Feeling Anxious?

As I saw the passengers pile into the 17 hour, 11 pm flight, my heart started racing. I was sweating profusely, I was exhausted and I was cold. All I could think about was 17 straight HOURS!!! Stuck in a metal tube in the sky without any fresh air for two working days!?! How was I going to stretch my legs? How was I going to manage my children's boredom? What if the bursitis in my hip started flaring up again and my back went into spasms?

My wife noticed something wasn't right and asked me what was wrong, the passenger in the next aisle was giving me weird looks, my kids were concerned saying "daddy are you ok?". The plane started pulling away from the gate. Passengers were comfortable and ready to deal with the next 17 hours of movies, meals and sitting marathon. I asked the steward that walked by if he could help me. He knelt down and asked what was going on and with tears in my eyes I simply replied "I don't know man, but I feel like I need jump off this plane, please help me." He left and came back a few minutes later saying they would have to bring the plane back to the gate and we would be asked to de-board and schedule another flight in a week's time.

Anxiety is no fun. It strikes up when you least expect it, in the worst possible moment and unless you've developed some efficient skills, managing the symptoms can take an agonizingly long while.

What happened to me this day was INSANE. I had an anxiety attack plain and simple. It was like walking through a dream, more like a nightmare at the time, and knowing I was not asleep.

In hindsight, this event ended up being a good thing for me. After the effects of the anxiety attack started to simmer down and I reasoned with the feelings of guilt, shame and embarassment, I dealved into why this happened to me. At the same time I spent the next 7 days calming myself so I wouldn't freak out again on the next flight back to OZ.

What I came to find out is in that moment I felt a massive disconnection and separation from family and from my deepest emotional needs and dreams. Turns out I tend to have separation anxiety at times. Looking back to parts of my life when much less severe moments like this one had passed I remembered an overwhelming sense of loss.

Fortunately, I fell upon Dr John Delony's book "Redefining Anxiety: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How to Get Your Life Back". In the book he eloquently explains that the type of anxiety I experienced was due to something in my life not being where I want it to be. Plain and simple. Obviously he explains that there are cases of clinical anxiety and this is different. However, when it comes to most anxiety spells this can be explained to things in one's life being out of balance. All we have to do is rebalance life and the anxiety should diminish. This is hard to do though. In my case being far away from family is not so easily solutioned. There are many reasons we become anxious and if powerful enough this can lead to a full blown anxiety attack. The solutions sometimes are easy and quick to resolve but sometimes, they take a lot of work and some very difficult decisions need to be made.

Since this day, this is what I do to manage and prevent the anxiety I sometimes experience:

1. I exercise 5 days a week. Releasing the endorphins during a good workout and exerting my body helps me feel good.

2. I cold plunge 5 days a week and more if I feel like my nervous system is dysregulated. The only thing you can focus on when immersed in the cold is the present moment.

3. I practice cycle breath work. This practice is the Wim Hof practice. In 2020 I discovered Wim Hof and his approach to a calmer mind/life. I would not change this for the world. Flooding my bloodstream with oxygen during these sessions is like no other feeling which leaves me centered in the present moment for hours afterward.

4. I practice gratitude. I have a gratitude prayer that I say every night. This helps me focus on the blessings in my life.

5. I talk. I have learned to reach out to close friends or my family to help lift the weight of my thoughts and rest them for a while.

There is more you can do to help manage and prevent the anxious feelings you might experience. Whether it's jumping into damage control or going for a warm bath, there's always something you can do. It is wise to explore what methods you could lean on at any given moment because anxiety doesn't ask "if now is a good time to flare up". Try to have a few methods in your back pocket so your mind can always be at ease.

If you're interested in figuring out what methods could work for you, please reach out through my website and we can sit down and get curious.

Thanks for reading.

Franck