Overactive Nervous System

Understanding I had an overactive nervous system was the biggest break-through for me in recovering from 16 years of chronic anxiety.

This is the only thing that is wrong with you.  Your nervous system is on constant high alert.

Anxiety is the result of stress.  We all get stressed - it’s our body’s natural alarm system warning us there is danger present.  After the danger has passed our body will return to normal.

However - if you have stress on a regular basis, time after time, for a long period of time, then it will begin to have an effect on your body and your life.

Stress releases the hormone adrenaline which this increases your heart rate, blood pressure, dilates your pupils, makes your breathing become rapid - all in preparation to deal with the ‘danger’ you’re faced with.

We all have our own limit to how much stress we can cope with - overload at work, relationship problems, children, caring for ageing parents ……. anything can cause our stress to build, which will make your nervous system start to become heightened.

If you don’t get relief from the stress and you continue to push your body, it will get to a point when your body has had enough and it can result in a panic attack or anxiety.  This is just your body saying it has had enough and it needs to relax in order to recover so your nervous system can return to normal.

But … now that you’ve had the experience of a panic attack or anxiety, this will feel very frightening and you become afraid of this feeling.  Your mind will begin to race as you try to make sense of it all, and this will bring on more and more anxiety.  You will probably start to experience intrusive thoughts about anything and everything - frightening thoughts that also cause anxiety, adding more anxiety onto the anxiety you already have.  Your body will probably shake, your heart will pound, your head hurt, your sleep will be disturbed, appetite affected, you wonder where to turn, what to do, and above anything else you’ll be completely confused about what is happening to you.

You will no doubt start searching the internet for answers, hoping for that instant relief, will gather information up, wonder which piece you should follow, you’ll become scared at some things you read ie about people who haven’t recovered, scaremonger stories about how medicines can make you worse etc etc.  You are now susceptible to feel bad things that you read, and you’ll take on all the negative stories than you will the positive ones.

You will look for an instant cure, someone to talk to who will take away your suffering, go from Doctor to Doctor, treatment to treatment, medicine to medicine, making yourself worse as you fight this ‘thing’.

There is no instant cure.  But … you can be cured.  It takes times - lots of time.

The first fear (anxiety / panic) always coms first - the second fear (constant ruminating, worry, trying to fix) comes second, and its this second fear that keeps you constantly sensitised.  It feeds it.

First you have to understand that this ‘thing’ comes from inside you.  It is nothing more than an overactive nervous system - your body became sensitised from being stressed, and sensation means your nervous system is on high alert - it notices every thought and feeling to an extreme, and we find it very hard to focus on anything else but how we think and feel.  Sensitisation means we have too much stress hormone in our body and it needs releasing - deep breathing, exercise etc help calm your nervous system.  The medicine calms your nervous system (as does the book method) and all thoughts and feelings will return to normal.

You need to understand and ACCEPT this in order to move forwards.  Accepting means that the cure comes from within.

FACING your fears - now that’s a hard one.  Changing the way you react to your fear is key.  Every time you feel anxiety, whether its about going out, being afraid of your physical health, afraid of the intrusive thoughts etc, instead of recoiling in fear and panicking about them and thinking ‘what to do, why me, how do I, oh I’ll never be free’ etc etc, instead you need to relax towards the feelings and thoughts, let them come and go, then you will in time lose the fear of them.  No its not easy, yes it will feel uncomfortable, no it will not give you instant relief, yes it takes time, yes you will fail many times, yet you can do this!!!

I know you’re saying ‘its ok for you, but I have ‘such and such’ fear and if only I can get passed that I’ll be ok.  No - this is not accepting and facing.  Again you’re saying but, but, but ……..  Exactly what I said.

It doesn’t matter what fear you have, it doesn’t matter what weird and intrusive thought or compulsion you have - this works.  Whenever your thought crops up, relax towards it and remind yourself that this is your heightened nervous system that is causing this.  Your body needs a break - it needs relaxation.

The intrusive thoughts will continue to come - and wy shouldn’t they, they’ve been a habit for a while now and will take a while before they disappear.  See my post on Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts. 

When you have an intrusive thought dominant in your mind, by changing the way you react to it will take away the importance of it and it will lose its power.

Believe me - I was plagued with scary thoughts for 16 years, with one always becoming more dominant than another.  I was like you, I never believed I’d ever be free of anxiety.  It was other people who recovered - not me.

That change when I learnt it was just my nervous system that had become heightened and was causing my body to be sensitised.

For further information read the books by Dr Claire Weekes and Paul David.

You can do this.  I did……..

Anxiety is your Friend

Anxiety my friend?  How on earth can something so dreadful be your friend?

You can recover from anxiety with medicine, with understanding (see Paul David's book), with either or both.  Medicine certainly has its place and is there to help you, so if you are prescribed medicine then don't worry about it - just take it, its there for a reason.  Some people feel ashamed they've resorted to anti-depressants, or feel they're weak.  You're not.  If you had a broken leg you wouldn't be expected to suffer without taking painkillers, or if you had high blood pressure, again you wouldn't be expected to fix this yourself without medicine.  So anti-depressants are there to help you just the same as any other medicine will help any other ailment.  There is nothing wrong with taking them - I certainly did, and for 16 years too.  They were an absolutely godsend for me.

I would absolutely recommend you equip yourself with understanding anxiety - knowledge is power. If you don't know what's happening to you then it will frighten you, will add to your worries and add anxiety onto the anxiety you already have.  When I began to understand anxiety it took away a huge amount of confusion and fear, and enabled me to just follow one path.

Admittedly I wasn't able to put into place exactly what I'd learnt, as 16 years of anxiety is a hard habit to break, but as I started to recover on SSRI's I began to see it even clearer and was able to look down on anxiety rather than through it.

One thing to know is that when you recover you don't just leave anxiety behind, but you take it with you on your journey towards recovering, and along that route you'll go through a mix of hellish days, ok days, bad days, good days, rock bottom days, flat days, ok days, bad days, really good days ........ so when you have a good days followed by bad ones, don't despair, just understand that this is all part of recovery.  Let anxiety walk beside you as you recover, because it will anyway even if you don't want it to.

The key to recovery is changing our attitude towards anxiety.  Fearing it spikes more anxiety, this anxiety creates side effects, racing mind, intrusive thoughts all which cause more anxiety - yet allowing anxiety to be there, relax towards it, letting rage about you like a hurricane overhead, paying no attention to it whilst you carry on, is facing it.  By doing this you re-educate your brain to not fear it, and the fear will slowly die.  Yes its uncomfortable, you won't feel it working and you certainly won't feel better overnight, but it works in time.

You can't do this without the anxiety being present - how can you practice riding a bike if you don't have a bike?  So welcome anxiety, because you need it to be present in order to practice riding it through.  Let it be your friend.

Believe me - I've been there

Get the book - At Last a Life!!