On a mental level, apply any or all of the techniques learned in part two. I personally loved the statement, “Oh well, I’m going to let my body space out. I’ll float with it and go with the flow.” Don’t fight it since additional stress will only make it worse. Pure acceptance, as always, is key.
Nausea and other digestive problems
These can be very disturbing since few people can ignore nausea. Nausea can be caused by ingredients, food intolerances, food allergies, spoiled food, viruses, pregnancy, motion sickness, and a whole range of other causes.
Always figure out what you ate, drank, applied to your skin, and even smelled in the twenty-four hours prior to the nausea. A chemical smell you inhale today (exhaust fumes or the smell of a new printer, for instance) can give nausea tomorrow.
Chances are, however, that nausea will come and bother you in social settings, when it’s the last thing on earth you need.
At the risk of repeating everything like a parrot, you can best deal with it with by stating, “Oh well, I give myself to whatever happens now. It’s all OK. Dear stomach, you can do what you believe is the right thing to do.”
This is important for your stomach as well, because the more tense you are, the more your stomach will resist digesting whatever it should digest. Stress, anxiety, and bouts of panic are causes of nausea and not just the result.
If you ever meet a real tiger, your body will stop the digestion instantly so all of your energy can go to freaking out and running away. If, however, you freak out about the nausea itself, your body will stop your digestion for the same reasons, making it worse.
I loved the exaggeration technique here. I already mentioned it, but when I was in the movie theaters and I got nauseous, instead of running or at the very least ruining my movie experience, I thought, “Oh well, if I projectile vomit onto the screen and the ten rows of people in front of me, at least they’ll have something tasty to dip their nachos into. That’ll teach them for making all those crunchy noises. I’m ready, bring it on! Whatever happens, it’s OK.”
This was all I needed to calm down. If I had eaten something prior that was causing the nausea, the symptom itself persisted, but all of the negative emotions and anxiety that surrounded it subsided quickly. And more often than not it wasn’t even because of what I had eaten, and my body and entire digestive system would start to relax again.
You can of course pick any of the other techniques from part two as well. They have worked very well for my clients who suffered from nausea or fear of vomiting.
Full acceptance is key. At first I used to run for the bathroom or at least make sure I’d know where the restrooms were so I could immediately get to them when needed. That’s an avoidance strategy. It’s still feeding the fear. It’s still a contingency plan. And these just maintain the anxiety. It’s time to go for a new approach, the one I’ve been preaching all throughout this book.
Shortness of breath
Hyperventilation is very common with panic attacks and anxiety. Here it will be important to forgo of the common technique of breathing in a bag since that will mess up your blood oxygen/carbon dioxide levels even more.
There are two ways to respond:
1. Do nothing and let your body breathe any way it wants. This is often the most effective approach. Our breathing happens automatically, and your body will soon find the best way of breathing.
2. Use abdominal breathing. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, making sure that only your abdomen moves.
Furthermore, you can use any of the mental and other techniques described in part two of this book. My favorite is, “I allow you to breathe anyway you like, dear body. Whatever happens, I’m fine with it!”
Oppressive feelings
I’ve discussed this very issue elsewhere in the book as well, but oppressive feelings will come from a built-in alarm that you have in your body. It will probably be warning you that you need to get out of wherever you are in at that moment (a plane, a meeting room, even something as big as a football arena).
I’ll never forget the last time I had these feelings (after I had already overcome my panic attacks). I walked into a large stadium on a hot summer day, and it was packed with people. There was no roof on the stadium so both the sun and fresh air could get in. We had our own seats, but as soon as I sat down, I got that oppressive feeling and some vertigo and light-headedness.
I no longer panicked, but I couldn’t help but notice the sensation. My body was warning me and asking me to get out of there. Then it hit me. There were plenty of people around me breathing in the oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. The stadium was roofless, but it was a warm summer day when the air isn’t optimal anyway. My body has a very sensitive radar for this and told me right away. This alarm can save your life. I’m glad mine is sensitive.
You hear it often during the winter months in colder areas of the country: people die because of a carbon monoxide poisoning because they put on a stove or a fire place and have no adequate fresh air coming in. Their bodies didn’t tell them the room was running out of oxygen.
That’s what your body is trying to warn you for when you have feelings of oppression. It’s saying there are too many people, not enough air, not enough space, GET OUT! It may even be triggering on something else too, but the conclusion stays the same: get out!
Nevertheless, as always, we don’t have to listen. It’s just a warning, and we get to decide how we respond.
Back to my stadium example. In the past, I would have panicked for about twenty minutes and then I would have probably left the stadium. This time, however, I simply told my alarm system, “Thanks, got it, but I’m safe here. There’s no need to run.” Within ten minutes, the feeling was gone. Yet, the people and the quality of the air remained the same. I didn’t change anything. I simply dismissed the alarm.
Have you ever set foot in a bathtub with the water just a bit too hot, but you got in anyway? What happened? It probably burned for a while at first, your nerves were screaming, “CAUTION! This is hot. This is potentially dangerous. Don’t even think about getting in” and then your body adapted and stopped warning you, figuring you had gotten the message.
The same happens when you get the feeling of oppression. It’s just a warning, and then it’s up to us to decide how we handle it. When you dismiss it and don’t leave, the warning eventually goes away.
Pain in the chest
For this symptom, I would apply what I’ve described in the heart palpitations paragraph. Pain in the chest can come from a variety of causes and should be checked by your doctor, but here still, anxiety is not needed. It serves no purpose.
If the pain is caused by your stomach that dislikes what you ate, a beginning ulcer, or your liver that has a challenging task ahead, anxiety is not going to fix any of that.
Since we eat/drink things that our body dislikes, since we catch viruses and more, pains are possible. I always go for full acceptance and when a symptom persists, I have it checked and try to figure out what’s causing it.
Besides the symptoms, here are some of the more common locations and situations that give people anxiety.
Fear of driving
This is a very common fear for a variety of reasons. In my home country Belgium, people who have a fear of driving are scared of all of the lunatics driving around on the roads. If you ever drive on a Belgian highway close to Brussels, you’ll see that a lot of drivers go well over the speed limit and seem to love driving bumper to bumper.
In France, most of my clients with a fear of driving are afraid they can’t get off the highway when they want, because there are areas of hundreds of miles without an exit on well-fenced toll roads.
In the US, the many lanes on most highways give some people the creeps. And in every country, I encounter people with a fear of:
- bridges
- tunnels
- driving too far away from home
- stop lights
- traffic jams
>
- trucks and big rigs
- speed
- getting involved in an accident
- causing an accident
- losing control
- losing their mind while at the wheel
Interestingly, I mostly see people past the age of 40 who have previously driven around without problems, fighting with this type of fear.
Their mind comes up with dangerous scenarios out of nowhere. Collisions, causing a collision, fainting, no longer trusting the fact that they can control the car at all times and more.
Do these people have proof that all of the bad things their mind games come up with can indeed happen? Sure, it happens all the time in movies like Die Hard, The End of the World and Godzilla. In real life, these accidents aren’t so frequent.
And even if some of the scenarios they fear are realistic, these people are still causing the anxiety all on their own, considering they are not in that precarious situation they’re vividly imagining.
I’ve met people who were involved in actual, major car crashes, who spent time in the hospital for weeks and now still drive, without anxiety.
So here too, there’s more at play than the actual location or the activity of driving. It’s the anxiety we are adding by believing and following our thoughts and the many what-if scenarios they will serve. That’s the true cause.
Why would the mind do this?
It has to. Driving is unnatural. There you are, driving around at speeds you could never ever run at, getting sensations both visually and physically that your body doesn’t recognize as natural. Because of this, your radar is put on high alert. It is dangerous.
That’s why, when you learn to drive, driving feels scary. The fast movement that your body senses and the many visual stimuli (other cars for one) that you need to take into account are strange and impressive. For most people, however, the confidence they gain by not crashing and by seeing other people drive around too, conquers this fear. They gain trust, and the amygdala and other alarm systems relax.
For some, this trust never came, and they fail to ever feel at ease. For others, that confidence gradually declines as they age or quickly deteriorates after a traumatizing experience.
When it happens later in life, it’s just because the radar that handles all of the visual stimuli is having a much harder time to process everything because our brains slow down a bit with age. The danger radar consequently becomes much more sensitive.
You may have noticed that older people drive slower; they just need more time to process everything that happens at certain speeds.
This, of course, is not a reason to avoid driving. If you feel that your danger radar becomes more alert, thank it, and use any of the techniques discussed in part two to soothe yourself. There is no increased danger.
Life simply is dangerous. You are able to accept this perfectly well in most areas of your life, and it should be accepted while driving as well. Especially so because you are a good driver. Your alertness and danger radar make you a better driver!
Who are the ones causing the most accidents? Drunk people. People on their phones. That’s because their alertness and danger radar is at sub-zero levels at that time.
Please remember this insight and repeat it to yourself should you start to see driving as dangerous. It’s just your danger radar, and that’s exactly the one that’s keeping you safe. Compliment it, accept it, and let go.
For some people, the fear is different. They fear not being able to get out, losing their minds and causing an accident themselves, getting and staying stuck and so on. What I’m about to explain now works well on the previously mentioned driving fears and especially well here in what’s to come.
Let go.
“Whatever happens, it’s OK. I give up, I embrace, I accept, so be it!”
I won’t repeat everything I explained in part two, but remember that even though some of the possible outcomes would not be OK, accepting them and ridiculously thinking they are fine is always better than ridiculously thinking there’s a high probability the bad thing is going to happen. Always choose the path of no anxiety. You’re fine, you’re always fine, you always have been fine. And even when something bad happens, as the great Victor Frankl would say, you can choose to be fine.
The jolt of adrenaline and the weird sensations can be a bit harder to deal with while driving, because your body wants to run and move, and yet you’re sitting strapped in in your unmovable car seat.
What works well here is to start singing loudly or yelling YIHA to use up some of the adrenaline. It’s just excitement because you’re doing something that your body considers exciting.
And let’s face it, it is. Can you imagine how a cavewoman or caveman would have responded had we put them in the back seat of a car doing just thirty miles an hour? They would have been in shock and awe.
As you practice dealing with your fear of driving, you can take baby steps. You can go for practice runs at a quiet moment or jump into the deep end of the pool and drive in the middle of rush hour traffic. It’s up to you.
Also know that it’s totally fine if you have to stop and park the car to take a minute to calm down. Everything is OK, no matter how you choose to deal with it.
You can also install my app on your phone (you’ll find a link on geertbook.com) and listen to the first session of my audio course (for free) while driving. If you need more, you can opt for the full course that you can find on my website. I once stopped next to a car at a traffic light and heard that the woman next to me was listening to my audio course. She was quite surprised to see me next to her when I said, “I know that voice” with a huge grin on my face.
When you practice, be proud! If you made it ten yards or ten miles, it doesn’t matter.
And I mean that. If you suffer from a fear of driving, it’s important to make it less important, to make it matter less. Just do it, go with the flow, and accept what you will feel. The more you can do that, the sooner the fear will start to subside.
Fear of flying
This is one of my favorites. Getting into an airplane with over a hundred people and not being able to get out for hours. That and who knows what happens when someone forgot to securely attach the wings to the plane...
You wouldn’t believe the kinds of disaster scenarios my mind came up with while flying. I’m sorry, of course you would, you’re probably experiencing many of those very same mind games as well.
With a fear of flying many danger radars will sound the alarm. First, there’s a change in the oxygen levels on board as soon as the doors close. We’re no longer breathing in pure, natural air, and the body senses it. For some people, me included, this will sound an alarm. It’s the “get out of the coal mine” alarm that can launch a pounding heart, shortness of breath, nausea, possibly some vertigo, and a general feeling of malaise and discomfort.
This alone can be enough to act as a first trigger and launch the vicious panic cycle I discussed in the beginning. Don’t let it, and just explain to yourself what’s happening and why. It’s just your body trying to warn you that you may need to pay attention and that something dangerous may be going on. When it does, it’s always up to us to decide whether it is or not. And in this case, we all know flying is one of the safest ways to travel and that you’re not going to fall without oxygen.
Then, there’s the social aspect of the anxiety for some. All of my social fears arose here too, with the “what if I throw up, what if I lose my mind, what if I don’t have an aisle seat and I want to get up?” thought train. For these specific fears, you can use what I’ll explain in the next chapter about social fears.
The best way to deal with any of the fears you may have during flying is to sit back and relax... and really enjoy the flight like you are probably being told to.
It’s been more than a decade ago since I was practicing my own fear of flying, but here’s exactly what I told myself after I boarded a plane only to hear that I had been reassigned to a claustrophobic no
n-aisle seat that I had booked weeks in advance, just to be sure, of course:
“Look, Geert, I’m sitting down now, and I’m going to stay strapped in. I accept all of these weird sensations that I prefer not to feel. I’m going to accept all of the strange sounds the plane will make. I give myself to all of that. I’m going with the flow, I’m floating in the air, I’m letting it all flow over me, and I will not resist. Whatever happens, I’m game. It’s all OK.”
And as I was saying that, I emotionally let go of control. I gave my life to the pilots of the plane and was fine with everything. Yes, that sounds crazy, I know... and I hadn’t even begun drinking a margarita like the lady next to me. No, not me, I wasn’t going to drink my anxiety down, I wasn’t going to push it away, I was ready to run toward it and give it the best cuddle it had ever had.
Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks! Page 15
