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PTSD anxiety would be considered severe anxiety in most cases. I experienced full-blown adrenal stress response (fight or flight mechanism) many times each day.
My system wanted to avoid another dump of cortisol and adrenaline at all costs. That desire led to six months of agoraphobia.
Resisting failed miserably, so I plotted ways to be friends with my nervous system.
The first step was to learn not to be afraid of anxiety or experiencing the frightening symptoms.
Denying, resisting, avoiding gave PTSD power!
What to do?
Strenuous aerobic exercise and daily meditation soothed my nervous system. It was not an easy or quick journey but an extremely simple one.
Aerobic exercise depleted the cortisol and adrenaline. I could exert maximum energy and my mind could share the exhilaration and accomplishment. Even when my mind was frozen my legs could move with determination.
Meditation allowed me to observe my panic attacks, allowed me to sit in the middle of those explosions, quietly.
There was nothing to fear inside the mechanism. I saw my fear, it was only my defense mechanism trying to warn me of imagined danger.
It was broken from my childhood trauma. No real danger existed inside my PTSD.
I found it could be fixed. Trauma thoughts could be integrated into the present moment, safely with a specific use of meditation.
I have PTSD symptoms at times but my adrenal stress response does not fire now.
Meditation and aerobic exercise quell the anxiety monster!
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