Anxiety Disorders, Panic, Phobias and Fear Part 7 Generalized Anxiety Disorder
This is a ten-part series about anxiety: How to identify the different forms of anxiety and what you can do to lessen its effects.
When Dr. David Hunnicutt, the former President of Welcoa, asked me to write a book about stress he also asked me what the most important thing was I had ever learned about stress – maybe something that not many other people knew about. I said that was easy: It’s the fact that stress is cumulative. When one stressful event is followed by another and then another cortisol levels build up in a stairstep fashion. When this happens, we get agitated and tense and act in ways we may later regret. And we get bothered by things that normally wouldn’t bother us.
David’s eyebrows raised a bit and he said: “Good, put that in chapter one and figure out how to make it personal. It will draw the reader in.“
At the time, I was working on a simple self-assessment for measuring stress based on a scale from 0-10. 0 represented the total absence of stress and 10 represented what you would feel if you were having a panic attack. A person could, in effect, use this self-assessment to track the cumulative effects of cortisol, just noting where you were on the scale at any given moment. Coincidentally, around this time, I had just suffered a series of panic attacks while driving over long highway bridges that had never bothered me before!
This is the book I wrote about stress and was published by WELCOA.
As I started writing STOP STRESS THIS MINUTE, there was one bridge, near where I lived, that was just long enough to raise my stress number to about a 7 or an 8 but was mercifully just short enough so I could get to the other side before experiencing a full-blown panic attack. However, there were several longer bridges* over the Hudson River, (that were further from where I lived, but that I would usually cross up to 10 or 12 times a year) that would raise my stress levels to a 9 or a 10. Now, suddenly, even though I had crossed the Hudson River hundreds of times in my life, just the thought of crossing it, terrified me. This phobia about bridges (called gephyrophobia) was starting to severely limit my mobility.
As it turns out, I was fortunate to have a friend who lived just on the other side of that shorter bridge who I really LIKED playing tennis with. My love of tennis motivated me to drive over that bridge even though doing so made me feel quite uncomfortable. In the minute or two it took to cross it, I could feel my stress number rise rapidly, and just when it was about to reach panic levels, I’d get to the other side and be OK.
But here was the big surprise that I don’t think I would have figured out, if I hadn’t been tracking my stress number. On the way back from playing tennis, that bridge didn’t bother me at all. The first time it happened it didn’t even register because I had driven over that same bridge thousands of times and it had never bothered me before. But on subsequent occasions – always after playing tennis - I started to wonder how it was possible to nearly have a panic attack in one direction and no feeling of fear in the other.
My stress number system – and the fact that stress is cumulative - helped me unravel the mystery. On the way down – I was typically traveling after a hectic workday, hurrying to get there on time, dealing with rush hour traffic, so I was probably starting the trip at a 4 or a 5, which then elevated to a 7 or an 8 crossing the bridge: In other words, a near panic attack. But on the way back, I wasn’t in a hurry, I had just completed an hour or more of vigorous exercise, and I had relaxed with my friend afterwards.
That means I was arriving at the south side of the bridge – on the way back - at a 0 or a 1. So whatever stress I might feel crossing it heading back north, only elevated my stress number to the level of a 2 or a 3. Unraveling this mystery, and explaining WHY stress is cumulative, made a very good first chapter of my book. STOP STRESS THIS MINUTE went on to sell over 100,000 copies which as Dr. Hunnicutt liked to point out is what made a book a bestseller.
As I will write in the final three installments in this ten-part series, I was able to use this exact same approach to get over both my fear of flying and my fear of public speaking. And as it turned out, I DIDN’T have panic disorder I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD. Still to come are installments on Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.
*The Tappan Zee Bridge (now renamed The Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge)which is over a mile long. This Wikipedia link about Gephyrophobia or fear of bridges and tunnels explains that The Tappan Zee bridge is one of several bridges in the US where (including the Mackinac bridge in Michigan and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland) a service, in certain cases provided by the state, will drive gephyrophobiacs across the bridge either for free or for a small fee. You just have to arrange it in advance.
I’ve now driven over 2 out of these 3 bridges multiple times and haven’t had a problem since my first series of panic attacks.
The latest version of Stop Stress This Minute includes a workbook section in the back with a 30-day plan for building resilience, one day at a time. Get your digital download now, or consider purchasing download cards for your employees.
James Porter
Author