AS and Anxiety: Top 10 Stress Mgmt Poll and Discussion

[Aspergirl4hire]

One of my current readings is a text by aspie Nick Durbin on Asperger's Syndrome and Anxiety: A Guide to Successful Stress Management. I thought I'd make a poll out of what I'm learning from the book. Squeezing all the text in the line was a bit challenging. Please post a comment if you try the poll and a line doesn't make sense and I'll add some more information.

If at least 30 people answer the poll, I'll add the book to the Resources section with some commentary on the subjects of the book that people seem most interested in. Otherwise, I'll just do a quick summary, because I'm anxious (hah!) to get to the next book, Asperger Syndrome in Adulthood.

 

[Kari Suttle]

When i first found out i'm most likely an aspie, i started by using three main coping mechanisms to cope with my aspie-related issues at work.

Healthy Compensation and Hypersensitivity - This partially goes hand in hand with hypersensitivity. When i noticed i'm hypersensitive to sound, I not only used the hypersensitivity coping mechanism and monitored when sound was an issue for me...but i also used my aspie strengths to try to cope with my sound issues. Specifically, because i'm a cashier i used my aspie abilities to hyperfocus to deal with too much sound while i'm trying to check out a customer. I also used the aspie tendancy towards scripting to deal with social anxiety with customers.

Parasympathetic Practices - I learned to do breathing techniques when i'm anxious. I used to have anxiety attacks due to my hypersensitivity to noise when i first started working as a cashier. This and the above two coping mechanisms helped me deal with it until i eventually stopped having anxiety attacks from it. Sometimes, if i'm anxious (or nearing overload/meltdown/shutdown) i'll force myself to lay down for a while. On the couch with a blanket, or if its late just go to sleep. Its actually the most effective way for me to calm down, honestly.

 

[Spiller]

Parse (I'm constantly post analysing situations and dissecting my responses to them), parasympathetic practices (meditation and just spending time in nature) and therapy (only self taught as I've not been able to access a professional yet)
I considered ticking 'Emotional nuance', as my recent efforts to socialise bear fruit, I find I'm having to work much harder at interpreting others' meanings and the 'exercise' may just be working.. confusing scary and tiring though, but good!

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Parse (I'm constantly post analysing situations and dissecting my responses to them), parasympathetic practices (meditation and just spending time in nature) and therapy (only self taught as I've not been able to access a professional yet)
I considered ticking 'Emotional nuance', as my recent efforts to socialise bear fruit, I find I'm having to work much harder at interpreting others' meanings and the 'exercise' may just be working.. confusing scary and tiring though, but good!

Interesting!...I remembered something when I read this and looked up the section on "Auditory processing difficulties"..."In day-to-day conversations, we have to work harder than our neurotypical counterparts when it comes to processing incoming information...Consequently, we may tend to analyze what people are saying to make sure we are correctly interpreting what we are hearing. This effort to understand another person becomes tiring over a long period of time, and it is anxiety provoking...[we] take longer to decode, causing responses to...seem very deliberate." I know that's true of me. He also talks about "nonverbal learning disability" as a common correlated disorder, because NLD is what analysts describe as malfunctions in how our brains put multiple sensory inputs together. Probably means synthesia, too. Thanks for posting!

 

[AsheSkyler]

After I found out I was on the spectrum, the first thing I did was finally accept my weaknesses. I'm more careful and understanding of them now, and I don't push them as hard. I still try to make them not such a weakness, but I'm not drilling on it anymore. I'm also more aware now of some of my triggers. And I've started back exercising. It's a wonderful stress reliever.

 

[On the Inside]

Therapy and parasympathetic practices have been my main tools, the former leading to one that wasn't listed in the poll. Medication.

I take Clonazepam for anxiety and wellbutrin for focus and mood control.

Yoga and meditation helped a lot, but are time consuming, and I tended to let them take over my life when I practiced a lot. I'm prone to monk-like behavior.

I'll have to look into some of the other things mentioned.

 

[royinpink]

I don't think I fully understand emotional lojacking or what is meant by learning new anxieties.

 

[Harrison]

I voted 'parasympathetic' as I practise Tai Chi, meditation, and use things like Binaural beats etc.

 

[JuniperBug]

I chose:
"Emotional Lojacking"-I study emotional intelligence to prevent myself from learning new anxieties.

I majored in psychology in college and psych majors love to study themselves. Even now I love to research and learn about the way the human brain works and try to one up it somehow. Lojacking is a really apt term, though I've never heard of it before.

"Hypersensitivity"-I identify which of my senses is most prone to overload and monitor it/them.

Even before my diagnosis, I've always been acutely aware that I am hypersensitive physically and emotionally. I try to avoid situations that I could lose control in.

"Parsing the problem"-I think about how my other anxiety-related issues contribute to my stress.

I think this applies more after my diagnosis because now I am thinking about my empathy as a really phenomenon and not as a weird quirk. I am also thinking about how situations affect me as a person with Aspergers and that seems to help. The guilt of "overreacting" is gone now.



I was surprised that Parasympathetic practices (yoga, meditation, etc.) scored so highly. I'd like to know specifically people do. Whenever I've tried Yoga and meditation I find that my find is too active and I get bored. Is this a common issue? Perhaps something I'm just meant to preserver through? I dunno...but I never feel relaxed, just more anxious as if I've wasted time somehow. It's the same way feel about mundane tasks like laundry or showering...

Interesting poll!

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I don't think I fully understand emotional lojacking or what is meant by learning new anxieties.

"Stress makes people stupid" is my shortcut for this. "Emotional lojacking" is the ability to prevent our logical, smart, keeps-things-in-perspective, creative, and mature brains from being ambushed by fight-or-flight hormones. Durbin calls that process "emotional hijacking."

It's based on a three-part model of the brain that says our outermost brain layer (cortex) shuts down just when we need it most in our modern world--in emergencies--when lower parts of the brain activate. There's a mammalian mind, and then an even older one, the reptilian mind. (When you're watching a disaster unfold, time seems to slow down--that's the reptile mind managing visual input.)

"According to Daniel Goleman, emotional hijackings take place all the time...[and] sabotage your rational judgment under moments of stress."

So our monkey minds disappear when we're afraid, leaving us with the rat mind or (even lower down) the snake mind. I'm thinking now about what happens if all human beings get randomly scared into being rats or snakes from the stress of our lives on a daily basis.

As we spend more and more time in the rat mind, our brains are still scanning for threats, and we start to 'discover' new threats, because we get acclimated to being in a threat environment. So even when we're safe, we're looking for trouble. This is "learning to be anxious."

Hope that helped. Thank you for asking

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I chose:
"Emotional Lojacking"-I study emotional intelligence to prevent myself from learning new anxieties.

I majored in psychology in college and psych majors love to study themselves. Even now I love to research and learn about the way the human brain works and try to one up it somehow. Lojacking is a really apt term, though I've never heard of it before.

"Hypersensitivity"-I identify which of my senses is most prone to overload and monitor it/them.

Even before my diagnosis, I've always been acutely aware that I am hypersensitive physically and emotionally. I try to avoid situations that I could lose control in.

"Parsing the problem"-I think about how my other anxiety-related issues contribute to my stress.

I think this applies more after my diagnosis because now I am thinking about my empathy as a really phenomenon and not as a weird quirk. I am also thinking about how situations affect me as a person with Aspergers and that seems to help. The guilt of "overreacting" is gone now.



I was surprised that Parasympathetic practices (yoga, meditation, etc.) scored so highly. I'd like to know specifically people do. Whenever I've tried Yoga and meditation I find that my find is too active and I get bored. Is this a common issue? Perhaps something I'm just meant to preserver through? I dunno...but I never feel relaxed, just more anxious as if I've wasted time somehow. It's the same way feel about mundane tasks like laundry or showering...

Interesting poll!

I identify strongly with the hypersensitivity thing. I'm still learning about how that works, for me. I think noise is the worst, because I can shut my eyes; touch is difficult, because there has to be room to move, and withdrawing means exposing a conflict between what the other person thinks is appropriate and what I need.

Yoga--I don't understand it. I find my mind is too active, like you...I've tried to read on exercise bikes, but it's too physically disruptive.

Thank you for the comment!

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

...I considered ticking 'Emotional nuance', as my recent efforts to socialise bear fruit, I find I'm having to work much harder at interpreting others' meanings and the 'exercise' may just be working.. confusing scary and tiring though, but good!

Over time, working too hard to understand and keep up, along with suppressing stims, combine to trigger meltdowns.

My personal take, not from the book: I'm now understanding my meltdowns as a struggle between my higher and lower brains, which the lower brain always wins because it's the part in charge of physical safety and life itself. Since the lower brain doesn't really "remember," the higher brain struggles to find balance and make amends without really knowing what happened. That's true of anybody: as aspie, I struggle to figure out the social cues for an emotionally fraught situation, which means I'm back at my weakest point and definitely working too hard, setting up the next meltdown. And the scorching shame that comes of doing wrong and not being sure I can make it right.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Therapy and parasympathetic practices have been my main tools, the former leading to one that wasn't listed in the poll. Medication.

I take Clonazepam for anxiety and wellbutrin for focus and mood control.

Yoga and meditation helped a lot, but are time consuming, and I tended to let them take over my life when I practiced a lot. I'm prone to monk-like behavior.

I'll have to look into some of the other things mentioned.

I should have specified that medication was intended for the option on working with a counselor. I believe medication is important, because I see no reason to suffer pointlessly. Pain serves a purpose, but it stops serving a purpose when it becomes debilitating. Thank you for commenting!

 

[Spiller]

Over time, working too hard to understand and keep up, along with suppressing stims, combine to trigger meltdowns.

My personal take, not from the book: I'm now understanding my meltdowns as a struggle between my higher and lower brains, which the lower brain always wins because it's the part in charge of physical safety and life itself. Since the lower brain doesn't really "remember," the higher brain struggles to find balance and make amends without really knowing what happened. That's true of anybody: as aspie, I struggle to figure out the social cues for an emotionally fraught situation, which means I'm back at my weakest point and definitely working too hard, setting up the next meltdown. And the scorching shame that comes of doing wrong.

Definitely agree with you here aspergirl! My personal difficulty is that lack of socialisation makes me more depressed and too much, as you say, pushes me toward a meltdown.. I have to try to compromise and keep things balanced; bit of a juggling act really.
I've had to learn, via self observation (using my higher brain - I hadn't thought of it like this, but it makes sense) what and how much interaction I can tolerate for gain and when it becomes too much (lower brain) and put an escape plan into action.

 

[SameStars]

I settled on 1) Hypersensitivity (I wanted to pick Parsing first, but I think I'd be concentrating more on the moment than on other factors when in stress), 2) Parasympathetic practices and 3) Scanning.
In response to feeling overwhelmed, I try to distract/distance myself from such situations with long walks or music. I also make an effort to concentrate on the bigger picture, rather than get lost in the details.

 

[royinpink]

"Stress makes people stupid" is my shortcut for this. "Emotional lojacking" is the ability to prevent our logical, smart, keeps-things-in-perspective, creative, and mature brains from being ambushed by fight-or-flight hormones. Durbin calls that process "emotional hijacking."

It's based on a three-part model of the brain that says our outermost brain layer (cortex) shuts down just when we need it most in our modern world--in emergencies--when lower parts of the brain activate. There's a mammalian mind, and then an even older one, the reptilian mind. (When you're watching a disaster unfold, time seems to slow down--that's the reptile mind managing visual input.)

"According to Daniel Goleman, emotional hijackings take place all the time...[and] sabotage your rational judgment under moments of stress."

So our monkey minds disappear when we're afraid, leaving us with the rat mind or (even lower down) the snake mind. I'm thinking now about what happens if all human beings get randomly scared into being rats or snakes from the stress of our lives on a daily basis.

As we spend more and more time in the rat mind, our brains are still scanning for threats, and we start to 'discover' new threats, because we get acclimated to being in a threat environment. So even when we're safe, we're looking for trouble. This is "learning to be anxious."

Hope that helped. Thank you for asking

Yes, that helps. Thank you! I guess i do emotional lojacking then. Or at least there are a lot of things that bother me constantly and i just try to suppress the feeling. So much that it's probably another source of stress but why I don't appear classically anxious.

I'd actually heard of the three-part model of the brain before but that psych students called the rat brain the "doggy-horsey brain" which I think is cute. It sounds like the book you're reading wanted more negative connotations. ..

Also, are they deliberately not including what are I guess more classic forms of stress relief, like aerobic exercise, medication, or special interests? If I had to guess... The techniques you describe seem more preventative in nature, but it's hard to separate neatly.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Yes, that helps. Thank you! I guess i do emotional lojacking then. Or at least there are a lot of things that bother me constantly and i just try to suppress the feeling. So much that it's probably another source of stress but why I don't appear classically anxious.

I'd actually heard of the three-part model of the brain before but that psych students called the rat brain the "doggy-horsey brain" which I think is cute. It sounds like the book you're reading wanted more negative connotations. ..

Also, are they deliberately not including what are I guess more classic forms of stress relief, like aerobic exercise, medication, or special interests? If I had to guess... The techniques you describe seem more preventative in nature, but it's hard to separate neatly.

The animal models actually came from older sources when I worked in corporate transition projects ("reductions in force" aka mass layoffs). Some of the attendees were pretty cynical, and the leaders were deliberately using animal models to try to get us to behave better while we grieved. I'll spare you my opinion of that entire exercise. Asperger's and Anxiety is actually neutral and doesn't use that language.

I'd intended "aerobic exercise" to be implied as "good self-care" (implicitly included in the replacement of bad self-care). It's bad form to modify responses once people have voted, or I'd try to change it.

As of this morning, I think it's mostly that the classic stuff is well-known from the author's point of view, and I chose to save character space for ideas that looked newer and might help move conversation forward (based on what I've seen here). Your mileage may vary

I will look at the text in more detail with your other comments in mind.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Poll remains open, and I remain interested in comments. I've posted a review of the resource for moderator review, with quotes from the book. One of the really useful things that happened because you all participated is that I felt driven to mine everything I could from the book--and discovered in it why AC really does groundbreaking work just by existing in the way that it does.

I included a link to the poll in the review, and to members I quoted...royinpink, I hope you don't mind, I linked to your comment directly. If that concerns you at all, let me know & I'll remove the link, but I intended it to be both complimentary and complementary.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I chose:

...

I was surprised that Parasympathetic practices (yoga, meditation, etc.) scored so highly. I'd like to know specifically people do. Whenever I've tried Yoga and meditation I find that my find is too active and I get bored. Is this a common issue? Perhaps something I'm just meant to preserver through? I dunno...but I never feel relaxed, just more anxious as if I've wasted time somehow. It's the same way feel about mundane tasks like laundry or showering...

Interesting poll!

JuniperBug, how do you feel about starting a new thread with this question? I'd be interested in forward-linking to it, and if you backlink to this one, we'd have a robust background discussion and could focus your thread on our mutual interest. I was going to do this, but it's really your thought, so I'm leaving it up to you. Cheers, whatever you decide.

 

[royinpink]

Poll remains open, and I remain interested in comments. I've posted a review of the resource for moderator review, with quotes from the book. One of the really useful things that happened because you all participated is that I felt driven to mine everything I could from the book--and discovered in it why AC really does groundbreaking work just by existing in the way that it does.

I included a link to the poll in the review, and to members I quoted...royinpink, I hope you don't mind, I linked to your comment directly. If that concerns you at all, let me know & I'll remove the link, but I intended it to be both complimentary and complementary.

I definitely don't mind! Thanks