I struggle with anxiety. Maybe it's the reason why I lost 3 kilos since the year began. I can't eat right. I just tried eating some biscuits but then I started breathing very fast and now I'm trying to recover. This is called hyperventilation. I just can't put my breathing on automatic mode whenever I'm eating just like I blink my eyes automatically. And I can't eat sitting no more. I must pace the room where I'm at. Eating in a room full of people is the dictionary definition of discomfort for me. I stopped lunching in college because of that. Plus the room there is very hot, making it hell for me.
Plus I can't find the energy to go out to places I'd like to. I've seen so many young people travel the world (I made a thread about this) yet I don't even like going alone up the hill on the street I live to buy me a dessert. It probably was the thing that gave me 1 kilo back. I hope my scale is not lying to me.
For people who would like to talk, I'm all ears. I don't talk to too many people. I don't have many friends. The only person I talk to regularly is my mother, and that is because she lives with me, but she cold shoulders me everytime I want to talk about my problems, or anything that's not related to anyone's problems.
Anxiety is horrible. I think I have only had it a few times but it was terrible. I feel for you. I'm here anytime. I think you should talk more about it here. Lots of people here will listen. I know I will. I think you go back pretty far with some of us. Don't you live in Brazil? Or is that a different Mitch?
Yes, it's the one.
I've talked about my problem of eating before. Ever since I started to walk while I eat I've made a small progress. It helps me distract from my breathing. It takes a coordination to breath and eat. And I sense I lost that coordination.
have you tried breathing into a paper bag when you do that?
I wanted to try that today but I had no nearby bags lol. I inhale through the nose and let the air go through the mouth slowly but it still takes something like 15 minutes for me to resume eating when I get exhausted.
Anxiety is horrible. I think I have only had it a few times but it was terrible. I feel for you. I'm here anytime. I think you should talk more about it here. Lots of people here will listen. I know I will. I think you go back pretty far with some of us. Don't you live in Brazil? Or is that a different Mitch?
Yes, it's the one.
I've talked about my problem of eating before. Ever since I started to walk while I eat I've made a small progress. It helps me distract from my breathing. It takes a coordination to breath and eat. And I sense I lost that coordination.
have you tried breathing into a paper bag when you do that?
I wanted to try that today but I had no nearby bags lol. I inhale through the nose and let the air go through the mouth slowly but it still takes something like 15 minutes for me to resume eating when I get exhausted.
Have you found/ tried to find other things to potentially distract while you're eating? Watch something? Read a book? Do puzzles or something? Maybe those could help too.
Breathing/feeling like choking is something I massively struggle with when I'm anxious, I've learned a lot of breathing techniques over the years because of it. Most of them simply break down to take long deep breaths, and try to breath into your stomach instead of your chest. Anxiety often stems from our freight, flight or fight reaction in the brain, so our body thinks we're in danger, even when we aren't. It causes a bunch of physical symptoms, adrenaline, shallow breathing, heightened sensitivity, sometimes you have to pee or shit cause the body wants to evacuate any extra weight, so you're theoretically faster.
Anyways, its why sometimes, if you can gain control of your breathing it can help calm you down even just a little bit. So, just something to try, if you haven't already, try to forcibly relax yourself before you go to eat. Try to deep breath in and make the air go down into your stomach, count to 4 slowly as you breath in. Hold it for a moment, then breath out to the count of 6. Now while you're doing this you can also try to tense muscle in your body while you're breathing in, and then untense them while you're breathing out.
Can't garuantee this stuff will help, but it might.
What do you think caused the anxiety around your eating?
I’m actually good. Everyone around me is falling apart but my cancer is gone. I have time with my kids. I start nursing school in 2 months. About to go on a 8 day hike into grizzly country. I guess this is a brag.
Got Bear Spray?
A couple of years ago I helicoptered out of Golden, BC to middle of nowhere in the mountains for backwoods hiking. I got my training on bear spray. I suppose they say the same thing to all the tourists.
Wait until the bear is 3 feet away and spray it directly in the face of the bear If you spray when the bear is 6 feet away, the spray dissipates and has no effect on the bear. Then, you should throw the can at the bear and run like hell!
Who has the courage to wait until an aggressive grizzly is 3 feet away?
I've talked about my problem of eating before. Ever since I started to walk while I eat I've made a small progress. It helps me distract from my breathing. It takes a coordination to breath and eat. And I sense I lost that coordination.
I wanted to try that today but I had no nearby bags lol. I inhale through the nose and let the air go through the mouth slowly but it still takes something like 15 minutes for me to resume eating when I get exhausted.
Have you found/ tried to find other things to potentially distract while you're eating? Watch something? Read a book? Do puzzles or something? Maybe those could help too.
Breathing/feeling like choking is something I massively struggle with when I'm anxious, I've learned a lot of breathing techniques over the years because of it. Most of them simply break down to take long deep breaths, and try to breath into your stomach instead of your chest. Anxiety often stems from our freight, flight or fight reaction in the brain, so our body thinks we're in danger, even when we aren't. It causes a bunch of physical symptoms, adrenaline, shallow breathing, heightened sensitivity, sometimes you have to pee or shit cause the body wants to evacuate any extra weight, so you're theoretically faster.
Anyways, its why sometimes, if you can gain control of your breathing it can help calm you down even just a little bit. So, just something to try, if you haven't already, try to forcibly relax yourself before you go to eat. Try to deep breath in and make the air go down into your stomach, count to 4 slowly as you breath in. Hold it for a moment, then breath out to the count of 6. Now while you're doing this you can also try to tense muscle in your body while you're breathing in, and then untense them while you're breathing out.
Can't garuantee this stuff will help, but it might.
What do you think caused the anxiety around your eating?
I'm not sure but watching something might have worked before. Not anymore. I've tried reading but it not very confortable for me. Puzzle might be the same thing. One day I'll try listening to music on earphones but I always felt like earphones were discomfortable for eating. But I'll still try them.
I've watched some videos on the issue.
The thing is, I'm relaxed before I eat. I start eating normally, then I get tired.
A few years back, things like this would happen when I started to pay attention to my chewing and swallowing. Just like when we pay attention to us blinking our eyes, we get a bit uncomfortable because what was an "automatic" process is now "manual". The same happened when I was eating, except that didn't occur everyday back then, but rarely.