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    You're OK! Understanding the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Stress & Panic
    You're OK! Understanding the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Stress & Panic
    You're OK! Understanding the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Stress & Panic
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    You're OK! Understanding the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Stress & Panic

    By Ian Cox

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    About this ebook

    A comprehensive guide to why you feel the way that you do.

    Written by a stress, anxiety and panic suffer, FOR stress, anxiety and panic suffers.

    Having been a recovering sufferer from this condition for a number of years, the author is able to give firsthand experience and guidance on exactly what is happening to your body during times of stress, anxiety and panic, whether this be an occasional general anxious state through to regular full panic attacks.

    This can be a debilitating and life changing condition for many, and the first step to conquering it is simply UNDERSTANDING.

    This book is designed to give fellow sufferers an explanation of the biological processes that happen inside your body, the reasons why they exist, and importantly why 'YOU'RE OK'!

    Including the author's own story, a breakdown of the biological and chemical systems in your body that make you feel the way you do, the exact reasons behind all of the common symptoms, as well as a collection of the author's own tips and tricks in dealing with their occurrence and sending you on your road to recovery.

    This book is designed to show you that your condition is actually a very natural one, that you are not alone in how you feel, no matter how bad you may think your condition, and that you too are able to completely understand why your body does what it does and why you feel how you feel.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIan Cox
    Release dateDec 11, 2017
    ISBN9781386944461
    You're OK! Understanding the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Stress & Panic

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      Book preview

      You're OK! Understanding the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Stress & Panic - Ian Cox

      Chapter 1:-  Introduction - Why I Am Writing This Book & What This Book Is For

      I, like many of the people who will read this book, am a recovering stress and anxiety sufferer.

      The likelihood is that if you’ve bought this book, we will have a lot in common. No matter how much you may think it, you are not alone. Far from it.

      Stress, anxiety, and panic affects millions upon millions of people in this world, whether they care to admit it or not, and you'll learn that the reasons being are because it's a perfectly normal biological process. You're OK!

      Nowadays, I have good periods and bad periods, but I know I am significantly better than I was before I could understand what was happening to both my mind, and more importantly, my body. This book will hopefully help you understand.

      I do not offer a miracle cure, but believe me when I tell you that understanding is the first and most important step towards recovering from stress, anxiety and panic.

      This book isn't meant to explore the psychological side of your anxiety - everyone is different with regards to exactly what triggers their symptoms in the first place. I will leave this to other books and trained psychologists - there are plenty out there. However, what I can do is give you some essential information on what is happening to your body physically and biologically.

      The main fear I had was not from the psychological side of stress and anxiety but from the physical side. On top of intense general anxiety, I developed very bad medical anxiety as a result of not understanding my bodily symptoms and processes. This compounded the anxiety state further, and I was trapped in a cruel cycle.

      My bad periods are now relatively mild, and the good periods make me thank how my knowledge and understanding of my condition helped me to put the very bad times behind me for good. I want to help you do this too.

      There were plenty of articles and books I read and audio books I listened to on this subject over the years, and whilst some were very helpful, it certainly struck me that most of these were written by people who hadn’t actually been through what I was going through personally. They were mainly written by Psychologists, Doctors, Therapists etc., i.e. people who try to treat sufferers, but do not actually suffer themselves.

      I thought to myself how can they advise me on dealing with something like this that they likely personally haven’t experienced? There are many exceptions of course, but I found it difficult to take the word of an expert in something that someone hadn't actually personally experienced for themselves.

      I would like to point out straight away that I am NOT a Doctor, Psychologist, Therapist, or qualified medical / psychological professional of any kind. The knowledge that I would like to share from this book is all from my own personal experiences, hearing about the experiences of other anxiety sufferers, my own research, my own deductions of what is happening within my body, and what I have been told by various medical professionals who have examined and treated me over the years.

      I do, however, know that my own 'qualification' is having experienced the contents of this book first hand – this is something that many authors of other anxiety books and professional therapists cannot say for themselves.

      I want this book to be used as a tool for people who are going through the same experiences as I have. The information will hopefully to be used to educate sufferers on the physical processes happening in your body that make you feel the way you do, process by process, symptom by symptom. I would also like to educate non-suffers, and potentially therapists who deal with sufferers on how to explain to their patients what they are going through. You may also want to share the information in this book with family members or loved ones in order to educate them on how your body is working.

      The reason you have bought this book is that you are more than likely experiencing various changes and sensations in your body that concern you, yet you do not know what is causing them, and no-one (medical or otherwise) has been able to offer you any reasonable detailed explanation except for maybe something along the lines of you’re suffering from stress and anxiety – it will pass.

      Whether you currently believe that your symptoms are stress related or not I do not know. I certainly didn’t when it first happened to me – I was the ultimate sceptic. I had been through many stressful situations in my life before my anxiety problems started, and no such physical things happened to me at those times. My constant unanswered question was how can stress and anxiety suddenly now cause so many extreme changes in my body?!

      I understand why you are reading this. I wish I had a resource like this book when I first started suffering; it would have saved me a lot of time and angst! This is exactly why I am writing it. I know what you’re going through.

      Do you go from Doctor to Doctor, specialist to specialist, trying to get answers?

      Do you lay awake at night waiting for the next symptom and wondering what your various odd and worrying sensations / pains are?

      Does the slightest minor pain or body change make you obsessed that it's something seriously wrong and takes over your entire mind with worry?

      Do you become obsessed with your health, convinced you have a serious illness or that you are going to die?

      Do you trawl through medical websites looking up your symptoms for what they may be, and always coming to the worst case conclusion?

      Even when someone qualified tells you that your symptoms are a result of stress and anxiety, you still don’t believe them?

      I have been there. I understand.

      I know what it feels like to be petrified and not know what is causing you to physically feel the way you do, and for people (especially medical professionals) to react sceptically when you try to describe your symptoms to them. It’ll be fine; try to ignore it; you’re just a bit anxious; you need to worry less; pull yourself together, man up; it’s more than likely nothing; try not to think about it, do something to take your mind off of it; here, let me prescribe you these anti-depressants, they'll help. All phrases I’ve heard a lot of times, amongst many others, from people (including many medical professionals) trying to sympathise with what I viewed as potentially life threatening symptoms.

      The simple fact is that for someone who has not experienced anxiety, stress, or panic, and the physical symptoms that go with it, it is very difficult to understand what a sufferer goes through. It can be devastating to what is often a previously anxiety symptom free and happy life.

      What took me a long time to recognise is that anxiety and stress disorders are far more common than people realise, however the information available on reasons and explanations behind the physical aspects are surprisingly sparse, especially from Doctors.

      There also seem to be a lot of medical professionals, in my own experience, who just don’t believe that anxiety can be a major problem for people! This may be because there is no magic blood test or scan or definitive scientific way of testing for anxiety and stress to conclusively give a positive medical or chemical diagnosis.

      Enhanced adrenaline and cortisone levels that generally cause a lot of stress related issues (more on these two little substances later on) can show up in someone’s bloodstream, but unless you take the test when you’re actually in a situation where the physical symptoms are most present, it can be difficult to get conclusive evidence, as there is no standard measurable benchmark levels – each person and their circumstances is different.

      For example, professional bodybuilders will have higher levels of cortisone in their system due to the stresses they put on their body, but their bodies and minds naturally becomes accustomed to these levels.

      Extreme sportspeople such as skydivers will have enhanced adrenaline levels above those of a couch potato, but again they will be used to it, and get their ‘buzz’ from this. What gives one person an exciting buzz can cause a panic attack in another person. I know people who love rollercoasters, because they love the adrenaline, the speed, the wobbly legs when they get off the ride etc. (Personally though, it baffles me!)

      Whilst there have been massive strides in awareness of stress, panic, and anxiety in the last couple of decades, in many modern cultures, there is still often a kind of ‘stigma’ towards people who suffer from stress and anxiety, frequently viewing sufferers as ‘mentally ill’, who are ‘weak’ or ‘inferior’

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