Saturday, July 21, 2007

What is Anxiety?

Lately my anxiety has been flaring up. I almost had an attack the other day and in all honesty I think I would have if I didn't escape the situation when I did. I'm not feeling all that great today either as I have two BBQs to go to tonight, one I am hosting. I stayed home from a boating outing I could have gone on simply because I don't feel bathing suit worthy and didn't feel like dealing with the insecurity and constant fidgeting I would undergo. So I am blogging and I plan to do some yoga since it has been way to long since I last did it and I hope it will help me to feel better about tonight. I also plan to reread some of my older posts that I wrote to help me prepare for similar occasions.

The last poll was very interesting. It seems like most of us are either pretty personal about our anxiety, telling only our close relatives and friends, or we are very outgoing about it and willing to tell anyone who wants to know anything. Only a few don't dare to tell anyone. I added a new poll that will simply allow me to know what you are most interested in reading about so I have a better idea of how I can help you.

I often look for interesting videos on YouTube relating to anxiety, and awhile back I came across a long 30 minute video of a man named Charles Linden who is trying to sell his services to "cure" anxiety. At the time I watched it, he said some things that really interested me, but I wasn't interested in posting such a long video that was really just an advertisement for someone. Now I have noticed that he has broken this video up into smaller chunks. I found a small portion of it that discusses the science behind anxiety. This is the part that interests me since I don't really know what goes on up there when an anxiety attack occurs. I am not endorsing his services by any means, but I thought this video portion was very educational for me and helped me to understand a little better what happens to the brain- particularly the amyglada- that causes overwhelming anxiety. Is he right? I don't know. He says that its a fact that scientists have long agreed with so I thought I would do more research and see. Although I didn't find any article from a source that was "credible" everything I did find seemed to agree with what Charles is saying.

So I am interested in your thoughts on it. Is he right? Is the "chemical imbalance" that we all hear about just our amyglada getting stuck on overload?

4 comments:

Molly said...

When my anxiety first started I pulled a lot of all nighters. I watched infomercials on the Lindon method and another that was a Center for Anxiety. I actually bought the Lindon Method and the flaw that I found (for me), is that they feel as if you can be cured. Which is fine, but it really sets you up for a fall if your anxiety comes back (and I have found, so far, it always does).

I hope your parties went OK last night. I had a stressful day yesterday and had the first real anxiety I have had in a while!

Take Care

Aimée said...

Hey Molly,

I agree with you on the "cured" part. There were parts of the movie that I don't know if I totally agree with but I did find his explanation of the amyglada interesting. My parties went well thanks for asking. I am going to do a quick update on it in a new post. What got you so anxious? I am sorry that you have been struggling.

ShamWOW! said...

Here's another way of looking at it:

The amyglada is indeed an organ that's malfunctioning. You can recondition the mind to react differently to it, but that's not going to "fix" the amyglada. It's a band-aid solution, but you know, sometimes band-aids are necessary.

I think that any reasonably intelligent person can come up with their own "Linden Method". And they must, because there's not a drug to fix the amyglada, either.

As of right now, there is no cure. At least not one that will work for everyone.

If you can mask the symptoms of anxiety, then who cares what the amyglada's doing? Feeling better is the bottom line. His program may or may not work. I have a program for myself that seems to be working reasonably well (it's constantly being refined). Maybe someday I'll publish it and make millions, too.

I always tell people when they start taking benzos or whatever that they need to seize the day once the pills start working. Once they get that little reprieve, they need to step back and reassess their life. What's lacking? What needs to go? Make changes.

I'm very suspicious of any program that purports itself to be a substitute for medication, and Linden has done that. I remember when I suffered intense panic attacks one after the other for days on end. You can't get your head clear enough to wrap it around any program. In bad cases of A/P, drugs are NECESSARY (at least for a while).

You have to be on your toes to fight this thing, and use every tool available to you. Perhaps I'm too suspicious of these infomercial things, I don't know. CBT seems like it would produce the same result. If my method fails (I've gotta deadline) I'm seeking out a psychologist who specializes in it.

Anonymous said...

I don't know who is right. Daniel Amen says our brains are wonky sometimes, and he also sounds right. But his scans show high or low activity in certain areas of the brain. Maybe someday we'll know.

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