Okay, I thought I would talk with you
about some of the anxiety symptoms that
I have experienced. 20 years ago, I
started to experience anxiety. I also
began to experience a whole host of
anxiety symptoms, including a churning
stomach, shaking, brain fog, irritability,
feeling like I was going to start crying
for no reason,
plus many more. By far, the most
aggravating symptom I had was frequent
urination. It took me a long time to
understand this and how to overcome it.
At my worst, I would need to pee like 40
to 50 times a day. I can't say the exact
number for sure, but what I can say is
that I would feel the need to pee again
as soon as I walked out of the toilet.
This symptom persisted for years, because
I did not understand what was causing it,
and I did not understand that my
resistant attitude towards it, was making
the symptom more frequent, and more
intense. I was pretty sure it was my
anxiety that was causing the symptoms,
but I didn't really fully understand and
appreciate what I needed to do in order
to overcome this. Firstly, I want to
explain the steps involved in how
symptoms like this are developed, why
they persist, and finally how to overcome
these symptoms. [Step One]
First of all, there is an event, that we
know that we either have to do, such as a
speech, or perhaps something that we wish
we had the courage to do, such as, ask out
a person that we like. [Step Two] We then
might worry that the event will go badly,
such as that, we might get laughed at
during a speech, or we might get
rejected when asking someone out. We tell
ourselves that we couldn't deal with
this. [Step Three] When we worry about
bad things happening, we create the
emotion of anxiety,
and we also trigger the release of
stress hormones into the body. These
stress hormones can start to produce a
whole host of symptoms, such as, churning
stomach, sweating, turning red in the face,
and of course frequent urination. [Step Four]
Because we don't want to feel like
this, what we do then, is that we decide
to avoid the situation altogether. [Step 5]
Now that we have decided to avoid the
situation, the symptoms gradually subside,
in this case, the frequent urination, and
we feel a sense of relief. The more we
use this kind of avoidant strategy to
handle situations that cause us anxiety,
the more power we give to it. We are
beginning to really communicate to our
brain that we can't handle these
situations, and we can't handle
the feelings / symptoms that we get when
we are in these situations. [Step Six]
What can then happen, especially if we
don't fully realize that the frequent
urination is only a symptom of our own
anxiety, is that we can begin to fear the
symptom itself. We have now given this
symptom a life of its own, and it now
lives independently of us worrying about
the original issue, which was public
speaking, or asking someone out. Okay, so
what next? Because our way of dealing
with anything that makes us feel anxious
is to avoid it, we then try to avoid the
symptom of frequent urination, but this
does not work. We can avoid a situation,
but we can't run away from the feelings
inside of us. But, this does not stop us
from trying. We will try to suppress the
feeling of needing to pee frequently, or
resist it as best as we can. We might try
to wish the feeling of needing to pee
would go away; we might drink alcohol to
suppress the feeling; we might tense our
body in an attempt to suppress this
feeling; we might smoke;
we might drink; we might sleep; we might
do any of these things in order to
resist avoid, and to get the feeling to
go away. This kind of resistance only
gives our anxiety more power of us, and
causes us a great deal of stress. The
more we overreact to the symptoms and
the more we fight to get rid of them,
the more and more frequent and intense
they will become. Okay, so what can we do
to overcome these symptoms? Obviously, if
we could begin to face our fears, such as,
public speaking, or asking someone out, or
fill in the blank; then we could expect
to see a reduction in our symptoms over
time. But, there are also things that we
can do now to begin to reduce these
symptoms if we choose to do this. Here
are some tips on how to do this. [Number One]
A big reason why my frequent
urination persisted for so long, even
though I did have the awareness that my
anxiety was causing the frequent
urination, is that I also worried a lot
that perhaps I had diabetes or that I
had some strange medical condition that
nobody ever heard of, and perhaps that
was contributing to the frequent
urination. Once you have been to a GP/MD and
made sure that your symptoms aren't a
result of any physical condition, then
you can be assured that the symptoms of
frequent urination
is caused by your anxiety, and this will
help to reduce your worries about
thinking that there is something wrong
with you. [Number Two] We need to reduce
our stress as much as possible.
High levels of stress can cause us to be
more prone to anxiety and anxiety can
also cause us more stress. They go
hand-in-hand. Some stressors include
environmental stressors, such as the
people you live with, such as, your family,
the friends you have, your co-workers, etc.
There are also chemical stressors, such
as, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, plus many
others. How we think is another stressor.
How we behave is another stressor. All of
these stressors can create more stress
hormones in the body and subsequently
more symptoms. Reducing the impact of any
of these stressors will help to reduce
our overall stress level, our anxiety, and
also the frequency and intensity of our
symptoms. If you want to know more about
this, feel free to comment in the section
below, and I will respond to it. [Number Three]
Considering that fighting and
overreacting to the symptoms makes the
symptoms more frequent and more intense,
what we need to do, is to start under
reacting to the symptoms. For example,
instead of saying to yourself "I am so
sick of always needing to pee, I wish
this feeling would just bloody go away
already!",
we could say "Oh, there's that feeling of
needing to pee again,
well it's no big deal; I know that it's
just the result of my anxiety; I'm just
going to let it be." This may sound
counterintuitive, but trust me, anxiety
is counterintuitive.
We know that overreacting makes the
symptoms worse,
so of course under-reacting will
certainly help to reduce them. Plus, you
need to be patient with this process.
Having an under-reactive attitude to the
symptoms, will, over time, help to reduce
the symptoms, but this attitude of under
reactivity needs to be cultivated and
nurtured. Yes, it will take time, but it
will work if you can practice this kind
of effortless under-reactivity to the
symptoms. [Number Four] Okay, this is
related to the last point, but I want to
bring up the idea of 'floating', which was
conceived by an Australian doctor by the
name of Claire Weekes. She knew that
fighting anxiety symptoms made them
worse. She suggests in her book "Hope and
Help for your Nerves",
to float with the feelings, and to let
them be.
She knew that anxiety and anxiety
symptoms were aggravated by fighting
with them, and that by having the
attitude of letting the symptoms be, and
floating with them, will over time, help
to reduce and eliminate them. [Number Five]
On top of everything, you can try to
begin to cultivate an attitude of
welcoming the frequent urination, which
again, is the kind of counterintuitive
approach we need when dealing with this.
These symptoms thrive on fear. If we
don't give the symptoms the fuel they
want, and simply float with them, and
welcome them, they begin to lose their
power, and begin to naturally fade away.
Okay, let's wrap things up. So, in this
episode, I basically wanted to talk about
anxiety symptoms; why they come about; and
what we consciously or unconsciously do
that makes them persist. I also wanted to
explain some steps to take in order to
reduce and eliminate them.
These steps are not comprehensive but if
you can really begin implementing the
steps I have mentioned, then I'm sure you
will start to see a reduction in your
anxiety symptoms. But, please understand
that you need to be patient and under
reactive. This is key.
By using this counter-intuitive approach,
we are no longer giving anxiety the fuel
it needs to sustain itself and grow. We
are essentially letting the fire fizzle
out. In the next episode I want to talk
about something a bit different. I lived
in Indonesia recently for about a year
and I thought it would be interesting to
cover the differences between how us
Westerners tackle our anxiety and
depression and how people in Indonesia
see the issue. I think you'll find it
fascinating and very helpful. So, please
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you