Anxiety and the Element of Time and Speed

There is an element to anxiety that is frequently overlooked, and that is the element of "time and speed".  It underlies a majority of events that provoke anxiety because it is the key trigger that pushes someone to feel like they need to go faster than they feel safe or comfortable with, and it prevents an individual from having the time to use their contemplative skill of thought to prepare for a situation.

When no preparation time is given, situations are done spontaneously and without forethought.  This can work well if you are someone who is quick on your feet and quick thinking, but most likely you got that way with exposure and practice.  Springing into action with a sharp and immediate awareness of what to do, and doing it, is truly a gift and can also be a developed skill when paired with repetition and practice.

Let's look at a few examples of how time and speed play out when it comes to anxiety:  

First, when someone is nervous driving on a particular road or highway, one of the things playing a factor is how fast things are going and the lack of time to slowly piece together what is happening in such a fast-paced environment.  With time and practice, drivers get use to the demand for speed and develop skills about how much time they need to take an exit, signal and turn a corner, or even stop before reaching a red light.  For those more experienced drivers, these tasks are not the worry, as they might worry that something is going to "suddenly" happen, like a blow out, or sudden accident, or other tragedy they didn't see coming.  So for that kind of driver the anxiety might be more of a "what if" worry that grows arms and legs and becomes a raw danger signal to the body that something bad could happen if speed is not gained or lost.  This triggers the fight or flight in the body, and anxiety symptoms are felt.

Another example of time and speed in relation to anxiety, is the nervous cashier who can see a line forming and knows that the pace of work can only be done so fast.  Perhaps customers are getting impatient and they want the cashier to go faster, thus leading the cashier to begin to worry someone is going to get mad, cause a scene, or begin to demand faster service.  Again, the fight or flight begins to kick in causing shallow breathing, tense muscles, and danger signals in the cashier's body as a full stress response takes place.

Finally, there is the example of the boss who wants an employee to meet a quota, demanding that an employee finish a certain number of tasks, items, or goals by a certain time frame.  Or fill so many orders in one hour, or complete so many entries in the computer in a day, or finish so many tasks before going home, and so on.  In this case, the pressure is on to go faster and faster as stress and anxiety levels rise.  

When we don't have the time to gather our thoughts and contemplate our response, anxiety symptoms climb.  Other examples are things like the demand for an answer before we actually have one developed in our mind, the pressure of being tail-gaited and the insistence that we drive faster than we want to or that the speed limit allows, or another driver honking immediately when the light changes green to tell us to hurry and get going.  

There will always be times in life when we need to keep a particular pace, hurry a bit more, or crank up our attentiveness to a situation so we can act quickly.  There was a time when paying cash was considered a gift in comparison to standing and writing a check?  Yet, now if you don't just swipe your card to pay, the impatience all around you is expressed in the eyes of onlookers.  So if you find that the pressure to go faster and faster is starting to cause a rise in your symptoms of anxiety, then finding ways to approach daily tasks with a new sense of permission to go it a little bit slower, combined with the use of relaxation exercises and the challenging of beliefs which tend to convince you that you must constantly go faster and faster, can have a direct impact on lowering your stress and biological symptoms of anxiety.

Yes, it's true that the world is getting faster and faster, and because of it, anxiety is increasing all over the world.  So keeping up on the increasing need for relaxation techniques is going to be key to adapting to this changing world.  In addition, here are some key words and phrases to look for in your everyday language:  fast, faster, suddenly, out of nowhere, enough, not enough, not enough time, speed up, hurry, in time, late, pressure, slow, slower, get going, in a rush, pushed, pulled, get to it, get going, quickly, get it finished, reach the marker, and faster pace.

Practicing tasks that force you to move steadily and calmly (but not too slow or fast) will give you the skills you need to keep a steady pace without panicking that you are not going fast enough.  It's very difficult to stay calm and steady right at the immediate time of a stressful event, but practicing slow steady relaxation in the midst of stress can improve your ability to stay calm under stressful conditions and without pressure to go faster.

Think of the example of a driver in a hurry who comes across a row of geese crossing the road.  We all know that the moral and ethical thing to do is stop and wait for the waddling lovelies to cross the road.  We have no choice!  The geese will eventually cross the road, in their own darn sweet time, of course.  But we are forced to go at a pace that is not what the world was demanding of us 15 seconds ago.  In that moment you can feel the pressure of a fast-paced world demanding that you go faster, but a present moment situation focus has a more calm and relaxed practice.  And this is the idea--the calm in the midst of the storm.

Here is a very brief video of a Zen walking-meditation called Kinhin, in which you work at a steady pace to practice developing a sense of concentration and present moment focus.  It is typically used by practitioners between rounds of seated meditation in order to stretch the body or just move it around a little before sitting down again for another round of prolonged seated meditation.  It's this kind of developed concentration that can be taken with you out and into a fast-paced world where it is very difficult to use at first, but with practice you can get better and better at facing the insistent speed demands of the world so they don't overwhelm you.  The intention is not to walk this slow out in the real world and make people try to get around you, but to use the slow pace of Kinhin meditation practice to sharpen your focus using a pace that works for you when you are out in that fast-paced world.

We know that the world will not stop pressuring us to go at the faster and faster pace it wants.  You can keep up or resist, and the choice between those two isn't what really matters.  What matters is where your mind is during any of these speeds.  Is it still present despite the tail-gaiter, or long line, or bosses demands?  Is it still at homeostasis, having steady breathing, a steady heart rate, and a steady mind?  Or is it wrapped up in meeting the unrealistic demands of a world that's going too fast?

"Adopt the pace of nature.  Her secret is patience".  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Anxiety and Depression: Changing with the Seasons

Spring is a great way to spend time outdoors, get some fresh air, and find exercise that suits one's lifestyle.  Once the season is upon us, there are many things to do that are known to help with anxiety and depression.

Because melatonin levels are lower in the spring, we have more energy, which gives us the nudge we need to do more things we've been wanting to do, but might not have had the energy for in the fall and winter months.  Melatonin levels rise because there is more daylight detected by the eyes and this triggers the pineal gland to produce less melatonin than it does in the fall and winter months when the days are shorter.  So it's not your imagination that you feel like doing a bit more once the days get longer.

For this reason, isolation indoors during the spring and summer months is not advised.  Be sure to open the curtains, step outside, go where the sun is, and feed your body's desire for exposure to this time of year.  Hiking, gardening, working in the yard, walking, and any other activity that will expose you to the elements is good medicine.  It's important not to stay closed off indoors where the light and sun can't reach you and the changing seasons are only minimally enjoyed.

One thing to be careful of in the spring and summer is the use of allergy medications due to pollen.  Many allergy medications have antihistamines in them, which typically leads to drowsiness, but in some people they can also lead to increased heart rate, dizziness, sweaty palms, and rapid breathing, all of which mimic symptoms of anxiety.  And if you recall, all it takes is a belief that the symptoms are life-threateningly dangerous, and the body will believe these symptoms are something much more serious or dangerous than they are.

An increase in movement this time of year can only help with stress and anxiety.  In fact, according to a study done by Dr Ben Singh, physical activity is 1.5 times more effective at reducing mild-to-moderate symptoms of stress and anxiety than even medication or cognitive behavioral therapy.  So be sure to follow through on the idea to get out for a walk, ride a bike, go swimming, or any other number of physical activities that seem to be more desirable this time of year.

In addition, when we feel good in the warmer months and have more energy, this is also a great time to work on and refine our depression and anxiety relapse prevention plans.  Having a clearly written plan for what to do when anxiety or depression return in the colder months gives us more ideas in our bag of tricks for when the going gets rough, but who feels like laying all of that out when energy is low or depression has set in?  So take the time to do it now while you feel up to it.  What will your plan and strategy be, and how will you lay it out and cope when the time comes that energy levels are once again low and motivation is hard to find due to additional seasonal changes.

Enjoy your spring and summer!  Use the energy wisely!  Be self-aware of how the body and energy changes throughout the year.  Be alert to anxiety symptoms that are chemically triggered and monitor what your thinking does with that information.    Stay one step ahead and prepare for the changing seasons.

"I am thankful that in a troubled world, no calamity can prevent the return of spring."  ~Helen Keller

Thanks to Ray in Manila for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Change: Adjusting and living a Balanced Lifestyle

The level of activity we each enjoy depends on who we are and what our personal style is.  For extroverts, an active lifestyle is key to feeling energized and fulfilled.  For introverts, life feels much more comfortable with less exposure to activities involving crowds, noise, and other people.  Introverts feel more energized by quieter activities, less companions to do those activities, and far less crowds and noise.  Knowing yourself and your personal preferences can help you know when you've become either too over stimulated with activities that are in excess of what is normal for you, or those that are too reclusive and keep you in isolation.  Both extremes can lead to stress depending on who you are and what your personal preference in life is.

When the pandemic arrived in 2020 and people began spending more time at home, many introverts reported to me that they were liking that they were no longer expected to venture out into the world as much because typically that was something they didn't enjoy as much as extroverts did in the first place.  But at the same time, extroverts were telling me that they were pulling their hair out in frustration and biting at the bit to get out and go do the things they enjoy and that fill them up as well as energize them.

But as the pandemic situation began to improve, an interesting thing began to happen.  Many extroverts, having been starved for the active life they prefer during the more "lock down" or "stay at home" portion of the pandemic, began to overload their plates with activities, while introverts had their own interesting change, in that having gotten the world's permission to be as isolated and recluse as they desired, were finding it a little hard to push themselves to get out a little more and get reacquainted with the world of people, events and activities.

We do know that the pandemic changed an enormous amount of things including where and how we work, how we shop, how we participate in activities, and even how we plan vacations and trips.  So it's up to each one of us to stop for a moment and take a good inventory of how we think the pandemic affected us personally.  Maybe there are some changes we find acceptable and want to keep, such as working at home, or having a new hybrid schedule at work that mixes some home and some office work.  It's also possible that we might have really enjoyed grocery delivery or new ways of attending events that now have timed entrances and have reduced what was once a stressful way of attending.

However, we also need to look at ways we appropriately adapted in order to stay safe during the pandemic, but that now no longer serve us and may actually be leading to more stress.  For instance, when it comes to our level of activity are we now gobbling up too many activities in fear of another pandemic shut down, or have we become a little too recluse and stopped interacting with the world entirely.  This is where knowing yourself well is key because only you will know if what you are doing now is in excess of the person you were prior to the pandemic.

For those who are doing a little too much, the stress will show up in symptoms of exhaustion, body aches, lack of time to fit it all the things you want to do, and of course increased symptoms of anxiety such as a rise in blood pressure and heart rate, tight muscles, tight chest breathing, and even increased use of substances such as alcohol.  For those who are isolating more than what their norm had been prior to the pandemic, the symptoms can result in depression, loneliness, lack of connection to others and to the world, and a growing anxiety each time you think of venturing out to be around others or participate in a few activities.

Taking the time to put a self-inventory together can help you see where you might need to nudge yourself just a little to either tone down activities in order to fit in some rest and self-nurturing, or if it's time to nudge yourself out the door for some light socializing, or at least activity that exposes you to other human beings, such as a hike at a local popular trail, or a trip to the zoo or museum in which you will interact with a few others.  

It's okay that we've changed and adapted since the pandemic entered our lives, and it's okay that we've all found some new ways of living that we want to keep.  But we also have to take a close look at how the pandemic has affected each one of us negatively and begin to sort through the ongoing adaptations we need to keep making in order to find balance with all of the ongoing changes.

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails"   ~Dolly Pardon

Thanks to Glacier NPS for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Self Talk: The Key to Changing How we Feel

There are a lot of stressors we all face on a daily basis, but there is also an ongoing stress that doesn't necessarily come from the environment.  It comes from inside our minds and the internal pressure we put on ourselves with expectations, poor self-talk and lack of self-compassion.  But we can work on this problem and change the way the internal dialogue plays out from hour to hour.

Self-talk is the internal messages we give ourselves (or say to ourselves) throughout the day.  These messages can be internalized from many sources.  We get them from parents, teachers, friends, and just about anywhere there has been an interaction and information taken inside and felt deeply enough to be held in our memory.

If the messages were negative, abusive, inappropriate, or just misinformed, they are still there regardless of their poor content and they can rise up and repeat at any time.  Many people have a running self-dialogue throughout the day that is quite abusive and unsupportive.  When asked, many of my clients will let me know that their internal self-belief system is one of self-hatred, self-beratement, and self-judgment.  These kinds of internalized messages can trigger anxiety and depression, as well as self-hatred unless the thoughts are stopped and replaced with kinder and more compassionate ideas of self-acceptance.

The way we talk to ourselves can be changed and identifying the internal beliefs about ourselves, intercepting them with strong disputation and logical reasoning, and replacing them with supportive, loving, and self-soothing internal dialogue can result in new feelings that are positive and encouraging.  But it takes practice, repetition, devoted work, and conscious awareness to do this.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is designed to help with this process.  First, by recognizing the beliefs you use to interpret events.  Then, by rationalizing your way through these beliefs to see if they hold any sense of truth, connection to reality, or even form logical conclusions in the end.  By disputing false beliefs, you can begin to snuff them out and return to a more realistic way of looking at the world and yourself.  Where the false beliefs might have been leading to anxiety and depression, the new and more realistic beliefs alter the outcome of how you feel.

Here is a link to a list of 15 styles of distorted thinking (or beliefs) psychcentral most of us use to convince ourselves we're just no good, incapable, or somehow unworthy.  Find the ones that you use the most, and begin the journey of challenging the false beliefs that have tripped you up the most.  Using the ABCDE Model developed by Albert Ellis Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy , you can practice every day to unravel some of this cognitive training that has convinced you that you deserve to be spoken to poorly (by yourself and others). 

"A" is the Activating Event, or what happened in any given situation, "B" is the false belief you are using to process or filter that event in your mind, "C" is the Consequence or Feeling you end up with by doing that (typically anxiety or depression), "D" is the use of Disputations to begin arguing against these false beliefs in your head, and "E" is the new and more positive Emotion you will feel by using more realistic and logic-oriented beliefs to process events in your life.

The way we speak to ourselves makes a big difference in how we feel on an ongoing basis.  Talk to yourself as if you were your own best friend.  No one wants a best friend that berates them and criticizes all day and has very little belief in them.  We want a best friend that is supportive, loving, and wants the best for us.  Be your own best friend!

Thanks to bm for the great abstract art piece, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

New Year's Resolution: Make it a Theme

January brings with it a reset point where many people make New Year's resolutions in hopes of making changes in their lives for the year to come.  However, it's no secret that many resolutions are set in January, broken by February, and nowhere to be seen beyond that point.  Like most goals, if we set them too high, or see only the finish line instead of the many steps to achieving them, they are doomed to fail before they begin.

In fact, a New Year's resolution might be the wrong way of looking at setting new goals for the year, and the pressure can come off when we change these goals and resolutions to "themes". 

Setting themes for the year can allow for progress instead of failure as we turn instead to focus more intently on what we want to change in our lives.  Themes help us pay attention to our intention for change and to keep in mind throughout the year what it is that our focus really is. 

Three of the top 10 New Year's resolutions are about health.  That is:  lose weight, exercise more, and quit smoking.  We can set goals to reach a set weight, exercise a certain number of times per week, or cut down to a certain number of smokes by a certain date.  All of which could turn into failure within a matter of days or weeks if we can't hold to it.  Or, we could also set the themes in motion come January 1st, that meal-time focus will have more intention and better food choices, movement will become something we build right into our lives (such as parking farther from entrances and exits, and taking stairs), and finding other things to do besides going for another smoke, even while lugging our cigarettes around, so as to experience what it's like to say no to self-destructive behavior.

Expanding into travel, new hobbies and adventure are also in the top 10 New Year's resolutions, but it's not uncommon to book things at a time when we feel good and not feel much like doing them when that booked event comes around.  We can also try to force ourselves into events and adventures when the money is not always available nor is the time.  But if we think of these ideas more along the lines of themes, we can put out an intention in the new year to look for adventure when it feels like it fits the schedule, budget and energy level.  This can lead only to success instead of failure and by December we will be able to reflect on the year and know we accomplished a lot more than we thought we might.

A resolution has a lot of determination in it, as well as a lot of push and pressure from within.  But a theme has an intention, and intention gives us an aim, like a compass point we try to sail our ship toward throughout the year.  A theme also has a lot less chance for failure because it's not really a goal that we are setting, but a new place to center our focus in everything we do in the coming year. 

For your "New Year's resolution" consider taking some contemplative time to reflect on what themes you'd like to focus your mind on in the upcoming year.  What would you like to pay more attention to?  What will be your top 3 themes for 2023?

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.       ~Lao Tzu

Thanks to Jesper Sehested for the great photo

Gratitude: A Mind Shift for Depression

As we approach the holiday of Thanksgiving in the United States, thoughts of gratitude become more frequent as many reflect on the year and all it has offered.  This sense of thankfulness could not come at a better time because during the winter months many people suffer from a type of depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which comes as the weather changes, days become shorter and the amount of daylight temporarily decreases.  Sometimes called the "winter blues" or "winter depression", this kind of mood change can be recognized by a lack of motivation, fatigue and a noticeable increase in feelings of hopelessness.  Thankfully, exercises in gratitude can work to counter the negative thoughts that sometimes accompany these symptoms of depression. 

Since feelings tend to follow our thoughts, it only makes sense that feelings of depression can accompany negative thoughts.  Therefore, finding ways to intentionally counter the seasonal symptoms of negative thinking in the winter is a very helpful method to having a mind shift that moves the thinking to a more positive place.

When symptoms of depression set in during the cold winter months, a good relapse prevention plan can help in coping with the temporary shift in mood, and can bring the mind back around to focusing on what you would prefer, and therefore bringing the mood around as well.  

Here are some ideas to help you make this cognitive shift into a more appreciative place, and give you a feeling of gratitude for Thanksgiving:

• Whatever the setting at the moment, take a look around and realize what things you are grateful for in your immediate surroundings.
• Think of the top three things that went well this year that could have been much worse.
• Consider the individuals that helped you this year, be it in their words, deeds, or gifts.
• When it comes to your health, notice all the things your body can do and where your health remains good.  What are you grateful for about your body?
• Do you have food, shelter, transportation, running water, warmth, and overall safety?
• Have you been able to experience something special this year, such as a trip, adventure, or even an unexpected visit from someone? 

Sometimes the things we are grateful for don't have to be very impressive, large, noticeable, or even grand.  That the door is fixed, or the faucet no longer leaks, or something as simple as finding your favorite pair of shoes you thought you'd lost or misplaced.  Moving the mind to these things on a regular basis helps to train the brain to go to more thankful places and spending time there helps the mood and gives you one more tool in your bag of tricks to counter balance the winter blues.

Several times a day, take a pause and push yourself to notice three things "right now" that you are grateful for

Thanks to sierralupe for the great photo

Existential Crisis: Finding Meaning from the Pandemic

One word that gets over used a lot in the counseling world is "crisis".  We talk about spiritual crisis, mid-life crisis, and family crisis, but one crisis that has increasingly come to the forefront in the counseling world since the pandemic is the "existential crisis".

An existential crisis is all of those varied feelings and emotions that are related to asking about the meaning of life, or asking what the point is, or what the purpose is for our being here.  These questions come up all the more when we are faced with events that push the reality of our limited existence right in our face where we can no longer avoid them with work, substances, activity, or delusions.

When the pandemic stopped the world in early 2020 it shook the earth under many people who witnessed their lives, and the lives of others, change.  It brought the kinds of life changes that typically trigger an existential crisis, such as the loss of a loved one, changes in one's health, job loss, lifestyle changes, or any number of things that heighten our awareness of human limitations and unpredictable change.

Psychologically and emotionally an existential crisis can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression.  During the pandemic many people were left with great levels of uncertainty about where things were going to go, and now that the pandemic has morphed into a vaccinated and tolerable level for many, that uncertainty lingers mostly because of the fear and observations made during the core happenings of these events.  

During the heart of the pandemic (which many might argue we are not completely out of yet), we didn't just witness the death of loved ones and acquaintances, but we witnessed the behavior of human-kind as it coped (sometimes poorly) with the disease and several coexisting events that were happening (and are still happening) at the same time of the disease.

One thing that really helps with an existential crisis is grasping the truth about impermanence.  First of all, nothing you observe or wonder about will ever stay the same.  Even the pandemic has changed and morphed into various presentations over the last several years.  But everything else that has coexisted with it continued to change as well.  Jobs, relationships, levels of health, where and how you work, how we dine and shop, and our views about life and career.

Most of our suffering comes from wanting everything to stay the same when it's good.  When it changes it rocks our world and we feel upset and anxious about when the next change will come and rock our world again.  The depression comes from things not going the way we want them to, and our inability to go back in time and change them.  The anxiety comes from our awareness that we can't know what's coming all the time and can't control bad things from happening at every turn.

Understanding and accepting the reality of impermanence helps with an existential crisis because it brings some relief in knowing that we are aware and accept that change is inevitable, as opposed to being so attached to things as they are that we expect them to stay that way.  In fact, it might be most predictable thing there is to know that change will happen no matter what the situation is.

If we have something, we could lose it.  If we lose something, it could be found.  If we are healthy, that might change.  If unhealthy, we could get better.  And yes, the pandemic will change, and there could be others.  We humans adapt and change as we roll with these constant changes on an ongoing basis, but the biggest gift we can give ourselves is to not hang on so tightly to things as they are in any given moment.  Being fully present means to also be a part of a "changing" present moment.  

What this means is that in order to be this fully alive and aware, we also have to be fully conscious about what is real in any given moment.  Happy joy will not last forever and is not something we "get" and never lose.  But just as equally true, is that depression and sorrow will also not last forever, and they will break through to other emotions in time.  

Unfortunately, life itself does not last, but in accepting this reality we can learn to be fully alive in the moments we live, as we live them.  Albert Camus felt that life was quite absurd as it is, and he referred to the example of Sisyphus who was condemned to roll a stone to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down repeatedly as he returned to the bottom again and again to senselessly roll it back to the top.  But Camus also felt we should stay in the game of this life and find our way regardless of its seeming meaninglessness.  He admitted it is quite an "absurd" life we are handed by the universe, but that just because it is absurd does not mean it's not worth living.

Jennifer Michael Hecht, the author of Doubt, and more directly the author of Stay (an in-depth look at the subject of suicide among human beings who lose their sense of meaning in this life), wrote that "the feeling of meaning is sufficient to the definition of meaning, just as the feeling of love is sufficient to the definition of love."  She adds, "I believe this question of suicide allows us to see ourselves as more profoundly connected to others, and able to relax our need to each generate the entire meaning of life on our own."

Hecht's conclusion in the end was that we should "Stay" in this world and see the relevance of our importance to one another.  She concluded that we generate our own meaning for this one precious life and live that ever changing life to the best of our human ability.  I would add that we must recognize the changing nature of this life and never fall under the spell that it should stay the same from moment to moment.  If we can grasp this, we will never again be surprised at temporary or ongoing disappointments.

Thanks to AK Rockefeller for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/