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Why Anxiety Can Cause 100+ Symptoms · Bye Bye Panic

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: How anxiety creates hundreds of symptoms?
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we think of anxiety, we usually think of it as a feeling, like feeling scared, or feeling fear.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I used to think the same thing, but 15 years ago, I started developing such intense physical symptoms that had no explanations, that every time I'd go to my doctors and they would run a series of tests, they would just say, hey, it's just anxiety.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Almost like saying, hey, this is all in your head.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I did it realize is that there's two types of anxiety.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's anxiety as an emotion, and there's anxiety that creates hundreds of symptoms.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: These can include physical symptoms.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: These can include mental symptoms, cognitive symptoms.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: These can also make you have feelings of feeling detached or feeling dissociated.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so in this video, I want to explain what are these symptoms, how to identify what symptoms are anxiety in which one's aren't, and more importantly, what you can begin doing to overcome these symptoms so that you can go back to living fully and freely.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, it's important to understand that there's two types of anxiety.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's the anxiety that we describe every day.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's more of like an emotion, like feeling anxious about filming this video, or making a presentation, or feeling anxious about something that's going to happen in the future.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: We describe that type of anxiety as a feeling.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many times people will look at that type of anxiety as something that happens mentally.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a mental construct.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there's another type of anxiety.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the type of anxiety where you'll go to your doctors, you'll do a series of tests, and you are dealing with such intense symptoms, and they say, hey, there's nothing wrong, it's just anxiety.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what happens often is that people often mistake the first type of anxiety with the second type of anxiety.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: these individuals will often say, hey, you're just saying, this is all in my head, like I'm making this up.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is where people often feel misunderstood, or they just feel neglected by the medical community.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to describe the second type of anxiety, because that's really what this video is about, because that second type of anxiety is what creates hundreds of symptoms.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now it's important to understand what are these different symptoms that anxiety creates.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like to break it up in about five categories.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are intense physical symptoms.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: These can include digestive issues, dizziness, nausea, breathlessness, heart palpitations.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tonight is vision changes.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Literally almost any physical symptom you can think of.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then there are the cognitive symptoms.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oftentimes these thoughts start with what if.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what if I never get better?
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's always going to be this way.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if the symptoms change?
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if the symptoms get worse?
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll notice that these what ifs have a strong emotional punch.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before you can handle what if thoughts just find, but now what if thought came in and it feels like you've got hit by a train.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The third type is feelings of detachment, where you will feel something we call depersonalization or de-realization.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Depersonalization just means you feel at a body and de-realization feels like nothing is real.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Next are panic attacks, where you will basically have an adrenaline surge.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You will feel intense symptoms all at once, and you're going to feel like you're losing control.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the last one is the emotional symptoms.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just feeling fear, it's feeling things like sadness, feelings of impending doom, feelings of guilt.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so these are the different symptoms that the second type of anxiety creates.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you might be thinking, okay, why are we using the term anxiety for this?
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the way to look at this is that what you're dealing with is not anxiety as an emotion.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're dealing with something called anxiety as a state.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Specifically here, the state that we're describing is the state of your nervous system.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So why is your nervous system creating these symptoms?
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The way I like to look at it is that what happens is that you are dealing with what we call a stress response.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your body is beginning to overreact to small stressors.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is that when your body overreacts to these small stressors, it starts producing these different types of symptoms.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the question is, okay, my body's creating these symptoms, why is it creating these symptoms?
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it because it's broken?
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it because I'm lacking something?
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it something from my childhood?
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is really important because what's happened is none of those things.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's happened is that your nervous system has become very sensitive to stress.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So here's how I like to describe it.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system has been designed to protect you.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what it's doing is that it's determining what is a threat and what is in a threat.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, what happens over time is that your nervous system besides identifying what's a thread and what's not, it also handles stressors.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, this can be a life or death stressors, but this can also be small stressors too.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Stressors of relationship stuff, maybe it's a medical scare, whatever stressors you're dealing with.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is that you can have a few stressors, you can have a life or death situation, or whatever it is.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what happens is that your nervous system hits a tipping point, where it can only handle so much stress.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: We call this a nervous system threshold.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: What happens is when your nervous system hits this threshold, and
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: it becomes more sensitive to stressors.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: What it's basically saying is that, hey, we're dealing with a lot of stressors right now, we might be in danger.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we need to mobilize and get all of our fighter flight systems and our stress response ready to fight something or run away from something or freeze from something.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if this sounds complicated, think of it this way.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine you're dealing with a lot of stressors.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once small thing somebody does, maybe they make a small joke, and you feel really irritated about that joke.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you react because you're already upset and you have all these different things going on.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're dealing with, you know, relationship issues, you're dealing with finance issues, maybe something happened in the morning.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this person just made a joke and that's where you just blow up on that person.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've all had that feeling.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that person was thinking, wow, like, that was just such a small thing.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why are you overreacting?
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's happening is that you're not overreacting per se, but you've had all these stressors that have compounded over time.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you've basically had one instance that's basically the breaking point.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: your nervous system is acting the same way.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's happened is that up until the point where you're experiencing symptoms, your nervous system has basically gotten to the point where it's saying, okay, something is wrong.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: We need to figure this out.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is your nervous system starts mobilizing for the threat.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is where your nervous system begins to physiologically change.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll notice that you'll start experiencing symptoms and sensations.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: These can include heart palpitations, you'll notice breathlessness, blood flow will move to different parts of your body.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll also notice cognitively you'll start thinking of worst case scenarios.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so this is what we call a stress response.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when your doctor say anxiety, what they're really describing is the stress response.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: What the doctors are basically saying is that yes, these symptoms are real.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: but there's no root cause to it.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no cause to it that's physical.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no physical abnormality that's causing these issues.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, initially that can feel relieving, okay, there's no medical issue, but that can also be very frustrating.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because while you have gotten a clean bill of health or whatever it is, what can you do now?
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this just something you have to deal with?
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: This often leads people to try to find answers to get at least some type of diagnosis, where people can at least have an explanation for what's happening.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, all of this leads me to the second point, which is everything you're dealing with has only one root cause.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, what happens is when people are told that they have anxiety, they can feel very exhausted, they feel very frustrated, and they begin searching for a diagnosis.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what happens is that people will often say, hey, I was initially told I had anxiety, but turned out to be something else.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many of these things can include things like fibromyalgia or pots or Lyme disease or chronic dizziness or even chronic pain.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is that they get this diagnosis and they have an explanation for what's happening.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what I'm going to challenge you on is actually say, it's all still part of one problem.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what you're really dealing with is a nervous system that's stuck on protection mode.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a nervous system that's put on high alert.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the danger that your nervous system is registering is the symptom.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what your nervous system is saying is that the feelings of exhaustion, the disiness, the digestive issues,
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the tiger, and anytime this symptoms come up, your nervous system reacts to more danger, to more panic, to more anxiety.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is people get these different diagnoses, but fundamentally they're still dealing with the same thing.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, there are different names for this.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't feel like anxiety is the right name for this, that's totally understandable.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Other people use terms like mind body issues.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people say is a psychosomatic disorder.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people call it a nervous system issue.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people call it a placebo or an placebo effect.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like to personally call this as a nervous system issue.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's more encompassing.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Call it a nervous system issue also makes you realize that it's not that your nervous system is broken, it's just miscalibrated.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: A good analogy of looking at what's happening with your nervous system specifically is thinking about a smoke alarm detector.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll notice that when the batteries run low, it will become more sensitive.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it will ring even when there is no fire.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system is acting the same way.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's basically reacting in this fear loop, even though there's no danger, there's no threat.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you need to just do is recalibrate your nervous system.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The most important thing to understand is that your nervous system is actually designed the sway on purpose.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason why we've been able to survive and evolve and thrive is because of our nervous system.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever we thought there was a threat, our nervous system would protect us extra in just in case.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even when a threat was gone, our nervous system will still on look out mode.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was still in protection mode longer because what happens if the threat comes
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you're dealing with is a nervous system issue that doctors call anxiety.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even these other diagnoses is fundamentally saying that it's a nervous system issue.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the reason why I can say confidently that it's a nervous system issue, not only because we've helped these people around the world overcome their symptoms and go back to living, but it's quite fundamentally easy to understand, which is,
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll notice the doctor where they can't do much.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The doctor is basically giving you a label so that other doctors know what you're dealing with, but there is no solution to it.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: These diagnoses are what doctors call default diagnoses.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So whenever they can't find a physical anomaly or something physical causing it, they just give you that diagnosis.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for example,
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you were like me, that was getting intense digestive issues because their nervous system will stuck on protection mode, but the doctor who did a series of tests and they said, hey, you're still dealing with digestive issues, you have IBS, irritable bowel syndrome.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The same is possible with people that are dealing with heart palpitations, and they'll notice that when they're sitting up or standing up,
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: their heart palpitation change, so they call it pots, postural, orthostatic, techycardia syndrome.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: A good rule of thumb is that when it ends in syndrome, it often usually has a nervous system component attached to it.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, once you understand this type of anxiety and how anxiety creates these symptoms, this leads me to the next point, which is what can you do to make these go away?
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the way I like to look at this is that the number of symptoms that you have or the symptoms that you have in general don't really matter.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The solution is actually the same.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's just different manifestations of the same problem, which is a nervous system stock on protection mode.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the goal isn't to play this whack-a-mo game and fix every single symptom, the goal is to help your nervous system decensatize.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Decensatize meaning your nervous system is sensitive, so it's overreacting.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: you have to recalibrate the nervous system.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the mistake that a lot of people make here is that they will listen to conventional advice and they will do things like breathing exercises or cold plunges and those things are there if your nervous system is in sensitized, they're very helpful but when your nervous system has hit that stress threshold, these things won't provide any relief or if they do it's very marginal.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The way to get ahead of this is by actually teaching your nervous system not to overreact.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what that is is by allowing the symptoms to be there without resisting it and learning to go back to living life.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And anytime you feel the discomfort, anytime you feel this sensation, instead of reacting to it, panicking, trying to fix it, getting frustrated by it,
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: you let it pass on its own.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what the nervous system recognizes is that Sean's not reacting anymore.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sean's not reacting in fear, so we might just be making a false alarm here.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: There might not be anything wrong.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So your nervous system begins to adjust.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, how long this takes, the whole process of it, I'll make a separate video for that.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, if you want to know about that video, make sure to subscribe and just follow along.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in this video, I really want to highlight that anxiety can create an array of symptoms.
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then, in fact, if you were to have a list of every symptom you can create, the list could be basically endless.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all have one nervous system, but the manifestations of the symptoms can be different.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The same way you can get a cold and I can have a cold and we can have two different symptoms, but we still have the same underlying issue, which is the cold.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: your nervous system can respond the same way.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because the nervous system affects so many systems in your body, well, these symptoms are almost endless.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the way to rule it out is basically making sure you go to your doctors and get everything rolled out.
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't ever use these videos or any video as a substitute for medical advice.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Get it rolled out, get that peace of mind,
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: then you can throw it under the nervous system umbrella.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now this leads me to the final point, which is if we're saying that really what's happening is that it's a nervous system issue and that the way out of it is to respond to this, we also have to acknowledge the most important part, which is the real problems we're never the symptoms.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know this can be very confronting because the symptoms are the thing that you feel us holding you back.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it is.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's not actually the symptom.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would go a layer deeper and say, it's what this symptoms mean to you.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the reason why somebody can have a symptom be like, what is that?
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go to the doctor, be told it's fine, and say, great, go back to living, and they're fine.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And someone like you and I that had these symptoms and think, oh, no, this is just two and 10s.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't let it be here.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's because we attached meaning to the symptom.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to give you an example, we've had clients that dealt with heart palpitations in the past.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And heart palpitations is a great example here, because it's very physical.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: They had heart palpitations, and they were fearful of having heart palpitations because they were fundamentally afraid of having a heart attack.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: even though they didn't have a history of heart attacks or you know they didn't have anything that the doctors felt like was alarming about a heart attack they had a friend that passed away and because they had the heart palitation the mind went into oh no what if this is a heart attack
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it really wasn't the heart palpitations I was the issue.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the meaning behind it.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's important to ask yourself, when you have these symptoms, why are you resisting it?
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's uncomfortable.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what stories have you attached to it?
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's important to separate the story from the signal.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: To separate the narrative from the symptoms.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just saying, hey, I'm feeling this right now.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm healthy.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: All I need to do is let this be there and keep moving forward.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: all of this is a practice.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't happen overnight.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's in many reasons why we have a recovery program guiding people through this, overcoming their symptoms and going back to living.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The recovery process is a practice.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even though more and more people are talking about this, there's still so much misinformation about it.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many of our clients, many of the members in our recovery program, our doctors, our therapists, our medical practitioners in some way.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, even though they understand the nervous system to a degree, these fundamental things are still missing in the medical model and in society in general.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, if you're interested in learning about how to overcome these symptoms, I'll put a bunch of resources in the description box below.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Make sure to subscribe, let me know what are your biggest symptoms down below.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for watching.