Alleviating physiological impact of anxiety

[Franco]

Hi all,

I suffer from what I would describe as a mild degree of agoraphobia and social anxiety. When I am doing something other than what I do day to day my anxiety triggers and causes physiological impacts to my body. The flight or fight reaction causes me to feel like vomiting and a need to go to the bathroom constantly with something not far from diarrhoea. What is worse is that when I start to feel even slightly anxious my appetite goes out the window and the thought or even the action of putting food in my mouth can make me gag. Unfortunately the lack of food in my stomach no doubt contributes to the sick feeling!

I'm currently of the belief that a lot of my anxiety and fear is that I will be stuck in a situation where I need to vomit or go to the bathroom and can't escape. As you can see, with all of the above considered it's a self-fulfilling cycle.

After some CBT with my psychologist I understand the need for exposure therapy to combat this (it's certainly easier said than done!!)

My question however, is does anyone have any suggestions for alleviating the stomach pains / upset stomach feeling / something to settle my stomach? I have a theory that if I can calm my stomach a little bit I will be able to have a real solid crack at consistently exposing myself to situations I know will make me anxious and therefore dampening my anxious reaction to these situations over time.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

[startingnew]

hi welcome to the forums

have you considered talking to you gp about giving you something for that?

it may be managed by a simple remedy or medication...

[Franco]

Hi startingnew,

Yes that is probably a good suggestion. I think I might do that regardless.

I will keep this thread open to any further suggestions, and if anyone has experienced a similar issue and has received a suggestion directly from a GP then please do share 🙂

[JessF]

Hello Franco, I'm not sure how extensive your discussions have been about the exposure therapy, but what you're describing is a bit of a cart before horse scenario: you experience reactions when trying to do certain things, so in order to do those things, you're looking to minimise the reactions.

Exposure therapy is all about gradually exposing yourself to the situations that are cuasing you the anxiety, in small steps. Sometimes the steps are tiny steps! Your psychologist should discuss this with you and build up a set of steps to the goal of whatever it is you want to do, such as overcoming a fear of heights. If you're experiencing reactions at any of the steps, then the step is too large and you need to scale it down. The psychologist should also be teaching you relaxation techniques as well.

What are some of the things you want to do that trigger these reactions?

[startingnew]

of course 🙂 your free to do whatever you like 🙂

[Franco]

Hi Jess,

Thanks for your reply.

My understanding of this have been curated after 4 one-on-one therapy sessions since July last year. The way it has been described to me is that I need to expose myself to situations which give at least a "7 out of 10" discomfort level (10 being horribly uncomfortable) in order to feel the anxiety pass whilst in the situation. Repeating this will decrease a "7 out of 10" to a 6, then 5, so on. Repeating situations which do not challenge, i.e. doing a 3 out of 10 over and over, *may* have some benefit, but it is not strong enough to see the '7' decrease.

Generally speaking situations that cause me anxiety include travelling on public transport, riding as a passenger in a car, going to dinners, business meetings - basically situations where I have little control of how much I can move. It's important to note that I'm 'high functioning' in the sense that I still do the good majority of things I want to, but simply feel extremely uncomfortable leading up to the event. Generally my anxiety leaves after 20-30ish minutes of being in the situation.

Relaxation techniques or good breathing only goes for far for me. Whilst it is helpful, if I have my stomach lurch on me it immediately triggers a fractional panic which I need to calm down (hence my original question!).

Please feel free to rebut any of my understanding above, it would be good to see an alternative viewpoint.