It's that time of year again

Well.. fall is here and the days are becoming noticeably shorter. This means winter is coming and all the fun things that brings anxiety wise for me. The summer went by so quickly it seems although I am glad there is a break in the heat. I have gone back and forth on writing something here but it sometimes is a struggle to get out what's in my head in a form that I am comfortable sharing. 

I have for the most part kept my anxiety under control the past few months which has been a nice change of pace for me. This was mostly due to changes in my medication that I had been resisting a long time. I think the biggest thing that drove me to this decision was I was tired of working so hard to keep my stuff together. I resisted as long as I could but I just got tired. I am glad that I decided to go this route but it does not come without downsides. So why am I telling you this?

I want folks to know that its ok to not have it all together all the time. Anxiety is a daily challenge and no one has the answers. I have talked to several folks that are going through the same thing I went through. They have a sense of shame or a sense that they are "crazy". I suffered way too long because I could not come to grips with the fact that I wasn't alone in this struggle and no matter how special I thought I was this was not unique to just me. :) 

If you are going through a rough patch just remember that there is only so much stress one can take and anxiety is a way of your body and mind telling you to slow down. Sometimes we really need to look at what is important and let the rest take a back seat. I really felt a ton better when I told people what I was going through. I was like you know what who cares what people think. So what I get anxious about stuff. So what that I don't want to do X or Y. If people don't understand you that say they are your friends then you need new friends. There are enough challenges with anxiety to worry about what other people think. I think the biggest thing I have gotten out of this blog is folks coming up to me and talking about their struggles. 

As the stress of the holidays besieges us keep your chin up. Just remember your body pumps out adrenaline when you are anxious the same way your body pumps out adrenaline when you are riding a roller coaster. The difference is how your mind interprets these chemicals so you have the power to help change that interpretation.

Having Trouble Hitting the Submit Button

So I have been writing a lot of blog posts lately but I am having trouble hitting the submit button. The last few weeks have been a little rough. I feel as if I am begging for sympathy if I post some of this stuff. I started this with the goal of being a resource to help other people and not a place for me to whine about things. Maybe by telling you what's going on with me those that deal with this can take solace in they are not alone in their struggles.

I have had a bit of agoraphobia lately. I have been working from home a lot because I have been so busy at work that now when I leave the house I get short on breathe and dizzy. This really sucks as I am really wanting to get out and do stuff. I went to the hobby shop today as an excuse to get out of here for a minute and I thought I was going to pass out. That place normally is like a sanctuary. It is incredibly frustrating that I have to deal with this!

That is the shitty part about anxiety. Its ups and downs.. There are good days and there are bad days. I know part of this is I was sick earlier in the week and the other part is I have not been exercising enough. I just want to sit around sometimes and do nothing! But doing nothing brings me this and this sucks.

I do have to say that I am not really having many scary thoughts which is nice. I don't feel like I am going to die or anything I just feel depressed and disappointed. I know it frustrates my wife because I go into hermit mode and bury myself in distraction. I have been really making an effort though to play with the kids so I don't neglect them. They are a lot of fun right now and its fun and a nice break to be with them. The only weird thoughts I have been having are weird dreams about highschool specifically around my first car. The dreams I am having make me sit in bed for a bit when I wake up to determine what is real and what is fake. Luckily I am not alone based on a Facebook post that first car dreams seem very common.

So there you have it.. That is what is going on with me right now. I know I am very fortunate to have a understanding job and an understanding wife and I don't take those things for granted. My goal with this post is not to say how crappy my life is but to show people who might be going through this that its ok. Not every day is perfect and unless you read the Mayan calendar there is always tomorrow!

Happy New Year!!! (A little late)

Happy New Year!!!

I know I know... It's a little late but hey.. Things were crazy over the holiday. I have been thinking a lot about this blog and how I want to move forward with it. At first I thought that this would be a good place to help other people which I think it is but I feel as if I have been putting too much thought into it.

What I realized was I don't need tips to give out every post... I just need to talk about what I am going through on a daily basis where other people can relate. I know it makes me feel better when I read about other people going through something similar. I also realized that what works for me in certain situations doesn't work with other people but talking about the tools I use to cope could help. So that is how I am planning on moving forward from here on out.

With that out of the way its time to talk about the winter blues. I get them pretty bad mostly due to the short days. I look forward to the first day of winter because I know it will start getting dark later and later. My wife has been trying to convince me to buy a "blue light" and I have been doing some research on them. There is actually some science that support their validity. On the flip side they are like $150 for a decent one so I keep going back and forth.

When I think back through the years I see a pattern emerge. Right after Christmas I get a serious spike in the amount of anxiety I have to deal with. I think its because all of a sudden I don't have anything to pre-occupy me with. I also took 2 weeks off of work which then left me with way too much time to reflect. This will sound weird but I feel like when I don't have something to pre-occupy me I start over analyzing things which sometimes triggers the snowball to start. That is one thing that my wife gives me the business about that I have to constantly be doing something. I do have to admit that this year has been tamer then the past few years which is good.

That is all I got for today!

Breathe Daniel San

It's been a while since I have posted but things have been crazy. Work has been putting the hurt on me and I have just not felt like doing any extra typing on the computer. I would say the last month has gone pretty decent. I survived my trip to Michigan and I have to admit it was the easiest one yet as far as dealing with my issues. I was able to make the hotel room my "safe place" and relax at night. I didn't end up eating as much as I would have wanted but I don't know if the nasty burger I ate the first night was the culprit or not.

Luckily I get to test myself again when I head to Virginia here soon. This trip I get the added fun of having to be on an airplane. I have been trying to block it out as much as possible. I find if I try and ignore it I am ok. My problem is around the events leading up to it so it is very important to block it out. I have been playing a lot of video games lately so that has been helping.

One of the things I have been struggling with lately is fighting off the winter blues. What really bothers me is the crappy weather and less sunlight. I have been doing research and I talk to my doctor all the time about certain lighting conditions or changes in lighting conditions that spark anxiety for me. I used to be in a band and for some reason RED stage lights would cause me anxiety. If it was blue I was ok it was just something about red. Sometimes when I am driving on the highway and I turn and the lighting conditions change drastically it causes me anxiety or my personal favorite shadows while driving. What I mean by that is the trees casting shadows and you sort of get a strobe light type effect.

There is some science on this mostly around over-illumination but I know myself and I know what it does to me. I know when its that greyish color outside right before the sun goes down that I feel weird. I don't need to read it in a medical journal to know that I have issues with it. It's something I talk to my doctor about all the time but I am not sure if there is anything I can really do about it except to break out the coping techniques.

So I will leave you with today one of the easiest coping techniques I use. It's free and if you can breathe you can do it. (Which I assume since you are reading this you know how to breathe :) ) Breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds, hold your breathe for 5 seconds, then breather out for 10 seconds. Even if you don't have anxiety and you just feel stressed you can try it. The science via http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16624497 :

Pranayamic breathing, defined as a manipulation of breath movement, has been shown to contribute to a physiologic response characterized by the presence of decreased oxygen consumption, decreased heart rate, and decreased blood pressure, as well as increased theta wave amplitude in EEG recordings, increased parasympathetic activity accompanied by the experience of alertness and reinvigoration. The mechanism of how pranayamic breathing interacts with the nervous system affecting metabolism and autonomic functions remains to be clearly understood. It is our hypothesis that voluntary slow deep breathing functionally resets the autonomic nervous system through stretch-induced inhibitory signals and hyperpolarization currents propagated through both neural and non-neural tissue which synchronizes neural elements in the heart, lungs, limbic system and cortex. During inspiration, stretching of lung tissue produces inhibitory signals by action of slowly adapting stretch receptors (SARs) and hyperpolarization current by action of fibroblasts. Both inhibitory impulses and hyperpolarization current are known to synchronize neural elements leading to the modulation of the nervous system and decreased metabolic activity indicative of the parasympathetic state. In this paper we propose pranayama's physiologic mechanism through a cellular and systems level perspective, involving both neural and non-neural elements. This theoretical description describes a common physiological mechanism underlying pranayama and elucidate the role of the respiratory and cardiovascular system on modulating the autonomic nervous system. Along with facilitating the design of clinical breathing techniques for the treatment of autonomic nervous system and other disorders, this model will also validate pranayama as a topic requiring more research.

When I was younger and I would go to my GP he would say take this drug and come back in 6 weeks and see if it better. They never told me breathing could have the same effect as popping certain medicines. I am by no means anti-drugs but this is a nice freebie to try without having to get a prescription. :)

Until the next time.

A Bad Day

The funny thing about anxiety is you have your good days and your bad days. Today was one of those bad days. Anxiety never really goes away for me it just seems to flare up now and again. This started last night.

So last night I was reading some stuff on the internets when I started to have a full fledged anxiety attack. I immediately felt the anxiety wash over me in a wave. I then felt like I was having trouble breathing like I wasn't getting enough air. That was my brain telling me it was time to pack it up for the day. Lately I have been putting in a lot of work hours and I have not been getting the exercise that I need to maintain my chemistry. Basically its my own fault!

It continued this morning on the way to work where I felt the heavy chest thing again. Luckily once I got to the office it started to go away. I have been able to convert my office into a pseudo safe place. I know my stress meter is running pretty high right now because my heart is beating faster than usual. My body's reaction to stress is on that I start to get physical symptoms when I push it too far.

I am going to try and get some quality sleep in tonight and hopefully wake up in a better place tomorrow. I need to get my workout on something fierce tomorrow and try and get myself straightened out. I tend to do this to myself all the time by feeling really good and then slowing down my workout schedule. I am constantly going in these circles of problems vs no problems. If only I could make myself be more consistent.

The teaching moment from all of this is it is important to use the tools to calm yourself down. I was able to make myself chill enough last night to get to sleep at a decent time and I was able to change my thought patterns when I got to work. These are things I could not have done a year ago so easily. I would take not feeling this way at all over getting over it quickly for sure but you have to look at the silver lining. You have to grasp on to the successes and forget about the failures.

Escape is the new 20

The thing I find the hardest about writing a blog entry on a frequent basis is how do I start it? Do my intros all sound the same? Anyway the thing I wanted to talk about is escaping. One of the things that is a requirement to help deal with anxiety is finding an activity that takes your mind off of your current worries/stress. Many people turn to drinking as a coping mechanism but I don't drink so I am unable to leverage that method although I crave a Killians now and again.

What I have found as my escape right now is RC Car racing. It works for me on a few levels. First it reminds me of being a kid when days were mostly worry free and I could do whatever I wanted. It also gives me something to tinker with and to think about. How do I want to upgrade the car or change my setup so it handles better on the track. When I show up to the track I have no concept of time. When I am racing for those intense moments I am completely concentrating on the race at hand. There is no stress about what I need to do the next day for work. I don't think about will I freak out driving home. All I can do is concentrate on driving and hopefully winning.

So how does my RC hobby/addiction benefit someone else. Well I can tell you it is important to find something to do. The first thing you want to do especially if you are feeling anxious and get up and do something. Go clean the garage or finally organize the closet. Distract your brain from what it is a constant flood of worries and scary thoughts. By giving your brain a break it helps relax you and helps make dealing with the pressures of anxiety a little easier.

See its all about breaking the anxiety snowball. First you have stress about something then you let that stress manifest into scary thoughts. Then those scary thoughts lead to other scary thoughts which lead to physical ailments which then lead to even more anxiety thus creating the circle of fun. Once the circle of fun is kicking up full speed its then hard to get motivated to do anything much less something that can help reduce your stress.

Finding the right escape for yourself is not a silver bullet but it will make things better. In my line of work we take a layered approach to solving issues. We have multiple mechanisms working together so if one fails another can pick up and ensure the mission gets accomplished. You have to eat right, you have to exercise, and you need to find a way to give your brain a break. These things combined with getting some sleep will give you extra gas in the tank when dealing with anxiety,

Wow.. Thanks!

Before I started this blog I was very apprehensive about where this would go and what people would think. I have been taken aback by the amount of positive feedback that I have gotten about it. I have always been pretty up front with my struggles but posting your struggles to a public forum that never goes away is something that is a little different. 

I want to say thank you to everyone who is reading this blog. The fact that people can relate to what I am saying is enough to keep me chugging along and hopefully helping people. Now if you have never had anxiety one of the things I always wanted to do was talk to someone else who was going through or has gone through what I was feeling. There is such a social stigma on anxiety that you don't want people to know because you don't want them to think you are crazy. I know I have told people before and they have no idea what I am talking about and just didn't get it. They don't know how a person could be afraid to get out of bed or that they are scared they are going to die for what are stupid reasons usually.

I just wanted to talk to someone who was going through what I was going through. I wanted tips.. I wanted to know I wasn't crazy! I felt like I could always talk forever about what I was going through because it made me feel better when I did. Luckily my wife was there to support me through this. She can now sense the days where I am anxious and I can always count on her being there for me when I am freaking out. It's really important for people to talk to their significant others to educate them that getting pissed off or frustrated doesn't make it get better. (makes it worse) There is no magic switch to turn off your mind. 

The only thing I set out to accomplish is to spread some of the tips that helped me in hopes that it will help other people. I feel like I went about this the hard way and had I had some of the info I blabber about my road might have been easier. So hopefully this will help!

Until tomorrow...