part 1 getting a grip of it…
People can learn to control & change their behaviour, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions.
Bessel Van Der Kolk
So here you are and you’re feeling terrified, you can hardly breath, your heart is beating 100 miles an hour, your palms are sweaty, you want to run or throw up or maybe you are too frightened to even move & you’ve frozen on the spot, you literally can’t think, let alone do anything about what ever it was that started you feeling like this…
Congratulations you are alive and your body and mind are performing perfectly as they were made to do. That is if you were a cave person facing all manner of threats to your survival at every turn, in that case the fight, flight or freeze that you’re feeling is really helpful. But we aren’t are we, cave folk or fighting off a predator, that is? So as healthy as this response is, it’s not always so helpful.
Don’t get me wrong fear can be healthy if it cautions a person to stay safe around something that could be dangerous, like live electricity or something trying to make you into a meal. But sometimes a fear is unnecessary and causes more caution than the situation calls for which means that people tend to start to avoid the situations or things they fear, possibly not doing things they’d enjoy or that might make the world a better place. And this avoidance doesn't help us overcome fear. Actually it can do the opposite, if we are avoiding something scary, we can start to reinforce that fear and that keeps it alive and kicking. Inside your head a small part of your brain called the amygdala records experiences that set off strong emotions. So once a certain thing or situation sets off a strong fear reaction, the amygdala warns us by setting off a fear reaction every time we meet (or even think about) that thing or situation even if it isn’t necessary to keep us safe.
But before you panic further applaud yourself on having a healthy human response that is made to take to care of you. It is just as if the brain's alarm system has sent out a false signal, (it likes to work on the principal of better safe than sorry) producing strong fear that is out of proportion to what’s actually happening. Because the fear signal is so intense, we are often convinced the danger is greater than it actually is. So go on congratulate yourself on being alive and trying to keep yourself that way. I actually mean that, please gently pat yourself on the back and give yourself a hug, really, it will actually help. You could call it self-soothing. So ignore the fact it makes you feel a bit silly & just cross your arms & then run your hands up and down your arms. Scrunch your toes up and wriggle and release them too. These things help ground you, bring you back into the room, out of hour head. Now you are back you need to sort out your breathing, slow it down & try to breath out longer than you breath in. This calms down both your body & mind.
A few Calming Breathing techniques
You may have noticed taking in a deep breath may not always calm you down so rather than doing that trying to focus on breathing out. The science behind this is that inhaling in is actually linked to the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the fight-or-flight response while exhaling is linked to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is all to do with our body’s ability to relax and calm down.
I usually offer folk 3 ways of controlling their breathing and have given them simple names so I can remember them. For it to have any effect you need to do at least 10 breaths but sometimes when things get very out of hand I’ve had to do this for at least 20 minutes, so stick with it. Also I’d recommend doing this when you feel fine, like practice so it becomes second nature, you don’t want to be trying it out for the first time when you really need it.
Number breathing – use your fingers and pinch the end of the fingers as you count. Breath in for the first 3 and breath out for 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10. Then repeat.
Square breathing
Look round you for a square or draw on in the air. Breath in for one side and out for the remaining 4.
Tree breathing
Breath in as you draw a line up from the base of the trunk to the top, then breath out as you zigzag from side to side to draw the branches of a fir tree, starting smaller at the top gradually getting wider as you get to back to the base of the tree and the spot you started at.
All animals feel fear (though there’s some discussion to be had here about the dodo but lets save that…) Fear is a completely natural, strong but primal emotion, made up of both emotional and biochemical reactions. It basically lets us know danger or harm is nearby and we should do something about it. Sometimes it’s because of a real threat and sometimes it’s because we think there is a real threat. Fear can also be a symptom of some mental health conditions such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But wherever it comes from you don’t have to stay in it.
Bibliography & further reading
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