How To Overcome Anxiety and Panic By Yourself

By Sonja Schoch

Book Almost every person has either already experienced a panic attack in his life or has been frightened of something which could not be allocated to an immediate, rational danger or threat. Fears are – to a natural extent – part of our life as they ensure our physical sound condition and sometimes even protect the life of the concerned persons. If fears, however, influence life more intensely, impact the quality of life and lead to a withdrawal from social life, they can make people sick. . The Author The known non-medical practitioner Mrs Sonja Schoch and her husband Mr Rainer Schoch run a prosperous practice for naturopathy in Obersulm near Heilbronn. The couple Schoch has very thoroughly dealt with chronic diseases, autoimmune diseases, ADHD, borreliosis and neurological diseases as well as their healing. They aim at supporting concerned persons so that those will be able to help themselves. They have developed special therapies against borreliosis, ADHD, depressions, chronic and autoimmune diseases which they apply with outstanding success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GES Verlag Ltd.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9783944009032

Book preview

Summary

1. Introduction

A lot of persons have already been afraid in their life or even panicked. The reasons for anxiety and the provoking situations are multifaceted and can hardly been listed in particular. As it will be revealed in the following chapters, fears are natural in principle, being a part of a human life. It, however, turns out to be critical for the concerned person, if his life is more and more influenced by panic and anxiety. Should the quality of life be impacted or the concerned person being afraid of leaving home, the fears are making sick. At this stage many affected persons need the assistance of outsiders. But it can also be difficult for family members of concerned persons to correctly handle the anxiety. Needless to say that not everybody will be able to understand that certain, objectively harmless situations may lead to panic reactions or anxiety states of a person.

If you – my dear readers – are concerned by anxiety or panic disorders, this book aims at offering you the possibility to deal with your anxiety. Admitting your fears to yourself – that’s often the first and most important step. But it is of importance to get to know the fears in detail. Where do they arise from, what are their reasons and impact? Having become familiar with this basis, you are well prepared to confront your anxiety. According to the saying If you know your enemy, it is easier to beat him you should become familiar with the topic anxiety.

If fear of fear has already become a great problem, objective and factual information are helpful to narrow down where anxiety refers to a particular circumstance or situation or where our life is restricted by fear of fear. Persons who are able to classify their anxiety can face them more specifically. Furthermore the descriptions of various fears clearly point out that we are not the only alones with such problems! Also other people experience the same or similar fears. Many others know the same problems and difficulties caused by our fears. As far as possible, you should read the following chapters one after the other. It is understandable that concerned persons are above all interested in therapies or even self-help possibilities as everybody suffering from panic attacks and fear responses is eager to get rid of them as soon as possible or to reduce them to an acceptable extent. According to our experience this will work best if you are firstly dealing in detail with the topic fear. Thus the reactions of the body can be better judged. It will moreover be easier to find the optimal kind of therapy to control the own fears. Unfortunately the symptoms of anxiety are not as clear as those of a bad cold. Almost each body shows a slightly different reaction on fear so that a variety of symptoms show up. While some can be allocated to anxiety without any doubt, others, however, do not evidently refer to our fears. Also such reactions of our body can, however, be allocated to the fears and responded accordingly, if we listen to ourselves very carefully. We hope that you will not only experience numerous light-bulb moments while you are reading this book, but also be able to deal with your fears intensely. You have already managed the first step to face up to your anxiety and to beat it in numerous small steps.

This book shall not only assist concerned persons, but also their family members. Fears cannot only impact the life quality of the affected persons, but also that of persons in their immediate vicinity. This book will also provide a good basis for them to deal with the topic fear. Living with concerned persons can turn to a real crucial test. Unless you are personally concerned, it will often be difficult to put yourself in a concerned person. It is a balancing act to take the affected person seriously and to help him on the one hand. On the other hand you must avoid that wrong behaviour or pressure put on the scared person will cause new fears or intensify existing anxiety. For this reason we have elaborated a separate chapter with recommendations for family members which might be helpful for them in handling fear.

2. What is Fear – Definition and Examples

In the first paragraph the term fear is factually defined. The following case examples will give you a more personal insight in the topic fear and give you examples of various types of anxiety. Maybe some readers can already identify with some passages in the text.

Definition of the Term Fear

Fear can be described as a state featuring aversion, discomfort and emotions. Emotionality is expressed by feelings. They as well as the entire situation in which fear is experienced are awkward for the concerned person. Instead of desire and well-being a rather contrary feeling will come up.

The Austrian doctor and depth psychologist Sigmund Freud (6th May 1856 – 23rd September 1939) established and distinguished the terms of anxiety and fear. He defined anxiety as a state which develops inside a human being. Fear on the contrary is a state provoked by the outside wold. Today the definition of both terms anxiety and fear is no longer distinguished, they are rather used in language in parallel to each other. Fear is the concrete feeling of being threatened, which usually is justified and appropriate. For this reason fear is often described as objective fear.

The following chapters of this book do not mainly concentrate on fear although this is as unpleasant as anxiety, but caused by concrete dangers or worrying circumstances. Experiencing fear can consequently be considered as protection of the physical sound condition and the entire life. Thus it represents a required and appropriate part of our life. Additionally – even if we do not intervene - fear is a limited state. It disappears quite quickly after the respective threat or danger has gone. As we will point out in the following chapters, anxiety can, however, dig its claws into a person and substantially impact his life or quality of life.

If Fear of Fear is Increasing

The sun was shining; it was one of the first hot days of this year. Some cooling refreshment would be great now! Sebastian had already been informed by an SMS of his friends that they would spend the evening at the lake. It sounded quite inviting, Sebastian thought, but at the lake?! Only thinking of this idea made him panic. A lot of dangers were lurking particularly in the water. As it was not as clear as the water in the swimming-pool, stones could easily be missed. And goodness knows which animals would swim around him while he was in the water. What about passing sailing boats which might cause sudden currents? Sebastian was on the alert. Even he had really liked to be in the lake for cooling, this was out of question! The open air pool was a more convenient alternative. As he could see to its bottom, he exactly knew where he was swimming. Being able to overlooking everything, he could exactly check what was going on, while watching all happenings around him. The media, however, frequently reported of bathing accidents in open air pools. For this reason he always stayed in shallow water. But who of his friends was willing to splash around with him in the non-swimmer zone?

Sina was feeling in a similar way this day. Being at the other end of the town, she experienced the first real heat wave of this year. But going to the open air pool? This was out of question – also for her, as the sun was directly shining on her being in the water. This might lead to painful burns, even to skin cancer. And it was known throughout the world that skin cancer could end fatally. She was happy of having arrived at home on her way back from work. A car driver changing to her lane had overlooked her. It had taken quite a while until her heart beat had returned to normal.

She had taken the decision: she would stay at home. The ice cubes in the freezer compartment had to be sufficient to refresh her. Moreover she could not risk coming home in the dark. The way from her car to entry door would panic her again so that she would start sweating. As usually, her breath would become shallow and her body would be shivering. It was always the same: as soon as she was sitting on her couch, she felt as if she had been working out for an hour.

She did not know when it would start next – as she had learnt from her experiences gathered during the last few weeks. And this was almost even worse than the