Anxiety
& Panic Attacks Series: Part 1 Training the Amygdala
Sit, Stay! What dog trainers know about leadership and
anxiety…
Have you
ever tried to train a dog? Not that easy huh!? I remember my first dog Sandy, a
cocker spaniel. Now spaniels are not generally known as the smartest dogs in
the fold and Sandy fitted that stereotype quite well. It took years to train
him, and even then he was a naughty dog, but there are a few things that may
have made life a lot easier, if I had just applied them from the beginning. The
trick? Calm assertive energy, positive reinforcement, pulling in the reigns,
consistency & repetition.
But what
does dog training and anxiety have to do with panic attacks and anxiety? Maybe
more than you first thought…
Calm-Assertive Energy
Domestic dogs were originally bred
from wild wolves. They lived in packs, there was a clear leader and they relied
on each other for survival. We have bred dogs to rely on us, there is no pack
but we are the pack leader, therefore, we have to act like one.
When we have
anxiety and panic attacks, it is the amygdala in our brain that takes over our
autonomic nervous system, kicking the sympathetic fight-fright-flight-freeze
system into gear. However, I have to say, freeze is the most common of these
related to anxiety; I mean, who feels like fighting when they have a panic
attack!?
When a panic
attack kicks in it is generally too late to apply logic, reasoning and
assertive measures; what we are looking at here is regulating our nervous
system to do the job it’s meant to do, and train it’s calm nature to avoid over
thinking and negative patterns.
So how do we
become calm and assertive with our brain? We can apply logic, compassion and Socratic
questioning to our negative thoughts. For example; ‘I’m no good at doing this,
I always stuff things up’ may become ‘Is it really a mistake? By who’s
measures? If I did stuff it up, am I the first person in history to make a
mistake? I am willing to work on myself in a positive way. Do I treat other
people as harshly as I judge and treat myself? Why should I keep being so harsh
on myself? Does that achieve anything? I’m not a great friend to myself, maybe
it’s time to move forward in a positive, compassionate and constructive way’.
As someone once said to me, ‘If you are brave enough to make friends with
yourself, at least you have one friend in the world’.
So what
exactly are we being calm and assertive with?
The answer
is ourselves. This concept runs deep but the basics lye in our positive inner
voice being louder than our negative inner voice. We are probably so used to
the negative dialogue that runs a million miles an hour that we don’t know how
to switch it off, but we must. We must become hyper vigilant to our
negativities rather than the physical, emotional and external signs that may
trigger a panic attack or anxiety. We have to be a watcher and assert the
thoughts. We can catch the thought and stop it, question it and assert
positivity. Like training a dog, the older the dog, the longer it takes to
train it. But it is possible, you need patience, diligence, awareness,
endurance and of course compassion.
Positive Reinforcement
Victoria Stilwell, from it’s me or the dog is a British
actress-turned-dog-trainer. She believes that most dog behavioural problems
“stem from insecurity and/or a desire to seek and maintain safety and comfort.”
Therefore, instead of punishing the dog when it does something naughty alone is
not as effective as redirection towards rewarded appropriate behaviour.
My dad
always said ‘you catch more flies with honey than vinegar’, and I believe the
same is with behaviours. The problem is with anxiety and panic that we are
rewarding the wrong behaviours. We have become very good at rewarding avoidance
behaviour, for example; a person with a fear of public speaking or closed
spaces. When the opportunity comes up to public speak, they avoid it or make
excuses or take a sick day from work. The claustrophobic person may avoid
aeroplanes or elevators by travelling by car or taking the stairs. By doing
this they are positively reinforcing that, for example, inside the lift is bad,
outside the lift is good. When you are forced to get in a lift, the whole experience
is horrible and panicky, it’s very negative. As soon as you get out of the lift
you think ‘ah! What a relief!’ By doing this we are positively reinforcing the
wrong things. This happens over and over and it’s not our fault, we just got
really good at doing something but it’s just not a beneficial thing for
us.
So what
should we positively reinforce?
This is
where exposure comes in. We have to work up to facing the phobia or feared
situation and positively in gentle, safe steps. Then each time we challenge
ourselves a little more, called graded exposure, we positively reinforce that
we made it, we are safe and we did a good job and that we are working hard and
getting better every day. The hard work must be rewarded and the avoidance must
be avoided.
Pulling in the reigns
‘Walkies!’ Barbara Woodhouse, the
famous dog trainer from the 70’s and 80’s, most famous for her saying: “There’s
no such thing as a difficult dog-only an inexperienced owner,” reflects that
it’s not so much that we’re hopeless and unchangeable, but that we don’t have
the will or know what to do to improve ourselves or our situation. One of these
techniques requires training your mind like it is a wild dog or a chattering
monkey. The nature of the beast is to go off on wild tangents and spiralling
thoughts, thus we need to pull in the reigns sometimes to control it properly.
Two great men come to mind when I think of this concept, one is Buddha.
2,500 years
ago when Buddha was alive, he was sitting next to the river meditating for a long
time. He had given up everything and had become what is called an ‘ascetic’. This
is a very rigid path and he was trying to gain enlightenment this way, but it
was proving very harsh on his body, all he wanted to do was eat and drink to
nourish his body, but he denied himself and pleasure or indulgence. While he
was sitting there a man came by on a boat
teaching his student to play guitar, he said ‘when tuning the guitar, if
you tighten the string too tight, it will snap, if you let it go too loose, it
will slack.’ The Buddha immediately realized he was on the wrong path. Too much
rigidity is no good, you will have a nervous breakdown, but too lazy will not
achieve anything’.
The other man is Georges Gurdjieff, a
spiritual teacher of the 20th century. He said that life is like a
horse and carriage. The horse is the crazy mind that wanders and runs after
anything you put in front of it, it needs to be tamed and steered. The problem
is the driver is in the bar drunk most of the time and the wild horse, our
mind, is pulling the carriage, our body. But who is it that is sitting in the
carriage? Did anyone ask them where they wish to travel? This is our heart and
soul, this is who should be driving, who we should be asking ‘what is the true
destination we wish to seek?’
Meditation
can assist to train our mind. It is a mental exercise and mental training. It
is not something we do to think of happier places or block thoughts to ignore
reality. It is where we train to not follow the lies and discursive thoughts,
but to pull the reigns on our negative downward spiralling thoughts and focus
on a positive, relaxed, centred, calm, present and mindful state.
Consistency & Repetition
When you are training a dog, you have
to do it as early and as often as possible. You need to be consistent and the
process needs to be repeated over and over until the neurons in the brain
change into positive habits and behaviours.
The same
goes with the brain. The less often we avoid anxious, panicky and phobic situations
and repeatedly challenge ourselves with positive reinforcement that we survived
and can do it, the easier it gets and the neurons in the brain change into
positive habits.
All said and
done it is certainly not just that easy. It sometimes takes years and years,
but if you practice consistently and diligently with the right approach,
anything is possible.
Acid reflux, also call Gastro Eosophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD) 
