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Anxiety and what to do about it.


Guest Orwell1984

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Guest Orwell1984

All anxiety symptoms can be explained by the hormone adrenalin in the system, breathing incorrectly and by the body preparing for the fight and flight response. Under these influences, the body becomes primed for action. Our heart will speed up to pump blood to the areas we most need it. Breathing gets faster to supply more oxygen to the muscles that are needed. The muscles tense in preparation for fighting or fleeing from the imagined threat. Digestion slows down so blood may be directed to the muscles and brain.

Although symptoms are highly unpleasant they will not harm us.

OCD sufferers make the error of focusing on these symptoms and attributing them to catastrophe, when in fact the symptoms are benign. To counteract this, 'Response prevention' should be employed. This involves resisting the urge to undo or alleviate the sensations (carrying out compulsions) and waiting for the rising anxiety to subside. Gradual reduction and elimination of compulsions is the goal. Holding out from completing the compulsion for as long as possible and assuming a 'so what' attitude are good ways to start achieving a reduction in obsessive thoughts and physical symptoms. Paradoxically, when the compulsions are lessened, obsessions and sensations will rise for a short while BUT THEN reduce in intensity and frequency over time. When response prevention is practised regularly and consistently, the obsessive thoughts and sensations are then less likely to reoccur! The body learns over time to not be continuously primed for fight or flight and so the fight/flight response is not activated as regularly. The person feels less anxious and displays less of the symptoms.

Anxiety symptoms can manifest in many forms (in list below) but TO ACHIEVE THEIR ALLEVIATION, try to shift your focus off yourself and onto a distracting activity. These links will help:

Taurean's ACE therapy thread:

http://www.ocdforums.org/index.php?showtopic=69126#entry579857

Distraction list:

http://www.ocdforums.org/index.php?showtopic=69337#entry580909

Let's look for the positives today thread

http://www.ocdforums.org/index.php?showtopic=63206&page=68#

Or visit the games arcade on the forum.

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Long list of physical symptoms of anxiety. Disregard the symptoms when they occur, let them be there, and get on with your day.

-Aerophagia (swallowing too much air, stomach distention, belching)

-Allergy problems, increase in allergies (number, sensitivity, reactions, lengthier reactions)

-Altered state of reality, consciousness

-Always feeling angry and lack of patience

-Anaemia

-Back pain, stiffness, tension, pressure, soreness, spasms, immobility in the back or back muscles

-Blanching (looking pale, loss of color in the face or skin)

-Blushing, turning red, flushed face, flushed skin, blushing, red face or skin

-Bloating/Gas

-Body aches, parts of or your entire body feels sore and achy, feels like your body and muscles are bruised

-Body jolts

-Body zaps

-Body shakes

-Body temperature increase or decrease, change in body temperature

-Body tremors

-Brain fog

-Brain zaps

-Burning mouth, feeling like the inside of your mouth is burning, or tingling, or like pins and needles, or all of these together or at different times

-Burning skin, itchy, crawly, prickly or other skin sensations, skin sensitivity, numbness on the skin

-Burping, belching, frequent or excessive burping and belching, gas

-Buzzing sensation in the feet, toes, hands, fingers, arms, legs

-Chest Pains

-Chest Tightness

-Choking Sensations / Difficulty Swallowing

-Chronic Fatigue, exhaustion, super tired, worn out

-Clumsiness, feeling clumsy, co-ordination problems with the limbs or body

-Cold chills, feeling cold all the time

-Cold hands and feet

-Constant lump in the throat feeling

-Constipation

-Craving sugar, sweets, chocolate, usual craving for sugar and sweets

-Deja Vu, a feeling like you've done or experienced something before

-Depersonalization (Feeling as though you're outside your own body).

-Derealisation

-Desensitization

-Diarrhoea

-Difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss

-Difficulty falling or staying asleep

-Difficulty speaking, moving mouth, talking, co-ordination problems with the mouth or tongue

-Difficulty swallowing

-Difficulty thinking, speaking, forming thoughts, following conversations

-Disorientation

-Distorted, foggy, or blurred vision

-Dizziness / Lightheadedness

-Dramatic mood swings (emotional flipping)

-Dry mouth

-Dry, watery or itchy eyes

-Electric shock feeling

-Emotionally blunted, flat, or numb

-Emotions feel wrong

-Everything is scary, frightening

-Excessive Sweating / Perspiration

-Eye Pain/Strain/Vision Issues

-Eyes sensitive to light

-Eye tricks, seeing things our of the corner of your eye that isn't there, stars, flashes

-Falling sensation, feel like your are falling or dropping even though you aren't

-Feel it hard to breathe, feeling smothered, shortness of breath

-Feel like crying for no apparent reason

-Feel like you have to force yourself to breathe

-Fear of impending doom

-Feeling faint

-Feeling like you are going crazy

-Feeling like you are about to lose control

-Feeling like you are about to go crazy

-Feeling overwhelmed

-Feeling like there is a tight band around your head, pressure, tightness

-Feel like there is something stuck in your ear, that your ear canal it plugged or blocked, that there is a pebble in your ear that you can't get out

-Feeling like your tongue is swollen

-Feel wrong, different, foreign, odd, or strange

-Feeling like you can't swallow properly or that something will get caught in your throat

-Finger Cramps

-Flashing lights when eyes are closed

-Flu-like symptoms, feel sick or ill, feel like you are coming down with the flu

-Flushed face, red face, flushed skin

-Frequent bad, bizarre, or crazy dreams

-Frequent feeling of being overwhelmed, or that there is just too much to handle or do

-Frequent urination

-Frequent yawning to try and catch your breath

-Gagging

-Giddiness

-Have no feelings about things you used to

-Hair loss, hair is thinning, or clumps of hair are falling out, balding

-Having difficulty concentrating

-Hot and Cold Flashes

-Headache

-Hearing sounds in your head that jolt you awake

-Heart palpitations

-Heightened fear and apprehension

-Hypersensitivity; super sensitive nerves, hearing, touch, tastes

-Hyperventilation

-IBS

-Inability to rest

-Increased or decreased sex drive

-Increased stimulation

-Infection - increased infections, persistent infection

-Insomnia, or waking up ill in the middle of the night

-Intense feeling of doom and gloom

-Jaw clenching

-Jolting awake

-Lack of appetite, Loss of appetite

-Lightheadedness

-Low rumbling sounds

-Migraine

-Motion sickness feeling

-Mouth or throat clicking or grating sound/noise when you move your mouth or jaw, such as when talking

-Muscle weakness

-Muscles that vibrate, jitter, tremor, or shake when used

-Nausea / Vomiting

-Neck tension

-Need to Urinate

-Nervous cough

-Nervous stomach

-Nightmares, bad dreams

-Night sweats, waking up in a sweat, profusely sweating at night, anxiety night sweats

-No energy, feeling lethargic, tired, exhausted, chronic fatigue

-Not feeling like yourself, detached from loved ones, emotionally numb

-Numbness and tingling

-Obsession about sensations or getting better

-Oesophageal spasms

-Pins and needles

-Pounding heart, heart feels like it is beating too hard

-Pulsing in the ear

-Pulsing or throbbing muscles. Pulsing or throbbing sensation

-Racing heart

-Red skin, skin looks like or is turning red

-Reduced hearing, frequent or intermittent reduced hearing or deafness in one or both ears

-Repetitive thinking or incessant mind chatter

-Rib or rib cage tightness, pressure, or feeling like a tight band around the rib cage

-Ringing in the ears, pulsing, throbbing sounds in the ears

-Sexual Dysfunction, sexual uninterest

-Shooting pains, stabbing pains, and odd pressures in the neck, head, scalp or face

-Shortness of Breath

-Skipped heart beats

-Spots in the vision

-Sudden and strong urge to escape

-Super sensitive senses and nerves

-Throat or mouth clicking or grating sound/noise when you move your mouth or jaw, such as when talking

-Tingling, tingly, pins and needles sensations - anywhere on the body, including the hands, feet, legs, arms, head, mouth, chest, groin area

-Tinny taste in the mouth, metallic, or ammonia, or unusual smell or taste

-Short-term learning impairment, have a hard time learning new information

-Skin problems, infections, rashes

-Sleep problems

-Sore jaw that feels like a tooth ache

-Startle easily

-Sore or tight scalp or back of the neck

-Spaced out feelings, feeling spaced out

-Stomach upset, nervous stomach

-Stuck thoughts; thoughts, mental images, concepts, songs, or melodies that stick in your mind and replay over and over again.

-Sudden shooting pains in the chest; sharp stabbing pains in the chest

-Sweating, profuse, excessive, uncontrollable sweating

-Teeth grinding

-The floor feels like it is moving either down or up for no reason

-Throat tightness

-Tickle in the chest that makes you cough

-Tightness, pressure, fullness, pain in the chest

-Trapped in your mind feeling

-Trembling

-Twitching

-Unsteadiness

-Vertigo

-Waking up in a panic attack

-Weak legs, arms, or muscles

-Weight loss, weight gain

-When you close your eyes you feel like are beginning to, or will, float upwards

-worry all the time

-Yawning

-You feel worse in the mornings

-Your depth perception feels wrong

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I wanted to say that chronic stress can hurt us. As you listed some of the symptoms. Chronic stress can lead to high blood pressure, heart problems, sleep issues, etc. However, it is important to know that it's a physiological process. OCD causes great stress. Once you realize the acute stress isn't going kill you, you can face exposures.

Distraction is rough, because you really aren't facing your problems. However, it does work "in the moment." There are many ways to combat OCD, find what works for you and know you are not alone!

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Guest Orwell1984

Yes but exposures should always be planned. This is to help with when the sensations happen outside of the exposure time. People cannot be doing exposures 24/7. There is life to attend to! :)

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You forgot tooth ache and ulcers. I have had nearly all of this at some point, this is a great list for someone like me, I can look at it and go, anxiety symptom, ignore, that gives me knowledge and something to fight with, thank you. I also don't remeber seeing itchy teeth and blurry and tunnel vision

Anxiety is truly awful and people take it lightly, they have no idea

Oh and bruised chest, that is caused by constantly trying to breath and that satisfying deep breath you can't get

Edited by Phili
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Oh and bruised chest, that is caused by constantly trying to breath and that satisfying deep breath you can't get

No Phili......you can't "bruise" your chest by taking a deep breath! You can have muscle tension, tight muscles.

I agree with the list in general but not entirely and tend to agree more with jballan.

Most of the symptoms listed are true and non-dangerous but I don't necessarily agree that anxiety can't harm us, which is the professionals stance.

My response to anxiety is an extremely high rise in blood pressure. It is still an anxiety response but (given age) is still significantly threatening/dangerous. Most anxiety symptoms are unpleasant and can be ignored but not all.

What is important is how you deal with them......and using compulsions isn't an answer long-term, that compounds the problem

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Guest iracam

Awesome post about addressing the symptoms of ocd.

Allowing the anxious feelings to be felt was a big part of my recovery.

However, the root cause of OCD must also be addressed. Otherwise the root cause will manifest in other ways.

Seek the truth, and it will set you free. Negative feelings like OCD are an indicator that something is not right. There are lessons to be learnt.

Your body is trying to tell you something. Chose to ignore it, and your body will let you know about it.

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However, the root cause of OCD must also be addressed.

There is no evidence that there is a root cause for people's OCD, other than a biological malfunction and/or genetics. The jury is still out on what causes OCD. Some people claim to be able to pinpoint the onset of their OCD symptoms to a particular event in their life but there is no evidence that I am aware of that the OCD wouldn't have manifested anyway without the event.

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Guest iracam

There is no evidence that there is a root cause for people's OCD, other than a biological malfunction and/or genetics. The jury is still out on what causes OCD. Some people claim to be able to pinpoint the onset of their OCD symptoms to a particular event in their life but there is no evidence that I am aware of that the OCD wouldn't have manifested anyway without the event.

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Guest iracam

You are what you believe.

And if you blame genetics. Then you've reached a dead end.

You will be stuck on meds for the rest of your life, forever reminded of your OCD.

How can you thrive in this state.

We are here to thrive not merely survive.

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Guest eden1616

ok i understand the intention of this but a lot of it could be used for reassurance seeking. I also think there are some anxiety symptoms that can harm you.

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You are what you believe.

And if you blame genetics. Then you've reached a dead end.

You will be stuck on meds for the rest of your life, forever reminded of your OCD.

How can you thrive in this state.

We are here to thrive not merely survive.

You haven't reached a dead end if you blame genetics. The disorder can still be treated, and many people come off of medication after a while. It's hard to thrive in a state of perpetual anxiety, I agree, but "genetic illness" is not a synonym for "untreatable illness."

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You haven't reached a dead end if you blame genetics. The disorder can still be treated, and many people come off of medication after a while. It's hard to thrive in a state of perpetual anxiety, I agree, but "genetic illness" is not a synonym for "untreatable illness."

Agreed.

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Guest Orwell1984

Agreed too. The brain is plastic and can be modified by behaviour and focusing of attention. The brain will disintegrate neurological pathways that are not used and wil strengthen the pathways that are used. So you can build your brain (lol) by practising the habits that get you to where you want to be. I hope people don't use the list as reassurance, but to know that anxiety can manifest in a whole plethora of mental and physical sensations and the idea was to lump all these together and promote FORCIBLY DISENGAGING from the sensations while allowing them to rumble on in the background as much as possible and attending to helpful behaviours instead while this is happening, as if the sensations didn't exist at all.

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Guest iracam

You haven't reached a dead end if you blame genetics. The disorder can still be treated, and many people come off of medication after a while. It's hard to thrive in a state of perpetual anxiety, I agree, but "genetic illness" is not a synonym for "untreatable illness."

I think I agree. Not sure unless you elaborate on your definition of treatment.

My main point is to avoid the "victim" mentality at all costs. We must feel empowered to thrive.

Edited by iracam
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I am of the mind that it doesn't much matter what causes OCD. Maybe one day we'll find out it's something as simple as having a strep infection when we're young. It doesn't matter. The fact is a whole lot of people have OCD and it can be treated with medications and/or therapy. As Orwell said, our brains are plastic. We can learn new ways of thinking and new behaviors. People can get better. People can improve their lives. That's what matters.

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Guest iracam

I am of the mind that it doesn't much matter what causes OCD. Maybe one day we'll find out it's something as simple as having a strep infection when we're young. It doesn't matter. The fact is a whole lot of people have OCD and it can be treated with medications and/or therapy. As Orwell said, our brains are plastic. We can learn new ways of thinking and new behaviors. People can get better. People can improve their lives. That's what matters.

Not only learn new ways of thinking and new behaviors but unlearn any beliefs that aren't serving you.

Put it simply - beliefs that don't serve you are those that make you feel bad.

Drop those beliefs and you start to feel good.

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Not only learn new ways of thinking and new behaviors but unlearn any beliefs that aren't serving you.

Put it simply - beliefs that don't serve you are those that make you feel bad.

Drop those beliefs and you start to feel good.

You seem to have this belief that OCD comes from some kind of negative belief the sufferer holds or from rotten childhoods or who knows what. I have seen no evidence that this is the case. Sure some sufferers are going to have comorbid conditions and they should be addressed along with the OCD (a holistic approach), but not everyone is going to have these negative beliefs to deal with. In addition, even if a person did have such negative beliefs, the OCD would have to be treated anyway. There is no evidence that negative beliefs (or whatever you want to call them) are the root cause of OCD so dealing with them is not going to miraculously make the OCD go away.

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I think I agree. Not sure unless you elaborate on your definition of treatment.

My main point is to avoid the "victim" mentality at all costs. We must feel empowered to thrive.

By "treatment," I mean making it so that the disorder has as little impact on one's life as possible.

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Guest iracam

You seem to have this belief that OCD comes from some kind of negative belief the sufferer holds or from rotten childhoods or who knows what. I have seen no evidence that this is the case. Sure some sufferers are going to have comorbid conditions and they should be addressed along with the OCD (a holistic approach), but not everyone is going to have these negative beliefs to deal with. In addition, even if a person did have such negative beliefs, the OCD would have to be treated anyway. There is no evidence that negative beliefs (or whatever you want to call them) are the root cause of OCD so dealing with them is not going to miraculously make the OCD go away.

I enjoy this discussion, so please let me know if any of it is offensive, as that is not my intention.

I suffered severe OCD for 13 years. Through therapy, hypnosis, acupuncture, etc, I feel my OCD is now down to about 5% compared to about 110% at its worst.

I decided early on never to use medication, as I was determined to get to the root cause.

Turns out my rigid childhood belief system was not set up for real world stress. Changing and owning my belief system in adulthood has been pivotal to my recovery.

It's only natural to want to share my approach that has allowed me to not just overcome OCD, but to live an amazing life.

You have this belief that OCD cannot be cured, but can only be managed.

I never subscribed to this assumption and have reaped the rewards.

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It's an interesting discussion and I agree with elements from each side of the argument. For me, OCD has come as a result of a 'perfect storm' of various factors.

1) a natural and inborn hypersensitivity to emotions, in particular an intolerance to feelings of guilt and shame.

2) a very happy childhood, where nothing ever went wrong and therefore no opportunities to develop coping skills for emotional setbacks.

3) a deliberate effort on my part to ensure that I never experienced feelings that I didn't like - by avoidance, by self-reassurance, by over analysis of every 'what if' situation going in order to be prepared for any potential incoming bad feelings so they don't feel quite so bad.

4) a natural inborn obsessive personality - a constant string of obsessive interests be they good or bad, a difficulty NOT thinking about whatever the obsessive interest of the time is - I call it a sticky brain. Good moods create nice obsessions, low moods create scary obsessions.

All these things worked together to create my OCD - and all of them have had to be recognised to make things better. I have never wanted to do meds so some of the basic biochemical things I have to live with and manage the best I can - living clean, trying to sleep well, not be stressed, exercise regularly etc.

So I feel that there will always remain an element of having to manage my OCD, but that a lot of the dysfunctional thinking can be addressed.

Edited by Franklin12
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