Cal William's Events

OK so I know performance anxiety treatment could be a delicate topic. First I want to say that while this can apply in the bedroom (and usually people looking at performance anxiety issues are doing it because of that scenario), the fact that it’s a bedroom issue is actually totally incidental to the underlying issues, and has no bearing on the treatment. I want to keep the post PG, so I’m going to talk about a different performance anxiety situation and it’s treatment; public speaking.

First, public speaking is anxiety provoking for most people. But here’s what’s interesting. If you talk to someone who is a great public speaker (or at least comfortable), they always have the same story: they were incredibly nervous when they started speaking too. For different reasons, they continued to get out and speak, even though they felt uncomfortable, essentially, they provided their own performance anxiety treatment – self applied.

Now, if you ask them how they did when they were first starting out speaking when they were really nervous they’ll tell you; they stunk! Their anxiety was inhibiting their performance, just as your anxiety is inhibiting your performance. What was key for them and is key for you is to keep showing up. Now, what accelerates this process is being calm, confident and comfortable (the 3 Cs) when you are showing up to perform – I know, it sounds impossible though… you’re feeling anxious!

Sticking with the public speaking example (and feel free to draw parallels to your own situation), although one is really about overcoming social anxiety , the performance anxiety hits immediately when you start to even consider being in the situation, planning to be in it, or if someone else initiates a plan that will involve you in it. For example, if a vice president at your company invites you to participate in your company’s sales kickoff by doing a product demonstration of a new version of your software.

As soon as you get the request, you begin to respond cognitively (mentally, by imagining yourself in the scenario), physiologically – producing anxiety symptoms such as sweating, and emotionally, by generating anxiety and fear. One of the cycles you may enter into is worrying about your upcoming performance on stage. While imagining it, you may notice your mouth getting dry or your hands getting sweaty and shaky.

The trick and treatment for performance anxiety is to move ahead as though your anxiety symptoms weren’t there. If you start to avoid the situation by either not initiating it yourself, or by maneuvering out of it some other way, you only serve to reinforce the anxiety and fear. Chances are, you have performance anxiety about something you (really really) would like to do, would greatly enjoy and derive benefit from. There is another view on this over at abcnews.com

You should go in, and do it. Even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, and even if you don’t perform the way you would like, if you resolve to carry through each and every time the opportunity presents (and even looking for new opportunities) you are essentially reprogramming your body to respond in a new way to the situation. Removing the expectation and 'shoulds' that you put on yourself allows you to engage without shame or guilt, which will relieve much of the anxiety. If you decide AHEAD of time to accept whatever the outcome is, then you walk into the situation looking for an experience rather than wanting to avoid or needing a particular outcome. Hope that makes sense, it should be pretty directly applicable.

This was my 3rd podomatic hijacked-event post! Check out my other two here:

Anxiety Symptoms in Men and Anxiety Attack Symptoms in Men

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Here I want to get into what anxiety attacks symptoms in men are like. Note that I am not talking about general anxiety symptoms that may come about, but specifically what happens during an attack. If you've been "fortunate" enough to have an anxiety attack as a man, you know that it is quite a different experience than just having lower-level anxiety symptoms.

During an attack, the "threat detection" system is essentially going haywire. There are a few basic chemical things that are going on with anxiety attack symptoms that are particular to men. For instance, there is research showing that serum levels of testosterone actually increase during the onset of panic attacks.

Inside the brain there are a number of systems that deal with alertness, danger, vigilance, and attention. Many of these systems work in a section of the brain called the amygdala. In relation to anxiety, It's the left (you have a left and right) amygdala. There is also norepinephrine being released, which is highly similar to adrenaline (a hormone) but works in the brain.

Speaking of adrenaline - yes of course! If you've felt your heart pounding, felt your field of vision get a bit dim or tunneled, the hyperventilation, and the weakness then you should know adrenaline is being released! You may also notice that your eyes begin darting back and forth a lot, that you are looking around the room. One of the main symptoms in men is an automatic check for safety. Your eyes dart about to assess where exits are and who is immediately around you, because you can feel yourself becoming highly vulnerable.

Many men say they can feel their anxiety symptoms building up to an attack during a day when they are going to have one. If you can feel the building anxiety, nausea may be one of your cues. That said, most men will also say that sometimes they are wrong; perhaps you can feel on days when your anxiety is at a high enough level when you are likely to have an attack, but in the end you may not.

Sweating is another highly common anxiety attack symptom. Most men experience this, and they experience it in much greater numbers than do women. One reason for this is that men, being bigger, have more blood in their bodies. When they become anxious and flushed, the blood carries more heat toward the skin, triggering the nerves that detect heat and cause sweating.

One anxiety attack symptom in men that graciously is found in reduced ratio as compared to women is choking feeling. Many women will feel as though they are being choked or that their throat is closing up during an anxiety attack. Men experience this symptom far less often than do women. However, a related symptom of having shortness of breath or difficulty breathing is every bit of common, and is in fact highly prevalent in both sexes. Anxiety attacks can feel like you're dying, whether you?re a man or a woman. No one should have to suffer through these, particularly when it's possible for most people to address anxiety attack symptoms on their own in their own lives. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it's simply a matter of getting the knowledge and doing a bit of work around the anxiety.

Also check out my earlier Anxiety Symptoms in Men

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Hey guys (and gals too!). I'm a friendly dude with anxiety which is why I'm starting this here (atypical) podomatic event-based blog, but I also feel like I have a lot to share because I am learnworking on a masters degree in clinical psychology right now. So I feel like I have something meaningful to share both from a personal perspective as well as an academic/research oriented perspective. Although I'm shooting for a clinical degree, my rensearch is neuroscience oriented, so I'll probably geek out and talk about the brain, neurotransmitters, and information processing as it relates to anxiety a bit too (there's more than just symptoms to learn about!!)

So to kick things off I'm going to take kind of a perspective on what it's like for males and anxiety, and how it differs from women's experience. There is of course a lot of overlap but there are some significat areas where it's useful to make some distinctions. Anxiety symptoms in men are tend to be less diverse between men, but more severe than many women’s anxiety symptoms. Women appear to be more anxious naturally. Whether this is ultimately due genetic factors, societal and cultural factors or something else is not really well understood.

The biggest source of anxiety for men tends to be traumatic stress. Historically in America, trauma has had a very narrow definition for the layperson. Most people readily recognize getting shot or seriously injured in an accident as traumatic. However, research on trauma as a source of anxiety symptoms in men (see anxiety attack symptoms in women for more nuance) has revealed that the appropriate definition for trauma is really much wider than popularly considered.

Trauma can be properly (according to the traumatology literature) defined as any situation which is stressful to the point of having a lasting negative impact on a person. This could something as blatantly obvious as the death of a loved one, but could also include something like the loss of a job or career. Being humiliated in a social situation or degraded and made to feel ashamed can also be traumatic events that serve as an antecedent to anxiety symptoms.

An interesting quality for men with anxiety symptoms is that they there is always a ‘maintenance’ pattern that keeps the anxiety around. While an initial event might spark a mental and behavioral pattern of anxiety, there is always a maintaining set of behaviors that correspond to it.

If you think about it, life is inherently unstable; everything is changing from moment to moment. There is good reason that patterns of anxious feelings and fearful responses persist.

What happens is that the anxiety symptoms, thoughts and feelings make it difficult to engage in behaviors that you would otherwise want to. This might be hanging out with a group of friends, asking someone out on a date, showing up FOR a date, asking your boss for extra vacation time or even going out to a music show. Because your anxiety level would go up if you went, participated, asked etc, then you avoid doing it.

Avoidance is a primary BEHAVIORAL anxiety symptom in men. When you avoid, you are essentially telling those anxious feeling, that worry, ‘Yes. You are effective. More please.’ In technical terms, what’s happening is ‘negative reinforcement’. You engage (or plan to engage) in a behavior that triggers anxiety. You are now experiencing something negative. This next part is key: you AVOID the behavior you were engaging (or planning to engage) in, thus reinforcing the retreat and the anxiety.

This behavioral pattern is so well documented that most anxiety symptom treatments for men (as well as women in most cases) depend on one form or another of desensitization, where you essentially confront the anxious situations and do not retreat. The most effective of these teach you powerful relaxation and calming techniques first so that you can learn to self regulate. When you can be in the previously anxiety-causing situation and get back down to a calm state, that situation ceases to have power over you. If it sounds relatively simple, it is! People maintain their anxiety without thinking about it… the reversal is simple as well. Obviously it’s not necessarily easy, but having the confidence of knowing it will work and particularly the self-regulation skills (breathing techniques are one example) makes all the difference in success, trust me.

Although it's not full of super-specialized information in regards to male anxiety issues in particular, I really do recommend you check out the Wiki on Anxiety Disorder . It's a great source of general info and it paints in broad brushstrokes.

I wrote about specifics with attacks at anxiety attack symptoms in men, so check it out if you think you're experiencing any attacks.

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