The Nerdist Way_ How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) - Chris Hardwick [26]
Now let’s move on to the fast-burn, rocket-boosted form of anxiety that can strike with no warning when you least expect it . . .
PANIC ATTACKS
If you picked up this book I’m going to guess that at one time or another you may have enjoyed the crippling embrace of a panic attack. How could I predict such a thing??? Because people who suffer from panic attacks (I call them “What-the-Shits,” as in “What the shit is happening to me right now?!”) tend to be smarty-pants creative types, aka Nerdists. I know this because when I initially wrote about this topic on my blog, the response was overwhelming. Most posts will elicit anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five comments from readers. This one had over one hundred. Comment after comment of panic-stricken humans relaying their experiences with a consistent tone of, “Aha! I knew I wasn’t crazy!!!”
Folks not blessed with the gift of hyper-self-awareness don’t really understand the rush of liquid fear that floods the body. They just think we’re being kooky. I have a joke in my act about trying to describe the feeling of a full-blown panic attack: “Imagine being FUCKED in the HEART.”
I had my very first panic attack at about age ten. Adorable! After helping to clean out the garage, I had picked up a tray of rat poison with my bare hands and thrown it in the trash. Later that day, after having eaten half a sandwich, I had a shuddering thought explode into the forefront of my brain: You never washed your hands! I was convinced that the flush I felt running through my body was in fact poison shutting down all of my vital systems. Fortunately, I’m here to say that it was not poison, or if it was, it was INCREDIBLY slow-acting poison (maybe I should call my doctor).
After that episode I didn’t get panic attacks again until college. Unaware of the concept of a panic attack, I was convinced that something was horribly wrong with me and I couldn’t leave my apartment for a month. The prospect of having it happen in public kept me under emotional house arrest. It wasn’t until a friend of mine pointed out, “Oh yeah, that’s a thing. Lots of people have those.” The sheer knowledge that I wasn’t a freak helped stave off my panic for a while, but every now and again I’d still get the hilariously familiar, “No . . . wait . . . THIS time it’s something fatal.” I’m here to tell you that not only are panic attacks NOT fatal, but I don’t get them anymore. THAT CAN ABSOLUTELY HAPPEN FOR YOU. In this chapter I’d like to share a few tips that I’ve learned over the years while navigating the anxiety steeplechase.
KEEP YOUR HEART RATE DOWN
This could be the single most important thing to remember. It’s easy to believe that panic is purely emotional, but it’s not. It’s physiological. Emotions may set it off, but once the trigger has been pulled, it’s “100 percent pure adrenaline!” as Bodi from Point Break would say. (He would also say, “Ayeee am an FBI AyyyGENT!!!” and then we would hold him while rocking and patting him and saying, “Shhhhh . . . of course you are . . .”) What your body is ACTUALLY plunging into is survival mode, or the classic fight-or-flight response. This explains why you want to punch the air or run yourself into a wall like a 28 Days Later chimp. This impulse is left over from our forest-dwelling days and is usually reserved for actual life or death situations. Think of it as an evolutionary gift that keeps on giving. And giving.
I’m not purporting to have a complete grasp of neuroscience, but if I were