resources for panic and anxiety

[hypnofleet]

:) I have added pages to my website that give information about breathing techniques and Posture for helping with panic and anxiety.
To view, please go to...
PS This is not spam!

[Don]

Hypnotfleet, you are correct, your post was not spam. However, it was a link to a commercial site that has the goal of selling your services. These forums are non-commercial, so we're trying to keep all such commercial services and their links away from this site. Personally, I have two commercial sites and have never once place one of my URLs here.

Instead, I try to add useful information. We would love to have "information about breathing techniques and Posture for helping with panic and anxiety" posted here! It could be valuable to many people.

As a side note, I have just purchased, for myself, a device that helps people increase breathing capacity. There are several on the market ranging from under US $30 (the one I purchased) to over $100 and even almost $1,000.

Do you think using such devices would help with anxiety?

Wilhelm Reich's book Character Analysis, points out that we will physically repeat positions and actions of the state our mind is in. Thus, according to him, a person with anxiety would adopt the breathing pattern of anxiety (short breaths with longer hold after inhale but no holding after exhale). He contended that by changing the physiology, we can alter the state. Thus, by changing the way someone breaths to a more natural state, the mental state must change.

Do you feel this is true?

[Poodle]

If one is having a panic attack and it really hurts to breathe, how does breathing help the problem?? I'm not being obnoxious. I really want to know as a long time ago I had them. Thanks, Pood

[Don]

I don't think you're being obnoxious at all.

The idea, Poodle, is based on exactly what you're saying--that in some instances, during a panic attack, it hurts to breathe. That is, the difficulty in breathing is a symptom of the panic attack.

I think you will agree that there is a mind/body link. If you remove the mental cause of the panic attack, the breathing will return to normal. Change the mind and the symptoms cease.

In fact, this was Freud's pattern. Find the mental cause and reveal it in such a way that it can be accepted by the mind, and the symptoms will go away.

Reich turned this upside down. He believed that if you removed the symptoms, the mind is "forced" to reveal the cause of the symptoms and the problem goes away.

Although today, most people are familiar with Reich for his "Orgone Box," Reichian therapy is more likely to include breathwork, massage, and group therapy, all of which he did decades before such technique became part of therapeutic practice.

[Poodle]

I totally understand how to eliminate the buggers with hypnosis or NLP but I am interested in what posture and breathing have to do with it especially if it really hurts badly to breathe. To me, the natural thing was to breathe as little as possible to avoid the pain while being prone on the floor. The MD's at that time put me on tranqs which did nothing as it would be too late to take one when an attack hit and there was no pattern to them at all. Have never asked my SC why they happened and I guess I really don't care as it was a loooong time ago. Seems as if most of my clients have a trigger but I did not that was in my conscious awareness.

[Don]

Poodle, one of the differences between hypnotherapy and psychotherapy is that psychotherapists often try to encourage abreactions, whereas hypnotherapists try to avoid them and quickly end them. It's a different paradigm.

If someone was having a panic attack (a type of abreaction to stimuli), according to Reichian therapy you force the body back into its normal mode of operation. Thus, if the symptoms someone exhibits including curling up into a fetal ball and feeling pain with breathing, Reichian therapists might use massage to stretch you out and breathwork to normalize breathing.

According to Reichian theory, as I understand it, when the subconscious is denied it's usual symptomology in response to stimuli, it will reveal to the conscious the initial cause.

Although Reich's book, Character Analysis, is respected by many mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists (especially for introducing the concept of "character armor"), most mainstream psychologists/psychiatrists reject the rest of Reich's work. Freud said of him that either Reich was the future of psychoanalysis or a total fraud. Later, Freud was so appalled at some of Reich's concepts (relating to freedom), he wrote a book, Civilization and Its Discontents as a denunciation of Reich.

Personally, I admire a great many of Reich's concepts, but as a hypnotherapist I think there are better ways of treating such symptomology. And as he was constantly harassed by various government (including Communists, Nazis, Socialists, and the U.S. Government), I'm inclined to think he became highly paranoid (see his book, Listen, Little Man) which, possibly combined with a form of radiation poisoning (read about the "Oranur experiments") and that paranoia affected his later work.

[Poodle]

it obviously was a long time ago and I know for sure there is no doc in this cowtown that would ever recommend massage or breathework for anything except to send a patient to physical therapy. Hmmm, maybe I'll get adventurous and ask mine "Why" and see what mine comes up with. Tad has some interesting listings for them in Time Line Therapy -- fear of panic attacks, phobia, paranoia/schizophrenia = TLT for abuse/history.

I did read that some are using the NLP "Fast Phobia Cure" for PSTD. They must know a lot more about PSTD than I do as to me that would just be a band-aid. A phobia is a single fast learning, while PSTD could have multiple fast learnings.

[Merlin]

Hi Pood,
Depending on what is going on, posture or breathing changes can deny one access to the full kinesthetic response.
Just as the eyes typically go 'down' for a kinesthetic response and looking up can deny one of full kinesthetic access, so to, posture and breathing can effect the K response.

While it''s slow in NLP terms, rehersal with posture and breathing can lead to a 'pattern' change as the posture/breathing become a new part of the strategy.

[Simple Guy]

Don,

It's been decades since I've read "Listen, Little Man," but I remember
liking it and the cartoony illustrations that accompanied the paperback
edition that I had. I loaned the book to someone and never got it
back. It's one of the handful of books I loaned out and never got back.
It wasn't this book, though, that was the ISE for not loaning out
valuable hypnosis and other books, not that I've gotten paranoid
about doing so. ;)

[Simple Guy]

Hi Poodle,

As Reich, Eastern yogis, et al, noticed, there can be a profound change
in emotions by changing physiology (posture and breathing included).
Normalizing breathing tends to accompany a more normalized emotional
state.

[Don]

In the workshop I'm tentatively scheduled to give at the ABH convention in Las Vegas next January, I give a clear demonstration of this. I tell people to sit in their chairs, slump their shoulders forward, look down, frown, and say, "I feel wonderful!"

It almost always gets a laugh because it feels so incredibly uncomfortable as the body and mind are not synchronized or harmonious.

[Connie]

In the workshop I'm tentatively scheduled to give at the ABH convention in Las Vegas next January

"Las Vegas." Perk!! :D

[Simple Guy]

And viva Don. If his workshop is confirmed onto the schedule, it is sure to
be valuable. Among other things, it will include the skillful, intentional
use of the body/mind incongruity he mentioned to us.

[Poodle]

Thanks. You can make things sooo easy!

[Jack]

I totally understand how to eliminate the buggers with hypnosis or NLP but I am interested in what posture and breathing have to do with it especially if it really hurts badly to breathe. To me, the natural thing was to breathe as little as possible to avoid the pain while being prone on the floor.

Pood, there is a link through hyperventilation to the duration of an anxiety attack. Hyperventilation increases the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream and there is a connection to oxygen levels and adrenalin, the hormone that sustains the feeling of panic. Increasing blood carbon dioxide seems to prevent or control the release of adrenalin, which is why the old paper bag trick can be effective.

Anxiety attacks are not usually brought on by incorrect breathing, but hyperventilation can increase the duration of an attack.

It is a little odd that when you were suffering an attack you were trying not to breathe, since this would have increased CO2 levels, but I wonder if by not breathing you were sending a message to your brain , 'not enough air' and sustaining the anxiety in that way?

Jack

[Poodle]

As I remember them the pain was unreal when and if I tried to breathe. I would only breathe enough to keep myself alive until it passed. The docs thought it was cardiac arrest until the tests showed me to be "fine". That was not a fun year. Still have not asked "why". A little too busy with new puppy.

[Jack]

I remember a client who suffered anxiety attacks and had a similar experience. Her fear was that by breathing she would hasten the onset of death, so she 'froze' her lungs. What I found was that the breathing she did was short and shallow and very rapid, which resulted in CO2 deprivation and increased the vicious cycle.

Note: For those unaware of the feeling of an anxiety or panic attack, the sufferer believes that they are about to die. This is a real, horrible feeling of impending death and overrides logic and rationality. There is usually nothing physically wrong with the sufferer.

Jack

[Poodle]

got around to asking my UC why? She said it was the move to the mud pit of Wyoming for the church. I know I really disliked being there but had no conscious idea it was that bad! It had nothing to do with my church or congregation as they were wonderful. It was simply the physical location. That's about as strange as innocent little peas and triangular shaped objects. Could well have been the first drive thru "town" as it was hunting season and there were dead deer hanging from anything one could hang one from...worse than a slaughter house. Pood

[Jack]

That was almost like Tales from Lake Woebegone, Pood!

Many of the people who have suffered panic attacks expect that the reason for the attacks is someting momentous or related to some form of abuse and usually(IMO) it is not, but related to an incorrect perception of an event that of itself was banal or inconsequential or an 'incorrect' (at the time) perception of an object and its capacity to do harm. A bit like the clients who expect to be Mary Queen of Scots in a past life, but turn out to be Jane Smith, potato picker.

And, I don't know if you find the same, but sometimes the first answer you get from the subconscious is not always the valuable one. Sometimes the hide and seek can go on for quite a time. It can get very interesting.

Jack

[Poodle]

I ask strictly yes, no, maybe and not sure questions using a pendulum. It has always proved to be reliable in the past. I know Erickson hated them but Rossi likes them so they are back in again. I don't even look at the paper and "think" neutral thoughts. There are times when there is NO answer and it just goes in tiny circles in the middle.

Over here the ladies want to be Cleopatra! LOL!! Just being in the Highlands would do well for me. ;)

[Jack]

The pendulum can be very good for some things but I find that it can also be deceptive. Sometimes, one's subconscious gives a response to fulfill a need rather than be totally truthful. Crafty, but possibly in your best interests.

The mosquitos in Scotland are the size of B57s at this time of year so would wait until Spring!

Jack

[Don]

The mosquitos in Scotland are the size of B57s at this time of year so would wait until Spring!
Jack

When I lived in Minnesota, we would have called those the babies.

You could kill them with a shotgun, but it generally would take both barrels.

So why do people live their? Consider that the state bird is appropriately named the loon and the food dish unique to the state is lutefisk.:D

[Terry]

When I lived in Minnesota, we would have called those the babies.

You could kill them with a shotgun, but it generally would take both barrels.

So why do people live their? Consider that the state bird is appropriately named the loon and the food dish unique to the state is lutefisk.:D What a waste Don, just enlist a couple of battalions of those babies, and let them loose on the Taliban fighters coming over the border from Pakistan, and in a day or two, no more infiltration:D

[skip]

In Tennessee the misquitos have been spotted carrying volkswagens off the interstate so they can open them in the woods.

[Poodle]

are you sure they are not looking for Prince Charles? I believe in one of the books on Diana he was referred to as a VW with it's doors open.

[Jack]

are you sure they are not looking for Prince Charles? I believe in one of the books on Diana he was referred to as a VW with it's doors open.

We have tried to train mosquitos to carry off royalty but they don't like the taste.

As for the mozzies of Minnesota or Tenessee, with respect the mozzies of Scotland are impervious to such puny weapons as shotguns and demand stinger air to air missiles. Unfortunately they have begun catching them and their stockpile is such that they have seats in the Scottish parliament.

And I didn't even mention the kilts and broadswords.

Jack

[Merlin]

Just strap a bus onto their backs like space shuttles on 747s.
Then charge airfare ;)