anxiety

Are you seeing a Dr. ? What kind of meds are you taking ? Seeking any counseling ?

Anxiety certainly can diminish performance if it is not harnassed and chanelled correctly. Anxiety can be a tremendous motivated and many gifted accomplishments are made by those driven by anxiety. stress and anxiety is your bodies way of mobilizing for the challenge it is about to experience.

Seriously, you need to embrace your anxiety and use its energy. Don't let anxiety push you into negative thoughts of failure. Tell your self that you will tap into all the energy created by the anxiety.

Develop good prerace rituals. Run the last have mile of a race as a warm up and visualize your exhausted but pushing through to victory.

Distance running is a great way to harness anxiety. Good luck. Don't fear your initial signs of anxiety.....embrace them.

Good post. I've had tremendous anxiety problems/panic attacks the last few years. What's helped me: realizing I'm not crazy for starters, and then channeling that into positive energy. Exercise is a great cure for all sorts of problems, anxiety included. I've never been a fan of drugs, so running is my medication. The most important thing to remember is that there are millions of people that are feeling the same things you are, and it will most likely go away.

concerned charger wrote:

Anxiety certainly can diminish performance if it is not harnassed and chanelled correctly. Anxiety can be a tremendous motivated and many gifted accomplishments are made by those driven by anxiety. stress and anxiety is your bodies way of mobilizing for the challenge it is about to experience.

Seriously, you need to embrace your anxiety and use its energy. Don't let anxiety push you into negative thoughts of failure. Tell your self that you will tap into all the energy created by the anxiety.

Develop good prerace rituals. Run the last have mile of a race as a warm up and visualize your exhausted but pushing through to victory.

Distance running is a great way to harness anxiety. Good luck. Don't fear your initial signs of anxiety.....embrace them.

I agree good posts. Give me two runners, the carefree one, and the anxiety laden one, and I bet on average with training I get the anxiety prone athlete to run a lot faster.

Nervous ?

Great post. I'm having similar anxiety problems. My problem has been going on for several years, and I've been able to control it in every other part of my life except running. I've gone from doing comfortable 10-mile runs at a 7 min pace to barely being able to jog one 10-minute mile. I used to love racing, but haven't been able to race for years because racing only makes the anxiety worse. Whenever I pick up the pace and become aware that I'm breathing harder, the anxiety kicks in and freaks me out. Even worse, my heart starts to flip out (I had it checked--my heart is healthy) which only makes matters worse. I've begun to use anti-anxiety meds with extremely limited success. Frankly, I'm pretty bummed and feel like a HUGE, important chunk of my life has been stolen from me. Part of my problem is that I waited too long and my anxious thoughts became a "habit" that I connected with running. In other words, get some professional help soon. If anyone else has gone through this or knows someone who has had a similar problem, I'd also be happy to hear how they got over it.

This is a great post was thinking of doing a post on this myself. Would be afraid to go to work, always felt cold and would often feel like I was passing out. I could not stay in a store or restaurant too long without going out for air.

My average run went from 7-10 with long runs of 15-20 to 3 miles tops. Most days I didn't run at all. I went to the doctor to talk about my lack of appetite. As soon as I mentioned the passing out thing he told me I had anxiety disorder.

Once I knew what the problem was, I made a commitment to get back to what I enjoyed doing before I felt all those strange things.

Just go out the door don't think of running. Once you're out there and it feels right just run.

Anxiety disorders can vary both in type and magnitude. They can also be phobic in nature or generalized. The panic attack which includes the rapid heart beat, sweating, and shortness of breath may or may not be triggered by a specific incident.

What the orginal poster seemed to be refering to is different its performance diminishing anxiety. Anxiety and racing are inextricably woven. In few other sports is your performance so visible, public and clearly measurable. Your not as much individually on the spot in most team sports.

Unfortunately many misjudge the sport to be an assessment of character rather than of training, speed and endurance. "The winner showed more character, wanted it more, more guts, etc., etc. This is nonsense. Also our own self perceptions of being the determined, fast athlete may be also threatened by the race.

Anxiety is exacerbated when one not only stresses about the race but stresses about the anxiety. The first signs of being anxious can start a behavior chaining of increased anxiety and negativity.

Its important to break the change and to be OK with the poor night's sleep or the increase in heart rate or the hand tremble. Keep the thoughts positive !

good thread guys, keep the responses coming.....i've had to deal with anxiety as well...i see a counselor every couple of weeks now, trying to help. it certainly is a hard habit to break though (negative thoughs, etc.)

I am seeing a doctor for meds. 50 mg zoloft. 35 mg of Clomipramine (anti-obsessional) and 1 mg of lorazepam as needed (I cut into quarters). I previously took lorazepam daily, but now only when I run long. Thus my theory that I am cooping with anxiety daily. I ran 12 Miles and took 3 quarters of Lorazepam. I feel like I have a hangover afterwards. Not fail hangovers-with being sober. According to doc I am on low mg for meds. I didn't want them at all,

after 4 months of tring to lean on running for anxiety. I was struggling and tried the meds. I have been on meds for 6 months. I just recently went down on mgs. Was previously at 100 mg zoloft and 75 mg of Clomipramine.

Thanks for the post

I will try positive channel of anxiety. I usually am a optimist and very cheery. I can try...

Thanks for the post!

Thanks for the uplifting words and the post :-)

For me, I have anxiety when I run but it just makes me push even harder because I don't want to wimp out and let fear control me so I just go balls to the wall like WHAT! Lol. Alot of it is perspective.. instead of recognizing that increase in adrenaline and suddenly becoming afraid be like "hmm is this a little adrenaline I feel? The same juice that u feel too whatever degree in anything exciting in life? FUK yes I want sum more of this!" Then once u start to enjoy adrenaline and the excitement maybe u won't be so afraid anymore cuz u will have more of those good feel chemicals like dopamine and serontonin mixing with that adrenaline and u will be like fuk yeah this is AWESOME and feeling so confident now u will start making more testosterone and u will be like fuk yea my PR's are going up I'm a BEAST! And then suddenly u got hot babes on each lap sitting in a Jacuzzi in Malibu. Just stay positive bro.