Anxiety Symptoms - AIR HUNGER (Episode 129)

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Air hunger is when you feel like you can't get uh a big enough breath. You can't quite fill your lungs. Um, it's a common one. And then if you've got OCD, somatic OCD, you're just obsessed over it.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

You spend all day long trying to forcibly fill your lungs completely. It can often accidentally lead to really big exhales afterwards, and then the feeling of lightheadedness, which we make. Feels like I can't get deep enough breath, and I'm lightheaded. Oh my god, I'm suffocating. Yeah, I can't try to fix that because I'm making it worse by trying to fix it.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

And and I always say this you know how to breathe properly. You you you wouldn't be sat here now if you were breathing properly. Um, and but we can easily kind of pull it and turn it into techniqueifying, compulsive fixing, and trying to resist emotions and feelings.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 129. Today we're talking about air hunger. It's the first in our series of like, okay, fine, we'll talk about anxiety symptoms, and we're gonna start with that out-of-breath feeling. So stick with us and we will go through that today. I am Drew Linsolata, one of the creators and hosts of Disordered. I'm a therapist practicing in New York in the area of anxiety and anxiety disorders, a former sufferer, the very things we talk about on this podcast, but better now, thank you. An author, social media guy, psychoeducator, advocate. And uh yeah, get to spend the next hour talking about air hunger with.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh. I'm a psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. I specialize in working with anxiety and anxiety disorders. I'm a previous sufferer. I write books on it, I'm a content creator, an overall advocate for it. You know, if you can't walk past me in the street without me pontificating about the subject that I really enjoy talking about. It's quite annoying.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

So, uh, air hunger. Did you have air hunger? Wait. We're gonna play that a lot today. Couldn't wait.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

I um that's what plays in my head when I lock eye contact with you, Drew. You take my breath away.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

It was that very first Instagram live we did six years ago, whatever that was.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Um, yeah, I I had um air hunger, and then air hunger is when you feel like you can't get uh a big enough breath. You can't quite feel your lungs. Um, it's a common one. And then if you've got OCD, somatic OCD, you're just obsessed over it. Um overthinking your breathing, am I breathing okay? Particularly in a culture, you know, where breathing, breath work, are we breathing properly is constantly, you know, flashed before us. But then, you know, if you're anxious, you start to focus more on breathing. So yeah, I used to get it quite a lot. Uh, and then I used to avoid, or I don't want to get out of that out-of-breath feeling. I don't like air hunger, stop going to the gym, start doing any strenuous exercise. Um, it was a scary one. Um, I didn't have it for too long, but it's something that I hear quite a lot. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Oh, yeah. Actually, air hunger is a stress symptom for me now. Like, I I know that I'm having a stressful day when I feel that like uh it just feels like I can't get a deep enough breath. For me, it appears as a sense, and it took me years to actually isolate this and understand like, wait a minute, what's actually happening right now? Instead of jumping to like, oh my god, I can't breathe, or my god, I can't get a deep enough breath. Like, wait, what is actually happening? Oh, I feel this like pressure sensation at the base of that's where it shows up for me. So that's like a almost like somebody has their hand right at the base of my neck, and that makes it feel like I can't get a deep enough breath. And if I'm stressed, I'll feel that now. But when I was an anxious mess, oof, I would walk around all day long, like like trying so desperately to fill my lungs all the way up to like my ears. Like, oh, I just gotta get that full feeling. I have to do it. And that did not work well at all. I made a mess.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Yeah, I remember it was just like, and but bear in mind if you have this, you know, and you feel a bit triggered by it, it's fine. You're not gonna stop breathing. It's okay, just keep listening. Yes, breathe however you want. Who cares? Your body will regulate itself.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Regulate that button matters too because of the breathing culture. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah, um, but yeah, if you are someone who's like, oh my god, they're triggering me. Well, stay with us. That's the whole point. It's okay. You will learn by the end of the episode that your body just regulates itself and your breathing will regulate itself. But yeah, I I have I can relate to that fullness feeling. I used to have that like in my head, I would imagine like my bronchiola in my lungs not being able to fill up. And then it was like, oh, I can't, I don't feel sated. My lungs don't feel enough. So then I'd force it more and then worry why I couldn't get that sated feeling and then obsess about it, you know, and then and then it feeds into things like the inwards compulsion, like a lot of anxiety disorders do. So yeah, I remember it was like that for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, it can lead also to um, well, I feel like I can't get a deep enough breath. And if you spend all day long trying to forcibly fill your lungs completely, it can often accidentally lead to really big exhales afterwards, and then the feeling of lightheadedness, which we make. I would make the lightheaded feeling. I didn't know I was doing that. But when you like jam all the air possible into your lungs, like you can't fit any more in there. That has to be exhaled. And if you're not really careful, you can accidentally like over breathe a little bit, and then you start to feel lightheaded. So now I have the combination of it feels like I can't get deep enough breath, and I'm lightheaded. Oh my god, I'm suffocating. Oh my god, this is not good. Like feeling like you can't breathe is scary as hell. Do not get me wrong. But what I had to learn over time is like, yeah, I can't try to fix that because I'm making it worse by trying to fix it.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

And it's because you have too much oxygen on board. Yeah, so your what ifs are saying, Oh my god, I can't breathe. I'm not getting enough oxygen. But here's an example of why the body regulates itself. It is literally regulating itself. It's going, you're breathing in too much oxygen, so I'm going to limit the amount of oxygen that we're going to take in now. It's a very clever thing your body. You've been met whether you're stressed, over breathing, whatever. So when it notices that blood oxygen is like massive, which is fine, it's not hurting you, it will just start to regulate it. So then, therefore, if you cannot catch a full breath, that's because you've been over breathing, stressed, unconsciously overbreathing, whatever. A word of warning though, like if you're obsessive-compulsive, like a lot of anxiety disorders are, um don't then try to resort to fixing your breathing, because then that can suddenly have a counterproductive effect too.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah. Then I it's in uh in one of the admins of my old Facebook group, my friend Holly, she had the best statement ever. She said, I made a mess of my breathing, which was so accurate. I remember when she said that, I was like, oh my God, that's exactly what I did. I made a mess of my breathing by trying to actively breathe, trying to control my breathing. Like nature wasn't thankful, thankfully, nature wasn't dumb enough to let us control that. I mean, yeah, we we can control it, but ultimately there are some circuit breakers that are gonna kick in that, like, no, no, no, no, no, you are you are not a control here, just let me do this as your brain. You know, the ultimate of which is people who accidentally hyperventilate themselves into passing out, and then sure enough, they breathe just fine. Like, brain kicks in and like, hey, no problem, we got this. Don't get out get out of the way. Like, I got the con. I I know how to breathe. So the I think while it's super scary, uh, it's again, like everything else, it's not the sensation, it's how we interact with it and respond to it. Like, oh my God, I feel like I can't breathe. So I also had to learn, and this is what I work on in my practice too, like, well, there's a difference between it feels like I can't breathe and you can't breathe. If you can't breathe, you know that. Like, that is there is no not knowing that. I feel like I can't breathe is a different statement altogether. And it matters, it really matters because oh, it just feels like I can't breathe. So I don't have to do anything with this. I don't have to do anything with this. I couldn't stop breathing if I wanted to. So my my brain is gonna kick in and like take care of my breathing. It just will.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Also, it's it sounds like sometimes now, and I do this with a lot of anxiety symptoms, so whether it's air hunger or tinnitus or tinnitus for you for you guys over there, yeah. Um, or whether it's um jaw tension, muscle tension, things like that. I kind of see that as a good thing because it's usually a reminder to me to go, yeah, you're super stressed, so why don't you just chill out later? Yeah, you know, and I quite like that. And I think sometimes when I get airhungered now, it's like, oh, I must have been stressed today. I've been unconsciously breathing, stress breathing, and it's fine. I'm not gonna then go inwards, lock in, and start adjusting and and fixing myself. No, I'm gonna be like, actually, I know that I'll breathe better when I'm a bit more chilled out.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Need to take a little break or something. That's the difference between like disordered anxiety and regular anxiety. Like, you know, for and we seem to be in agreement there. That feeling of air hunger now is a sign that, like, oh wait, it's I need to take a break for a couple minutes here. Why am I sitting here like holding my breath, clenching my jaw? I'm stressed. I'm trying to do too much at one time. And like, oh my, that's my body reacting to that. So let me just take a little break, go have a glass of water or whatever. Like, and sure enough, settles in, sensation goes away. Disordered anxiety says, no, that sensation is a problem. It's not a sign of what's happening in in my life. It itself is a problem. Like, no, it's actually not. We get my lighter. Hang on.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah, I got my lighter out for that one. I enjoyed that. The love theme. Um, let's let's check in with the let's have our breath taken away from by the community.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, let's do it. We got one queued up, so let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Hi Drew and Josh. Wanted to share a dinner anyway. Uh I'm Chris from Ireland. Uh, for the last couple of years I've been experiencing health anxiety. I've experienced generalized anxiety for the last 15 plus years. Um, I've really got a handle on it done the last few years. And recently, I'm a part I'm a part-time musician, I work full-time, but I'm a part-time musician. Recently at a gig, we were about three-quarters of the way through the gig, and this unadulterated fear or unadulterated feeling of fear just came over me. Um, dread, and I just something was gonna happen. I started sweating, my heart started racing, I just I got that have to get out feeling. Now, I pushed through, I had maybe five, six songs left to do. I pushed through, albeit not feeling well at all the whole time. But I pushed through, got it done, but then for the days lead or the days that following that, just had this fear of the unknown. What was that? I'd never actually experienced that, and I've in my opinion, I think I've experienced everything along the way dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness, disorder, derealization, everything that I can imagine. Panic, I had a few panic attacks, and but this just really knocked me. It was like wow. And unfortunately, I focused on it for a couple of days. Now I eventually caught myself. The following weekend, we had another gig coming up, and I was dreading it all week. That's nearly all I was thinking about. It was like, What if this happens again? What if this happens again? And eventually I just caught myself and I was like I said to myself, Chris, if it happens, it happens. I needed to remember that I was safe, that everything was okay, but I got through it and I went and I did the gig. I was a bit uneasy at the start, but I'm so glad I did it, and I felt fantastic afterwards. And just want to thank you guys for all your help and bits of knowledge and and tips and tricks along the way. So thanks very much.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

What was that? What if it happens again? What was that?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Yeah, that's so good. Well done. I love that. Uh my favorite part is well, if it happens, it happens. Right. That's willful tolerance. Yeah, 100%. Well if it happens, I'm I'm I'm willing to tolerate it if it happens. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah. And I think the uh what was that? What was that's such a common experience? The first time Chris ever had experienced that on stage or whatever. What was that? Oh my god, what was that? What if it happens again is legitimately the the mechanism that turns an anxious moment into an anxiety disorder. What if it happens again? What if it I gotta oh no, oh no, oh no, and like the way back out is exactly what he did. Well, if it happens, it happens. I can handle it. And he did, as it turns out. Good job.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Well done, Chris. Well done. And I hope the gig went well. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Um, we'll get back to air hunger shortly, but uh I'm gonna read it in it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Sure, let's have it.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

While we're here. Uh this is from Holly. Uh hi guys, you can use my name. I'd like to thank you for all your help. I've been struggling with acute anxiety and panic attacks for the last two weeks. I've gone from not being able to function to actually feeling a bit more like me. And that's thanks to you guys. Well, it's thanks to you, as Holly, because you put in the work. And the information you're provided through your podcasts. I haven't did it anyway. I haven't been driving because of feeling spaced out and too anxious to go anywhere. But I encouraged myself to get in the car and drive 40 minutes to take my daughter to a birthday party, which I had already decided I wasn't going to manage to get her to. I dropped her off, talked to other parents, albeit very uncomfortably, and although and although exhausted when I got home, I felt so proud of myself for doing it anyway. I now know I can do it, and hopefully, every time I do, the uncomfortableness will start to ease. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Good job, Holly. 40-minute drive would have felt like forever right back then. I remember that. So big deal.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Love it. Well, well done, Holly. This is super.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

I think it's important to point out when people send and did it anyways. We your kind words are always appreciated. You know, hey, you guys help me or you guys fix me, or but no. I uh often I think all we're seeing is like, oh, I stumbled upon your podcast or whatever, or reading your books, and I learned that I have to stop fighting this experience. That's ultimately what people tend to learn from us, and then they start experimenting with that, which is really scary and hard to do. And then things change. So like we don't do anything except hint that maybe trying to control your body, mind, and emotions frantically, urgently, and like it's an emergency isn't a good idea. That's all we're doing here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Well, actually, we're just critics. We just point out all the things you're doing wrong. And then you go and do the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

That's a solid point. Tune in next week where we'll berate you lump for more for everything else you're doing wrong. Listen, it makes sense. The the comments, and you know, to get back to air hunger, the common sense reaction to that would be like, I have to do something about this. I feel like I can't breathe. I have of course you do something about that. You regulate, you do something, you calm, like you can take guard. No, that's counterproductive. It doesn't work in this uh context. So we're just here pointing out the opposite. That's that's like we're just the opposite guys. Like, no, no, you don't have to do anything about that. It's okay. Oops. And we lost Josh. Hang on. Josh is in a hotel room with crappy internet, so let me just get him back in. Here we go. Welcome back. Hi. Hi. I'm gonna leave that in. It's fine. Disorder design sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

This hotel has internet from the dial up era. Apologies.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Josh is on his AOL connection. Boing, boing, boing, boing.

unknown 16:02

Shh.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Welcome to AOL. You have email. You've got mail. Uh anyway. So, like, yeah, you think you have to do something about it. And it it leads people to what I see in my practice too is a lot of people, the breathing thing, especially, we talked about it before. There's so much information out there on breathing, so much breathing-based advice. Breathing is sacred breaths and grounding breaths and calming breaths and you know, cleansing breaths. So, like, if you are suffering from this air hunger or feeling, and you start to Google that, you're gonna find a million different breathing techniques. Hold one nostril, stand on one foot, sing this song, like breathe under, you know, try to breathe underwater, get a scuba tank. I've seen all the crazy, like, no, just let your body breathe however way it wants to. It'll do it. I promise it'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Place your hand on your throat uh and hum. Oh, the that breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, apparently, according to no evidence. Yeah, it does. I'm gonna tell you very uh very uh confidently. Yeah, um, yeah, if you got OCD, your brain always wants certainty. So when you Google and you're like, oh, I need to know how do I breathe properly? You can have a thousand different people telling you how to breathe properly for serenity, for tranquility, for peace. I wish that existed, but I'm of the school of you've got to this exact moment in your life listening to us idiots, breathe in just fine, otherwise you wouldn't be here listening to us idiots. There's no magic breathing. I remember that um best-selling book, How to Breathe Properly. It's like what it's like say set selling bottles of air to people, like just no, and and I always say this like you know how to breathe properly. You you you wouldn't be sat here now if you weren't breathing properly. Um, and but we can easily kind of pull it and turn it into techniquifying, compulsive fixing, and trying to resist emotions and feelings. Yeah, if you've got air hunger, it will pass, it will pass the hard way, which is I can fire it and fire and fire it, and it will still pass. Or you can surrender and be like, well, you know, my body will regulate itself. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, I don't have to try to control my breathing. And I it's always important, and we do we do this all the time too. The difference between sort of regular anxiety and stress, like externally generated, I'm anxious because something is going on in my life. Like, okay, sometimes people like to do breath work and stuff like that, just like you go to the gym or just like you sit and play video games to relax. There's nothing wrong with that. But in this context, those techniques become compulsive. Whether you have OCD or not, there's always the checking in. Okay, I'm doing it the way the Andrew Wilde book says to do it. And is it working? Is it working? Is it my is my breath fixed? Am I calmer? Am I grounded? Am I still getting these other symptoms? No, we can't do that because that's what drives the disordered state. So you know what the great equals are.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

They're not designed for secondary fear. That's right. They're designed for stress and primary anxiety. Those books are not designed for you.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yeah, that's 100% right. But they will always contain the word anxiety. All of those breathing techniques will always have the word anxiety attached to it. But again, that's like, oh my God, work is so stressful and I'm feeling so anxious. Okay, well, here's a way to maybe step out of the stream a little bit and like take care of yourself and get away from the actual stressor that's outside your skin. But if the stressor is inside your skin, the most counterproductive thing to do is to try to control inside your skin. That doesn't work. But uh, you know, it's really important. You know what the great equalizer is when it comes to air hunger? Sleep. Like, I've had people who have argued with me, like, I remember having one person, and listen, I understand that I'm not picking on this person. If you're still listening, I'm not picking on you, I promise, if you recognize yourself, who insisted that their anxiety was so bad that they had to manually breathe. They the anxiety had destroyed their their autonomic nervous system because too much cortisol and adrenaline. They were convinced and that they had to pay attention to their breathing. I'm like, well, did you sleep at all last night? Did you sleep even for like six minutes? Did you get six minutes of sleep? What happened when you fell asleep? And that's where that argument starts to fall apart. Like, if you stop paying attention to your breathing, as it turns out, your body breathes just fine. So we can't go down that rabbit hole. Like, no, no, no, no. I have to be actively involved in my breathing. Or what? Or I have this feeling like I can't breathe, feeling like I can't breathe. Okay, then allow that feeling. Go ahead, don't breathe. Or go ahead, don't breathe.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

I I remember that as a kid. I remember as a kid, I it used to freak me out. Like, oh my god, what if I forget to breathe? It's like, well, you can. You're allowed to forget to breathe. Yeah. But guess what? Your body will make you breathe. Yeah. You know, what if I forget to blink and my eyes become dry and fall out? Well, you can forget to blink. It's okay. Because guess what? You will blink. Yeah. You know, like it's just it's just one of these things. It's like, what if I forget to do something that actually my unconscious brain, the involuntary nervous system, is already doing for me. Yeah, you can kind of step in and mess around with it a bit if you want. But it's a bit a bit like an analogy that we used a long time ago on this podcast. You know, you can step into a stream and start kicking the water back upstream. Yeah, it's affecting it a bit, but you can't stop the stream. It's just gonna keep trickling down. You can give yourself the illusion that you're messing with the stream, yeah, but it's always gonna go down. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

True. Yeah. Slow sleep is the great equalizer there. And yeah, funny. One of the things that I used to do too, and I laugh at this now. It wasn't funny, it didn't feel funny at the time, but I remember hearing the whole like, oh, exercise is good for anxiety. And it Even my doctor was like, get on your treadmill, like, make sure you're exercising. And I had such fear of my own.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Did you take that advice, did you?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

No, I didn't. Clearly, I still haven't. That was 15 years ago, whatever, 20 years ago. But like, I it's okay, I'll do that because I need to calm down. I need something for my anxiety. But I was so fixated on my breath and everything else going inside my body that my heartbeat would freak me out. And then I would notice that I was feeling short of breath. Yeah, because I was exercising. And then I would try to slow my breathing down while I was on a treadmill. And I would try to slow my heart and my breathing down. Because oh no, it feels I don't like that feeling of being out of breath. Yeah. And then I would try to take big gulping breaths and long exhales because I discovered like you're gonna do long. No, you can't breathe that way when you're exercising. Like just it was so stupid. I was trying to control my breath while I was asking my body to do that. Yeah, it exercise, but also uh let me be in charge of the breathing. And my brain was like, dude, what are you doing? Like, just get out of my way. If it could have shoved me, it would have shoved me. I remember the day I realized that I'm like, this is this is ridiculous. I'm I'm literally exercising and trying to like control my breathing. I wouldn't let myself like I wouldn't let myself do that because it just felt like, oh, I'm out of breath.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Oh, I can't. Yeah, just leave it alone. It will do it itself. You know what I mean? Um so with that in mind, a good therapist, particularly for you know, third wave CBT, exposure informed, they would might do something with you called interoceptive exposure.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

You know, where you can do it with a therapist or do it on your own if you want. Um, and it's where you purposely induce the feeling because that's the opposite of what the threat response wants to do. So sometimes, and I've done this with other symptoms, like you know, clients come in, they're like, Oh, I fear dizziness. So then I just roll my computer chair to them and say, right, sit in that and spin around 13 times and then stand up. Why? Because we're inducing dizziness to teach the brain it's safe, you know. Same with air hunger, you know, per like purposely hyperventilate. There's this whole movement actually now called breath work, which in a nutshell, in a boring way, is purposely inducing hyperventilation. So your brain and body go nuts. I've done it and started hallucinating, it was pretty cool. But it was just to show you that, like, whoa, you know, like your body will always come back to that. Yeah, you know. Um, and so yeah, we would do that. We would purposely induce air hunger or hyperventilation. Um, and also you're starting to uh you start to realize how much it is just anxiety in the sense that your hands might tingle, your chest might feel a bit tight, and all these other symptoms that you've treated as mutually exclusive are actually all tied into the same process. And we do that to teach the amygdala that actually, hey, you know, yeah, I'd rather not have a hunger, but it's not a danger. You don't need to keep triggering off.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah. Because the lesson you learn there is ultimately like, wait a minute, what's actually happening right now? Oh, I'm anxious or I'm afraid, and my body does this when I'm afraid. That's it. That's the end of the conversation. Oh, what do I do now? Nothing. Just acknowledge that that's what's going on and get out of the way. Like it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Sometimes we could try to just get out of the way. Just get out of the way. Your body doing stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, like it's it's designed to make that sensation right now because you are afraid, you're anxious, you're stressed, you're uncertain, whatever's going on. Like it's that's part of what your body will do. I have done the breathing through a straw. I've done that with clients. Uh, you ain't lived until you have a session where somebody is has a pillowcase over their head and is running in place to try to get out of breath while they're sweating, like multiple layers of interoception at the same time. And like, people like, that's therapy. I'm like, yeah, it actually really helped, you know, um, because they learned like, oh, these are sensations are uncomfortable for me, but it's really okay. I even talking about it. Sometimes when I have to deal with somebody who's dealing with air hunger, all they want to do is tell me about the last air hunger episode that they were sure, they were sure that they were done for, they were gonna pass out for sure. Well, tell me about it. Like, tell me more detail. How are you feeling right now? And in 80% of the cases, they'll say, I'm feeling it right now. Telling the story, they start to feel the band across their chest or the tightness in their throat. I'm like, all right, let's just sit. And you could see them start to no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Just sit there. And oh, and then sure enough, within a minute or two, like, nah, everything's cool, like it passed. So we we learned to just do that, let it feel, let it be there.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

So what would you say to someone who is feeling quite sensitized now, listening to this? Oh, oh, I brought my attention to my breath. What would you say?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I would I would say, notice when your when your anxious mind issues the instruction to breathe. Normally you do not get instructions to breathe. So, like when it's telling you, like, take a breath, take a breath, deeper, deeper, deeper. No, no, no, no. No, I don't have to do that. I'm just taking a regular breath. And then I'm gonna get out of the way. And I'm gonna, in this situation, we've talked about this in an episode. Like, oh, do I distract myself? Well, there's always an element of distraction. If you leave that sensation there, that horrible, clearly life-threatening, like world-changing experience, has you just leave it alone and like engage somewhere else to the best of your ability. Maybe you sit and just feel that, or maybe you go back to reading the book or pay attention to the conversation you're having. Sure enough, your body will breathe on its own anyway. When you forget that you're supposed to control your breathing, you'll do that. So I usually will say, notice that your your anxious mind is giving you instructions to breathe now. You don't have to, no, I don't have to breathe now. Or I don't have to breathe as deep. Deeper, deeper. No, how about a shallow breath? How about that?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Best I can do is shallow breath.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, best I can pawn stars, right? Like, best I can do is a shallow breath. So sometimes we'll counteract that by like, I know you want to take a really deep breath. Just take a regular breath. What do you think is a regular breath? A not enough breath. Take that. Go ahead, do it. And like, not enough breath. Not enough breath. Yeah, take a not enough. Take a few not enough breaths and just let it and what happens? Your body kicks in and starts to regulate breathing naturally anyway.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

So and when this gets to like somatic OCD levels of stuff, that's when we kind of just look at the compulsions, right? Where compulsions associated are constantly checking a breath. Is it the right in air quotes breath? Do you feel sated? And remember, those compulsions are what's feeding what that theme is. Yeah. So like, oh yeah. Whereas actually it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Ah, what?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

What was it? It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Regulator Wait. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Needed to put those back to back. You know, the um if you're stuck right now in people listening, I know right now are stuck because they think they have to use box breathing, 478 breathing. Like this is what I I do that. No, no, no, no. Because then I I've worked with people who get stuck half of the day counting their breaths. They're they're constantly trying to do infervour, no, no, outfervor, or they're they're always counting the 478 because they have to make sure that they breathe that way.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Followed by, is this working? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

That's exactly right. So, like, no, no, no, no. You don't need to do that. We don't need to use box breathing or 478 breathing, or we don't have to do any of that stuff. Like, your body knows how to breathe. Feeling like you can't breathe is not the same as not being able to breathe. We have to lean on that in a big way. And I know a lot of people right now listening would be like, this is patently absurd. I cannot leave this alone. Well, we don't expect you to just change your belief because we said so. We're just two goofballs with microphones. Experiment. It's got a good beat, it could dance to it, give it an eight.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Tune that for 1986, Berlin. Take my breath away.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

That was the love theme from Top Gun.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Oh, I love Top Gun. Um, yeah. Uh let's have a dinner anyway.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah, we got another one that we want to play because it's really, really good one.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Hello, my name's Susan. Um I've been uh suffering with anxiety pretty much my whole life. And then this past year, um after birth of my second son, I had my first big wave of uh OCD and it's been tough. And there's been a few, I've got so many different fears I I couldn't even tell you, but um one of them is the electric box inside of the house and um making sure that the back of it is dry because we had an issue before where it got wet. Um and we have a bit of a storm today here in Ireland, and I just wanted to make sure that it was still fixed and the back of the electric box was still dry. And I was so so scared, even thinking about going to check it. Now, all these excuses, no, um, wait till your husband comes home, blah blah blah. And then I said, no, screw you, anxiety. I'm gonna go and check it myself. And if there's a problem, I can deal with it. And I went and checked the electric box myself, even though I was so terrified. Um, and of course it's bone dry, it's fine, there's nothing wrong with it. But I did it, I checked it, even though I was so scared. And I'm so proud of myself because that's been bothering me for so so long. And my OCD is already saying, go and check it again. Are you sure? Anxiety. I'm not going to because I know it's fine. But yeah, I just wanted to share that. It's a small did it anyway or a small win. But thank you guys for everything you do. I'm so buzzing. I'm gonna have a nice week up of tea now. And sit in the warmth in the in the storm. But yes, thank you guys. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

I loved that. I love that. I and I love the compassion afterwards. Um, I'm loving these OCD did it anyways. Um, and I think I mean that's so good. Uh I would love to do an episode, Drew, of just people sending in their OCD did it anyways. You know, no matter how silly or absurd that your brain thinks they are, we know how difficult it is. Um, well done. I'm I my favorite part of that is hearing the joy in people's voices when they've done something brave.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

That did it anyway, had everything. It had a fear, like an obsession, the electric box, the electric box, so much so that Susan was afraid to look at it. She was so afraid and obsessed with it. But then she did that, but then the opposite kicked in, and OCD was like, check it again, check it again. And she's like, you know, no, I'm not doing that. And she slipped in a commando reference, anxiety, you son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Dylan. You son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

That was like the big, super masculine big biceps, like handshake and commando between Paul Weathers and son of a bitch. She threw that in there.

unknown 32:46

It's great.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Thank you, Susan.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I think I I really, really like that one. Keep it going. Nice, good metacognitive awareness. Absolutely. Um, I've got a written one. Let's hear it. Okay, here we go. This is from Becky in Cheltenham, who is unfortunately a Liverpool fan, but none none of none of us can be perfect. Hi, Josh and Drew. I'd love to share a big did it anyway that I managed recently. This time last year, I had severe anxiety, OCD, and occasional panic, and I didn't want to leave the house on my own, nor be at home on my own. In fact, there were times I didn't didn't even want to be in a room on my own, and it put a lot of pressure on my relationship with my husband. Through listening to you guys every week and completing exposures, things began to shift bit by bit, and I almost don't know myself these days. I go out and about on my own without thinking about it much now, including on one occasion to an all-day cricket match. Recently, my husband went away with friends for three nights and four days, and I was pretty nervous about it, but also could see it, it would be a really excellent exposure for me. In the end, I actually ended up enjoying the weekend, spending time in the house alone, watching what I wanted on TV and seeing friends. It's really increased my confidence. I still feel anxiety quite regularly, but it doesn't bother me in the same way now and rarely stops me doing things. I just want to thank you guys so, so much for what you do. You have made the biggest difference to me in my recovery, and I'll always be grateful for that. And Josh, keep on supporting Newcastle FC, which for some reason has always been my dad's favourite club. Love from Becky and Chelten.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Oh good job, Becky. I love that, like, hey, I actually like being alone now. I can watch whatever I want on the TV, I can do whatever I want. What a turnaround. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Yeah, there's only one one way I can describe that. Did it anyway. It took my breath away.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

It totally did. Can we take a minute to appreciate the fade out on the sound effect?

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Just I don't know. That's really good. You're you're you're a man of many surprises. You can fade out and edit beautiful podcast episodes and music, but then unable to fade out invasive if notification noises.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

That's a hundred percent true. I should be able to fade them out. We've got a whole episode so far and not any happening. So I I think I'm clear.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

I think. We're changed. We've changed.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

We've changed. We're so we've matured, we've grown up. It's not the same podcast that it used to be. Anyway. Um, what else? We got an air hunger. Anything? I mean, I know you know what I think that's it.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Leave it alone. Get out of the way what you say, get out of its way. Just get out of your own way. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah. If you can do anything today, I would say, you know, well, any more? Can you talk more about that? No, because try experimenting with not making its own point. I need to know more about that. I need to know more. Can you talk more about that? Or no, we don't need to talk any more about it. We've exhausted the topic today. And you don't need to learn more about it. For what all there is to know. So go experiment with doing life while it feels like you're not getting a deep enough breath and see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Great.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

All right.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Thanks for tuning in. Disorder.fm for more voice notes and messages. Um, yeah. Any OCD did it anyways that you that might not feel big to you but are big, send them in and we'll collate them into one episode. I'd like a did it anyway round six, but with a OCD theme, that'd be a cool one. Um, and yeah, thanks for the recent reviews of the podcast and stuff and for sharing. And uh jump on the mailing list if you want.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah, I guess that's it. You if you go to disorder.fm, you can jump on the mailing list and you could send in questions and voicemails and all that stuff. And if you get on the mailing list, we will let you know when we release the disordered community app. So if you want to immerse yourself and did it anyways, in people cheering for each other and like interacting with us and asking questions about the podcast episodes, we'll have that out soon. So check it out. All right, we're done. See you guys next Friday. See you later.