Anxiety, Panic and Shortages

Anxiety and panic are on a spectrum mild to severe from simple fear or apprehension through to full panic attacks. This is what we have been seeing during Covid with our tendency to panic buy. It started with toilet rolls and pasta, moved onto holidays and now we have moved on to fuel for our cars. It is probable that we will have more to come as we face the expected food shortages at Christmas.

A lot of what we are panicking about is socially and based in both Brexit and Covid as we tend to act on rumours in the news and on social media like sheep. In this blog I will try to explain a bit about the brain and our emotions and the different forms of anxiety that are effecting us at the moment. At a scientific level our understanding of the neuropsychology and anxiety has come on leaps and bounds. 

When we are queuing on the garage forecourt we may well be experiencing a very real anxiety as fear that we will not be able to get to work, tend to a sick relative, get the kids to school and so on. What we need to understand is that all anxiety is not about what is happening right now it is about what we fear will happen next, in the future. I can be worrying now, in September, about not having food for Christmas dinner to feed the family as I had intended or was expected to do. Do I now start to panic buy to ensure that me and my family will be okay for the festive season? The key here is that actually it is not happening right now. Right now, in the present moment, we have food, our bellies are full and we have nothing to worry about.

Now it maybe that we will not have the food that expect or that we are used to this Christmas however, evolution has given us an amazing tool that we can use right now. It is called creativity. This means that we can creatively solve any problem that life throws at us if we are positive and creative and don’t become swamped in the fear of what may never actually happen. 

Panic and fear based anxiety is emotional

Fear is an instinctual response, often a reflex, in the amygdala in our brain that may lead to the physical, even violent or, fight, flee or freeze responses that are activated in the brain stem. This process tends to be highly emotional, often below our awareness. When people have an anxiety/panic attack it is a fear reaction. They will be temporarily out of control. Once they have calmed down and the cognitive brain is back on line they may be filled with remorse and even be shocked or horrified by their previous instinctual behaviour. 

The amygdala is a dual almond shaped organ, one in either hemisphere of the brain though usually termed in the singular. The difference between the two amygdalas, which has not yet been studied in the west, is in Ayurvedic neuropsychology recognised as a part of our intuitive function, that sense of knowing without knowing why we know. As such it’s function is both above and below our awareness. When it is functioning above our awareness we call in intuition. When it functions below our awareness we see it as the primal response of instinct. It is these instinctual responses that create the hoarding behaviours that we are seeing at the moment. This is panic, fear and panic buying.

Panic

A dictionary definition of panic is a sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.

Do we really need this fuel? Or, do we need this much fuel? Do we really need a Turkey for Christmas?

The Mayo clinic defines panic as…

“ …a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause. Panic attacks can be very frightening. When panic attacks occur, you might think you’re losing control, having a heart attack or even dying”.

Both anxiety and panic are normal emotional responses that as such have no logical connections. When cognition balances the emotion of panic the system is in balance. In balance we can plan in panic we simply react.

Worry Based Anxiety is cognitive and leads to as plan

Worry based anxiety is completely different to emotional based panic anxiety. The anxiety that is experienced in the cognitive brain is completely different to primal amygdala responses in that it is experienced as a reasoned response based in logic. 

The reasoning and the logic may, in reality, be faulty but it is experienced by the person as factual. People will say “it is a known fact that…” when it is nothing of the sort. Worry based anxiety also comes from the person not living in the present moment. They have projected themselves forward into ideas and experiences that may never happen but they are living them in the present as though they have. The tools of worry based anxiety are obsessing, which may lead to obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD, rumination, ‘dog with a bone syndrome’, where we cannot let it go and tend to go over and over the same issue again and again. 

Ayurveda

In Ayurveda worry based anxiety, in the cognitive cortex, is seen as part of the process of the imagination. People with a poor imagination do not get worry anxiety because they have difficulty imagining negative futures to become anxious about. Cognitive anxiety is dealt with by Tantric therapy, which is not all about sex it is about dealing with and controlling the imagination. Worry in the amygdala is dealt with in the Raja therapy which is mindfulness and meditation. 

Tantric therapy is based in using visualisation to create future images that are positive and do not have the worry attached to them. The habit of attaching worry anxiety to a particular thought or image is replaced with new positive images that are the new worry free habit. Raja based therapy as mindful relaxation and meditative practice reduces the levels of stress hormone in the body system reducing the instinctual feelings of fear. 

I am never keen on the ideas of control but ion this case I am. When we take control of anxiety we are not overwhelmed by it. We are in control of it and it is not in control of us. Sometime we will need some therapy to equip us with the skills to deal with our anxiety.

Therapy

If your anxiety if based in logical reasoning seek out a cognitive therapist they will be great for you. If your anxiety is fear based find therapist skilled in emotional work they maybe psychodynamic, cognitive analytical (CAT) or Mindfulness based stress reduction MBSR, therapies and courses and you will get what you need.

Most importantly none of us need to suffer anxiety, If you do then please do something about it.

Two resources

1: An eight week completely free MBSR course at palouse.com

2: A book: Rewire Your Anxious Brain By Catherine Pittman and Elizabeth Karle

Take care, don’t panic and be happy

Sean X

TSHP434: Don’t Panic! How to get by in a crisis

What’s Coming This Episode?

Slight blip in the UK this week as a little story about lorries almost brought our fragile transport network to its knees. It’s the latest is a series of serious stories we’ve had to deal with (‘No CO2!’, ‘Gas prices spiking!’, etc.) so you’d think we’d be used to it by now… but no. So how do we deal with a crisis? How do we prepare and how do we react?

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TSHP433: Happy Body, Happy Mind!

What’s Coming This Episode?

“Here we go again” – it is detox time.

At the change of the seasons it is my custom to detox. At both spring and autumn are the times for a clean out. Many people get into the idea of ‘spring cleaning’, well I like an autumn clean as well. I have been doing it since I lived the ashram when I was a young man. Often as a yoga/meditation teacher students would join for the clean out. These days each year I invite all those around me to have a go. So, if you are game for a laugh go to liveinthepresent.co.uk and download the thirteen day detox.

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Happy Body, Happy Mind!

“Here we go again” – it is detox time.  

At the change of the seasons it is my custom to detox. At both spring and autumn are the times for a clean out.  Many people get into the idea of ‘spring cleaning’, well I like an autumn clean as well.  I have been doing it since I lived the ashram when I was a young man. Often as a yoga/meditation teacher students would join for the clean out. These days each year I invite all those around me to have a go.  So, if you are game for a laugh go to liveinthepresent.co.uk and download the thirteen day detox.

The first question people tend to ask me is “why do you want to detox?” For many the idea of spending a couple of weeks on a restricted diet can be scary and even seem impossible. The first time it is a bit strange as we are learning but after that it is easy. And, you will feel so much better for it.

Using the thirteen day detox program you sequentially exclude food over a week leaving you with three magic days when you can really flush you system.  These three days will vary in intensity depending on your experience, needs and commitment.  It might just be three days on fruit.  It could be three days on fruit juice.  Or, you might go for a day on fruit juice, and day on honey, water and lemon, then another day on fruit juice as you work your way back up again onto you full diet. With a spring detox she it is warm I might stay of just the water for a few days. In the autumn it is harder as we need to keep warm and our diet helps us with that.

Across the world people use fasting for both physical and spiritual reasons. In Ramadan Muslims fast throughout the ideas of day light. For Hindu and Sheik communities it is common. In Buddhist and mindfulness communities it is seen as a strong discipline just like meditation. For Christians the fasting or limitations on the Lent period the same. However, in the modern age there is a lot of evidence that that fasting or calorie limiting is good for the body and is a part of our hunter gatherer heritage. Michael Mosley developed the five two diet which is similar.

Even so, for many people, in the west at least, the idea of going without food is scary, and potentially undoable.  Yet many people in the world will go without food for several days a week or be living on a severely limited diet.  A detox is much more than a physical thing.  It is also a time when we can clear our mind and make decisions about, life or lifestyle, that enable us to grow and develop as people.

I will be starting my Autumn detox on the week beginning in the week of September 27th.  Many people use the detox when they are seeking changing their relationship with food, alcohol, nicotine and other substances or behaviours.  A detox is the perfect opportunity to get your life back on track, to set new goals and to consider what it is that you really do want from life. It also gives us time to consider what it is that need to do to make it happen. I find it is like drawing a line on what has gone before and creating a new beginning.

You can download the detox from the liveinthepresent.co.uk website. If you have questions about it drop me an email.

I do say in the program that you need to be aware of your own health situation and I always suggest that if you are unsure then you should run the program by your doctor before you are it on to get the go ahead.

Take care and happy autumn cleaning 

Sean x   

TSHP432: The Amazing Benefits of Community Living

What’s Coming This Episode?

Last week Ed organised a family/community gathering based around his loved subject of cycling. People rallied around and helped and many people turned up to enjoy the day. There has been a real sense of community. Ed is becoming a community nut in his drive to make our roads safe and encourage people to take to their bikes. He has a strong sense of community.

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The Amazing Benefits of Community Living

Last week Ed organised a family/community gathering based around his loved subject of cycling. People rallied around and helped and many people turned up to enjoy the day. There has been a real sense of community. Ed is becoming a community nut in his drive to make our roads safe and encourage people to take to their bikes. He has a strong sense of community.

Ed shared a lovely picture of his Grandmother Beryl at 92 sitting on the back of his bike.

It made me think about the documentary series on Channel four that showed the interaction between a home for older people and a group of four year old children. It shows the huge benefits and gain made by both the old and the young through communication, caring and creating of community. Why do we put older people in homes rather than maintain the extended families that allowed for the interaction and support of all ages. 

Events like Ed’s give us the opportunity to meet together and get to know more people who are actually our community the people that we live around. I guess that in any community there will sometimes be conflict. However in a true and supportive community any stresses will be minimised and the more that we meet and talk the easier it is to resolve problems. 

We all have a choice to invest in and create our own communities. Community has no cost it does not require wealth it is all an attitude of mind.

So what is community other than a group of like minded people?

1: Safety

A community that is safe allows for trust between neighbours where you feel safe to be out at night alone. We can leave our child sleeping in their pram outside the front door in the sun and fresh air without fear. We need not worry if the house door or the car is left unlocked or the windows open. We know that those around us will look out for us.

2: Community

Community is big a family and a big family is a community. The warm social experience of groups and friends socialising and simple parties and gatherings are community. It might be a group of mums meeting for a coffee after dropping the kids at school. It might be the gathering of a group of line dancers, or even the camaraderie of the gym.

In years gone by communities gathered to celebrate christenings, engagements, weddings, birthdays, national holidays and every other excuse to gather and celebrate the fact that we are all one community. 

3: Exercise 

In a community, as Ed would confirm, a walk or a bike ride is good. But, if you are going to do it why not doing with friends, do it as a group. We know that exercise is good for us. Many people now seek to hit the ten thousand steps a day to keep fit and at a moderate weight. We also know that when you move your body your brain secretes endorphins that are the happy hormones. When we do things together as a community those endorphins are bending, they bind us together,

4: Environment

How many times do we see a town or village with the streets full of litter, or the phantom pile of fly tipped rubbish? Looking after our environment is looking after our community. Clean and tidy spaces leaves us with a calmness that allows us to live in a harmonious place. And, harmonious place equals harmonious mind, equals harmonious community.

5: Reduce the stress

When we live in complex communities they require us to make decisions all the time. Our larger societies are complex communities. Indeed, we could describe the entire human race as one large community and planet earth as our village. But, do we look after it and keep it clean? We have a choice and yet choice is both liberating and disabling. 

Choice can be overwhelming. If the choice is do you want brown bread or white bread the decision is simple. If we walk into the supermarket and are faced with fifty different loaves of bread the decision can become very stressful. Community, local shops are smaller and require less choice. Shopping malls and supermarkets often break up communities and also create stress.

6: Give your community value

This might be your local community, school community or work community. Do we see them as important and give them the value that they deserve? Often we will give more value to he people that we identify as within our community and give less value to strangers. In the Mitch Albom’s book ‘The Five People That You Meet in Heaven’ he describes strangers as ‘family that you have yet to get to know’. I really like that concept. In my life I have found so many people who have been and are my family. 

What value do you give your community?

This is one of those topics where I can climb aboard my hobby horse and stride off into the distance. The important things about all community, and the community of all the human race is simply this…

If we all took the time to look after each other we would all be okay

That is community.

The work that Ed is doing is  actively bringing community together. I wonder how many people thought they were just going for a cycle ride but actually met new friends?

Be happy and look after each other and nurture our community

Sean x

TSHP431: Food and mood – Is there happiness in what you eat?

What’s Coming This Episode?

As we move towards winter our diets tend to change and the level of carbs that we will be eating almost certainly will increase. We call this comfort eating.

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Food and mood – Is there happiness in what you eat?

As we move towards winter our diets tend to change and the level of carbs that we will be eating almost certainly will increase. We call this comfort eating.

Food and mood is a fascinating subject. In current times the drive for our diet to become plant based or vegan seems to be everywhere. Many people, that I know, consume animal flesh without making to connection between what is on their plate and what is running a round in a field. For there is the need, often verging on agitation, to not damage another living soul in any way. It leaves me wondering why we each decide to each what we do?

It has been known throughout time that food and mood go together. Foods have been used to enhance energy, intelligence, healing and for aphrodisiac properties. The thing that is never clear is, when food is associated with mood, are the moods the result of the food eaten, or if it is the mood that leads us to be attracted to certain foods in the first place!

When I was a child my parents told me that “fat people were always happy and jolly”, and I could see the truth of that, Mrs Pye, a very large lady who ,live across the road, was indeed always laughing. Then at other times I was also told that people who were always happy were stupid because, according to my parents, life was supposed to be hard, and life was supposed to be earnest. As a good Christian, of Irish decent, my mother taught me that “every one has their cross to bear”, that everyone had their difficulties to face and overcome. I grew up with believing that, in life, we were not supposed to have a good time and that it was supposed to be difficult, and that in some strange way, living with difficulty was the sign of the pure life. So, in many ways the more miserable that you were then the better person you must be. Mad or what?

This created confusion in me. In my mind it followed that if big people were happy they must also be stupid. It also followed that they had no reason to be unhappy because they were not carrying any crosses in life. On the contrary, it seemed to me that big people had every reason to be happy, while skinny people had every reason to be unhappy because of all their crosses that were weighing them down.

To top it all I was very skinny, therefore, in my mind, I was supposed to be unhappy, and I was. I accepted it as the natural order of my life. My dilemma was, if I ate too much I would be fat and stupid or else I would be thin and miserable. As I was thin I accepted that I would always be miserable, and I was.

Obviously with age and experience I now know that this was all nonsense, though at the time it seemed all very real. I say nonsense but well, it is, but not quite. We now know that food and mood do go together. When we eat carbohydrates our brain secretes serotonin, the happy hormone. Comfort foods are exactly that. Eating carbohydrates for comfort is really self medication.

In psychotherapy we now identify the ‘carbohydrate cycle’. This means that as a response to feeling depressed and down, many people will go and eat lots of carbohydrates to get the feeling of comfort. The result of this is that they put on weight. They then go to the mirror and feel bad at the weight they have put on leading them to eat more carbohydrates to make them self feel better.

The self medication with carbohydrates is only one way to increase serotonin. The most obvious route is through medication is antidepressants. However the best way to increase serotonin and feel better is through exercise or by simply having fun. If your heart beats faster for twenty minutes your brain will secrete more serotonin that will make you feel so much better. It makes me realise how much our life-style works against us feeling good. Our, hunter gatherer, ancestors would jog a few mile everyday collecting food and going about their business, and in the process maintain good levels of endorphins, happy hormones. We, on the other hand, live sedentary life styles that create very little of the hormones that we really need.

The question remains, are we the result of what we eat or are we attracted to certain foods because of who we are? There’s certainly a relationship between what we eat and how we feel. If you eat light easy to digest foods you will a light and have an easy mind, the food reflects your mood. If you eat reheated meat pie and chips you will have a mind that reflects heavy stodgy fat food.

It strikes me that in a normal situation we would naturally east what our body needed. However, many people exact with their mind not their body. They are eating what they think they should eat and not what their body is asking for. When I was young I lived in many communities that we solid vegetarian. Well, they were until a visitor would coma and start cooking bacon. Suddenly people began to appear in the kitchen attracted by the smell.

Some people are naturally in touch with their body and eat what is appropriate for them. Some are more in touch with their mind and eat what they thing they should eat. While others have to eat whatever they can get and do not have a choice. I tend toward the Mediterranean diet and I love olives, tomatoes and pasta which is a powerful carb and certainly does make me feel good. A glass of red wine with the pasta goes down a treat.

So what are you having for tea? Does it make you feel happy? If not perhaps you might need to change your diet, or go for a run. Is your diet based around what you think you should eat or what you really enjoy eating?

Take care and enjoy your food.

Sean x

TSHP430: Are you allowed to attend?

What’s Coming This Episode?

Okay, so as we are trying to return society to normal, take our masks off and get back to work how do you feel about it. Some are choosing not to wear face coverings, some are choosing not to be vaccinated! Life is all about decisions but also about consequences. What does it mean for the months ahead?

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Are you allowed to attend?

Okay, so as we are trying to return society to normal, take our masks off and get back to work how do you feel about it. Of the people that I work with there are those that will never be vaccinated come what may and don’t care about wearing masks or who they mix with right through to those that will be wearing a mask in any public setting for years to come. I decided to get vaccinated and as I have had the virus as well I assume that I am pretty well protected. However, I do still wear a mask and feel a bit avoidant of those that have chosen not to be vaccinated. Is it okay to treat the vaccinated and unvaccinated in the same way? 

Should us, the vaccinated, allow those that refuse to have the Covid vaccine to access the same events as us? Does this create a two tier society of exclusions? Or is it reasonable to expect people to comply? If you are not vaccinated do you feel safe and secure attending events with vaccinated or unvaccinated people? Or do you see the vaccine as unnecessary?

The current wisdom seems to be that those who are vaccinated can still get the virus but with much reduced symptoms. Those that are not vaccinated who do get the virus are at far greater risk of serious illness and even of death. Considering the currently known and the likely unknown future variants the risk gets ever greater.

Talking with people moving back to the workplace the vaccination issue is, in many cases, having an effect there. I hear some people insisting that they will not share an office, attend meetings or go for lunch or dinner with someone who has not been vaccinated. I have also spoken with people that will not allow anyone who has not been double jabbed to come to their house even if they are family. I did point out that a vaccinated person was at more risk of passing the virus on to the unvaccinated than the other way around.

It seems that in this one where we are dammed if we do and dammed if we don’t. I hear it repeated many times that those who refuse the vaccine are just being selfish in that they put others at risk. Should we be taking the vaccine to protect our self or to protect others?

Take a look at how many people on public transport or in shops are no longer wearing masks. There is still a strong recommendation that we wear a mask on public transport, in a shop or when we enter or leave a cafe/restaurant/pub to minimise the risk of passing the virus on to the unvaccinated people! 

So should we wear a mask? Just looking around it seems that a high proportion of people are choosing not to. It seems that many of these non mask wearers have also chosen not to be vaccinated. Yet it is these people that are at the highest risk from the virus not the vaccinated.

It is easy, after all this time of Covid restriction, to become Covid blind and just give up on all the protections and procedures. I am as fed up with it all as everyone else though for me it is important that we not minimise the current and future risks and effects of Covid. It will be with us for sometime yet and we do need to continue to protect ourselves and others. 

A part from recovering medically we need to recover socially. We need to get back to being the group animals that we truly are. The sad thing is that if we were to exclude all of the unvaccinated from social events we will only extend the social recovery time for the whole of community. We might all be in danger of losing contact with friends and family perhaps forever.

It is important to recognise that the many people who have an annual flu vaccine are still happy to mix with people who are not vaccinated. I do not see people considering and worrying about the consequences of this. We simply see it as a choice, flu jab or not? Perhaps we now need to see Covid in the same way. Covid jab or not? In the end who is at the most risk?

It has to be that those at most risk of Covid are the non vaccinated or those that are choosing not to take the second jab. Those that are vaccinated may become infected with the virus though they will probably only have mild symptoms. It is the unvaccinated who remain at the highest risk.

I suspect that this will an ongoing issue that may last for years. Will the vaccinated allow the unvaccinated to attend events? This might include all social and family events from weddings to funeral services. The effects on travel will remain for a long time to come. Should we have a covid passport to allow us to travel or attend concerts and sports events? We have some serious decisions to make to avoid a divided society.

For me I choose to be vaccinated to protect my family and the client group that I work with. I had the virus before I was vaccinated and apart from some long term lung issues I have survived it okay. However, I do know of many people who did not. For me the choice is yours and hopefully if you choose not to be vaccinated and do contract Covid your symptoms will be mild. 

Take care and be happy

Sean x