Country,

You make some real valid points and observations. Its amazing what the mind can do for us and to us if we let it. Lately I have not been struggling with the palpitations but with what feels like to me skipped beats. Its this new thing that has me struggling again. However I feel that I am in a better place than I was before. I know that in the past I would be a shell of anxiety and panic thinking that m heart would just stop and not start again. Now I still feel this way but I keep trying to go about my day. I hope that this pattern will strengthen my resolve to continue to live my life and not live in fear of these issues or to be controlled by them.

I hope this make sense and that it helps some one else along the way to.

I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head with the control aspect.

I've got a slightly clearer head now than when I last posted, so hopefully this post is a little more coherent!

For me, it's all about two things: control and risk.

When I was growing up, everything was fine. My mum was in control and I was young and invincible. I didn't feel any risk. I did things then that I wouldn't dream of doing now, and I didn't think twice about it.

Now, life seems so much more complicated. We're bombarded with sensationalist news stories, adverts, health this, health that. Everything in the world seems to cause disease and distress. People like us are sensative to that sort of thing, and it keeps us in this cycle.

I don't ever recall being like this previously, but with my anxiety I like to be in control of everything. I believe that the reason for this is that my mind believes there is a risk to my life at every turn, and therefore it attempts to protect me at all costs.

This means that I have to be in control of everything, so that nothing can go wrong, and therefore I remain protected.

It's the same from every day life, triple checking before crossing the road, to every twitch or ailment which I seek medical help for immediately, just in case. I try to control everything, to keep myself safe.

The reality is I was safe all along. I just didn't see it, or at least the bit that did see it was bombarded by the anxious bit with "what ifs".

It's the same with risk. I can't handle risk because I believe that I will be the unlucky one. I won't fly because I am out of control, and I believe I will be the unlucky one who crashes.

I hear of a million to one story, and I truly worry that I will be that one. I guess someone has to be that one, why not me? This is the gist of my thinking in these situations.

The trouble is, that whilst the risks are tiny, it is a good question in my mind.

There's no way to say I will be 100% safe for the next 80 odd years. It's impossible. So life will always have an element of risk, and this is what I need to deal with in order to move on with my life.

Hi all,

Thought I'd chime in here with my thoughts on the whole thread. You guys seem to be uncovering a few interesting facts about yourselves and I can't really comment on those much. Not sure what to talk about because I haven't had much of a problem for a good time now and I still don't "know" what I've done apart from the few things I talked about in my previous post in here approx. 1 week ago.

So anyway, I saw you guys discussing fear and control and it reminded me of a post I made when the thread was new about what fear is and what it's purpose is, from a naturalistic and evolutionary perspective. I won't go copying & pasting anything, just update my own thoughts and beliefs on what I think is the problem.

I think we established long ago that fear and our control over it is the real problem we've all faced. Fear, in and of itself, is a harmless entity which has great impact over our daily lives as humans. Without fear we are utterly useless and some fears are so engrained in to our being that we don't even recognise them as such. I'd like to try and demonstrate this with a simple example. This thread was started with a discussion on cars and our non-fear of them, so I'll continue with that. You're in the city centre in the midst of the hustle and bustle, cars and buses rushing past, people everywhere and yet, the things you find yourself concerned over are probably not the things most dangerous. I'm sure most of us have no problem finding the pedestrian crossing and walking across the road. Now, move out of the city and step on to the motorway. How's that heart rate going now? How about stepping on to a train line with high-speed trains passing every few minutes? It becomes quite obvious that the fear we have over cars is something variable and changeable based on the experiences we have with them on a daily basis. However, we also have to take in to consideration the perceived fear.

Note how many animals are killed by cars because they lack the fear they require to survive a conflict with one. Animals who survive a near fatal incident are more likely to survive the next one because their brains have had a chance to adapt and learn. They've built new neural pathways which fire next time they see an oncoming collision; in essence, their brains have taught them that in order to survive, they must run away when they see a chunk of metal hurtling at them at 60mp/h. This is fear.

My opinion, is that we have all experienced something in our lives which we believed to be hazardous and dangerous to our health based on our intuitive understanding of said events. Therein lies the flaw in all of our thinking in that many of the things we see as a threat are exactly the opposite: benign. Because our brain doesn't know the difference between a perceived threat and a real one, those same neural connections are built and every time we encounter the problem, they fire; resulting in immediate fear and even panic. Our brains are saying "Stay away!", "Run!", "Fight!", "Get outta here!", etc., every time we encounter the problem.

I'm no neurologist or neuroscientist, but I'm quite certain the brain has the capacity to unlearn things. Neural connections that are not used serve no purpose, are a waste of energy, so are destroyed in time. Those same neural connections are adversely strenghtened each time they're used, so constant fear only makes the problem worse in the long run because more connections are made, allowing for even greater capacity for incapacitating fear to take its hold.

Surely then the solution to our woes is simple: simply foget all that troubles us. Let our brains recover; this is no quick process, no overnight healing can be done. It's going to take time but we all have the capacity to move on, don't we?

Of course, simply forgetting is easier said than done. However, I think the statements I've presented here today are factual and correct. The anxiety we've all suffered is a learnt behaviour based on incorrect perceptions of the world which we imagined to be dangerous. Education surely does us great justice when we realise that simply understanding what is happening to us allows us to take one step away from unreasonable fear, towards reasonable conclusions; these heart palpitations are simply a matter of physics and not pathology. I understand that better than I ever have done. It is not a case of believing, it's a case of knowing. Know that you are healthy, don't simply try convincing yourself so.

RLR has done us a tremendous service by offering his help and advice. I recommend reading his words more carefully and with a little more shrewdness and not acting impulsively or instinctively over what he tells us.

Thanks for reading my post to you all,

George.

Richie...I completely agree with you and understand that a lot of the times I am fighting my symptoms...this is what I am working hard on. For 7 years I have been scared to death, built horrible habits, thought processes etc so it is very hard to kick over night!  What I am working on is trying to interrupt all of these things as they happen and retrain my response and it is not easy at all.  

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do....my anxiety levels are way up because I am stepping WAY out of my comfort zone and in to an area where I am very unfamiliar with.  But I am committed to changing my life and getting rid of this horrible anxiety forever.  The skipped beats can stay if they would like but my primary concern is the anxiety that they cause me!!!  I dont want to live like this anymore and I wish more people on this forum would get involved so that once and for all we can all over come this together.  

Yes RLR said we all have different areas that we need to work on but I believe the base of our problems are the same.

I appreciate all of the people that are involved and RLR for the information he provides.....will I get better???  I hope so....am I going about it the right way???  I am not sure but the way I have been trying to overcome this hasnt worked so I believe in RLR and he has stated numerous times what has gotten us here and what we need to do to get our lives back so that is what I am trying to do.

Thanks

I seem to have put a downer on this post. Sorry, guys; I never meant that we should stop posting because we're not finding/not going to find the answers. I simply meant that I believe the solution is something that no other person is going to be able to reveal to us and we will eventually all find our own answers.

I for one would like to see this thread very much alive. Any thoughts on my posting above?

Keep the discussion open!


George.

RLR...quite a few people over this thread have mention breathing, hyperventilation etc

How much does stress and breathing contribute to our anxiety/skipped beats?

George, that makes sense....I definitely have been focusing on my breathing and when I am more stressed it is definitely erratic.

What I know about hyperventilation ..
you have two kinds of hyperventilating.  the acute type . thats what people think of hearing the word hyperventilation. rapid breathing , paper bag thing.
You also have CHRONIC hyperventilation which is much more subtle. but you have chronic symptoms. Over the last 4 years ive been two timed diagnosed due to an Astrup ( bloodgass) that I have bloodgasses that are common in people having chronic hyperventilation.
In the literature there is much disagree if chronic hyperventilation is a psychological anxiety problem or in fact an illness.
In Europe there are some countries that call chronic hyperventilation spasmofilie..which is treated as a disease.
A lot of these people due tend to have some deficits in some vitamin bloodtests or magnesium levels and so on. Thyroid is a factor.

I'm not convinced that due to anxiety I got chronich hyperventilation. Its the other way around in my case I quess. I used to jog 25 miles a week with no problem. never anxious or scared . jogging produces sometimes or even often a breathing like you hyperventilate. One day I got my symptoms out of nowhere. rapid heartbeat, pain  chest.. dizzy, skipped heart beats and from that moment on anxiety kicked in.

Like I told in my thread about my symptoms i grew more and more symptoms over 4,5 years with now the last one. skin burning sensation over my body. What I learn more and more that too many symptoms are addressed to anxiety.  I';m gonna say it loud here.. I dont think thats entirely fair and true. offcourse anxiety aggrevates or plays a role in symptoms, but I doubt its the only factor. And even when it is or was ..havin g anxiety for years will do his bodily work. What i mean by that. It cant be normal and healthy for a body to be in constant state of arousal, It will do physical damage or disbalance.
this disbalance should be addreessed too not only the anxiety.

thats my opinion after years of having symptoms