Typically, exercise is supposed to be one of the best remedies for anxiety and depression. For example, aerobic exercise has been shown to elevate mood, improve sleep and decrease tension. This is ideal for the anxious person. But what happens when exercise increases anxiety? I once had a client who told me that at the end of his workouts his face would turn white, he'd feel dizzy, and his heart would pound. He was terrified that a panic attack was imminent and that he wouldn’t be able to stop it. There was a time when exercise was a
Can a Panic Attack Trigger Anxiety Forever?
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein Let me take a wild guess. You're not exactly sure if you're going to get better, right? This is especially true if you were dragged into anxiety by one of those "out of the blue" panic attacks. Although not all anxiety problems are triggered by panic, many are. That was the case for me. I remember it well. A crashing wave of fear terror mixed with palpitations, dizziness, sweating and the sense that I just might not make it out
Why is Anxiety so Stubborn?
Lately I've noticed an increase in people asking me this question: Why won't my anxiety go away? The short answer is because it's hard to forget. This has become AG's $64,000 question. I produced a short screen-cast to try to explain why this is, but just in case you want the text version, here it is. Human beings evolved over many millions of years and during that time our brains changed, expanded and adapted to the environment in incredible ways. However, despite all that cool evolution of the brain, there were still certain
How to Find a Doctor that Won’t Diss You
I got an interesting email today and I want to share part of it with you. It was written by a friend of mine describing his difficulty finding a descent doctor to help him with both a physical illness and the related anxiety that has decided to tag along. It went a little something like this: "Doctors won't even bother with things like diet, herbs, exercise or spiritual type stuff. They just want to give you the latest antidepressant and boot you out of the office. It was funny because after two hours [of seeing an alternative doctor] I
Instant Peace of Mind
She jumped out of bed in a panic at 4 am. Unable to focus, she staggered out of the front door and started running down the street. She stopped about ten houses down and stood motionless in the dark; chilled by the cold. That happened about 3 years ago, and the terrified woman it happened to is my aunt. That's the story she told me at my mom's house on Thanksgiving day. She'd never talked about her panic before, but on that day she opened up about her 20 year struggle with anxiety. She told me about how she'd always felt like
Panic Attack Survival Guide
Every time that you've had a panic attack you've probably felt like you were going to die. Maybe you've also thought that your panic attacks were going to cause insanity but, it hasn't happened. And, it never will. However, that doesn't stop you from thinking that it will every time panic strikes. The fear that you won't be able to resist your next panic attack seems to linger on, no matter what you do. Given that this is the case, I decided to create a short podcast to help you get through panic attacks, and feelings of intense anxiety.
So, I Had a Panic Attack
No, really, I had a panic attack. After a couple of years of not having a major one, here is what I learned. The first thing that struck me about this particular panic attack was the ferocity - I mean this thing was big. Like a tsunami wave looming over me, I could feel it coming. But, despite it's rapid onset, I never had the feeling that I would die or go crazy. In the past death and insanity were the two main things I was waiting for. In this case, I was just waiting for it to die down and that took about ten minutes. In a strange way
The Top 100 Things You Should Know About Anxiety Disorders
Over the course of a decade you can learn a lot about anything. You can become an expert at car repair, kitchen remodeling, hair styling, or in my case you can learn all about anxiety. Since 1999 I have been battling anxiety non-stop and as a result I've learned a thing or two about this topic (I've recovered since then). Many of my thoughts on this issue are short thoughts or blurbs that I've collected over the years and for no particular reason I wanted to jot them down. I can't possibly recall everything but here is a good chunk of
Learning To Accept Your Anxiety
Learning how to accept your anxiety disorder is actually very difficult. This is because our natural instinct is to fight our anxiety symptoms and do all you can to push your anxious thoughts and feelings out of our mind. But in fact, really accepting your anxiety disorder is perhaps the best way to manage and ultimately eliminate anxiety from your life. Sometimes when people ask you to accept something you really don't fully accept it. What a lot of us do instead is just put up with whatever the issue is. However, in order to really