Fight or Flight... or Freeze
We all know about our inherent “Fight or Flight” mechanisms for when we’re presented with a threat. When fighting isn’t the most logical option according to your brain, you revert to the second default option which is flight, and when neither of those options is a good one for you, you freeze. Freezing is a typical response for a Right brain Introvert like me. And I froze, I froze for years.
Whenever I had the panic attacks I could feel both fight and flight mechanisms at odds with one another, but I couldn’t move. It was like drowning. Feeling the cortisol rushing into my legs with nowhere to run turned them to stone. My jaw set, unmovable. The tunnel vision with no predator in sight closing in and threatening to swallow me in darkness. The heart palpitations making my chest feel as if it was about to burst. And I would be there shaking like a paint can.
Over time those things became like a background program in my brain, a default setting you didn’t even know was there, slowly accumulating RAM until it’s maxed out. The fatigue, the TMJ-d, IBS, Muscle Spasms and tension, Vision Changes, Migraine headaches coupled with tinnitus and kaleidoscope aura, Raynaud's disease, Restless Legs Syndrome, costchondritis, anxiety and catastrophizing everything. My nervous system seriously needed a good house cleaning.
Then I started meditating. I had tried meditating in the past without good results. It’s so hard to sit with your thoughts when they’ve been scattered for so many years. My mind was just so frantic, but it was something I knew I needed to do and it took some real work. The biggest component was lowering my stress levels, then each session got easier. Sometimes you have to sit still with yourself in order to be able to move.
And as my thoughts and focus came together, as I started breathing and oxygenating those frozen muscles, as my legs and hips started moving like I asked them to, when I wasn’t tensing up when things went wrong, and when I could truly look where I wanted to go with intention, things got a whole lot better in my riding.
Whenever I had the panic attacks I could feel both fight and flight mechanisms at odds with one another, but I couldn’t move. It was like drowning. Feeling the cortisol rushing into my legs with nowhere to run turned them to stone. My jaw set, unmovable. The tunnel vision with no predator in sight closing in and threatening to swallow me in darkness. The heart palpitations making my chest feel as if it was about to burst. And I would be there shaking like a paint can.
Over time those things became like a background program in my brain, a default setting you didn’t even know was there, slowly accumulating RAM until it’s maxed out. The fatigue, the TMJ-d, IBS, Muscle Spasms and tension, Vision Changes, Migraine headaches coupled with tinnitus and kaleidoscope aura, Raynaud's disease, Restless Legs Syndrome, costchondritis, anxiety and catastrophizing everything. My nervous system seriously needed a good house cleaning.
Then I started meditating. I had tried meditating in the past without good results. It’s so hard to sit with your thoughts when they’ve been scattered for so many years. My mind was just so frantic, but it was something I knew I needed to do and it took some real work. The biggest component was lowering my stress levels, then each session got easier. Sometimes you have to sit still with yourself in order to be able to move.
And as my thoughts and focus came together, as I started breathing and oxygenating those frozen muscles, as my legs and hips started moving like I asked them to, when I wasn’t tensing up when things went wrong, and when I could truly look where I wanted to go with intention, things got a whole lot better in my riding.
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