Often people plan their day around their panic attacks – “I don’t want to catch the bus, just in case it happens when I am in public”. Many people even see themselves, in their minds eye, as having panic attacks in future scenarios. You’re so scared or frustrated about having them you start unconsciously planning for them. And for many, the idea of other people knowing what you’re going through is very embarrassing. For example, a lot of corporates struggle with the thought of people seeing that they have anxiety and therefore not being good enough or underperforming. They hope nobody will know or find out. This actually tends to make things worse and a negative spiral begins.
Many people therefore develop a strategy of retreating from the world, doing less and avoiding situations, and often the list of what to avoid grows over time. This becomes more and more painful and it gets to a point where the person feels forced to make a change and look for a form of treatment.
We offer one of New Zealand's most effective solutions to resolving anxiety using a drug free, holistic body mind approach by reducing the nervous system and spinal cord tension patterns.
Our approach to treating panic attacks is addressing its cause. Which is a nervous system that is easily triggered into a fight or flight response (sympathetic nervous system). For many people the panic attacks feel like they come about for no reason – which simply means you’re unaware of the triggers.
• We help you address the triggers by first becoming aware of what they are.
• We help you reduce the stress that is anchored in the body, which is what is causing the nervous system to be stuck in a hyper excitable (more easily reactive) fight or flight state.
• We help you replace negative destructive patterns with healthier ones.
• We help you overcome anxiety and make it a thing of the past.
• We don’t mask the problem by giving you drugs – we get to the cause.
• We don’t just talk about it - we give you strategies and work directly with your nervous system at the level where the body mind gets stuck into the fight or flight and free it
Now you may be thinking that your breathing is the cause and this assumption is almost correct. Yes, hyperventilation can cause panic attacks, but the real question is why are you breathing this way? When the body has so much tension that it is holding onto life’s stresses and traumas we become more rigid in our structure. Just focus on your chest and notice how tight or rigid it feels, and notice the discomfort you feel when you take a deeper breath. This stored tension that is in the body is what is causing the restricted breathing, which often leads to hyperventilation. So, with working with you to release the tension in the nervous system, there is more freedom in the body and your breath naturally changes. You breathe better and feel better – but what we do is by no means just a breathing technique.
The CWI is a process that I have been working on for the last 10 years, which is unique to Inspiring Wellness. At this stage it is only available in Auckland.
If you live in Auckland city and suffer from panic attacks and you’re ready to overcome them, I would like to offer you a free consultation to come into the practice and meet with me. You can ask any questions you have and we will also do a quick assessment of your nervous system to see if we can uncover some of the triggers that are affecting you. Through this process you can work out if what we do is a perfect fit for you.
Read some testimonials to get an idea of how your life could be with our help and if you want some more info click here.
To resolve your panic attacks come in for a free 20 min consult. Email, call or book yourself a free session online today.
I am the owner of Inspiring Wellness, a wellness and personal transformation clinic in Auckland CBD and the Author of "Wellness Words, how to think speak and feel great" and "How to Break free from Anxiety". I love helping my clients take back their lives and regain their health and get a whole new higher quality of life. If you are curious if we can help you, please contact us. We are here to help you.
To me it seems obvious that it is actually a nervous system response, and should be spoken about in this way for a few reasons. When my clients grasp this new way of looking at anxiety, and understand the reasons why we look at it differently, a new possibility opens up for them that was previously not available. This shift in perspective is so empowering for my clients that I thought I would share it with anyone who is interested.
I am not trying to convince you of anything here, I am just offering you a new perspective that I want you to, feel free to try out and see if it fits, just like when you’re thinking of buying a new pair of shoes. You make sure they fit and that they’re comfortable. It seems that most people have been given this really uncomfortable pair of shoes that hurt, cause blisters, look really bad, and to top it all off they feel like they are stuck with this pair of shoes for the rest of their life. So many people are labelled with a mental illness and it sticks even when on the inside, if they look within, they know this is not a fit with who they are.
When you look up the definition of a Mental Illness (and disorder) you will quite quickly see that these definitions are quite varied and not really that consistent at all. There is no universal definition. Here are two:
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary the definition of a MENTAL DISORDER is: a mental or bodily condition marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, and emotions to seriously impair the normal psychological functioning of the individual — called also mental illness.
According to the The American Heritage Medical Dictionary at http://dictionary.reference.com/medical/mentalillness a MENTAL ILLNESS is any of the various forms of psychosis or severe neurosis.
I think neither of these definitions are a great placeholder for anxiety — to me they don’t seem like a great fit, not even close. I invite you to look up a few more dictionaries and see the variance in this term.
If the dictionaries can’t agree, it definitely means that it has a very different meaning for every person who thinks about what it is. When your doctor tells you that you have anxiety and you find out that it is characterised as a mental illness, the way you will then process what this means, will depend on how you view a mental illness. If you think that there is something wrong with you, that your broken or damaged or mentally unwell and have a problem or chemical imbalance or have some genetic lack in some area. You will be giving all your power away, with out even realising it. You unconsciously become a victim, and lose the ability to take control of your life. The label that you think you are giving to some experience (body-mind), actually owns you, it becomes a filter of how you see and experience the world. And it is a filter that I see having negative consequences time and time again for the person who has anxiety and believes that they have or worried that they might have a mental illness.
So I see how this ‘mental illness’ label, when used for anxiety has damaging effects, also it just explains the effects (the experience) not the cause. It hooks people into the problem and hides away the solution.
How you look at something changes the way you feel about it. Both for the suffer and the helper. If you go to a therapist who sees you as having a mental illness — the interaction will be very different from when you come to me. I don’t see you as being broken — I see it as a gift that when you uncover will transform your life and make it far better in many many ways. The reason why is because I see this everyday in my clinic. I see people who have been struggling with anxiety for years, holding onto their labels (the labels begin to own and control them) break free.
If you would like some more information on how to break free from anxiety - click here. You can also request a free 20 minute consultation with us here.
I am the owner of Inspiring Wellness, a wellness and personal transformation clinic in Auckland CBD and the Author of "Wellness Words, how to think speak and feel great" and "How to Break free from Anxiety". I love helping my clients take back their lives and regain their health and get a whole new higher quality of life. If you are curious if we can help you, please contact us. We are here to help you.