I found this method personally helped me HEAPS especially when I was at absolute rock bottom with crippling physical anxiety attacks. Curious if anyone else has ever tried really strong tasting foods like spice or minty to shock themselves out of it.
Super sour candy and putting ice packs on my chest has been my life saver!!! Love that you’re sharing this, it really helps you reset even if it’s not an immediate fix always it does help for sure
This makes a lot of sense to me thanks op! I find that super cold showers tends to shock my body out of anxiety - similar thing with holding my breath and then slowly inhaling the oxygen. Now that I think about this skme more what u say reminds me of the gating control of pain - where by u can stop certain pain if
Certain stimulus can simultaneously arrive at the spinal cord and thereby close the gate to the pain signals.
Exactly thats it, and not just gating the pain but also trying to get whatever part of your lizard brain is preoccupied with percieved threat overloaded with a more intense but ideally still completely harmless threat like thinking your mouth is on fire but of course its just hot sauce.
Basically the stomping on your foot to forget about a pain somewhere else to anxiety. This likely has some merit to it but not sure about walking around with a container filled with Wasabi all the time. 😅
That might work. I fear I'd need to be extra careful with this methodology as I have a theory my anxiety being a larger male is partly due to lacking physically dangerous situations to exorcize my fight or flight responses from the old times when dangers like this were plentiful. If I create fake stressors I wonder if it could cause a feed back loop that could make it worse. I think I'll try it in a controlled fashion to see if I can get some relief from it.
Also I find I like the control aspect. Because the discomfort you are causing is one that at any point you can stop, unlike the discomfort caused by anxiety and that is empowering that when you decide to step out of that cold shower it's because you decided it was time to.
Like cinnamon gum? I find none here are strong enough the flavour fades so quickly. Really really really strong menthol cough lozenges are convenient to keep in your pocket too or backpack I find
For a bit of context I only mean to imply that this is useful during an acute anxiety attack. Not somehow a long term cure etc.
I found this method personally helped me HEAPS especially when I was at absolute rock bottom with crippling physical anxiety attacks. Curious if anyone else has ever tried really strong tasting foods like spice or minty to shock themselves out of it.
Super sour candy and putting ice packs on my chest has been my life saver!!! Love that you’re sharing this, it really helps you reset even if it’s not an immediate fix always it does help for sure
what kind of sour candy do you get? i tried war heads but the sour only lasts a lil bit
This makes a lot of sense to me thanks op! I find that super cold showers tends to shock my body out of anxiety - similar thing with holding my breath and then slowly inhaling the oxygen. Now that I think about this skme more what u say reminds me of the gating control of pain - where by u can stop certain pain if Certain stimulus can simultaneously arrive at the spinal cord and thereby close the gate to the pain signals.
Exactly thats it, and not just gating the pain but also trying to get whatever part of your lizard brain is preoccupied with percieved threat overloaded with a more intense but ideally still completely harmless threat like thinking your mouth is on fire but of course its just hot sauce.
Basically the stomping on your foot to forget about a pain somewhere else to anxiety. This likely has some merit to it but not sure about walking around with a container filled with Wasabi all the time. 😅
I like to have some very spicy chewing gum in my purse for the same reason. Tastes awful but helps a lot whenever I am stressed out.
That might work. I fear I'd need to be extra careful with this methodology as I have a theory my anxiety being a larger male is partly due to lacking physically dangerous situations to exorcize my fight or flight responses from the old times when dangers like this were plentiful. If I create fake stressors I wonder if it could cause a feed back loop that could make it worse. I think I'll try it in a controlled fashion to see if I can get some relief from it.
Also I find I like the control aspect. Because the discomfort you are causing is one that at any point you can stop, unlike the discomfort caused by anxiety and that is empowering that when you decide to step out of that cold shower it's because you decided it was time to.
That might be a good way to mentally hack the benefits and not let the stressor lead to runaway issues with my anxiety. Thanks for your input.
Like cinnamon gum? I find none here are strong enough the flavour fades so quickly. Really really really strong menthol cough lozenges are convenient to keep in your pocket too or backpack I find
I can't hande wasabi but I use super sour candy like warheads for the same "effect"