When i was younger, i went through a mental breakdown. when my dad died…. i crashed. i was in a clinic, counselling, lost work , dropped out of school… i had hallucinations… i was on lots of drugs. along with all this i was in counselling to get help. on my way to recovery… one of the STRONGEST coping mechanisms i was taught, was to tell myself whenever i’m crashing or having a panic attack; “something’s wrong. i’m breaking down… and i might have a panic attack. this is part of my life now….” and i’ve told people this all the time when they try to cope with something. basically, OPENLY tell admit to yourself there is a problem and something is happening. actually say the words to yourself.
why? well recently i learned, from a book i’m reading “JUST LISTEN”, that there are basically 3 parts to the human brain, a reptilian side, a mammal primal side, and an elevated thought side. the reptile side is responsible for basic functions like fear, fight or flight, pain, etc… immediately basic instincts of survival. the mammal side feels anger, laughter, rage, sexual attraction… etc. the more emotional side of things. then there’s the elevated side… that decides things and has a conscience. says this is bad and won’t do this or WILL do that. the idea is that when you are feelling stressed/anxiety… you need to get through the 3 brains to the conscious one that decides what’s the best anxious. when you are about to get into an accident, first you panic, feel fear.. (reptile — deer in a headlights look … or jump)… then you sweat, and feel fear and realize there’s danger…..(mammal side)… THEN you decide to move. in a life/death situation… this usually takes … if NOT trained for it… up to 5 seconds. often a second in MOST situations…. but in a complex situation… like an argument…. this process can take 10 min. (think about the last argument you had… when did you decide “this is what i should say!” …. ? more likely… 10 min later… you thought “i SHOULD have said that!!!” …. that’s the elevated human side… deciding too late).
so the idea is to get to the elevated side… in NON life death situations… like arguing… or panic attacks, or social anxiety situations…. as quickly as possible. why does it take 10 min or even hours for most people? because there are 5 phases to the reactionary process…. which guide us … through these 3 brains. this is a human process… that’s been tested and proven. the FIRST phase is always “agh! crap! danger! fuck!!!” and shock. and then we go through “oh well… damn… this sucks” then… “ugh. i better do something…. ” then we think “there’s probably something i can do to survive this”…. finally “yeah, this’ll work”. there’s some tech medical words for these phases but i don’t remember those right now. just know they are there. 5 phases, that pass through your 3 brains. the reason people hang up and can’t get through these phases quickly, is because they are often holding themselves up! see, when most people go into shock, or have trauma… they send their “conscious” brain to tell everything’s ok, and try to rationalize and … basically it acts like a police man guiding traffic when there’s chaos. honestly, we NEED to let the chaos take hold for a bit … “let it out” sorta. until those phases are properly processed… we can’t guide ourselves. our body is just struggling. so is our mind.
so… the first step is to STOP trying to manage and telling ourselves things are ok….by simply accepting “oh shit, i’m fucked”…. and then look to the rest of the phases…. “it sucks, but i do have to do this… ” and so on…
don’t worry, in life/death situations… this happens fast… and if you wanna do it faster…. you can train yourself…. memory muscle type actions…like how martial artists do. but… for complex things… like how to deal with stress and anxious social situations…. you have to walk yourself through it. EACH TIME. start with the first words. the rest comes naturally… because you put your “police man” brain to the side.
with practice…. it’s entirely possible to guide our reactions to go from “oh no!” to a calm state where we can think clearly in a social situation of nervousness…. within about 1 to 2 min. (be realistic… because MOST people need hours to actually cope and manage a situation like losing a job well to a healthy action… like starting to look for work).