The feeling of an icicle in the chest is how I would describe it.
The icicle likes to go on a negative thought hunt always the places that make us feel bad about ourselves. It will then go on a bad memory hunt – picking out files in our minds from the past. Things that have been and gone, not really significant but it tells you it is — it knows where to go.
The icicle is only a feeling and it needs an outlet, we could just as easily obsess over good things with good thoughts but the icicle doesn’t want to go there.
Anxiety is it’s clinical name, try and think of a positive thought but the icicle’s walls come up higher; this is us in an episode or a prolonged attack.
The icicle then decides to go on a “what if” hunt, building up scenarios for the future as if the bad event is actually happening right now.
Avoidance
So, you may hear people say “don’t think like that” yeah? Well it’s not you that has the 100mph icicle garbage truck going round the head. This excess adrenaline needs an outlet. If I say don’t think about a pink elephant what do you think you are going think about? The icicle loves avoidance it feeds of it!
If I can change my brain and body, I can change my mind and in turn my life!!
How exercise is very important, even just a nice walk in nature can do you the world of good (there is also a natural probiotic bacteria that is released in nature, that is good for us) and Yoga stretching is great for my Vagus nerve and my Psoas muscle. Both of them are related to the fight and flight response. Exercise gives more time than it takes. I think that exercise is the most powerful antidepressant. And its great for the hypothalamus. The control centre of the brain.
Motion is emotion. It’s about getting the issues out of the tissues.
Breathing techniques can change everything.
The breath is what connects the mind and body.
I’ve found that if I write down all the good I see in my day (thankful and grateful journal) it helps me think and feel more positive, rather than thinking impending doom all the time. Train the mind to notice the good things.
But not to become to obsessed on being happy all the time. Because striving for happiness can be very tiring. The constant pursuit can have the opposite effect. Thinking of massive changes can be overwhelming.
If you can isolate the things that makes you feel worse, then you can also spot the things that make you feel better.
If you are in the mindset of, “I could do better” all the time, this can go against you, by making things unachievable. If you want to make lasting changes, then you need to start small.
The unconscious mind learns by repetition.
One of the problem that has come from positive psychology is that we have distorted our thoughts about normal emotions like, disappointment, anxiety, sadness, depression, anger, bereavement and many more, and we’ve given them label’s and literally shining a light on them. And then we’ve made happiness the be all and end all.
I’ve learned that meditation and mindfulness can help me become more familiar with myself (know thy self), and how to deal with any situation better, by being aware of my response to them and how my emotions can teach me so much about myself.
Both have helped me stay out of the high Beta brain wave, and more in the Alpha. Also how to use my whole brain, rather than the left or right separately. And they too also help the Amygdala to decrease in size.
How playing can be so good for your inner child, who hasn’t a worry in the world. Getting in the zone, the flow, in the now. Escapism.
I’ve learned that I am not all my thoughts, I don’t need to react to them, resemble them, or become them, if I just acknowledge them, be aware of them, and ask myself if they support me or not, then I’m in control of them rather than them in control of me.
Remembering after a panic attack to shake it out, like the animals do in nature, after being chased by a predictor. Dispersing all the unwanted, unhelpful chemicals.
We have always focused on the dangers, the frets, the negative things in life. This has helped us survive in the past. But that way of thinking isn’t helping us anymore, in fact, it is now doing the opposite and harming us. It’s time to start focusing on the helpful things, the things that make us feel good inside, the things that send the right chemicals and hormones to our body’s and brains, to help us heal, grow and live.
The body is a reflection of our thoughts, emotions and our beliefs, more than anything else.
And last but not least, remember, love is our most powerful emotion!
So replace fear with love.
Our brain and body can’t do both emotions simultaneously.
Anxiety can be switched off far more effectively by heart-focused activity rather than head-focused activity.
We must learn to see any illness, mental or physical, as part of our journey and as signposts along the way, rather than something to fight and get rid of. We need to stop being ‘at war’ with our minds and body.
All this has taught me that when it gets hard I need to be in the now, in the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) relaxed state, not in the sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze) fear. Both these systems cannot work simultaneously.
Anxiety The Clever Beast
Holywell Street 