• Body image disorders
• Eating disorders
• Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis
• Irritable Bowel and Spastic Bladder
• Depression/ OCD/ Bipolar disorder

Remember, anxiety is simply the sensation you feel when your body is flooded with stress hormones, which affects every cell in your body. Since each organ system will respond in its own way, there are at least 30 different physical symptoms that can be generated in this hyper-vigilant chemical environment.

I gave a lecture about dealing with stress at a local high school a few years ago and over 300 of the 1,500 students were on daily medications for a chronic illness. This phenomenon is occurring in an era of unprecedented opportunity. What is going on?

Anxiety Basics

There are books written about why there is so much societal angst. However, conjecturing about all the reasons is of limited value unless the core problem of relentless anxiety is addressed. Since this unconscious survival sensation is much more powerful than the conscious brain, it isn’t responsive to isolated rational interventions. The way to solve anxiety is to decrease your levels of stress hormones. It’s a learned skill that improves with repetition.

The dark side of human consciousness is that a mental threat is processed in a similar manner as a physical one. It takes the form of Unpleasant repetitive thoughts (URT’s) (1), from which you can’t escape. Disruptive thoughts are maybe greatest reason for sustained anxiety. Most of us suppress them, which is the one worst thing to do. Research has shown that this creates a trampoline effect, where not only are the unpleasant thoughts stronger, they are a lot stronger. (2) One effective way of addressing the problem of URT’s is to become aware of them, understand their impact and then reframe the situation.

Unreachable Expectations

In this modern era, one of the greatest sources of anxiety is dealing with unreachable expectations, and winning is one of the ultimate goals. Somehow, success (your perception of “winning”) is going to bring you peace of mind. Really? That isn’t even a reasonable concept. How many “winners” have we watched self-destruct, yet we keep pursuing the dream that money, power, accomplishment, and attractiveness will quell our fears. The problem is that you can’t outrun your mind.

What is even more problematic is that our concepts of success and failure become attached to our identity and vice versa. Modern neuroscience research has shown that thoughts and ideas become embedded in our brain, in the same way as physical objects. (3) In other words, the only reason a dish is a dish is because your brain has unscrambled visual and tactile senses and decided that it is a dish. This is true for everything. None of your body’s sensors have any inherent capacity to determine the nature of your reality and environment.

So, our perception of self is programmed in by our past experiences, and is as real as the chair you are sitting on. Much of it is determined by your definition of success and failure. They are “stories” that run your life. It is also the reason why it is impossible to truly see an issue from another person’s perspective.

These many negative stories become stronger over time, alter your body’s chemistry and compromise your sense of well-being. In contrast to this sustained assault of stress hormones generated by your “stories”, consider the feelings generated by being full of oxytocin (love drug), serotonin (antidepressant), GABA (anti-anxiety) and dopamine (rewards), when you are at play.  Instead of pursuing happiness through achieving your goals, why not get happy first and then pursue your dreams? Part of that pursuit is learning how to “fail”. A major aspect of this approach is understanding the impact of your “failure stories” and realizing how irrational many of them are.

A close friend of mine sent this piece to me on stress. I don’t know the person who gave this seminar, but I think it is excellent and reflects many of the tools to just let go, reframe many of your created  “adversities”  and enjoy your life. Where are you actually going and what’s the rush?

A Great Lesson on Stress

A young lady confidently walked around the room with a raised glass of water  while leading a seminar and explaining stress management to her audience. Everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, ‘Half empty or half full?’  She fooled them all. “How heavy is this glass of water?” she inquired with a smile.  Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter.  It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

She continued, “and that’s the way it is with stress.  If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden – holding stress longer and better each time we practice.”

So, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night. Pick them up again tomorrow if you must.

1. Accept the fact that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue!
2. Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
3. Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
4. Drive carefully… It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.
5. If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
6. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
7. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
8. Never buy a car you can’t push.
9. Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
10. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well;  just get up and dance.
11. Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
12. The second mouse gets the cheese.

My past formula for “success” – highly NOT recommended

As I went through this list, I pondered my historical approach in each category, and I’m not making this up. One of my basic core beliefs was that of being “cool under pressure” and I could take on an unlimited amount of stress.

1. It is important to always be on top. If someone dumps on me, I’m a “loser”.
2. If there is an obvious problem, it is necessary to speak up (not such soft voice).
3. I have always liked good books and don’t like to waste that much time on something that isn’t informative, entertaining or inspiring.
4. My time is valuable, and I’ll do whatever I need to do to get there quickly. (I had 14 speeding violations in five different states between ages 18 to 25. Thank goodness it was well before there were computers)
5. If someone is “wrong” from my perspective, it’s my role (duty) to correct them.
6. I am not forgetting that person who shortchanged me. I don’t care how long it’s been.
7. Having some variation of a “purpose” has defined my existence. My identity was based on my ideals and I couldn’t always clearly see who or what was right in front of me.
8. I actually don’t care much about cars one way or the other.
9. One day, one of my fellows asked me, “Don’t you ever get tired of talking?”
10. I don’t dance. I’m not very good at it.
11. There aren’t enough hours in the day, and I have to get up early.
12. What if the first mouse gets the cheese?

The bottom line is give yourself a break. What are your ideals? How do you mentally punish yourself if you don’t live up to your own expectations. It’s great to be successful at whatever you set out to do. But does it define you? Are your endeavors grounded in reality. I did define “me” by my achievements, and many efforts were driven by “magical thinking” and unattainable goals.  I used my adrenaline drive to become “successful”, yet it was this same energy that caused me to sink into chronic pain and become physically ill. Another version of her advice is reflected in this poem sent to me by one of my patients, She Just Let Go.

I wish I had figured this out many years ago, but my life and parenting advice (if I am asked) has boiled down the word, “play.” If you can’t enjoy your family and life today, when will you?

Enjoy your day today

1. Garland, EL. Brown, SM, and MO Howard. Thought suppression as a mediator of the association between depressed mood and prescription opioid craving among chronic pain patients. J Behav Med (2016); 39:128-138.
2. Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101, 34–52.
3. Feldman-Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, New York, New York, 2018.

The post Success is a “Story” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Success is a “Story” appeared first on Back in Control.

• Modern civilization offers more opportunities than any other era of human history. Yet our mental health is declining.
• We have been led to believe that experiences, knowledge, possessions, and accomplishments can make us happy.
• You cannot outrun your mind. It is a futile effort because your unconscious survival reactions dictate how you feel.
• The key is to learn approaches to calm your body’s flight or fight response and “just be.”

Chronic mental and physical Illnesses are rampant amongst teenagers. A 2014 paper out of Indianapolis demonstrated an 830 percent increase in hospital admissions for pain in adolescents over a seven-year span. In the vast majority of patients, a cause of the symptoms could not be found. I gave a talk at a high school a few years ago and was told that over 350 of the 1500 students had a chronic medical problem that had to be monitored. Eating disorders are increasing, even amongst males. Teen suicide is a serious problem. We have more resources and opportunities at our disposal than at any point in human history. We live in a free country with unlimited opportunities. Yet much of the population is miserable. We keep wringing our hands about the problem but are not coming up with real solutions. What is going on?

We are not addressing the root cause, anxiety, with an effective paradigm. It is a powerful physiological (how the body functions) response to real or perceived danger, and avoiding it is a driving force behind much of human behavior. All life has some form of a “flight or fight” reaction. Humans have language and describe it with the word, “anxiety.” It is automatic, hard-wired, unresponsive to conscious control, and evolved to be incredibly unpleasant. A common approach to quell anxiety is to experience, accomplish, achieve, and remain busy in order to outrun it. It is impossible to avoid feeling your body’s chemistry. A fired up nervous system also interprets these sensation and creates an endless flow unpleasant thoughts that I call, “RUTs” (repetitive unpleasant thoughts). You cannot escape your body or outrun your mind. Our modern era of opportunity has actually worsened this scenario. We didn’t evolve to process so much information in a day.

Choices

First, we have too many choices. I will never forget during my psychology course in medical school learned that volunteers’ anxiety was as high when given choices about equivalent positive or negative options. Humans have trouble with choice and we don’t like feeling anxious.

Trapped by success

Second, we are encouraged to experience life to the fullest and achieve. We are entering organized sports at an early age, traveling the world, and given wonderful options of becoming creative. There is no limit as to what is possible. That also the problem. You can achieve many things but you cannot outrun your mind. What is even more of a problem is that when you have accomplished what you think should give you peace of mind and you are still unhappy, where do you go next? Then you really feel trapped.

I recall riding a chairlift with my son in Utah during the midst of my anxiety-driven burnout. There was about a foot and a half of fresh powder, my 10-year old son was an accomplished skier, we were spending a wonderful day together, and I was miserable. I also had a great practice, beautiful family, nice house, and was becoming financially secure. The sense of being trapped was overwhelming. What else was I supposed to do to be “happy?”

That same year I was talking to a middle-aged gentleman in my office who broke down crying because he had sold his business for 45 million dollars and did not know what to do. It had been his life. His anxiety was crippling. Over an 18-month span while I lived in Sun Valley, ID six men between 45 – 60 committed suicide. All of them on the surface were accomplished, had experienced many adventures, had families, friends, and were wealthy. It wasn’t enough. I do not know details, but there is a well-documented link between rumination and suicide. (1)

Your personal brain scanner

Third, even when your situation is idyllic your brain continues to search for threats. The human body is designed to firstsurvive; not to have a great time. Humans also have the problem in that danger can be created in our minds, which Dr. David Burns terms, “cognitive distortions”. These become our ego. The  “stories” we create to feel better about ourselves are compilation of faulty thinking and “good self-esteem” is a massive cognitive distortion of labeling.

Many of us are driven by our self-critical voice, which represents the cognitive distortion of “should thinking.” Perfectionism is a particularly insidious version of it, and we may drive ourselves unmercifully to attain remarkable heights. Since our “ideal self” is unattainable we have set ourselves up for endless and progressive frustration. My son, Nick, and his best friend, Holt, were competing in mogul skiing at a national level their focus was on winning. If they lost, then they were pretty unhappy until the next event. David Elaimy, their performance coach and I kept trying to tell them to enjoy the process and be happy they were able to travel the world and compete. The day after Holt won the national championship he finally said, “You were right. I still have to get up and go to work. My life has not changed that much.” When your peace of mind is dependent on your circumstances or other’s opinions, you are at the mercy of them.

Golf and life

Golf is one sport that highlights this issue. David Elaimy, is a performance coach who teaches our fellows performance concepts to be utilized in surgery. He pointed out that at the end of a round of golf that 80% of golfers are unhappy with their game – because of the score. It personally took me years to get past the score but my biggest accomplishment in golf is truly enjoying being outside with my friends and seeing how well I can do. I do not have the time to drop my handicap but it no longer makes sense to me to spend any part of my free time being frustrated about a score. It is just a story.

A life-changing moment on the golf course

Here is a letter from one of my administrative colleagues who I really enjoyed working with. He had read my post, The Tale of Two Golf Holes. The joy of my second hole-in-one had been completely wiped out by my frustration. It was one of the most enlightening moments of my life.

Dear Dave,

The frustration and joy of golf can easily lead to some strong emotions including anger. I know my brother and I struggled with that for a long time, until one day I realized what it is all about.

My brother was having a particularly difficult day on the course with my Dad some years ago and was just about ready to throw a fit. My Dad told him to stop playing. They both laid down on the green, looked up at the clouds on a beautiful day and took a moment to appreciate spending time together outside with nobody else around. “This is what it is all about.” My brother walked up back to his ball and asked my Dad, “So I don’t have to keep playing, I can just walk the rest of this hole and start back up on the next one if I want?” Right as my Dad was about to affirm his question he whispers to my brother to turn around. Not five feet behind him stood a deer.

My dad and brother always describe this as one of their epiphany moments, and for me it illustrates that golf is just a game. While it can be challenging and frustrating, you can’t let that aspect of the game get the best of you and distract you from the joy and awe it can bring. Great article Dave, it really got me thinking of just how toxic anger towards something or someone can be, and how powerful forgiveness can be. (this includes perfectionism –  anger towards yourself). Best, George

Be all that you can be?

Defining myself by my accomplishments and “score” has been my entire life. These deeply etched in behavioral patterns are not going to disappear. However, by being aware of their presence and power allows me to separate my “identity” from them. The solution lies learning tools to pull into the “centre of the storm”, skilfully deal with adversity, and nurture joy. It is an ongoing daily lifetime practice. So, just “be” – and enjoy your day.

References

1. Morrison, R., & O’Connor, R.C. A systematic review of the relationship between rumination and suicidality. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviour (2008); 38:523-538.

The post Be All that You Can Be – or Just Be first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Be All that You Can Be – or Just Be appeared first on Back in Control.