Anxiety, difficulty breathing, loss of a loved one

[Angel87]

Hi all,

 Im new to Beyond Blue but am here as I am desperate to get my life back to normal.

Since January I've been getting bad heart burn, indigestion & chest pains. I saw my GP, he took a blood test & found my cholestral was high. Since then I've changed my diet & started exercising more. Around the same time I also found out my grandmother only had weeks left to live. This is when my anxiety started. The difficulty taking deep breaths, chest pains, heart racing, not sleeping, constantly on edge, fidgety etc.

 Now my grandma has gone it still isn't any better. I have an appointment with a cardiologist & was reading about the forum on Cardiac Anxiety & this sounds like me.

I truely miss when I could actually go through a day without constantly struggling to take a deep breath. I wish there was a day that I don't think there is something seriously wrong with me 😞

I know grieving is different for everyone & the time it takes to heal varies, but it has affected my entire life. I use to love my job & now I struggle to get through a day. It is really busy at the moment which doesn't help, but I use to love going to work & now not so much.

Please tell me it will get better & my life, my breathing & sleeping will feel "normal" again one day..

[white knight]

HiAngel, welcome to beyond blue forums

The very best advice I can give you is- deep breathing and muscle tensioning exercises. Both can be done before sleeping at night. I conquered my anxiety with these and medication and therapy.

Ok, muscle tensioning exercises should to taught by a therapist however the technique is - start by lying down in a quiet place. tension up your toes for 15 seconds as hard as you can then release. Then work your way up the body, thighs, buttocks, stomach, hands, arms, chest head and face etc. This should take around 12 minutes. At the end tension up all your muscles. Then relax. Your heart rate will fall. Relax there for as long as you like. Falling asleep now will be easier than normal.

Other might chip in with other ideas. Dont look for quick fixes. mental illness takes time for recovery.

Sorry to hear from your grandma. We are here to help

Tony WK

[HelenM]

This is very early days. You've just lost someone you love. Before January you didn't know she was dying. This is such a massive thing. Things will improve. In the early days of mental illness we think everything should sort outquickly. It's how I felt and most feel that way. Breathing, sleep, everything will sort in time.

Take care, Helen

[mizzy83]

Hi Angel.

I can really relate to your situation. I've been affected by anxiety since January as well and am slowly on the road to recovery.

Mine started with a freak out over my heart (blood pressure) that had me getting lots of tests done which all showed me to be pretty much ok. But still all my anxiety symptoms did not fade, and my sleep stayed bad which made it much tougher. 

 A few pieces of advice:

1. Your exercise is of great benefit to your stress/anxiety levels not just your heart health. Try for 30 minutes a day. 

2. remember it takes time for the anxiety to fade once your initial cause goes away. I'm no expert but I believe the time to recover will depend on your patience and ability to maintain a positive, or realistic state of mind in the bad moments. In my case I've been slow to recover because I allowed my mental state to descend into despair too easily when something a bit bad happened. I've made a few appointments with a psychologist and have started CBT. This recognizes my thoughts cause my anxiety, and focuses on training me to identify my most negative thoughts and counter them with more realistic or positive thoughts. A lot of my negative thoughts are sleep related. So at night when I think "i'm never going to get to sleep tonight" I counter that and say "I have no idea whether I'll sleep tonight but chances are I'll get some at least".

 3. If you see your GP and prepare a mental health plan you can get 10 sessions with a psyche almost for free. 

 4. Try a few supplements. I've started on CoQ10 and fish oil for my heart, magnesium and a valerian, hops and passion flower tablet for my sleep. I'm also tossing up whether to try St John's Wort which is quite a powerful herb for improving mood. 

5. Go on iTunes and purchase a CD of breathing exercises/meditation. Try a short one during the day and a long one later in the day.

 6. Try not to get impatient with the recovery. Since I accepted that it would likely take weeks of me doing the right things before this went away it took a bit of the pressure off, and the pressure was the main thing delaying my recovery.

 7. For sleep, aim to get in the best, nice relaxed state of mind you can before going to bed.

 Best of luck. 🙂