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Last time when I had a panic attack, I did not even notice that I have one. I was so used to being anxious and in a state of fight or flight. It was normal for me that as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I feel like I am drowning, my muscles tense and if I were conscience enough of myself, I could even realize that I was holding my breath, literally.

How was it possible for the person, who was working so hard on herself for all these years to end up in this situation?

Apparently, I was having a big problem. And I was in desperate need of a solution.

Hello, my name is Selena, many people, including myself, would call me a scientist. I have degrees in molecular biology and physiology, PhD in Biochemistry and I did a Postdoc in structural biology, learning the magic of cryoEM. But I am far more than my job. I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a spirit, a child of God, a creation of a stardust. Simply, I AM.

Since we exist, our bodies needed an alarm system, a trigger to fight or run. Our bodies produce chemicals that are in charge for this response. And these chemicals are not our enemies. But why then my body reacts so badly, like I said in the beginning, when I feel that I am in danger or when I worry too much? Is every reaction normal? Do I need to feel this alarm in my body all the time? And if I do need to feel it all the time, does it have to be this intense?

Now days we have split between positive stressors and negative stressors. Positive like- new job, wedding, new relationship, promotion, new house; and we also have negative stressors- death in a family, losing a job, divorce, being abused, legal problems. Unfortunately, I must say, positive stressors are not always only positive. Every positive stressor can bring a negative one too, like when you have a new job you can also worry about for example moving, or getting new house, or how will partner react. With this we feel like we are in a hamster wheel where it does not matter whether things are good or bad, eventually there will be something bad to stress us. Or is that just our point of view? It can be, yes. But more people than less, will find it difficult to deal with situations that are overwhelming, no matter how positive they are. The pressure of the fast-living world is unavoidable.

We still do not know a lot about how parts of the brain function and why they are triggered like they are. When talking about anxiety what is known is that the part of the brain called limbic system, comprised of the hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, and thalamus, is responsible for most of the emotional processing of situations. It has been recorded that during a stressful event individual with an anxiety disorder may have heightened activities in these areas. (1)

The amygdala has a central role in responses to stressful and emotionally intense situations. Studies of the parts of the amygdala – basolateral, central, and medial subdivisions, have shown that their activation induces anxiety, while their inactivation inhibits it. The amygdala releases stress hormones that prepare the body to fight the threat or flee from the danger. Common emotions that trigger this response are fear, anger, anxiety. (2)

Anxiety and worry are so much interconnected words. Worry mainly is about future problems, issues and situations that can come up and if there is some way to control them. This is mediated between connections of several parts of the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate part of the brain. At the same time anxiety is a much more expressed in a body, where all the “thinking”, “worrying”, “not being able to control” is expressed in the reactions of our bodies as cold sweat, high heart rate, shaking, being frozen in the moment, having a lump in the throat, vertigo and many other symptoms, depending on the personality. Anxiety is mediated by connections in the limbic system, which is afore mentioned part of the amygdala.

One specific neurotransmitter is responsible for the anxiety response, and it is called GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid). Even though it is not exactly known what causes anxiety disorder, one of the mentioned causes is chemical disbalance of this specific neurotransmitter. Due to certain lifestyle choices, or genetics, or both together, GABA can drop to levels below which it cannot perform its role as an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which means it can block certain messages from the nerve cells to the brain. With that it cannot reduces stress and anxiety anymore.

So how come I am finding myself in a ditch, with a T-shirt soaked in cold sweat and collapsing in a public transport and my grandmother who had so many tasks to do, feeding the kids, working on the field on 100+ degrees, washing and cleaning, serving my grandfather, going through poverty of the war, she did not have these effects and she did not need Xanax, not even later in her life, when I was aware of her and the situation to know what is going on?
We are often making jokes about people who have too much money and several therapists and wonder why they have so many problems… Maybe, when we have more choices, and we are exposed to the possibilities of more decisions to make, we tend to be more worrisome and at the end more anxious? Then we tend to ask ourselves: did we choose correctly; can we try again? Or as Abraham Hicks would say, sometimes as a joke, “OK, let us try this and see how it goes.” Well, yes, let`s try how it goes and then we have that choice to try again and again, and think if we can do it better and better next time.

Basically, no one gives us guaranties in life. Maybe that is how it should be. We build life as we live it. But now we understand that with having so many possibilities, we feel responsible if we do not make them. The pressure is high and so is the brain activity. Thus, the anxiety.

So, why is it still so hard to talk about it? Why is it a problem for example if you do have mental health problems and you want to say that at your work place you will be treated as someone who cannot perform as the rest of the people? Maybe you will have some rough days, as everyone else. But you should not be punished for that. Because you can be a genius! That sometimes needs just to rest, as anyone else. Do not be afraid of not being ok my lovely ones. If no one taught you how to love yourself, it is never late to start now. Love your brain as it is. It was built to be just like that, and it is perfect.

I know that later we will talk about spirituality and religion, I just want to mention one thing that comes to my mind and that is that anxiety is a problem of a person who does not have a spiritual or religious believes. Because if you believe you know that your life does not depend on you, because it depends on someone much, much higher then you. And your destiny is not in your hands, your destiny is already written, so there is no, absolutely no reason to worry about tomorrow and be anxious. But in more detail we will talk about that later, somehow I just wanted to mention that spirituality and religion give another dimension of a comfort to the people who are really anxious and are really suffering.

We are ending this episode with an advice my dear lovelies, you that are on the healing journey together with me; sometimes it helps to cry. After a good cry you feel that you are capable to forgive, to learn something from the situation to move on. Crying is not a sign of weakness, no. It is just what you need to cleanse the space of your future contentment.

I am so glad I could dedicate one episode today about anxiety and I am asking you: anxiety is it a friend or a foe? Shall we completely give up on anxiety or we still need it in our lives just a little bit, to keep us on the edge, so that we now shall we fight or flee?

Next time we will take about some solutions and some at home remedies. Stay tuned! I wish you a wonderful day and a wonderful week. I hope you really enjoy your days. Have faith. And believe. Until next time.

Lots of love. Selena

Music: Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm.