A post from 2015.
SLART Note: I wrote this back in 2015. I had a short stint of blogging but gave up after about 20 posts. Gratefully as of the date of this post in 2024, I have written over 100 Substack posts! Feel free to check them out later on!
I’ve just had a pleasant two-and-a-half-mile walk from Soho to Paddington (in London). Upon arrival, I was debating whether to use the toilet in a pub or at the train station. Thankfully, I now have a higher level of awareness of my Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs), enabling me to either shrug off or laugh at some of the notions that occur within my mind (conversely, when my mood is low, I tend to take them far too seriously).
On this occasion, I approached the pub, glanced through the window, and walked past shiftily. The thought, essentially, warned, “you’d better not go in there; you’ll have to order a drink and sit on your own, only losers do that”. All of this happened in a split second, as a feeling, then I walked towards Burger King to use their facilities (no need to speak to anyone, ah, what a relief).
Just after the thought deterred me, I saw the funny side of it and thought no more of it until I wrote this. Previously, because my brain associated avoiding social situations with being a chronic failure of epic proportions, the notion of “being a loser” would replay like a broken record, nagging at me incessantly, reinforcing itself and exacerbating the issue. During those times in my life, I simply felt worthless and believed there was something wrong with my brain, which is understandable as I viewed my entire world through this negative filter.
When You Think Anxiously, You Feel Anxious
Simple, isn’t it? Everything we feel starts with a thought. I believe so, anyway, and I’m sure neuroscience supports this, though I’ll let you look that up. One piece of information I read stated that around 95% of our thinking occurs subconsciously, meaning we’re mostly unaware of our conscious thoughts.
We JUST FEEL anxious.
We JUST FEEL like eating a huge cheeseburger.
We JUST FEEL like punching someone.
Because anxiety seems to JUST HAPPEN, we endlessly search for the cause of the anxiety, or we ask, “why is this happening to me, I don’t deserve this”. Of course, this is entirely understandable and can be very frightening at times, and knowing that “It’s just your thinking” is about as useful as knowing “it’s just gravity” when you’ve just jumped out of a plane at 10,000 feet. You will feel those emotions, and they override rational thought every time. When you have a panic attack, for instance, it can feel as though you’re going to die, making it seem more severe than it actually is. However, as Dr Bill Pettit, a US Psychiatrist, wonderfully explained in a conversation I had with him last year (I’m paraphrasing, but I remember the content well…),
“When you have a panic attack, it doesn’t just happen; I can guarantee that you’ve been stewing over something beforehand, and the panic attack is a warning system indicating that your mind is overloaded with worry.”
2024 Update: I have the video and transcription for you:
Bill Petit Transcipt:
“You know what a lot of people don’t realize? Panic attacks are actually your friend. They are literally the body’s mechanism for signaling when we get caught up in anxiety-inducing thoughts. The primary cause of anxiety, unless you’re dealing with a thyroid problem, is thought. It’s crucial that people understand this—it’s the innocent, underlined thirty times, misuse of the gift of thought and a lack of understanding of that gift.
So, what happens with panic attacks? I’ve asked people who insist that their panic attacks have nothing to do with their thinking. For example, the last time they had a panic attack, they were watching a football game or playing with their grandchildren. The question I asked them is this: In the two hours prior to your panic attack, was there a minimum of twenty to thirty minutes where you were actively worrying, stewing, fretting, or thinking upsetting thoughts about something? The score so far is about 5,998 to 2. And I’m not about to make those two people take a lie-detector test, but I suspect they were worrying too.
What happens next is that we start creating a biochemical imbalance, and the brain says, “My God, I’ve got to wake this person up to what they’re doing.” There’s a place called the locus coeruleus—it controls noradrenaline and it shoots noradrenaline into the person’s body. If myself and three other people here were injected with the same amount of noradrenaline into their IV, we would suddenly experience shortness of breath, hot flashes, cold flashes, nausea, numbness, tingling—we would have all the symptoms of what people call a panic attack.
Panic attacks are meant to last three to five minutes because noradrenaline’s half-life is 60 seconds. However, unless the person gets caught up in fearful thinking about what’s happening, which many do, the attack can continue for hours. It is terrifying. If one understands this and has the courage to let it thin out, within 60 seconds half of the adrenaline is gone. In two minutes, seventy-five percent is gone; in three minutes, eighty-seven point five percent is gone; in four minutes, ninety-four percent is gone; and in five minutes, ninety-nine and a half percent is gone.
I’ve advised patients, without medication, to just once trust me enough to grab a newspaper, put on a favorite song, whatever, the next time they have a panic attack. Sit as quietly as you can and try not to feed it, and you will suddenly realize that it passes quickly and you don’t have to worry about it ever again. Because even if it happens, if you just stay calm, it will be gone in three to five minutes and it’s no big deal.
So as people start to understand even the physiology behind the anxiety, they realize that anxiety is actually their friend. It’s trying to let them know that they’re innocently overlooking something, that there’s something for them to learn. Even I experience emotional pain at times, and I find it most helpful to see it as an opportunity. I’m getting a chance to go through another door related to understanding the three principles, and the answer will come to me if I have the courage to stay as quiet as I can, to look for a positive feeling, and to be open to insight.“
So, the next time a thought or feeling prevents you from doing something you want to do, just be aware, and hopefully, you can see the humour in it.
With love,
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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