Panic Shutdown

Do you suffer with constant worry and anxiety? Do you experience some or all of the symptoms below?

feeling restless or worried

having trouble concentrating or sleeping

dizziness

sense of dread or impending doom

tiredness

a noticeably strong, fast or irregular heartbeat (palpitations)

muscle aches and tension

trembling or shaking

dry mouth

excessive sweating

shortness of breath

stomach ache

feeling sick

headache

pins and needles

difficulty falling or staying asleep (insomnia)

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a condition that takes a long period of time to develop and is caused by months or even years of living with anxiety. GAD is term used for anxiety disorders where either the root cause of the anxiety is unknown or is made up of many different things. GAD causes you to feel anxious about a range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event.

People with GAD feel anxious most days and find relaxing very difficult. Anxious feedback loops are also prevalent whereby the sufferer moves continually from one anxious thought to another.

The good news is that if you think you are suffering from GAD or know someone that is, the condition is completely reversible. By following The Panic Shutdown Method people suffering from GAD can make a full recovery very quickly.

You can get The Panic Shutdown Method now at https://panicshutdown.co.uk/join-us/

If your answer is yes, then this is must read article for you. We will tell you everything about such thoughts and their cure. We have taken help of Panic Shutdown to try explain this disorder to you. So let’s get started.

The big ‘What if’

One of the biggest problems with any anxiety condition are the ‘what if’ thoughts. These type of thoughts are what cause and perpetuate most anxiety conditions. If you are suffering with an anxiety condition you are already experiencing these ‘what if’ thoughts, even if you aren’t consciously aware of them yet. Let me explain in more detail. Look at the examples below:

If you suffer with Health Anxiety you might think ‘what if’ I die from a heart attack or ‘what if’ I get a serious illness like cancer or HIV. These thoughts then cause you to obsess over your health which causes anxiety.

If you have Agoraphobia you might think ‘what if’ I have a panic attack in the street and no-one is around to help me. These ‘what if’ thoughts then cause you to stop going outside because you fear the ‘what if’ situation coming true.

Another example could be someone that suffers with Emetophobia (fear of being sick) and the ‘what if’ thought is what if I am sick. This type of ‘what if’ thought may cause you to actually start feeling sick because you are now worrying about being sick.

People who experience Anticipatory Anxiety will have many ‘what if’ thoughts about upcoming or future events. These ‘what if’ thoughts then cause worry and anxiety about the events before they have even happened.

Do you see what is happening here?

It is these ‘what if’ thoughts that cause our subconscious brain to be constantly checking for and assessing any threats. For some people these threats come from internal sources, like in the example of a person with health anxiety, and for others they come from external sources. But the end result is the same.

This type of thinking results in the emotion of fear

Regardless of what you have been told before if you are suffering from any anxiety condition what you are actually suffering from is a disorder of the emotion of fear. Simply put you are experiencing fearful reactions to situations, scenarios and thoughts that wouldn’t normally cause you to be scared.

What if thought = Assessment = Fear

When you have a ‘what if’ thought your brain immediately assesses the likelihood of this threat. Your brain has evolved over 1000’s of years and is an expert at scanning for and assessing potential threats. If you have a ‘what if’ thought about a situation that has the potential for danger, your brain then automatically responds with fear to deal with this threat. As a result certain parts of your autonomic nervous system are activated. All of this usually happens without us being consciously aware of it until we start to experience the physical sensations of fear that are so familiar to anxiety sufferers. The body starts to prepare to deal with this threat by producing adrenaline and the early stages of a panic attack are presented.

Why me?

It is important to understand that everyone has these thoughts, you are not broken in some way. The difference with anxiety sufferers is the amount of these thoughts and the importance we attach to them. All anxiety sufferers have what is considered to be higher than average creative intellect. What this means is that the part of your brain that is responsible for creativity is more active than most, somewhere in the order of the top 15–20 percentile. You may already know this because of the type of job you do but it is just as likely that you are not currently using these skills in a professional way. You may play an instrument, you may paint or you may just have a very good imagination.

All of these qualities are signs of a creative intellect. What this means for anxiety is that because your brain has the ability to think creatively at a much higher level than most, it needs to be kept occupied or fed with tasks. Anxiety exists because of the lack of creative food your brain is currently receiving. If the creative brain doesn’t have enough tasks to focus on then it finds things for itself to focus on which can lead to focusing internally rather than externally. This is how the ‘what if’ thoughts begin and anxiety is born.

OK let’s fix this!

OK so now we know how we got here how can we fix this?

What we need to start doing is creating a daily activity schedule. This is a list of activities that you are to do throughout the day. Obviously you can start with things that you are already doing like have breakfast, take the kids to school, go to work etc. But any gaps you have in the schedule you need to fill with new activities. The key is having enough diversions in your diary so that even when you are working your subconscious mind is working away on the subconscious thoughts about your diversions. For example if your diversion was writing a book then you would be thinking of the plot, characters and various possible developments in the back of your mind while doing rather mundane activities.

Have you noticed that when you are busy or distracted you aren’t thinking about anxiety or being anxious? This is because your brain has something else to focus on. If you stop being busy and start focusing on anxiety guess what, you will start to feel anxious.

Keeping the daily diary isn’t something you have to do forever either. We just need to do this initially until our anxiety has reduced and our brain has learned new non-anxious behaviour.

Use the daily activity worksheet below and create your new daily routine today. You can change it as often as you like and even have different ones for varying weeks. The important bit is to highlight any large gaps in the day fill them up with new activities that you enjoy doing. This can be literally anything, but the more creative the better. Learning a new skill or learning to play an instrument for example. You could enrol in an online course or start that DIY project you have been talking about for ages. What you decide to fill your time with is down to you but the sooner you do this the sooner you will notice your anxiety reducing.

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