Dear Girija:

“I was in the middle of feeling very anxious. I laid down in my bed. I have had 4 bouts since… I feel them in my chest and stomach. I tried being mindful, but it got more intense. I don’t know the cause… I became more sensitive to the sounds around me during that time” –

– Likely, the cause is the chemical/ physiological habit of your adrenal glands (two small structures attached to the top of each one of your kidneys), a habit of producing hormones and releasing them into your bloodstream. These hormones travel from your adrenal glands to your brain (increasing your sensitivity to sounds), to your chest (increasing the blood output by your heart) and to your stomach (interfering with digestion, pausing it).

The purpose of the hormones: to prepare your body to either run away from danger, like a predator, or to fight danger (the Flight/Fight Response), by causing you (1) To better detect the sounds of an approaching predator, (2) To have more blood reach your legs, so that you can run fast; more blood to reach your arms, so that you can fight; and less blood to reach your digestive tract, because all the blood is needed to go to your legs and arms.

Of course, no predator was chasing you. Thing is: because you experienced so much anxiety over the years, without a predator, or real-life danger present, that your body is in the habit of releasing these hormones.

This habit started when as a child, your brain instinctively believed that you were in danger, and it believed so repeatedly. Having repeatedly witnessed those “really horrible fights” caused by your grandmother, was enough to start and establish this habit.

“How am I supposed to handle this?” – little by little, patiently. To change his chemical/ physiological habit, it will take months of persistent practice of the 1-3 items that I listed in my previous post to you. No fast results. It will take you overcoming your discomfort in regard mindfulness practices, enough so that you will give it a better chance to benefit you.

anita