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Intro
*Intro jingle
Hello welcome to “A POP of Psych” podcast. I'm Julia, a rising Junior from New Jersey, and I will be your main host for today’s episode.
Starting from this episode to episode 10 we are starting the “More you know” series which will be school themed.
In the 7th episode of this podcast, I will be talking about anxiety in general, personal experiences with anxiety specifically school related, and some advice for coping with it.
Topic 1: What is Anxiety? (Background and symptoms)
Everyone has or have had anxiety in some form at least once in their life. Some people may be better at hiding it than others, but to a certain degree everyone has anxiety and experienced it before.
So what exactly is anxiety?
Anxiety is a state of uneasiness and distress.
Apprehension
Worry
It may be about future uncertainties or of past actions.
But it is your body’s natural response to stress and fear.
In a way, everyone has experienced anxiety, like the first day of work, before a test, public speaking.
However there is a difference between occasional anxiety and anxiety disorders. Everyone has occasional anxiety but not everyone has anxiety disorders. There are many different types of anxiety disorders.
For instance, there’s generalized anxiety disorder which is characterized by persistent and excessive worry with little or no reason at all
There's panic disorder when you experience sudden and intense fear that leads to a panic attack.
There’s social anxiety disorder which you feel very self-conscious and worry about being judged by others.
There’s separation anxiety disorder when you feel fear of being away from home or loved ones.You may be constantly worried that something bad might happen to your loved one and get anxious when they leave your sight/.
There’s PTSD which is anxiety that follows a traumatic event.
There’s OCD in which recurring irrational thoughts that lead you to perform specific, repeated behaviors
There’s medication-induced anxiety disorder where use of certain drugs or withdrawal from drugs can trigger some symptoms of anxiety disorder.
There’s illness anxiety disorder in which you are anxious about your health.
And many more I have yet to list.
The causes of these anxiety disorders are not fully understood but there are many factors that may contribute to anxiety.
Some causes of anxiety may be
Genetics
Brain chemistry
Environmental stress
Drugs
Medical conditions
Anxiety disorders may run in families.
And there has been research that suggests that anxiety disorders may be linked to faulty circuits in the brain that control fear and emotions.
Environmental stress may refer to a traumatic or stressful event that one has witnessed or experienced.
Anxiety can also be a reaction to stress, but it can also occur in people who have no obvious stressors.
There are various and a wide range of symptoms from anxiety. It can range from butterflies in your stomach to a racing heart. Sometimes you may feel like you are disconnected from your mind and body, feeling like you are out of control. However, anxiety symptoms vary from person to person and by situation as well. Therefore, it is important to know all the ways anxiety can present itself.
Some common symptoms of anxiety are
Excessive fear or worry
Panic, fear, and uneasiness
Feelings of doom, or danger
Sleep problems
Not being able to stay calm and still
Cold, sweaty, numb, or tingling hands or feet
Shortness of breath
Breathing faster and more quickly than normal (hyperventilation)
Heart palpitations
Dry mouth
Nausea
Tense muscles
Dizziness
Thinking about a problem over and over again and unable to stop (rumination)
Inability to concentrate
Intensely or obsessively avoiding feared objects or places
Next time if you are ever confused if you were experiencing anxiety or not, try to see if your symptoms overlap.
In the next segment, I will be discussing personal experience with anxiety.
Topic 2: Personal experiences
For this segment we are going to talk about our own personal experiences with anxiety and I am here with Stacey.
(Stacey introduce yourself) hellooooo
So Stacey have you experienced any anxiety before?
(Stacey’s time to SHINE) LMAO
I do, a lot. And a lot more frequently than I did before in middle school. I would generally consider myself an anxious person.
Some ideas
Tests in school
Julia: During school, I get really anxious when I take a test. No matter how much I study, I always feel underprepared and I always second guess myself. I guess many people may feel the same way as well.
Stacey: The periods before a test, I can’t be present in class. Like I can’t be attentive. Say I have a Chemistry test in the afternoon. The content my teacher discusses in say Physics in the morning just goes completely out of the roof. I tend to skip lunch a lot to study for any afternoon tests, even though I stayed up the night before. Like Julia, I just feel so underprepared. But in reality nothing I do will ever be enough for me not to feel that way.
Big Assignments ?
Stacey: In freshman year, I had this historical investigation paper that required a lot of research. I just remember it was like one am on like a weekday night where I was sifting through research papers on the internet with lots of big words I didn’t understand. I have this thing where I can’t really concentrate on something for long, so I start drifting or daydreaming. This condition and like fifty tabs open on Medieval art is a terrible combination I learned the hard way. If I drift or daydream, I panic because only a few words or sentences are able to enter my head at a time, like from the research papers. I can’t really establish logical connections between a sentence I just read and a sentence I will read twenty seconds later because between the two I start thinking about something else. This overwhelming realization that I was legitimately not made for compiling information from old documents because of my lack of comprehension skills and attentiveness just made me panic. alone. at one am in the morning.
Due Dates
Stacey: I have a love-hate relationship with distant due dates. I always think I’ll have enough time to complete an assignment that is due in the distant future and don’t start until the week it’s due, or sometimes a few days before. But sometimes, more often than sometimes to be frank, at like 2 am in the morning I think, “I have something due. I should probably work on it” and just do like a quarter of the assignment. Now, this can be argued as productive, but it’s really not. My panic disturbs my sleep, I’m fueled by anxiety and not motivation to actually get work done, and it’s like I took one of those five hour energy shots and am running on artificial energy. Ohoho and my summer homework...I have not started that yet, though school is due to open (remotely) in less than two weeks.
Julia: Omg same. I didn’t start my summer homework and this thing just happened recently. I attended a virtual summer program that was about a month long. I had to listen to lectures like 3 times a week and there were follow up questions for each one. There were other assignments as well but I kept pushing it off. I ended up doing it the day before it was due, well technically the day of thinking about it. I took an all nighter and every time it got closer to the hour it was due I kept panicking. Because I kept panicking it was harder for me to focus and finish. In the end I handed it in but I wasn’t happy with my work. I knew I could’ve done better and I was overthinking it even though it was all over.
Before I sleep/ shower thoughts
Julia: I keep replaying the things I did during the day that I thought came out wrong or could’ve gone another way
Julia: One time I borrowed a book from my sister who borrowed the book from her teacher. The cover was a bit broken but I dropped it and I ended up ripping the entire front cover off the page. It was a hardcover book so taping it made it look so weird and I was so nervous and anxious about it. I kept thinking about how my sister would react, how her teacher would react, and my own stupidity of dropping the book. I clearly remember my heart racing and being unable to fall asleep.
Stacey: Sometimes I feel guilty for sleeping. Sleeping is kind of this safe haven, untainted by any external factor like stress. I always think I should be working on an assignment, (as I am ready to fall asleep!), bargain with myself (in bed!) for the next ten minutes, and nine times out of ten wake up and do something “productive” on that artificial energy I was talking about.
Public speaking
Julia: I absolutely HATE public speaking and even when I record episodes for this podcast, I get so anxious. I always stutter and my tongue twists and it’s worse when I have to present in front of people physically. Sometimes my hand starts to shake so I grab my notecards if I can or I end up pinching my shirt slightly on the side and rub my fingers together.
Stacey: ME TOO! I remember having to present for my history class and ended up choking on my words. I was beyond mortified. I was supposed to be attentive and take notes on the presentations before mine, but I was in this frozen state. Couldn’t do anything.
Topic 3: How to cope with anxiety?
Previously we talked about some of our experiences with anxiety. So Stacey are there any ways that you deal with anxiety?
Stacey: Hmmm...if I’m being completely honest, I haven’t found an effective way of clearing my head. One of the things I have tried and have worked to some extent is facing it head on. Instead of beating around the bush, I just write everything down that’s bothering me on what I call my rant notebook. And even though I call it a rant notebook, I try my best to approach writing things down in a very calm manner. I try to use my best handwriting, lots of arrows, just mapping out my mind basically. There’s no other way to beat anxiety in my book but to just collide head first. And anytime that intrusive thought starts bothering me again, I look at the my rant journal and try to reason with myself why I am okay.
Julia: Well one way I deal with anxiety or stress in general is I try to clear my head. I do this by listening to music. Very loud music. So basically I wear headphones, so I don’t bother anyone else or kill their ears, and I play music very loudly. It can be anything I want, sometimes it could be a song I’ve never heard of before or it can be a song that I like during the time. My favorite song is constantly changing, so the music I listen to changes every time. After I blast the music, I turn off the lights and I just lay on my bed. The music sort of drowns out my thoughts and I really don’t think about anything. Sometimes I focus on the lyrics but usually I don’t really think about anything during that time. This is how I’ve found to be really helpful for my anxiety and I guess there are limits to this coping method because it's hard to use this method outside of a household setting.
Stacey: I love listening to music as well! Right now, whenever I’m kind of lost I listen to this particular song called Road to Nowhere covered by Release the Sunbird and I feel that it just helps me calm down. Maybe find a song with lyrics that relate to the situation you’re in or you feel just generally makes you much happier or just immersive. In addition to music, I started to read again. In middle school I was such an avid reader, but after entering high school, I never really had a chance to read. I feel that reading overall increases your ability to concentrate on something for longer periods of time without distraction. This helps prevent any mind wondering that may induce an anxiety spiral.
There are many other ways that you can cope with anxiety that has proven to work on other individuals. For instance, some methods are
Writing your thoughts out
Putting what you feel and what is making you feel anxious onto paper can help you feel like it is a tangible problem and make it seem less scary
Writing it out can help you organize your thoughts as well.
You can also practice deep breathing
Some people have said that using the 4-7-8 technique.
This is a breathing exercise that was developed by Dr. Andrew Weil. You inhale through your nose silently for four seconds. Hold your breath for seven seconds and then exhale, making a whooshing sound, through your mouth for 8 seconds. Repeating this process has shown to help with anxiety.
Aromatherapy may help with anxiety.
It can be in many different forms such as, oil form, incense, or scented candle. It is thought to help activate certain receptors in your brain, potentially easing anxiety.
Exercise
Sometimes walking away from the situation and focusing on your body can help you stop anxious thoughts.
You can walk around, do yoga, or do any sort of exercise
Questioning your thought pattern
Negative thoughts can take root in your mind and distort the severity of the situation. One way is to challenge your fears, ask if they’re true, and see where you can take back control.
But I think that everyone has different methods of coping and it just takes time to see which one works for you.
Commentary: For instance, in some of these methods I’ve listed, some do not work for me. Aromatherapy may work for some people, but I always got a headache when I lit up a scented candle or incense. But, I found my method of listening to music to be helpful for me, my method might not be effective for other people.
But identifying triggers is one of the most important steps to coping and managing anxiety attacks. Everyone has different triggers, but there are some common ones.
Some ways you can help identify your triggers is by thinking of times and places where you notice yourself feeling most anxious.
Try to write them down and look for patterns.
Then, you can work on ways you can either avoid or confront the feelings of panic and worry. If you know the causes of your anxiety, that can help you put your worries into perspective. Next time, you'll be better prepared when it affects you.
Outro
In this episode we delved into different anxiety disorders and occasional anxiety and ways of coping with it.
We also discussed some personal experiences.
Thanks for tuning in and check out the script and resources used on our website, linked in the description.
If you guys have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to visit our website apopofpsych.wixsite.com, that is linked in the description.
We’ll be back next week with another informative and engaging episode! Thank you for listening!
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