Panicking? A new way to focus on your breathing.

This recent Wall Street Journal article looks at a new strategy for dealing with panic attacks that "[turns] the current treatment for one of the most uncomfortable symptoms -- hyperventilation -- on its head." I'd argue that, during an acute bout of panic, the belief that you're actually, currently in the process of losing your mind or dying -- having a heart attack, or a stroke, etc. -- is far more uncomfortable than the sensation of hyperventilating. But the mental and physical symptoms of panic are pretty much impossible to tease apart fully, so, you know, whatever -- good on the 'ol WSJ. 

The Southern Methodist University research team featured in the article teaches those having panic attacks to take slow, shallow breaths instead of the long, deep breaths more conventionally suggested to counter hyperventilation. Here's how it works:

...hyperventilation is actually a state of "overbreathing." When people breathe faster or more deeply than normal, they breathe off too much of their carbon dioxide, leading to unpleasant symptoms including anxiety and panic, and at the same time leading the body to restrict the amount of oxygen that gets to the brain.

Based on that this understanding of breathing physiology, [the SMU team] reasoned that breathing less—thus boosting carbon dioxide—should reduce hyperventilation and the anxiety-producing sensations that go along with it.

In the new treatment ... people are taught to breathe slower and shallower over four weeks by matching their breathing rate to a series of tones they hear on an audiotape.

Using a capnometer, a machine typically used in hospitals to measure patients' vital signs, patients are taught how to monitor their carbon dioxide and oxygen levels so they can see if they are successfully raising their carbon dioxide levels.

The results of the SMU research are promising, but apparently more research is needed before anyone can say for sure that the technique works better than traditional strategies for stopping hyperventilation. Another problem: unless you happen to have a capnometer lying around the house, you're pretty much out of luck when it comes to giving CART a try.

American anxiety.

We are scared. Petrified, even. If you believe the hype, you look at every single man walking past a playground as a potential pedophile, at every kid in baggy jeans as a potential thug, at every Latino as an illegal immigrant trying to take "real Americans'" jobs, and, yes, at every Muslim, American citizen or not, as a potential terrorist. Look around the internet, or around your community; the number of people you'll find who believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, or a Muslim, or isn't really a U.S. citizen ... well, it can be staggering. (And depressing, and infuriating, and hilarious, depending on your personality and mindset.)

The thing is, if you believe these things, you're allowing fear to rule your life to an unhealthy degree. If you listen to Nancy "to hell with science" Grace and Glenn "is Obama the anti-Christ?" Beck and their ilk, you are indulging paranoia. Consider the following:

...major catastrophes spark widespread anxiety in the countries where they hit. A great example of this is how incredibly overinflated Americans' fears about terrorism grew after 9/11. In one poll that was conducted in the aftermath of the attacks, respondents said that the average American had a 48 percent chance of being injured in a terrorist plot over the next year. As it turned out, the odds were more like 0 percent.

This quote is from a recent interview with Taylor Clark, author of a new book entitled Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool, which "offers a fascinating glimpse into why we worry and helps explain what we talk about when we talk about fear." According to Clark, Americans are particularly prone to anxiety: "...we're significantly more anxious than countries in the developing world, many of which report only a fraction of the diagnosable cases of anxiety that we do." Why is this the case? Clark points to three basic causes for Americans' relatively high anxiety:

The first is a simple matter of social disconnection. As we spend more time with our electronic devices than we do with our neighbors, we lose our physical sense of community. Social isolation flies in the face of our evolutionary history. The second major cause is the information overload that we're experiencing with the Internet and the 24-hour media cycle. We're all aware of it, but I'm not sure we realize how big an impact it's having on our brains. The third explanation can be attributed to what one psychologist refers to as a culture of "feel goodism" -- the idea that we shouldn't ever have to be upset and that all our negative emotions can be neutralized with a pill. This to me feels like a distinctly American phenomenon.

One of Clark's biggest points of emphasis: Anxiety is typically the result of feeling as though you lack control over yourself or your surroundings. Consider his take on stress in the workplace:

One of the more compelling studies that I talk about in the book compares musicians in smaller, chamber groups with those that play in a larger orchestra. The former proved to be a lot less anxious than the latter because they got to decide their own schedule. Orchestral musicians tend to be at the mercy of a tyrannical conductor who decides when they play, what they play and when everyone can take a bathroom break. The notion of executive stress syndrome -- the idea that bosses and corporate executives experience much higher levels of anxiety than their underlings -- has proven to be total bullshit. Executives tend to have more control over what they're doing, and they often displace their anxieties on the people that work beneath them.

Sounds like an interesting book. I'm ordering it tonight.

Related PANIC! posts:
- Panic, fear, and society
- Fear, panic, and society, part 2
- Is panic a rational response to 21st century business, politics, and society?