward to present day… Anxiety is but a shadow in my life. I’m mindful that it is still lurking somewhere, but it doesn’t hinder my everyday life. I have not had a panic attack since April. The world has opened back up and I am able to do all of the things that I had before been afraid of. Life is good again! Best of all, I feel very strongly that I have become a better person as a result of all of this. The path I am currently on feels remarkably better than the one I was on when that first panic attack jolted me from my comfort zone. I am unapologetic and shamelessly positive about life. I have always been this way, but had become complacent. I needed panic disorder to come into my life and wake me up. And that it did! It forced me to dig deep inside and re-learn who I am.  For that I am truly grateful.

I now find great love in sharing my experiences and positive outlook with my readers. I have been overwhelmed by the support that I have found online. The mental health community consists of some of the most welcoming and warm individuals you’d care to meet. I hope that my blog is able to help others, even if in just a small way.


Enough with the intro! Get to reading! Thank you so much for coming!

-Aaron

The Linden Method

I do not and will not promote a program that I have not used myself. I have the Linden Method and have used his audio program countless times during road trips and long commutes to work (which many of my readers will know is the single most persistent trigger for my panic attacks).

The Linden Method is a very good program for eliminating anxiety and panic attacks. It is yet another that advocates an all-natural approach. I will always say that this is a decision that needs to be made internally.  Medication works very well for some, and for others it causes side-effects that outweigh the benefits. I do believe however, that whether you are or are not on medication, that an internal strategy such as Linden offers is absolutely crucial. Anxiety and panic can be overcome with or without medication. It cannot be overcome without changing the way you think and react to stress.

Charles Linden explains anxiety disorders in a very clear and real-world way. I am very much a fan of this more "every man" type of discussion. Material written by people who have actually experienced the same things as I have are typically much more helpful for me. It focuses a lot on making changes from within to eliminate the sources of panic once and for all. I believe that this is extremely important and equally tough to do. Charles lays out a method that is fairly easy to understand and with the correct focus, can be accomplished by anyone.

Another minor perk to this program is Charles Linden's very soothing voice. I listened to his audio program often in the car and the voice alone helps to calm me down and put me at a state to be receptive to the things that he talks about. This may seem like a trivial thing, but to someone on the verge of panic, something as simple as a soothing tone of voice can be very helpful!

Best of luck! If you have any questions or would like me to send a sample portion of the program, please let me know!


Watch the video as he explains it very well.Click here to learn more about the Linden Method.

Dealing with Panic Attacks & Anxiety | Zoella

This video was really great so I thought I would share with you. Zoe simply explains panic disorder.

Going Through Hell

"If you're going through Hell, keep going." Winston Churchill.

Often when something makes us uncomfortable or anxious, our first response is to retreat. It's a natural response, but often not a helpful one. Sometimes you really do have to face that fear. This is especially true for people with anxiety disorders, because what has us worked up is usually not jumping out of an airplane or staring down a man-eating shark. It's more likely to be something like driving during rush-hour traffic, standing in a long line at the grocery store, meeting someone new, or speaking in front of a group.

If we allow ourselves to retreat from these everyday things because they make us anxious or even stir a panic attack, we allow our world to shrink. We avoid going out for fear of facing these things. The real problem is that the anxiety is within us. It is not out there in the cold cruel world that we are retreating from. So when we hide at home or avoid stressful places, eventually we find that the anxiety is still right there with us. It still finds a way to come out. Then we begin finding new triggers and new things to avoid. Our worlds continue to shrink, and this viscious cycle can cause more stress and more anxiety.

This is where old Mr. Churchill's words of wisdom come into play. We've seen that freedom from anxiety does not lie in retreating. You're going through Hell so the last thing that you want to do is stop and just stay where you are. So you're left with one option, keep going. Move forward until you're out of the flames.

Surviving the Holidays

The holidays can be a very stressful time! While we may love our families, they can have the capacity to drive us nuts as well. Then there's the pressure of all the get-togethers and events you are expected to attend. Seeing friends and family that you don't see throughout the year can bring it's own pressures. Questions about how your life is going or painful reminders of what you've lost in the past year. Gift buying can bring financial stress galore, especially if you have children. If you have to travel, that can be a nightmare. Malls and airports are crowded and hectic, not ideal situations for people with anxiety disorders. And on top of it all there is this overbearing expectation of happiness and glee, which can amplify any stress or depression you may be feeling.

Don't get me wrong, the holidays can be joyous and fun. If they were really all just stress and greed, why would we all continue to put ourselves through this? When you strip all the materialism and get down to the what the holidays are really all about, they can be very enjoyable. This may mean different things for different people. People celebrate different holidays. People celebrate in different ways. And people have different things that they value. Keeping those values close at heart can help the holidays to be less stressful. If material things aren't the core value you hold for Christmas, don't go beating up soccer moms just to get the "must-have" toy of the season. Focus on what is important, and leave the rest for the mobs.

For me, the holidays are about friends and family. Being with the people who really matter most to me. Being recently separated from my wife and in the process of divorce, I am particularly dreading this upcoming holiday season. At every corner there awaits a new happy memory turned painful for me. Every tradition leaves me thinking about the most important component that is missing from the picture. I have decided to attempt to strip away all of this stuff that I really don't need and that would surely leave me worse for the wear. I am going to the beach for Christmas!

This may be avoidance. Actually, there's no maybe about it. It clearly is. But I'm alright with that. I'm not one to run from my problems rather than face them, but sometimes before facing a problem you have to ask yourself "is there a point to facing this? or am I just doing it for the sake of doing it?" I am going to start a new tradition this year. My parents and my Grandmother (who has also been dreading the holidays a bit due to the loss of her husband this year) will be spending our holiday in Myrtle Beach and I could not be more excited about it!

Now I'm not saying everyone should escape to the beach for your holidays (although I'd love to see you there!), but I am saying that keeping things simple can reduce some of that holiday stress. Before going all out with something and putting yourself in a stressful situation, ask yourself if it's really necessary. Evaluate what is important to you this year and strip away all the rest. People get caught up in expectations too much and trying to keep up with the Jones'.

Opposite Action

Opposite Action is a term I see thrown around a lot lately and one that I find very interesting. I have been applying aspects of this for some time without even realizing that is what I was doing. I want to discuss opposite action here because it some great applications to anxiety and panic attacks.

What is "Opposite Action"?
It's really a very simple concept. When you begin to feel anxious, your first instinctual reaction is usually something very counter-productive. Your primal fight-or-flight response kicks in and your actions will often fuel the panic further. By consciously taking the opposite route you have a much better chance at reducing that anxious response before it blows up into a full blown panic attack.

Example:

My number one panic trigger is interstate driving. I tend to get very anxious when driving on highways (although I absolutely love to travel. Ironic, huh?). When I start to get anxious while driving my first instincts are to turn down the radio, slow down and move into the slow lane, and get really fidgety. I start pulling on my seat-belt because the source of many of the physical symptoms of anxiety are in my chest and I feel constrained by the seat-belt. I will reach for the shifting handle even though my car has an automatic transmission. I drove a stick-shift for many years and I suppose that control gave me some comfort.

My mind now associates all of these actions with previous panic attacks. When I start to go through these actions, it is just like going through my classic panic-attack checklist. I am taking the cues one by one. Once that last check mark is put down, panic goes to work. There really is no stopping it at that point. The flood gates break down and that wave of panic comes crushing down.

By identifying these impulses and realizing that they come from the irrational part of my brain that controls panic I take first step to stopping that panic before it starts. I've learned to replace these impulses with consciously thought-out actions from a more rational part of my brain. On a recent road trip, I put this into action. Instead of turning the radio down, I turn it up and allow myself to focus more on the music, maybe change the track to something more positive. I resist the urge to fidget and become restless, instead becoming mindful of my body and allowing my muscles to relax. Instead of grabbing for the shifter or pulling on my seat-belt, I put my hands squarely on the steering wheel and keep them there. By doing this I have been able to stop the panic from progressing. I continued along on my drive with no further anxiety.


Key steps to mastering "Opposite Action"-

1. Acknowledge what you are feeling.
2. Identify what actions or reactions go with that feeling.
3. Ask yourself "do I want to stop or reduce this feeling?"
4. Figure out what the opposite action is.
5. Do that opposite action ALL THE WAY!

I would recommend going through this analysis while in a calm state of mind so that you will be prepared with the appropriate opposite actions in advance of the onset of anxiety. You aren't very likely to be thinking rationally when you are anxious.

Opposite action can be applied to many things, not just anxiety. Often we put ourselves into positions where we become our own worst enemy. It may be possible to use this technique on a wide range of feelings or emotions that you want to rid yourself of but may be feeding without even realizing it.Try this approach sometime and see if it works for you! Best of luck!


 
 

Geert- I Love Panic Attacks

Another book that helped me a lot with panic attacks was How to Stop Anxiety & Panic Attacks: A Simple Guide... by Geert Verschaeve. He speaks very simply and clearly on panic and anxiety. He also advises against medication in his book. Again, I will say, make this decision for yourself. But these techniques he talks about are helpful with or without medication. Medication can help, but you won't completely be free of panic attacks without also learning mindful techniques to calm your mind. Watch this video, visit his website as well.

Steve Pavilanis- A Life Less Anxious

One of the first books I read when I was really desperately struggling with anxiety and panic was A Life Less Anxious by Steve Pavilanis. This book helped me tremendously when I was having a really tough time. It got me through many a shaky night. I still have it stored on my phone and review it from time to time.

Steve talks about his experiences with anxiety and panic, which were so easy for me to relate to. Many of his experiences with anxiety were much like my own, and it felt awesome to know that I was not alone.

He also talks extensively about natural techniques for stopping panic attacks and anxiety. Changing the way you react and think is crucial to overcoming anxiety and getting your life back, and he explains how to do this. I highly recommend trying his program.

His guidance on staying away from medication should be taken with a grain of salt. That is a decision to be made individually. I have been taking medication and it has helped me greatly, but it is not a cure all. These natural techniques that Steve teaches are also key. Enjoy!


Click here to check out the A Life Less Anxious Program!