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How To Handle A Panic Attack

I have to admit to leading something of a double life: on the one hand I write about confidence, but I also suffer from panic attacks and anxiety. Having a panic attack is one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve ever had, and even just mild anxiety can make life pretty painful. It’s not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. Well, maybe just on the really bad ones.

So here’s how to handle a panic or anxiety attack:

Recognize The Symptoms

Most people I know who suffer from anxiety or panic attacks didn’t recognize what was happening to them when they first had a panic attack. They were just going about their daily lives when suddenly: BAM! Their heart started racing, they were overwhelmed with fear, their bodies started shaking, they couldn’t concentrate, they became exhausted and just had to stop everything they were doing. Some thought they were dying, or were having a heart attack.

I was overseas traveling alone in France when I had my first full-blown panic attack, and the word “frightening” just doesn’t cut it. It was fucking terrifying, and I found myself throwing up out of sheer terror. Fortunately I had a sympathetic friend back home I could call, and recognized what was really going on.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

What To Do If You “Never Get Angry”

I know a lot of nice guys who say that they generally just don’t ever feel angry. I can relate to them, because I used to be exactly the same: I repressed my anger to the point where I didn’t even feel it any more. Yet certain situations would really bug me: when someone said or did something that should rightly have made me angry, I’d end up ruminating on it for hours, going over and over a conversation in my head replaying all the things I would have liked to have said until it drove me crazy. If only I had allowed myself to be angry! In fact, I was angry; but I just didn’t express it at the time and so I paid the price for it in self-recrimination later.

When we tell ourselves that we never get angry, we are just lying to ourselves. We’re playing the nice guy game to avoid conflict. And the problem with this is that we don’t end up standing up for ourselves. Feeling angry is normal: it’s an emotion that motivates us to stand up for what is important to us. If we repress our anger, we just end up angry with ourselves and that’s a recipe for misery and depression.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Resolve an Argument with Your Mother

I just got this question about resolving an argument with your mother in response to my article on How to Recover From a Controlling Mother. Steve asks:

I just got off the phone with my mother who was berating me because I had not responded in a timely fashion to an email, which made her ashamed and disappointed. I went to my computer and looked up “how to deal with a controlling mother”. Your article looked interesting so I began to read it, and as I did my eyes opened up as if you were speaking directly to me! I would love to speak with her about these things, and also with my father, but her defense is locked down tight: she is a psychologist of many years, and would just discredit anything I had to say. She also insists that my father would not want to talk to me about anything on an emotional level (he really doesn’t like to be dragged in between us), and therefore I shouldn’t bother. I also run the risk of making her angry, which is VERY easy to do, and then I worry that I’m hurting her. Just writing this really exposes to myself the psychological mire I exist in… Advice?… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Heal Emotional Pain

Traumatic or emotionally painful events in our past can leave us with emotionally charged memories that get triggered whenever we find ourselves in similar circumstances later in life. This will undermine your confidence in these situations, as the powerful emotions triggered quickly become overwhelming even though there’s no real threat present.

Crying heals the emotional pain of past trauma

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Healing The Shame That Binds You

When a fellow recovering-computer-engineer friend of mine SMS’d me saying: “I’ve worked out what the problem is… it’s shame.”, I knew immediately what he referring to. The perpetual self-consciousness and lack of confidence that kept plaguing me, the low self-esteem, the anxiety and awkwardness around other people, the fear of embarrassment, the worry about what other people thought when I asserted myself, the vague feeling of inadequacy and the sense that I somehow wasn’t good enough all came down to one underlying emotion: Shame.

I knew instantly that my friend was right, yet it took me over a year to get around to John Bradshaw’s best-selling book on the topic. That’s the insidious thing about shame: we avoid it like the plague, even though it’s at the root of many of our emotional, psychological and behavioural problems. We hear an increasing amount these days about stress and depression, but very few people are talking directly about the underlying problem of shame that man men face in their. As Bradshaw points out in his book, we’re even ashamed of our shame.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Many of you may have heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Whilst there is no standard definition of PTSD, it is generally agreed that PTSD is an anxiety disorder that occurs when a person sees their life flash before their eyes. For example they are involved in, or witness, a near death incident, or a series of events resulting in them having the perception that life as they know it, is about to end.

Emotional overload in these circumstances causes the primitive region of the brain called the limbic region, responsible for brains involvement in emotions, to recalibrate in order to cope. PTSD occurs when the brain doesn’t go back to normal operation of its own accord.

So why talk about PTSD here?

Well it gives a great extreme example of emotions at play within us. You may not suffer from it, but you may demonstrate some of the same characteristics. This is very normal, and has occurred for the same reasons as someone with ‘the bug’ (I use the term bug, because it highlights that you can get over the disorder to live a normal life) – self defence.

There are many elements involved with a person suffering from PTSD, but one of the major ones is their emotions.… Continue reading…

By James Greenshields, ago

How to Defeat Depression for Men

I’ve been there myself, and I know how debilitating depression can be. It sucks the life out of you. There’s a zoned-out feeling in your head, a blank look on your face, and an all-pervading sense of hopeless like you’ve never felt before. The light has gone out of your eyes. It’s a different feeling to sadness, which tends to pass when you’ve cried it out. Depression hangs around like a dense fog, clouding your judgement and colouring everything a nasty shade of grey.

You Don’t Have To Be Trapped By Depression

Psychiatrists will tell you that depression is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain. They’re right, but this doesn’t say much; your brain is a complex biochemical system and pretty much any problem in there comes down to a “chemical imbalance” of some sort. The questions to ask are: what caused it, and what to do about it.

There’s no instant fix for depression, and everyone gets down sometimes. It’s part of being human. But small steps in the right direction add up. The following tips have worked for me, and will gradually get yourself feeling more hopeful and optimistic as the fog of depression clears and you get back to enjoying life again:

Exercise!

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By Graham Stoney, ago