I'm pinned to the floor screaming. My wife tries to drown me out with the sound of nursery rhymes, so I don't frighten the baby. I am having a panic attack. I am burning with shame because I am terrified.
This was my reality a couple of years ago. My life was controlled by panic attacks for more than a decade. I had at least one every week. I was very anxious.
I kept telling myself that each attack was a freak occurrence and that I had been tired or under pressure. It changed when a dad became a dad. One study found that a heightened risk of asthma was linked to a lower academic achievement and resilience in children. I couldn't let it go on.
I kept telling myself it wasn’t that bad, that each attack was a freak occurrence – I’d been tired or under pressure
I embarked on a year of trying everything I could to beat my anxiety. The process of unlearning was long and uncomfortable. I thought I would be more in control. I felt less sure of my expertise with each study I read. This journey was not what I had in mind. I wanted a lot of rules and habits.
It worked.
I'm going to share some things I tried that were based on research. My experiences and results may not apply to everyone.
If you want to deal with anxiety, you should be a good scientist. Try something. The results should be observed. People are anxious. Science is about doubt. When you embrace uncertainty, you make space for possibility. That is where change happens.
Research into the effects of exercise on anxiety sufferers has yielded mixed results. I hated working out when I started. I liked two types most: HIIT and LISS. The former does sprints and star jumps with short rests. The latter is similar to jogging, walking and swimming.
I used to experience a lot of symptoms when I had a panic attack, so it was good to practice with HIIT. It is like exposure therapy. I ran my first marathon last year because LISS improved my health. I can still worry, but it improves my mood because I believe I can cope with challenges.
Many articles get published in which writers talk about the power of the gut and how it can improve our mental health. Microbiologist Simon Carding told me that much of this is hype and that journalists misinterpret the results of studies in mice.
The idea that we can beat anxiety with sauerkraut, kimchi, and other fermented foods is not supported by strong evidence.
Crashes in blood sugar are associated with anxiety. When stress causes the release of blood sugar into the bloodstream, it causes the body to make more of it. You can't think straight when you feel dizzy and tired, because anxiety causes brief hyperglycaemic highs followed by lows.
It was good to stop drinking energy drinks and eating junk food because they triggered the same cycle. I lost 3st. Reducing excess body fat is one way to reduce inflammation. A Mediterranean diet of lots of fresh fruits and vegetables rich in plant-based polysaccharides, nuts, olive oil and not much meat has been shown to have a correlation with lower anxiety.
These changes are not cures, but they are good for your health across a range of profiles. It was good for my self-esteem, energy levels and overall mood to switch from kebabs to vegetables. I feel less jittery now that I don't have sugar crashes.
Taking medication for anxiety is still a topic that is highly charged. I think part of the reason is the different experiences people have. It's like flicking a light switch for some. The first time I took the sertraline, I woke up the next morning and was not anxious. The effects didn't last, but I was cured after a short honeymoon period.
I've experienced many side-effects from the drugs, including anorgasmia, twitching, sweats and diarrhoea, and sometimes they've done nothing at all. It is hard for those on different sides of the debate to believe opposing arguments could ever be made in good faith.
According to meta-analyses of hundreds of trials, the best way to reduce symptoms of anxiety is to use a combination of drugs. 70% of people who take them without other interventions don't see a cure for their symptoms. The numbers are in line with many treatments in modern medicine, but they suggest you should try other approaches if you don't choose to explore medication.
As an anxiety cure, jumping in a cold shower or swimming outdoors in cold weather is somewhere between legitimate and alternative medicine. What you make for it is the most important distinction.
A quick dip in cold water leaves me glowing. It calms the chatter in my head and it's quite funny. I'm a big, silly man and I'm freezing in the river. Even if the laughs come between screams, it always makes me laugh.
Cold-water exposure can help normalise the hormonal cascade our body releases under stress, as we adapt to the shock. I'm a sucker for them. They are initially horrible, but I have never felt worse or regretted doing one.
There has been a lot of excitement about the use of drugs such as MDMA and psilocybin to help ease end-of-life anxiety in patients. The trials lack credible placebo results, their samples suffer from selection bias, and they involve intensive therapy, so it's not clear if psychedelics are a necessary component.
The experience of taking a high dose of psilocybin in these trials was diversion, but not therapeutic. The results of the best trials suggest that the benefits are temporary. Taking a trip under safe, controlled conditions may prove to be a spiritual experience. I am glad I tried it, but it didn't make me better.
If writing were therapeutic, authors would be the most calm and happy people on the planet. The type of writing matters. Multiple meta-analyses have found that the benefits of gratitude journals are weak. They may have a small placebo effect.
Writing about traumatic experiences can boost subjective wellbeing, health, immune response and even the healing rate of a 3mm punch biopsy wound according to research. James W Pennebaker told me that you have to connect the details of the event with your feelings. In the process of writing down my experiences for the book, I may have blundered into a powerful, free means of engaging with our challenging memories and emotions.
Mike Shel said that until a person feels understood, all the information in the world, all the data, all the scientific understanding of the process are useless. Someone needs to feel that they are getting what they need.
At its core, anxiety is a message. It is an ancient signal that the organisms is in danger. There is no monster under the bed, the coiled snake is just a rope, but it wants to be heard. There is something profoundly healing in being understood, in feeling that whatever you have been through, someone sees it, someone sees you, and they get it. The message has been delivered. You can rest.
The combination of eating well, regular, challenging exercise, cold-water swimming and small interventions like noting down my tasks for the week so I don't have to carry them in my head made a significant difference for me. I haven't had a panic attack in two and a half years. Writing and talking about my anxiety and deep shame was the most important thing. Recovery is almost inevitable when we can be ourselves in front of others and they accept us, because words like vulnerability and connection have been hammered into such bland shapes.
Canongate published Coward: Why We Get Anxious and What We Can Do About It. You can buy it at guardianbookshop.com.
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