PANIC!

Adventures in depression.

2013-05-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of internet chatter about the return of Hyperbole and a Half, a web-comic blog by Allie Brosh. In 2011 she published a post called Adventures in Depression. "Some people have a legitimate reason to be depressed, but not me," it begins. "I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason."

Then Hyperbole and a Half went silent. Fans worried about Brosh, whom they'd come to know intimately via her blog. And then a few days ago there was a new post on Hyperbole and a Half, and then Depression Part Two, a followup to Adventures in Depression.

This is very good stuff. Brosh is hugely talented and hugely brave.

Anxiety, avoidance, and the brain.

2013-05-06T21:43:00.001-07:00

The excellent Anxiety series from The New York Times recently included a piece called "For the Anxious, Avoidance Can Have an Upside" by Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist I've referred to a number of times in the past here on PANIC! The article posits that avoidance isn't always maladaptive:

...people with social anxiety often cope with their problem by avoiding social situations altogether. This is not practical or beneficial. But neither is forcing oneself to show up at parties and just try to ride out the anxiety. A more effective treatment approach might be to combine anxiety-producing exposure with strategies that allow one to gain control over the anxiety trigger cues.

Michael Rogan, who was a researcher in my lab when the active coping work was first being done, currently treats people with social anxiety. He suggests to his clients with social anxiety that they should, when at a party, identify strategies for temporary escape and avoidance (go into the bathroom, step outside to make a call), and also use previously learned relaxation techniques (controlled breathing, imagery, mindfulness), to “chill out.” In this way, as in the rat studies, behaviors that succeed in reducing anxiety are reinforced, and each subsequent social event is a bit more tolerable.

Here's how it works in the brains of rats (and by implication in the human brain), according to LeDoux:

Much has been learned about the brain mechanisms underlying passive and active coping in rats. Freezing, the rat’s version of passive coping, is known to depend on a specific set of connections in the brain — specifically, between two regions of the amygdala: the one that processes incoming signals about the external world and the one that regulates innate reactions like freezing (via outputs to the lower brainstem). The active coping response, proactive avoidance, by contrast, requires that the information processed in the input region be redirected to a different output controller in the amygdala, one that engages goal-directed actions....

A major conceptual issue is how the re-routing takes place naturally within the amygdala, allowing the shift from freezing to active coping and thereby preventing pathological avoidance and allowing proactive avoidance and agency. Recent work has shown that connections from the prefrontal cortex, a region important in behavioral control, to the amygdala are important in allowing the shift to take place.

The amygdala has long been thought of as the accelerator on the threat train, and the prefrontal cortex the brakes. But the new work suggests that the prefrontal cortex is not just the brakes, but also the switch that controls the track on which the train travels. Figuring out how to more effectively engage the prefrontal cortex in this switching will hopefully suggest new treatment approaches.

On fighting terror with MIND POWERS.

2013-04-23T23:00:00.001-07:00

This is me on the radio (KQED's "Perspectives"), discussing what I've learned about fear and why it makes me think we could do a better job when it comes to responding to terror.

"With the right resources, I've managed my anxiety."

2013-04-05T17:34:00.002-07:00

According to stereotype, residents of New Hampshire are private and taciturn. They don't call attention to themselves. They use "dramatic" as an insult. Having lived in Granite State, just down the road from something called the Cold Weather Research and Engineering Laboratory, I can attest to the truth underlying the stereotype. Trust me: Those winters are long. If for no other reason, New Hampshirites have plenty to complain about -- but they don't.

Which is why I was surprised and delighted to stumble upon this personal history in the Concord Monitor, by retired teacher of linguistics and literature Tim Frazer. A couple of snippets:

I thought I had to keep my panic disorder a secret, even though this was a friendly crowd where I was on a first-name basis with most. I told a lie – I said, “I am really too hung over to read this, so I am going to give it to the chairperson to read and I will then sit down.” That got a sympathetic laugh – there were more than a few hard drinkers in our group. I had not had a thing to drink the night before. But I felt it was more okay to be hung over than to have a mental illness....

I have been able to cope with my problem for one big reason: I have a variety of resources which are not available to everyone....I had insurance that would pay for...treatment, an outpatient program that met four evenings a week for more than eight weeks....If I had been unemployed and on Medicaid, or on less generous insurance, I don’t think I would be leading the reasonably happy life I have in New Hampshire today.

It can be challenging to "come out" with panic to friends and family, much less to the general public. Kudos for Mr. Frazer for doing so. And kudos to him for recognizing how important health insurance can be for people with mental health issues. Without insurance, it can be difficult to access treatment. Without treatment, it can be next to impossible to lead a productive, fulfilling life.

Childhood bullying increases likelihood of adult panic and depression.

2013-03-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

As a child, I was soft, naive, bookish. The last boy in the neighborhood to believe in Santa Claus. The perfect victim for kids with a mean streak. Memories of being bullied are seared in my mind. The kid down the block who pinned my shoulders beneath his knees, grabbing me by the hair and pounding my skull against the asphalt of our leafy suburban street, again and again, until I began to give up the fight and lose myself in the vision of the tree branches swaying overhead. The girl in seventh grade, popular and pretty, who mocked my shambling gait each morning at the bus stop.

What did I do in response? I bullied other kids. I beat up kids who were softer, lower in the neighborhood pecking order. I mocked the girl in homeroom with really bad acne: "Pizza face!" I counted the days until I'd be big and strong enough to turn the tables on the kid down the block who'd beaten me senseless, when I'd be able to reduce him to tears with my fists -- and then I did just that, rubbing it in with my best Muhammed Ali impression in the process.

As an adult, I started having panic attacks, and ended up with a sizable dose of agoraphobia. Sure, lots and lots of other stuff may have contributed to that. But when I read that childhood bullying can have psychological implications into adulthood, it makes perfect sense to me:

Bullied kids were about three to five times more likely to have an anxiety or panic disorder or agoraphobia through their 20s after adjustment for childhood psychiatric problems and family hardships, William E. Copeland, PhD, of Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues found.

Kids who both bullied other children and were bullied themselves had the biggest psychological consequences in young adulthood, the researchers reported online in JAMA Psychiatry. They had roughly five-fold risk of depression and greater than 10-fold risk of panic disorder, agoraphobia (for women), and suicidality (for men).

Anxiety art.

2013-02-19T22:21:00.003-08:00

The New York Times has been publishing a lot of anxiety-related art recently, including Face It, This Mortal Coil, and a slide show called Anxiety: My Monster, My Self. Some pretty cool stuff here.

The trials and tribulations of the unemployed agoraphobic.

2013-01-08T16:52:00.004-08:00

Gawker has been running a series of first-hand accounts of unemployment featuring some gripping reading. As most of those who've been unemployed for a lengthy period will tell you, the psychic weight of it can be unbearably heavy. To wit, from the most recent entry in the series:

The stress and fear and anxiety as I watch my life sink into poverty with loss after loss after loss is beyond description. Loss of job, loss of health insurance, loss of transportation — my car broke down and needs a repair that is beyond my reach. The equity in the house I've lived in and payed on for 17 years? Evaporated in the mortgage debacle...

My image of myself as an accomplished professional, a woman who is resilient and competent is gone. A college degree, decades of experience and excellent references apparently count for nothing. I'm getting intermittent tremors in my hands that are most likely due to stress. I actually hope so because I have no way of seeing a doctor to see if I do have a serious medical problem.

Stressful stuff, right? Reading it made me think about how, hard as it may be to for those without first-hand experience of panic and agoraphobia to understand, issues of career and employment can be even more stressful for people with panic and/or agoraphobia than for others.

Imagine being terrified to the point of sheer panic whenever the subway's doors slide closed or you get stuck in traffic. Or on crowded rush-hour sidewalks, or in elevators. Makes working in 21st century America -- getting and keeping a job, and building a satisfying career -- a bit challenging. For those with a job, panic and agoraphobia can make for some big-time workplace stress. Too often, they result in un- or under-employment and serious financial issues -- and growing issues with panic and agoraphobia. It's a vicious cycle.

I know of what I speak. Panic in the workplace has caused me to leave good, lucrative jobs. Excessive absences during acute bouts of agoraphobia have resulted in my being asked to leave other jobs. Afraid of the bridge or the tunnel or whatnot, I've bailed out of interviews for jobs I really wanted and/or needed. I've lived with the World's Largest Stack of Unpaid Bills. I've gone for years without health insurance, coping by just kind of avoiding the temptation of thinking about what would actually happen if I got sick or had a serious accident. Several collection agents have been so kind as to provide me Free Phone Consultations on How to Live a Better Life and Become a Better Person -- unbidden, no less!

It took a long time, but I've finally been able to cobble together a seemingly sustainable career that allows me to spend most of my days in my home office. (Need a copywriter or content strategist? Check out my business website.) I go to meetings without many problems, and occasionally take a short-term gig on-site at a client, girding myself as necessary with some deep breathing and the knowledge that there's a Xanax in my pocket. Fortunately, I have experience and skills that make my work-from-home career choice viable, at least now. Unfortunately, there are lots of other folks with anxiety disorders wondering how they can make ends meet despite their mental-health issues. If you're among them, I wish you all the strength, resilience, and good fortune in the world.

Learn how to tame anxiety at the office.

Golfer pushes through panic to win PGA tournament.

2012-12-06T17:17:00.001-08:00

The overriding impulse during panic is to flee, to get somewhere safe. You're experiencing the fight-or-flight instinct. But there's nothing there for you to fight, no actual threat. Except yourself, your fears and the automatic ways you interpret and respond to the world.

Making your way through even a single day when you're panicking a lot can be daunting. Each panic attack is a trauma. You're constantly wide-eyed, on the lookout for situations that might set one off. At the end of the day, you're bone tired and cloudy of mind.

Which makes Charlie Beljan's victory in this year's Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Classic in Lake Buena Vista, FL, especially impressive. According to an article in the New York Times, here's how it went:

Beljan, 28, endured a five-hour stress test, staggering through 18 holes at the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. He sat down in the grass to catch his breath. Medical personnel in his gallery monitored his racing pulse. The fear of a possible heart attack dominated his thoughts.

He carded a 64, the second-lowest score of his rookie season, to take the lead, then left the grounds in an ambulance.

He spent the night in a hospital, with machines hooked up to his limbs and his golf shoes still on his feet. A battery of tests revealed nothing physically wrong with him. It was a panic attack.

And when Beljan was released on Saturday, he decided to put his nerves to the test for the final 36 holes.

Can you imagine?

Ecstasy and PTSD.

2012-12-04T17:02:00.001-08:00

Lots of veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are pretty messed up. One in five have post-traumatic stress disorder, which is no joke: "Drug use, suicide, marital problems and unemployment are some of the consequences...[which are] not good for the individuals or society in general."

According to the New York Times, veterans with PTSD are turning to the recreational drug ecstasy to ease their anguish. Typically associated with glow sticks and the thump-thump-thump of techno music, ecstasy, or MDMA, is showing real promise as a treatment for PTSD. Per the article:

In interviews, two people who have had the therapy — one, Anthony, currently in the veterans study, and another who received the therapy independently — said that MDMA produced a mental sweet spot that allowed them to feel and talk about their trauma without being overwhelmed by it.

“The feeling I got was nothing at all for 45 minutes, then really bad anxiety, and I was fighting it at first,” said Anthony, the Iraq veteran, who patrolled southwest of Baghdad in 2006 and 2007 amid relentless insurgent harassment and attacks with improvised explosive devices. “And then — I don’t know how to put it, exactly — I felt O.K. and messed up at the same time. Clear. It was almost like I could go into any thought I wanted and fix it.”For instance, he could think and talk about an attack that occurred in a town near Baghdad, in which Iraqis posing as allies — and who had been armed by the American military — turned their guns on American troops, killing several. The unit could not quickly evacuate its wounded because of weather conditions. Anthony’s rage and grief were so overwhelming that he had to suppress them and did so for years.

“The military does a great job of turning you into a soldier, of teaching you how to control your reactions, and it is hard to turn those habits off,” Anthony said.

He said he no longer struggled with post-traumatic anxiety or guilt, more than a year after undergoing the MDMA-assisted treatment.

MDMA previously on PANIC!

Panic and anxiety on The Mental Illness Happy Hour.

2012-11-22T17:41:00.000-08:00

The Mental Illness Happy Hour is a podcast hosted by comedian Paul Gilmartin, best known as co-host of TBS's Dinner and a Movie. Each week, Gilmartin talks mental illness with another actor or comedian. As the website puts it, "The show is geared towards anyone interested in or affected by depression, addiction and other mental challenges which are so prevalent in the creative arts. Paul’s hope is that the show and this website will give people a place to connect, smile and feel the return of hope."

Talk about turning lemons into lemonade.

Interviewees with panic stories include Janet Varney, Gilmartin's Dinner and a Movie co-host; Jen Kirkman (Chelsea Lately, Drunk History); radio and podcasting "personality" Gina Grad; writer Morgan Murphy (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, 2 Broke Girls); Chris Hardwick, host of TV shows like MTV's Singled Out as well as the Nerdist podcasts; and Dave Holmes (MTV's Wanna Be a VJ, FX's DVD on TV).

How the Citadel director's agoraphobia inspired a horror film.

2012-11-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Ciaran Foy is the director of a new horror film, Citadel, in which an agoraphobic man tries to protect his daughter from a roaming band of warped, feral kids. In an interview with io9, he discusses his real life agoraphobia and how it informed his film:

How similar was your experience with agoraphobia and what the character went through in this film?

Well it's kind of in many ways the first half of the film is very personal...I was 18 still living at home with my parents, the front door became the biggest challenge for me. I guess it symbolized the one threshold I couldn't pass...

So from that standpoint, feeling that sense of complete weakness. I can't even open the front door. I should be able to face the world, what is wrong with me. It's complete irrational fear.

I'm not a huge horror fan, but I'm interested in this.

And, hey, reader. If you've seen it, was it good?

Royce White, the Houston Rockets, and anxiety in the workplace.

2012-11-15T13:51:00.001-08:00

Royce White, the basketball player attempting to make it in the NBA with severe anxiety disorder, is apparently at an impasse with his employer, the Houston Rockets. At this point it's a he said-she said affair, with White claiming that the Rockets have been inconsistent in their "support" of him, and the Rockets organization making ambiguous comments about what's going on.

This is a tough situation. I hope White and the Rockets can work it out, or White can find his way somewhere where he sees eye to eye with his employer. I hope everyone involved learns something, especially if it makes it easier for people with anxiety in the workplace -- and makes hiring people with anxiety seem less risky to employers.

Props to Henry Abbott for his approach to the story, which respects White and his travails rather than denigrating him for not being more manly, or spouting some other "suck it up!" caveman-jock nonsense.

Anxiety and the workplace previously on PANIC!

21 entirely legitimate reasons to panic.

2012-10-31T11:56:00.003-07:00

1. Earthquake
2. Tornado
3. Hurricane
4. Tsunami
5. You're 100 feet underwater and almost out of oxygen
6. Runaway train
7. Locked-in syndrome
8. The guy in front of you decides to rob the bank
9. Serial killer
10. Anthrax
11. Bain Capital purchases your employer
12. Bikini season
13. There's no wifi
14. Sudden loss of altitude
15. There's a mouse under the kitchen table
16. Vague memories of drunken texting
17. Your period's late
18. Alien invasion
19. Bird flu
20. Police lights in the rearview mirror
21. Donald Trump's hair

Therapy in the digital age.

2012-10-23T14:39:00.004-07:00

"Recalibrating Therapy for Our Wired World" is one psychiatrist's take on the changes forced on the practice by 21st century digital connectivity:

For some, the new technology is clearly a boon. Let’s say you have the common anxiety disorder social phobia. You avoid speaking up in class or at work, fearful you’ll embarrass yourself, and the prospect of going to a party inspires dread. You will do anything to avoid social interactions.

You see a therapist who sensibly recommends cognitive-behavioral therapy, which will challenge your dysfunctional thoughts about how people see you and as a result lower your social anxiety. You find that this treatment involves a fair amount of homework: You typically have to keep a written log of your thoughts and feelings to examine them. And since you see your therapist weekly, most of the work is done solo.

As it turns out, there is a smartphone app that will prompt you at various times during the day to record these social interactions and your emotional response to them. You can take the record to your therapist, and you are off and running...

When it comes to collecting and organizing data, software is hard to beat. But information has a tendency to spread, especially digital information. To wit, electronic medical data containing sensitive personal information can be released, either accidentally or deliberately, and disseminated. Anyone who has followed the hacking of supposedly secure and encrypted financial databases knows this is not a remote possibility.

Interesting.

The best of PANIC!: A Buddhist perspective on coping with anxiety.

2012-10-10T10:20:00.002-07:00

The Venerable Thubten Chodron wrote a great piece entitled "Dealing with Anxiety", which posits that anxiety is caused by our natural inclination towards self-centeredness:

If somebody else's car gets dented we say, "Well, that's too bad," and forget about it. But if our car gets dented, we talk about it and complain about it for a long time. If a colleague is criticized, it doesn't bother us. But if we receive even a tiny bit of negative feedback, we become angry, hurt or depressed.

Why is this? We can see that anxiety is very intricately related to self-centeredness. The bigger this idea that "I am the most important one in the universe and everything that happens to me is so crucial," is, the more anxious we are going to be. My own anxious mind is a very interesting phenomena. Last year, I did a retreat by myself for four weeks, so I had a nice long time to spend with my own anxious mind and know it very well. My guess is that it's similar to yours. My anxious mind picks out something that happened in my life -- it does not make a difference what it is. Then I spin it around in my mind, thinking, "Oh, what if this happens? What if that happens? Why did this person do this to me? How come this happened to me?" and on and on. My mind could spend hours philosophizing, psychologizing and worrying about this one thing. It seemed like nothing else in the world was important but my particular melodrama.

When we are in the middle of worry and anxiety regarding something, that thing appears to us to be incredibly important. It's as if our mind doesn't have a choice -- it has to think about this thing because it's of monumental significance. But I noticed in my retreat that my mind would get anxious about something different every meditation session. Maybe it was just looking for variety! It's too boring to just have one thing to be anxious about! While I was worrying about one thing, it seemed like it was the most important one in the whole world and the other ones weren't as important. That is until the next session arrived, and another anxiety became the most important one and everything else was not so bad. I began to realize it isn't the thing I am worrying about that is the difficulty. It is my own mind that is looking for something to worry about. It doesn't really matter what the problem is. If I'm habituated with anxiety, I'll find a problem to worry about. If I can't find one, then I'll invent one or cause one.

One means to coping with anxiety is to adopt a perspective that goes beyond just yourself:

By meditating on the kindness of others, we will see that we have actually been the recipients of an incredible amount of kindness and love from others. In doing this meditation, first think about the kindness of your friends and relatives, all the different things that they have done for you or given you. Start with the people who took care of you when you were an infant. When you see parents taking care of their kids, think, "Somebody took care of me that way," and "Somebody gave me loving attention and took care of me like that." If nobody had given us that kind of attention and care, we wouldn't be alive today...

...Think about the incredible kindness we received from those who taught us to speak. I visited a friend and her two-year-old child who was learning to speak. I sat there, watching as my friend repeated things over and over again just so her child could learn to speak. To think that other people did that for us! We take our ability to speak for granted, but when we think about it, we see that other people spent a lot of time teaching us how to speak, make sentences, and pronounce words. That is a tremendous amount of kindness we have received from others, isn't it? Where would we be if no one taught us how to talk? We did not learn by ourselves. Other people taught us. Everything we learned throughout childhood and everything we keep learning as adults -- every new thing that comes into our lives and enriches us -- we receive due to the kindness of others. All of our knowledge and each of our talents exist because others taught us and helped us to develop them.

It may or may not help you achieve enlightenment, but this sure seems like worthwhile advice.

Stress & anxiety: yet another way rich folks have it easier.

2012-10-02T11:31:00.002-07:00

We've all heard how challenging it can be to be rich and powerful. All that responsibility! All those high-stakes decisions! The stress of ordering mass layoffs! The sweat and tears when deciding between Sag Harbor, Southampton, and Sagaponack! Those pesky taxes!

Cue the violins. According to an L.A. Times article:

A new study reveals that those who sit atop the nation's political, military, business and nonprofit organizations are actually pretty chill. Compared with people of similar age, gender and ethnicity who haven't made it to the top, leaders pronounced themselves less stressed and anxious. And their levels of cortisol, a hormone that circulates at high levels in the chronically stressed, told the same story.

The source of the leaders' relative serenity was pretty simple: control.

Compared with workers who toil in lower echelons of the American economy, the leaders studied by a group of Harvard University esearchers enjoyed control over their schedules, their daily living circumstances, their financial security, their enterprises and their lives.

"It's clear that having a sense of control is protective against stress," said Nichole Lighthall, who researches stress and its effects at Duke University and was not involved in the new study.

"People in a company at all levels may be affected by the market and its unpredictability," she said. But while rank-and-file employees may worry about being laid off, chief executives can pretty much rest assured that "they'll keep their position in society, their superiority, their lifestyle and their income" even if the organization over which they preside suffers, she said.

This is confirmation of earlier research (see this PANIC! post, about Robert Sapolsky's baboons and the Whitehall Study of British civil servants). Want to be less anxious? Get yourself in a position of power. Failing that, focus on what you can control, and let go of the rest of what worries you.

Can a guy with panic disorder make it in the NBA?

2012-09-07T15:41:00.002-07:00

Royce White is going to find out.

This is an outstanding, and outstandingly honest, short documentary film. This kid is courageous.

Thank you, Grantland.

What not to say when someone panics.

2012-08-21T17:43:00.002-07:00

1. Just calm down. "When someone says this, it almost feels like they're telling me what to do. And if I'm already at the point where I can't control my body, it's a request that's impossible to comply with."

2. Why can't you just relax? "It'd be like relaxing while being chased by a wild animal or running out of a burning building."

3. There's nothing wrong with you. "My body is shaking. I can't feel my feet. Of course there's something wrong with me. I'm having a panic attack, and I feel miserable</>."

4. Sit down. "Let the panicker decide what feels most comfortable for him or her."

5. You're overreacting. "We already know that."

I could pick nits and say #1 and #2 are essentially the same thing, but this is really good.

Is Facebook making us anxious? Depressed?

2012-07-31T17:00:00.002-07:00

According to a University of Wisconsin study, despite frequent claims to the contrary, when it comes to depression, the answer's no:

Despite all its merits in keeping people connected, Facebook has been suspected of leading to unfortunate side effects, such as jealousy, low self-esteem or divorce. But new research out of the University of Wisconsin suggests people should think twice before tacking depression onto that list.

"People have looked at things like jealousy, and more transient moods or whatnot, but we really looked at clinical depression," Lauren Jelenchick, the lead author of the study, told The Huffington Post. "There was no relation between the amount of time [study participants] were on Facebook and their symptoms of depression."

On the other hand, a study from the University of Salford in the U.K. indicates that social media may cause anxiety and lower self-esteem:

About half of the survey’s 298 participants, all of whom identified themselves as social media users, say that their use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter makes their lives worse. In particular, participants noted that their self-esteem suffers when they compare their own accomplishments to those of their online friends.

In addition to confidence issues, two-thirds claim they find it difficult to fully relax or sleep after spending time on social networks. A quarter cited work or relationship difficulties due to online confrontations. And more than half say they feel “worried or uncomfortable” at times they are unable to access their Facebook or email accounts.

Why anxiety disorders strike more women than men.

2012-07-26T20:54:00.002-07:00

This article describes a recent study of why anxiety disorders strike twice as many women as men:

Clinical psychologist Dr Kim Felmingham, of the University of Tasmania, and colleagues, report their finding in a recent issue of the journal Biological Psychology.

"Women develop these anxiety disorders at approximately twice the rate that men do and we really don't have a good explanation for why that happens," says Felmingham.

Felmingham and her team "tested a biological hypothesis that could explain why women have a greater prevalence of anxiety disorders":

Previous research has found emotional memories, typically negative memories, are better recalled than neutral emotions, says Felmingham.

And, the higher the arousal at the time the emotional memory is encoded dictates how well it is "consolidated" and remembered later.

"Maybe women have greater arousal during encoding and that therefore leads to stronger emotional memory consolidations," says Felmingham.

The result:

"With that same level of arousal, women actually had greater memory consolidation than men," says Felmingham.

Felmingham says it is not clear what specifically about the arousal that is affecting memory recall but the findings suggest a potential mechanism for the greater prevalence of anxiety disorders in women.

SCIENCE!

Point-Counterpoint: Anti-Fear Drugs

2012-07-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

This io9 post reviews the science behind a couple of studies of an experimental anti-fear drug, at Duke University and the NIH: "The common element in their studies is a gene-encoding enzyme called fatty acid hydrolase, or FAAH. This enzyme breaks down a natural endocannabinoid chemical in the brain."

The conclusion? "This discovery suggests that those people who are not endowed with the lower enzyme function could be treated pharmacologically to modify their fear response."

There are pros to this potentiality, of course: "The fear-reducing pill could be seen as a kind of nootropic, a next-gen sort of cognitive enhancer. It may allow people to pierce through their anxieties and reservations and engage more deeply in life and their passions. It could even help people with stressful jobs, such as police officers, firefighters, soldiers, and athletes."

There are also cons: "It's worth noting that psychopaths have an impaired amygdala."

Bonus SNL Point-Counterpoint video, starring Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin.

Meet Royce White, anxiety sufferer.

2012-06-25T16:45:00.001-07:00

I missed this because I paid no attention to college basketball this year, but Aubrey Huff isn't the only prominent athlete who's "come out" recently as suffering from an anxiety disorder. Iowa State forward Royce White, a projected first-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft, is also doing the right thing and helping educate folks about anxiety:

White said he's talking about his anxiety publicly because he wants to help. He said he believes other athletes probably encounter similar struggles but refuse to get treatment.

"I want to speak out now, because not only do I understand my own anxiety, I understand that anybody who's had an anxiety disorder, diagnosed or not diagnosed, how it can affect their life."

"So many people will go undiagnosed for their whole life and not understand it," White said. And they will suffer. It's suffering."

Courageous kid. I hope he soars.

Fear and fearlessness.

2012-06-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

The journey of knowing fear, of moving closer to fear, is the journey of courage, the journey of bravery. Face toward your fear. Leap into your fear. Smile at fear. Fear is the vanguard of wisdom and courage.

Interested in hearing Pema Chodron discuss these ideas? Check out this talk.

More on Aubrey Huff.

2012-05-12T20:30:00.002-07:00

I was half joking when I said Aubrey Huff is my new favorite San Francisco Giant, but after reading this, man, I really mean it:

He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, his mind racing with thoughts of struggles on and off the field. At 5 a.m. he decided to get up.

"I open the window and see the New York skyline," he said. "The sun is starting to come up. I see all the huge buildings. I just freaked out. I don't know what happened. I couldn't figure out what it was. The room felt like it was getting smaller, a claustrophobic feeling. I couldn't control one thought in my head. There were so many thoughts going through."

His overriding thought, "If I'm going to die of a heart attack, I'm going to at least try to get home."

Huff packed, put on a suit and took a cab to the airport, where he bought a ticket for Tampa and lay along a wall at the gate, crouched on his bag, comforted by having other people around who could help him if he lost consciousness.

"I was shaking, sweating," he said. "I was telling myself, 'Just get on the plane. Just get on the plane.' "

Recognize any of this? The sense that your surroundings are closing in on you? The belief -- the certainty -- that you're having a heart attack? The overwhelming impulse to flee, to get somewhere safe? Isn't it great that a public figure, a pro athlete, no less, someone who's been taught to put "sucking it up" as among the most important traits a man can possess, is being so public about what's happening with his mental health? But here's what really wins me over:

"To be honest with you, I was always taught that people who had anxiety issues were just weak-minded people," he said. "Now that it's happened to me, you see you can't control it. To people this has happened to, there's nothing you can say or do on the outside to make somebody feel better because they haven't experienced it."

P.S. Yes, he's only been to bat twice since coming off the disabled list at the beginning of the week, but he's batting .500 since his return. Good on ya, Huff Daddy.

SF Giants baseball player on disabled list with anxiety.

2012-05-02T17:59:00.003-07:00

I've talked in the past on PANIC! about pro athletes being sidelined by panic and anxiety. Here in San Francisco, it's happened again, to Giants infielder Aubrey Huff:

San Francisco Giants baseball player Aubrey Huff has been put on the 15-day disabled list because of anxiety, according to the team’s manager, Bruce Bochy...

Huff has had his share of troubles. He is currently going through a divorce and his father was murdered when he was 7. His career has been floundering this year. And on Saturday, while playing second base for the first time, Huff did not cover second base on what could have been a key double play. Some described the play as "embarrassing."

Any and all of these events could lead to anxiety and panic attacks for certain individuals, experts said.

This is a bummer for Huff, and I hope he feels back on solid ground soon. And bravo to him for being public about what he's going through:

"Without interviewing Mr. Huff, it is impossible to know the precise nature of his anxiety," said Dr. Una McCann, director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. "However, I'm impressed that he was so open about the diagnosis, since psychiatric illnesses continue to be stigmatized."

"Be being forthright about his problem, he did a real service for all those other patients with anxiety disorders who feel they need to hide their diagnoses or are embarrassed to speak about them," said McCann.

Aubrey Huff's my new favorite Giant.