I am and I need advice on how to stop. Every time I get myself into a situation where I think I should be nervous, I always act like I inhaled a gallon of coffee and I need to physically demand my body to act smoothly.
Got any advice on this? If you lack advice, your stories about uncontrollable nervous behavior will be appreciated.
Hi there,
I’ve noticed that you’ve also made a post about depression, so I’m getting the feeling you’re having some emotional issues at the moment.
I have suffered from panic attacks in the past, which is a bit different from constantly feeling nervous, I would imagine.
I found cognitive behaviour therapy to be extremely useful - the premise is that the way you think about situations determines the emotions you feel about them, so if you can change your thinking, then you can change your emotional reactions. The fact that you’ve said ‘every time I get myself into a situation where I think I should be nervous…’ indicates to me that you might benefit from this sort of treatment.
All the best,
Sandra
Take a look here: http://www.rational.org.nz/public.htm (sorry, I don’t know how to do the html) - this website has some great resources that you mind find useful.
The only advice I can give is the same that works for bed spins too (when you’re drunk). Just enjoy it. It’s not going away so find a way to like it.
Sorry to be so glum.
Cognitive therapy is very good (as someone undergoing it at the moment). My counsellor has investigated causes of nervous reaction with me a lot - and just knowing what causes certain reactions helps in itself.
There are also herbal remedies that help - one sold here is called Rescue Remedy which contains bachflower - and can be used to assist sleep or just to calm you down in advance of tricky situations.
I also found behavioral therapy to help. (I was diagnosed with an Anxiety Disorder, Extreme) One other thing that helped me was something my stopmom said.
“So, how does your body feel when this happens?” she asked.
“Well, my heart starts racing, and I can hear blood rushing in my ears and I start to breathe fast. Everything around me gets really sharp and loud, and I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin.”
“Hmm,” she said, “sounds like excitement to me.”
From then on, I tried to think of what was happening as excitement instead of fear, and pretty soon I came to believe it. My body was treating it the same way, it was my thoughts that were labeling it in a destructive way.
Recreational drugs have been doing the trick for me these past few years, until they wear off, that is… It’s prettty expensive, though, so I can’t really recommend it. Winners might not use drugs but therapy is for little babies and girls. And little baby girls.
This is one of those things where it’s hard to know – from this remove certainly, but maybe even to you – when you’ve crossed the line from personality quirk to mental-health issue. I’ve always considered myself a nervous person – fidgety, but also sometimes in social situations. I’ve been able to live with it all these years, and it’s never risen to the level of a social phobia or anything. One thing I’ve heard of people doing is taking beta blockers before a particularly nervous situation – playing on stage, doing an audition, taking an interview, even going on a date. Could be worth exploring with your doctor.