Davit,

I just read when you start to feel anxiety think of it as excitement. Don't block it or try to fight it. Your previous post before the current one makes perfect sense.

For anyone who actually read this, I hope it made sense.

Davit

Benzoes work by slowing specific neuron activity. This changes when they wear off. 

Slow steady exposure puts thoughts into the familiar mode and neuron activity is slowed. Hard exposure puts it into new or important where neuron activity increases. Which is fine if you don't have an anxiety or panic disorder.

Using distractions works if the distraction is something familiar.

Davit.

JayDee

Again it the hardest simple thing you will ever do. Simple because all you need to do is change thought patterns to positive. Simple because all you have to do is think positive. Hard because you have to have established core beliefs telling you otherwise or you wouldn't be in this situation. So think positive and work on changing those core beliefs and the rest will take care of itself. And you will become a new person. 

As Ashley said, you have done a lot of work and it shows. Looking forward to seeing you open those wings and fly.

Davit.

Ps, if you drive a short distance and think this is a start that is a positive even if for a while you never get past that point, but if you think I'll never get past this point that is a negative and it will keep you from doing it. So drive to that point and check how you feel. Do you stop there or try for a little further. Remember on future tries where ever you stop is still your success point even if it is not as far as last time. The object is to build positive thought. Positive thought is the only thing that can get you past that point with any cosistancy.

Davit,

This reminds me of a test I took years ago when I was first diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The woman who did the test would show me pictures in pairs and I had to remember them. They didn't make sense to me. As in horse/boat. My associated memory questioned her pairing the pictures and I wondered if she was new. :) and didn't know what she was doing.

This would work well for me in the car, person, anxiety triangle that I go through. If I can change my negative thought about the car to a positive reaffirming thought, change the reaction to the person to a positive, this could possibly change the whole cycle because my associated memory will be confused and have to form a new one, therefore eliminating the trigger. Workable?

This has shown that there is more than one form and location to memory. It has shown that there is overall memory of an episode and selective memory of associated pieces of an episode. Also memory based on time. Past or present. 

There are tests to check for damage to the brain by testing memory recall from selected parts of the brain. 

Of interest to me is one test. An association test. 30 words are paired and after being told them one word in each pair is use as a cue and the person has to supply the associated word. To keep from using episodic memory the associated words are only associated because they are paired. They are not associated as they would be in long term memory. As in horse and saddle but as in horse and boat. Short term memory says they are associated because that is how they are on the list. Why is this interesting? Because the test which was meant to show brain damage and does in the damaged brain also showed that in a normal brain memory will accept these pairs of words as associated even though they are not. It also showed that unless repeated that these pairs get discarded after the test rather than stored in long term memory because long term memory can not find proof that they are associated. But and there is always a but. Rats have been taught to do something wrong because they will be rewarded if they do. It then becomes right. We can do this too. If we are taught there is an association among things that are not associated then they become such and all it takes is repetition because repetition will move it to long term memory where it becomes a core belief along with putting it into associated memory where it can be triggered by a thought that is in fact not technically associated but the mind thinks it is. Associated memories are specific. They would not normally put horse and boat together unless you put a horse in a boat or had a horse pull a boat along a canal. First association would be more horse and wagon or horse and rider, even horse and hounds. But if you lived where horses pulled canal boats this would be first association and this is what the word horse would trigger. Why is this important? Because it shows that you can build associations that lead to anxiety and even panic attacks by storing the associations that trigger them. And they become real because that is how they are stored. Luckily we have long term episodic memory to compare them to to prove them false and change them so they are not associated. but often it takes a therapist to show this is so. In the case of long term core beliefs they can be so well intrenched that they are almost impossible to recognize and even harder to change, Again repetition put them there, repetition will remove them. Positive thought is important because it will stop negative thought of them from putting them back or forming new ones. Changing thought patterns makes this easier to do and even more so if you have success changing even just one. A pattern is formed and directions set in place to use for all the others. 

So again a lot of words to explain why something simple needs to be done even though it will be hard. Just change your thought patterns to positive and the rest will take care of itself.

Davit.

I have a friend who is doing Luminosity. It isn't free but she says it was well researched. I know her memory is not what it should be and she says it is because five years on a medication for anxiety is the cause. Yes I know which medication and I agree and there is information saying it does do this. But then like me and a medication I was on for four years that I was only supposed to be on for a month she was on one for five years that she was not supposed to be. 

Doctors faults. Her scores are up and her memory is better. And she is past the age of maximum ability to learn. She has been off this medication for better than four months now. There is still anxiety and sleepless night but no panic attacks. Such is with this med that it can be a year before it is entirely reversed.

I've been thinking about memory. One  thing I do is that I try to remember what I am doing before going to  some other way to find it. EG, bank card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, dates, birthdays and even recipes. I'm getting pretty good. Another is visualizing places. It is amazing how much fear this can reduce. What is amazing is that I can remember my SIN# even though I never use it. Like autistic people I remember it a picture of three groups of three numbers not as nine numbers. Same with phone numbers and extensions. Different things are stored in different parts of the brain but they are all connected. Seeing a thought as a picture and a song and a sentence and colour are all ways to increase the chance of remembering. Two ways is good, three better beyond that there is no difference that I can see but that might be different for others. And for some two might be enough. I've noticed that when I see or think something my mind flashes through every thing related to it in my memory without any of it being really noticeable unless it is important or interesting. Like how I speed read, I skip the ifs and buts and the's etc. I put them in automatic, I don't have to read them. Just like when I look at my tractor, I know what the other side looks like. 

Try it, write a sentence with only the important words. If you can read it try writing it with no vowels. Your mind is fast, it will put in all possibilities and pick out the right ones if they have ever been in memory. These are interconnected pathways that say this goes with this and this and this but this goes best with the rest of the thought. 

What has this to do with Panic attacks? Simple, when you panic you have choices that can take you away from it becoming an attack by making the right choices from all the possible choices. And you do have choices in all these interconnected thoughts. There is room for lots of positives you just have to think them. No harder than thinking all the colours you know when you think colour or flowers when you think flower. If you think store, how many stores come to mind as your mind says which store. Lots right. Why not positives for every anxious trigger. Negatives might have priority but there is no reason not to flip through them and the positives also, ending in positives.

I really think that if I can do this others can too. Is this not CBT.

Davit.

So man developed medications to assist this. But man also developed CBT to change how we think to reduce the load on these chemicals. It just doesn't work as fast as medications. The brain also changes after the age of 18 to get ready for adult life. By then you could say it has learned what it needs and is set in it's ways. Change after that would be harder because 50% of the pathways join others to give us a more stable ability to function. This is mechanics and they are still working on proving it. It isn't necessary to understand panic attacks. But it is to understand memory and it's influence and to understand the mechanics of core beliefs. All in all very interesting but only to me because I'm an information junky. 

All you need to know is that there is proof CBT works and why and here is your chance to prove it by doing this program which is based on CBT. As for why some people need medication and some don't that is getting into the chemical makeup of the brain. Suffice to say either way CBT is still the only way to permanently rid you of panic attacks. With or without a little chemical help.

Davit

PS, I'm still studying so will likely bore you with more of this. Right now I'm interested in what chemicals do what to influence our thinking. Basically because some of my medication breaks down to these chemicals. It may be why some meds cause panic attacks.

How anxious do you get when the internet is down. How much can you not do. I'm not down on the internet, I am down on how much people are dependent on it and how much this dependence causes anxiety. It is simple, if you are not used to using your own memory to figure things out how are you going to figure out how to deal with anxiety. Sure you can go to the internet and get instructions on how to relax. But if you want to be able to do it without a computer then you have to put it into your memory. People get conditioned not to since they don't have to. How are you going to fix a panic disorder if you no longer have the ability to remember things. The computer is too slow in a crisis. You need to use your intelligence but you have to have some too. You have to have access to memory. You have to know what worked last time, you have to know that what you are doing is right and you have to have proof that the panic thoughts are wrong. All this has to come from memory. There is no time to go look it up on the computer. 

So you can get by without much memory in all things but a panic attack. There you need memory and you need to be able to access it fast. 

Ashley I assist my memory by associating it with other memories and repetition. And by making things important not just information.  Importance tells you how well you can remember things. I can't remember types of cars because they are not that important, same with sports. But I can remember how to take a tractor apart or what was planted where in my garden. I can remember how to make a cake or bread. These things interest me. These are Semantic and Procedural memory. Two memory storage areas we are losing to the computer and two areas we can not afford to lose because confusion in either or both definitely leads to triggers. Not being able to remember how to do something or the name of something causes panic. 

Computers are great tools, but that is all they are. We need to be less dependent on them and more on our own memory. 

Davit

In working memory panic would be pretty consistent with daily routines. In the others it would only be present when they were accessed. Thinking about giving a lecture transfers the panic to working memory even though the trigger doesn't originate there. As does thinking about driving. The trigger is in procedural memory but you move it to working memory and then the panic goes into episodic memory. 

But this is just mechanics.  Just how it works, not why. Core beliefs are still the why. Core beliefs are in episodic memory and dictate how we think and why we do things. And again this is mechanics but you can not do anything without episodic memory. Semantic and procedural are just filler to fill out a thought and add body to it.

It still boils down to changing episodic memory before it moves on from a thought to a reaction to that thought. 

A lot of words to say the simple fact that every time you have a negative thought change it to a positive. All those words just tell you that your mind is working normal and you are not crazy. You just need a little adjustment. But they do tell you where you need the adjustment in those that like me are curious. Some times it is best to leave it to your therapist to figure this out and direct you. But you have to be honest, no matter how much it might be embarrassing. That or you have to figure out your triggers and core beliefs on your own.

Davit.