“I don’t want you to just fix the situation – can’t you just hear me?”
For many couples this is a familiar rough spot. Maybe one partner is overwhelmed by something difficult, and the other partner – often well intentioned – responds by finding solutions to the pain. This can be a place of contention and can escalate quickly. Each partner can be frustrated. One feels unheard and dismissed, the other feels helpless.
Yet there’s a way both partners can learn to navigate these difficult moments to create deeper connection. To start, we need to ask an important question:
Why do we share emotions?
This may seem like a silly question, but let’s think about this for a minute. What is the function of sharing an emotion with another person? Why do we do it? Why, in this imagined scenario, does one partner want to be “heard” and share their feeling?
Emotions are at the core of our daily lived experience of the world. Before we think or act, we feel. A feeling is a potentiality toward a certain action. Just like hunger is a potentiality that is satisfied by eating (think of the cathartic relief of a large dinner after a day of fasting!), emotions are potentialities that are satisfied by… well, that’s a bit more unclear isn’t it?
Let’s think about this:
When we’re feeling sad, for example, what is the sadness needing?
When we’re feeling scared, what is the anxiety needing?
It’s needing to be shared.
This is what neuropsychologists call “attunement” – it’s the way our brains tune-in, just like a radio, to another person’s feeling. By tuning in and sharing the feeling together, something really remarkable happens: the feeling starts to recede. Sharing emotions is about inviting another person to experience our emotions with us so we can feel safe again.
Once we’re safe, it becomes much easier to think together about solutions.
Our frontal lobes, responsible for planning and strategic thinking, go offline when we’re overwhelmed, but do a much better job when we feel safe and understood.
This is a process that happens naturally for all of us. When we watch someone get tackled in a football game, our minds naturally share his emotional experience. When we watch a contestant win a sing-off, we find ourselves tearing up with them. Our anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for simulating another’s experience in our own minds. We are built to naturally do this – to deeply share and tune-in to the emotional experiences of others. This is such a powerful and constant experience, that it’s more accurate to say emotions happen BETWEEN people, rather than “within” a person.
So if this is so natural, why do we have such a hard time doing it with those closest to us?
Here’s the short answer: when we can’t attune to a certain feeling our partner is having, it’s because this feeling wasn’t attuned to well in our own histories. For some of us, we’ve learned that our own cries for help when we’re scared, or our own cries of sadness when we’re hurt actually drove our parents farther away from us. Or possibly, no one heard our cries at all. There can be an eerie sense that as you start to share that same emotion with someone today, that you’ll be left in the same bad place you were before: alone and maybe even ashamed. Tuning out of that emotion can be this way that you’re saying to yourself and your partner: “don’t cry out like that, I’ve known what it’s like and it doesn’t end well.”
These kinds of experiences – where we find ourselves pulling away instead of tuning in – can be powerful to share with our partners.
Sharing the ways our own anxiety or sadness or anger was dismissed can be an important step toward learning to tune in better together. It might be best to pick a moment when your partner and you have cooled down.
Therapy helps us grow in awareness about how our own histories of connection contribute to our experience of our current relationships. Growing in empathy and understanding for our own cries, our own ways of surviving, can help us see ourselves and others more clearly, and experience a more satisfying connection with others.
So next time a conversation comes up around a strong feeling, know that the best way to fix it is actually to tune in, share the emotional experience with your partner, and together feel safe and connected again.
Connor McClenahan, PsyD
I help lawyers and other professionals overcome difficult emotions and experience meaning and purpose in their lives.
Depression can feel overwhelming during the holidays. There’s a few reasons for that. Our traditions and gatherings can usually remind us not only of the ways we are connected and grateful, but also the ways we can sometimes feel alone and isolated as well.
This holiday brings with it an uninvited guest: a recognition that for many of us, this year has been difficult, and at times has felt hopeless. On top of these kinds of economic and health realities, we can recognize that we’ve been lonely.
Our brains were meant for daily social connection
The largest part of our brains is the cortex. That’s the rich, folded external part of our brains responsible for all of our higher order planning, thinking, language, and visual-spacial awareness. The purpose of this part of the brain isn’t simply for accomplishing tasks.
The purpose of this important part of our brain is to keep us connected to a social group.
Our cortex is built for constant and intricate interactions with other people. Picture a 150 person closed-network group of people – similar to tribal cultures. Each person knows each other, each person has a role, a sense of how they belong and function together. Together they have some sense of their shared world and place in it. They have stories and myths, they have unfolding drama and conflict between members, and ways of moving through these conflicts toward resolutions.
Pre-COVID, our social environments tend to be more urban than tribal. The social connections that fed our cortexes came instead from affinity groups, churches, work environments, and gyms. These give our lives meaning, they give us purpose, and identity. When we feel we belong to a community, we know our role, we get clear signals about our identity within that group, and we feel we’re moving toward some shared purpose that’s larger than ourselves.
This season, our brains are starved for social connection, and it’s making us depressed.
While this seems an obvious connection, I believe we can also tend to dismiss the weight these social interactions hold for us.
When we don’t acknowledge the importance of our social groups, we tend to shame ourselves and others for missing friends. We can interpret these kinds of feelings or needs as a disregard for public health. However, it’s normal to be sad and crave things like dinner parties and baseball games, just like it’s normal to be thirsty or hungry.
Our hunger for social interactions is a survival instinct. It’s telling us that we’re vulnerable, that we’re alone in a threatening world.
Loneliness and Hopelessness Contribute to Depression
Depression is a clinical term that describes a certain prolonged experience of low energy, sadness, lack of pleasure and hope for the future. For some of us who have a tendency toward depression, there are some environmental pieces that will trigger a depressive episode.
The two factors that may especially contribute to triggering a depressive episode this season are isolation and hopelessness. We’ve already talked a bit about isolation, how our sense of belonging to a group of people can insulate us from depression and meaninglessness.
Hopelessness is the experience of not being able to imagine the end of suffering. Human beings can be incredibly resilient when we can envision an end to our suffering. When we can see a light at the end of the tunnel we can endure incredible challenges, just like a marathon runner can push toward the finish line because she can imagine a defined point at which the pain in her legs will stop.
Because we don’t know when the pandemic will end, we can feel hopeless. When we don’t know how long to social distance for, or when we’ll be able to see family again, we can tend to be overwhelmed by depressive feelings.
Two Ways to Increase your Emotional Resilience
So what do we do? While no solution will bring back the social connections we’re craving, our best tool is to hold onto a few things that help us endure the pain of being apart.
First of all, it’s important to not throw out our normal traditions. Talk with friends and family and be creative with a socially-distanced version of your normal traditions. While there may be an element of sadness to not being together, practicing the tradition will help us to remember important moments of connection with those closest to us.
Second, talk with family and friends to plan a time in the future to celebrate once it’s safe. Just like a marathon runner needs a clear, defined end to their pain to keep going, we need to clearly imagine a point at which we can come back together and celebrate. Plan a trip or visit to reconnect with others in the future – talk about what kind of meal or activity you’ll do. The more clearly you can imagine and plan for this moment, the more it will increase your emotional resilience in this time.
What could this look like for your immediate family? For your friend group? For your work life?
In the meantime, if you’re struggling today with depressive feelings that are overwhelming, give us a call. Therapy can help you move through these feelings and recover a sense of hope and meaning.
Connor McClenahan, PsyD
I help lawyers and other professionals overcome difficult emotions and experience meaning and purpose in their lives.
Too often, depression is dismissed as sadness. When this happens, people who are depressed receive trite and unhelpful comments:
“You’re just feeling sad”
“You just need to get out”
“Just look on the bright side”
“Just go exercise”
Depression is different than sadness
Sadness is a common, everyday emotion. We feel sadness when we’re aware of having lost something important to us, from an object to a relationship.
Depression is different than sadness. Depression is usually experienced as an overwhelming cloud of bleakness, where the person has no energy, feels little pleasure, feels hopeless about the future, and also can have feelings of shame and anger about feeling this way.
Why am I depressed?
People are depressed for 2 primary reasons: your genetic set-point and your life circumstances.
Endogenous depression
Endogenous depression is your genetic set-point. This accounts for 50% of the variability in your depression. Because of the way some people process the neurotransmitter serotonin, they are more prone to feel down, isolated, and lower energy.
Exogenous Depression
Exogenous depression is depression that’s related to contextual issues. Rather than endogenous depression that comes from within the person, exogenous depression comes from someone’s lived experience. Some examples are a recent divorce, losing a loved one, or a recent cross country move.
Exogenous depression also has to do with past experiences that can impact a person. Some examples are a neglectful or punishing parent, or repeated trauma like bullying.
Depression is a tug-o-war
Depression is like a tug-o-war. Depression has to do with two parts of us – two internal voices – that can get stuck in conflict. These two parts are sadness and shame.
The “sadness” part of depression usually starts the tug-o-war. Sadness is usually triggered by loss or loneliness. It’s a natural response that makes us want to curl up, cry, slow down. As all emotions are relationship signals, sadness is meant to help others see our loss and respond with compassion. When we feel sad, we’re signaling to others: “I’m not okay, please slow down and comfort me”.
The “shame” part of depression is a voice inside us that feels frustrated, even disgusted, by our being sad. It might say things like, “cut it out” or “stop being weak.” It’s sometimes embarrassed by the sadness, like it somehow knows that being sad doesn’t end well.
These two voices pull hard against the tug-o-war rope, and have difficulty actually regulating – or resolving – the emotion. If the normal course of sadness is like a rollercoaster that goes up, plateaus, then resolves, then the normal course of depression is a sadness that isn’t able to be resolved because of the harsh shame response.
So what do I do?
My first suggestion is to follow along in the video and try the exercise. My hope is that this exercise gives you more understanding and clarity about your own experience of depression.
Too often we’re given easy answers for depression. We’re told to just get up, to watch some motivational puppy video, to just go on a run, or to change our diet. If we listen hard, we can see how these superficial suggestions can sound suspiciously like the internal shame voice we hear too often.
Real change involves understanding ourselves in new ways. Maybe this was new for you to slow down long enough to listen and hear those 2 different voices inside you. If that is the case, give yourself a deep full breath of gratitude.
That awareness is the seed of true change in life. It’s the compassionate response you’ve needed when you’ve had moments of true loss in your life. It’s in these moments of compassionate awareness that we’re able to move a bit out of our depressive experience and into hopefulness again.
Therapy from Home
This is part of our ongoing series during this difficult time, to help you grow in self-awareness and self-care even as you find yourself stuck indoors. So as you go into your day, your evening, whether it’s in the chaos of essential work or in the chaos of home quarantine, know that there’s space for you to grow and to thrive.
Each of our therapists offer video therapy in the state of California, and are here to help.
For couples, quarantine can be anything but relaxing. The image of snuggling by a warm fire and completing crossword puzzles may be a reality for a small minority of couples, but for many of us it can be a pressure cooker.
The risk of COVID-19, fears or realities of economic distress, lack of normal coping patterns (such as other friendships, gym memberships, etc.), and increased time together can all place more strain on your closest relationships.
Getting through an argument together is fundamental to your sense of safety in crisis
Here’s why that’s so important: your closest relationship – your attachment relationship – is the largest resource you have for feeling safe in a chaotic world. When that relationship is off, so is your whole internal world. It’s hard to feel safe, to calm down, to plan, when we feel chaotic or disconnected from our closest and most trusted relationship.
So maybe you’re feeling that strain in your relationship right now, and it’s coming out as more frequent or more difficult arguments. You’re fighting more, things feel more on edge. You find each other unloading more emotion, then distancing and feeling cold.
Let’s walk through an argument in a good way that brings you closer together
Every argument is an opportunity to connect.
Why? Because anger, fear, sadness, these are attachment emotions. Beneath the argument is a hidden question:
“Do I matter?”
“Do you care about me?”
“Can you help me feel safe?”
At the end of a good argument, you’ll feel closer to answering these questions in a good way for each other. You’ll see your partner more clearly and find comfort in each other.
Now how to get there:
1. Follow along with this video
2. Sketch the healthy argument on a piece of paper
3. Talk together about where your argument derailed
4. Rehearse your argument using the healthy argument as a template
Here’s my notes from the video, outlining a healthy argument.
Panic attacks can be scary. People experiencing panic attacks can often mistake it for a heart attack: pain or tightness in your chest, shortness of breath, and racing thoughts.
In this video, I’ll walk you step-by-step through a panic attack.
Set a timer. Panic attacks often last between 15-60 minutes.
Practice box breathing. I’ll walk you through how to breathe when you’re having a panic attack.
Practice mindful sensory exercises. I’ll take you through sensory exercises which help put you back “in your body” and regulate anxiety.
Reflect and learn from your experience. I’ll walk you through how to learn from the panic attack so you are less likely to have a panic attack in the future
Help during social distancing and quarantine
This video is part of a series – Therapy from Home – a resource we hope you use to help you get access to mental health during the quarantine. In this time of isolation and fear, we want to make sure you can get the help you need, even without scheduling an appointment. Please check back in to our COVID-19 resource page for more videos like this to help you address emotional and relational difficulties from your home.
Connor McClenahan, PsyD
I help lawyers and other professionals overcome difficult emotions and experience meaning and purpose in their lives.
Rest is seen as lazy, unproductive, and weak. In a culture that prizes 60 hour work weeks as a sign of productivity, we can often see tiredness and overwhelm as obstacles in our path. When we feel tired, stressed, or overwhelmed, we reach for a cup of coffee to pull ourselves back on track.
Yet if not listened to, our need for rest will ring louder and louder.
Our bodies have natural limits, and when we deny them, it sounds an alarm louder and louder. Ignored anxiety can quickly turn to panic. Ignored tiredness can quickly turn into a cold.
So why is it so hard to listen? And how can you get the rest you need?
What Can Prevent Us From Resting
All kinds of things get in the way of us getting the rest we need.
Guilt. Sometimes our minds get ahead of us. We ignore signals to rest because we feel bad about stopping. We’re concerned others will think we’re lazy or not doing enough.
Productivity. American culture values doing over being, working over rest. We often believe we are more productive when we “do” more tasks.
Anxiety. We’re sometimes reluctant to rest because of some fear. Worrying about deadlines or the amount of work before us can keep us from taking a moment to rest.
Pleasure. Sometimes we find our pleasure in being needed, so we keep working. We ignore our body’s signals because the payload of having others depend upon us is greater than the benefits we receive from rest.
You’ve Been Resting Wrong
When we get overwhelmed or feel overworked, our first thought is: “I need a break”. We sigh and push back from the desk, and flip out our phones. The assumed idea is if we simply stop doing what we’re doing we will end up feeling better. The problem is, this half-true assumption leads to some pseudo-restful behaviors that leave us unsatisfied.
Things we do to rest that aren’t really restful:
Watching TV
Checking our phones
Social Media
Eating
Switching tasks
The problem is, these things almost never give us the rest we’re looking for. Yes, they can be a way to pull back from work, but we’re usually left with the same tightness in our chests (anxiety), feel bad for wasting time (guilt), and get back to work (productivity). It’s like we pushed the pause button on our anxiety, only to pick back up right where we left off.
A New Way to Think about ‘Rest’
So why aren’t these things restful? Because the idea that resting means “taking a break” doesn’t hold up neurologically. When we become overwhelmed, anxious, or tired, our bodies aren’t simply telling us “stop doing this task”. So let’s take a look at a term that might better describe what it is we’re wanting when we need rest:
Rest is Passive processing.
Your mind has two different modes of activity. In fact, there is no time at which your brain is simply stagnant or turned off. We are always engaged in some kind of processing, and understanding what those are will help us understand what you’re needing when you want to rest.
Active processing. This is task mode. Your mind is actively engaged in solving or understanding a certain task.
Passive processing. This is reflection mode. In this mode your mind is actively pulling together and making sense of your experiences. You’re reflecting, understanding, and making meaning.
You mind is always in one of these two modes. Even when we sleep, our minds are working as hard, if not more-so, than when we are awake. We are always either engaged in a task, or reflecting on a task.
Even when we sleep, our minds are working as hard, if not more so, than when we are awake. We are always either engaged in a task, or reflecting on a task.
The best and most refreshing kind of rest happens when we allow our minds to ease into passive processing. It’s only when we do this that we are fully ready to engage in the task at hand.
Picture a person lifting weights. They do a hard set, then pause to rest. The rest is not simply inaction. There are all kinds of transactions happening within the muscle that help it flush out and repair, getting the muscle ready for the next task. We are designed to experience a natural ebb and flow between task and reflection.
The question then becomes, “How can I rest better?” The better we are at passive processing, the more refreshed and able we are to engage in active processing.
5 Ways to “Passively Process” and Get the Rest You Need
Don’t check your media. This needs to be said first. Often our times of vital passive processing are taken by the impulse to check our phones, Facebook, Instagram, or blogs. This keeps our minds engaged in active processing, and away from the passive processing we need.
Take a breath. Sounds simple, right? Take a step back from what you’re doing, and take 30 seconds to simply breathe. This kind of move is not simply “doing nothing”, it’s allowing your mind to engage in vital passive processing that will help you be ready to reengage later.
Exercise. Aerobic exercise is just as healthy for your mind as it is your body. Being away from a desk or other tasks, you may find your mind is able to wander to what’s important to you, passively making meaning of your recent thoughts and experiences.
Friends. Talk with a friend. Go out to coffee. Let your thoughts wander as you ask about each other’s week and how they are doing. Notice what changes for you. These reflective conversations help us make meaning and consolidate our experience.
Art. Creating art is a great way to intentionally process and make meaning. Adult coloring books seem to tap into our deep need for passive processing. Allow yourself to get lost in the art. Art is less about the final product, and more about the experience of self-expression.
Therapy. You guessed it. Being a psychotherapist, I strongly believe in the role of psychotherapy in helping us experience a present, connected, and whole life. Therapy is often purely a passive process, helping you to pause and reflect upon what is happening in your life. Even as I write this blog, I’m still surprised at how much talking well with another person can change things. I encourage you to give it a try.
In a culture heavy with active processing, we need a little nudge to give us permission to rest – truly rest. Not unlike our lungs or heart, our brains are built to breathe in and out: times we are engaged in a task, and times we simply reflect and consolidate our experience. Don’t sell yourself short – it’s okay to take a breath in.
Close relationships are the center of a happy life. And while each of us wants to feel connected to others, often our words, actions, and non-verbals don’t seem to pull us closer to others. I want to talk about “passive questions” – a kind of interaction that can be tough to deal with in any relationship. Let’s talk about what a passive question is, how we tend to fall prey to passive questions, and how we can understand them differently so we can help restore conflict.
Spotting Passive Questions
A genuine question is something people ask with the desire to know more. Questions are based in curiosity and can feel collaborative and clarifying. A “passive question”, however, is an emotional statement hidden in question form. It’s not really a question. Here are some examples:
“What are you doing over there?”
“Why would you do that?”
“Can’t you see I’m trying?”
“Didn’t you know that would hurt me?”
The list goes on.
Giving in to Passive Questions
The first thing we feel pulled to do, almost compulsively, is to answer the passive question. But there’s something else that happens when we are asked a passive question. We risk engaging in a conversation without acknowledging our emotions. We might fire back with a passive response:
“What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why would you ask me that?”
This conversation can quickly spiral into a heated or cut-off exchange that doesn’t help us move forward.
Emotion that isn’t acknowledged is difficult to work with. We cannot have direct, reparative, and healthy interactions without understanding our emotions in a different way.
Why We Default to Passive Communication in Relationships
It’s easy to assume that when someone uses passive questions, they’re just being difficult or avoiding conflict. But usually, something deeper is going on.
Many of us learned early on that expressing needs directly wasn’t safe — maybe it led to rejection, shame, or being misunderstood. So instead, we learned to hint. To test. To ask sideways.
Passive communication often starts as a survival tool. It helps us feel a sense of control when we fear the truth might be too much — too vulnerable, too risky. It’s less about manipulation and more about fear: “If I say what I really mean, will they still accept me?”
So if you notice yourself asking passive questions, pause before criticizing. Ask yourself:
“What need am I trying to express — but feel unsure I’m allowed to?”
“What old fear is making directness feel unsafe here?”
That’s the heart of the work in avoiding questions psychology relationships and stopping passive in relationships.
Understanding Passive Questions
A passive question is a way of expressing a scary emotion. For some of us, certain emotions were handled poorly in our earliest relationships. We learned that our anxiety, or anger, or sadness would overwhelm our parents or drive them away. The child learns not to talk about these emotions, but to instead push them out of awareness to avoid upsetting or destroying the relationship.
So when you or a loved one asks a passive question, it’s likely he or she is experiencing an emotion that feels unsafe to express. They ask the question to try to not push you away with their anger, anxiety, or sadness. Instead of naming and feeling their emotion, a passive question places the asker in the back seat of their emotional experience. It also places the receiver in a conflicted place – trying to intuit the emotion of the asker, and also trying to answer the question, not authentically, but in a way to help calm the asker down.
So when you or a loved one asks a passive question, it’s likely he or she is experiencing an emotion that feels unsafe to express.
Examples of Replacing Passive Questions with Direct Expression
Learning to name what we feel takes practice — and courage. Here are some everyday examples of how you might shift a passive question into something more open and honest:
Passive Question
Direct Expression
“Why would you say that?”
“When I heard that, it stung. Can we talk about it?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“I’m feeling ignored right now. I need your attention.”
“Don’t you think that was a little much?”
“That upset me, and I’d like to share why.”
“How would you feel if I did that?”
“That hurt me, and I want to understand what happened.”
These shifts aren’t just about words. They’re about choosing connection over protection. When we speak this way, we feel seen. Understood. Trusted.
How Should I Handle Passive Questions?
Flag. A healthy response starts with recognizing and understanding the passive question as an expression of an emotional need, rather than a direct attack of your behavior.
Time out. Try slowing the conversation down: “ok, time out” or “I think something just happened there”.
Tell the story. Notice and describe what you saw happen in the interaction and also within you. “I was trying to help you with the plates, and when I reached over you asked me that question. I feel ashamed, like I did something wrong.”
Invite the scary emotion. With your understanding that this could be a scary emotion for the asker to express directly, invite it: “You sound angry” or “I want you to tell me what happened for you”
This is no easy task. It’s hard to change an emotional pattern between two people. It’s easier to not rock the boat. It takes courage, empathy, and self-control. But my sense is, if we never rock the boat, passive expressions and responses continue to cause difficulty and disconnection in relationship.
Following the steps above might be just what your relationship needs in order to start having a different, more direct, conversation.
I want to help you move in this direction. Let’s set up an initial free consultation so we can talk about how passive questions impact your relationships and how you’d like to change.
Why This Matters for Long-Term Relationship Health
Communication isn’t just about getting through hard conversations. It’s about building a foundation of emotional safety — a space where both people can bring their whole selves.
When passive questions dominate a relationship, resentment quietly builds. Misunderstandings stack up. The connection starts to feel brittle, like walking on eggshells. But when we practice being clear and kind at the same time, something changes. We feel seen. Understood. Trusted.
Direct communication doesn’t guarantee conflict-free relationships — but it does create the soil for something lasting. Something honest.
And that’s the kind of relationship we all want — one where we don’t have to hide behind half-asked questions just to feel okay.
Passive questions are emotional statements disguised as inquiries, like “Why would you do that?” to express frustration indirectly; they avoid direct confrontation but build resentment by hiding true feelings.
How to stop asking passive questions in a relationship?
Recognize passive questions as hidden emotions and replace them with direct expressions like “That upset me—can we talk?”; practice pausing to name your feelings for honest, connecting dialogue.
How to respond to passive aggressive questions?
Flag the passive question as an emotional cue and slow the conversation with “Time out—what just happened?”; invite the underlying feeling openly to shift from defense to understanding.
Why do people use passive questions?
People use passive questions due to learned fears from early relationships where direct emotions felt unsafe, leading to indirect hints for control; it stems from vulnerability avoidance rather than manipulation.
What are examples of passive aggressive questions?
Examples include “Why would you say that?” (hiding hurt) or “Are you even listening?” (expressing ignored feelings); they mask vulnerability, sparking spirals instead of resolution.
How to stop being passive aggressive in communication?
Shift from passive aggression by owning emotions directly, like “I’m feeling ignored” instead of hints; reflect on fears of rejection to build courage for authentic exchanges.
What causes passive questions in relationships?
Passive questions arise from early experiences where expressing needs led to shame or rejection, creating survival habits; they provide illusory control but erode trust over time.
How does passive communication affect relationships?
Passive communication builds unspoken resentment and misunderstandings, leading to heated conflicts or emotional distance; it hinders genuine connection by avoiding vulnerable, direct sharing.
Signs of passive aggressive behavior in relationships?
Signs include indirect hints like sarcastic questions, quick shutdowns without explanation, or evading accountability; these foster cycles of frustration and weaken relational bonds.
Panic attacks can be frightening and overwhelming. Many people worry about what’s happening to them, and they don’t know what to do to make it stop. We’re going to take you step by step through everything you need to know about anxiety, panic attacks, and some simple steps you can take (even today) to start resolving a panic attack.
What is a panic attack?
A panic attack is a sudden, painful collection of anxiety symptoms. Panic attacks often involve extreme tightness in your chest, a fast heartbeat, rapid breathing, and intense fear. Many people mistake panic attacks for heart attacks. Most panic attacks last for 15-60 minutes. After the intense period of anxiety, the pain decreases, and people usually feel exhausted from the heightened state of arousal.
Panic attacks can be debilitating. Many people who experience panic attacks often worry about going out with friends, to work, social situations, or the grocery store. They worry they’ll have a panic attack in public and won’t be able to control their anxiety.
What Do Panic Attacks Feel Like?
Panic attacks come on quite quickly and can be extremely overwhelming. Here’s how people often describe their panic attacks:
I’m afraid. During a panic attack, you will likely experience debilitating fear or sheer terror.
I feel physically shaken. Panic attacks cause a variety of physical symptoms, including chest pain or discomfort, lightheadedness, or nausea.
I feel like I’m dying. Many people who have panic attacks describe feeling as though they are dying.
I can’t think straight. In the grip of a panic attack, you might have trouble making decisions or remembering simple things.
I’m afraid I’m going to have a panic attack in public. Many people who experience panic attacks often will avoid public spaces for fear that they’ll have an attack in public.
How Anxiety works in your body
Before we can understand panic attacks, we need to understand how your body is built to handle anxiety. Anxiety is not a bad or destructive feeling. In fact, anxiety is the body’s natural and helpful response to a threat in the environment. Anxiety is like a fire alarm that signals your body is feeling unsafe. The anxiety response follows a normal rising and falling path, like a river. Let’s take a look at what happens in your body when you feel anxiety, and how your body calms itself and returns to normal.
When your body senses a threat in the environment, your amygdala —the fear center of your brain—sends a signal down your spinal cord to your heart to increase its speed and tension. Your body then prepares to fight or run away, as if your life depended on it.
Your mind scans your body and notices there’s tension in your heart and muscles. It recognizes your tension as a response to something scary, and —if it’s not a life-threatening threat—begins to soothe itself.
Like a river, your mind flows down a familiar track for how to soothe anxiety. Depending on how you deal with anxiety, you might take a deep breath, remind yourself of your value, cry, tell yourself that it’s going to be okay, or ask for help. These skills are acquired by having care-givers who consistently respond with empathy and soothing to our anxiety. Essentially, those experiences created the river, the way we know how to sooth ourselves when we’re anxious.
While you soothe yourself, your vagus nerve stimulates your heart, slowing it down, releasing tension, and helping you feel open and collected again.
Part of the soothing process is that you’re able to recognize why you were anxious. Because you feel calm, you’re able sense of your life and learn about what you’re needing.
How Panic Attacks Work in your Body
With a panic attack, the above anxiety “river” gets short-circuited. Let’s take a look at what happens during a panic attack.
Similar to the anxiety response, the first signal of a panic attack is from your amygdala. Your body senses a threatin the environment and sends a signal down your spinal cord to increase your heart rate and prepare to fight or run away.
Your body then senses your tension in your heart. In a panic attack, you don’t recognize this tension as normal or helpful. Instead of soothing anxiety, the signal is ignored. The fire alarm is dismissed, not paid attention to. We often ignore the signal by working harder, by scrolling social media, by busying ourselves.
Because the anxiety isn’t soothed, it continues to build inside until a breaking moment: the threat overwhelms the coping strategies. If our normal anxiety response is a river, then a panic attack is like a dam that, after holding back too much water, breaks.
It’s hard for the body to remain in a panic state for long. After the period of intense breathing, heart racing, and fear, the body will naturally calm itself down usually after 15-30 minutes, though occasionally it can take an hour or more.
Often the original cause of anxiety is forgotten, due to the overwhelming experience of panic.
Where Do Panic Attacks Come From?
We’ve explored how panic attacks happen in the body, and it can also be helpful to know why you experience them. First of all, I recognize the limitations of a blog article to tell you – a specific and unique person – why you experience panic attacks. However, after treating many people in Downtown Los Angeles with panic attacks, here are some common themes I see in my practice. Panic attacks are often the result of:
Ignoring stress. This is a common theme for people who suffer from recurring panic attacks. When they experience anxiety, they don’t pay attention to the feeling. Instead, they feel they’re being “weak” or “complaining”, or they feel guilty for needing to slow down at work. Instead of soothing their stress, they ignore it. They’re afraid to slow down or to take time for themselves to listen to the anxious feeling. Often when a person experiences a full panic attack, it’s after days, if not weeks, of suppressing (pushing down or avoiding) clear signs of being overwhelmed. While this strategy can work short term, your body needs a way to actually calm down and soothe itself.
Not getting help. Self-care is sometimes a dirty word. We can feel selfish or guilty: “Other people don’t need to slow down! Other people don’t take a day off when they’re overwhelmed! I don’t think I deserve to have a day off or to have time to myself.” It can be hard – especially in a culture that expects a lot of us. It’s sometimes difficult to see how well your body and mind can function when you have permission and space to take a breath in, to soothe yourself.
How To Conquer Panic Attacks
The first step in conquering panic attacks: you can’t stop the panic attack. Now I know that doesn’t sound great. However, there’s a different and better way to help. Returning to that “river” versus “dam” analogy, when the dam breaks, all we can do is allow the feelings to be there. Here’s what you can do, step-by-step:
Set a timer
Most panic attacks last 15-60 minutes. While this experience is painful and sometimes scary, it can help to know that there is an end to the pain. Your body takes a while to calm back down from this experience.
Accept the experience and allow it to pass naturally
Take a deep breath in through your nose, and out through your mouth, slowly. Allow your belly to fill with air when you breath in. Picture a place you feel safe. Allow the bodily feelings to pass naturally, knowing it’ll be over soon.
Once the panic attack is done, relax
You’ll feel exhausted after the panic attack. Don’t feel any pressure to get up and go. Let your body recover – act as if you’ve just completed a marathon. Drink some tea, put on white noise, eat something healthy.
Take stock of the last week or two
Ask your self what was different this past week. What things in your life have added to your level of stress or responsibility? What other, smaller signals was your body giving you about your level of stress before the panic attack?
Learn to soothe anxiety
Conquering panic means learning to listen to the smaller anxiety signals your body gives you early on. It means practicing soothing, finding that easy flowing river that helps you move through anxiety, rather than dam it up. That’s what we do. We help anxious professionals in Downtown Los Angeles overcome anxiety and live their best lives.
Managing a Panic Attack Worksheet
Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!
Reducing stress at work is both simpler and harder than it seems at first glance. As a psychologist who specializes in anxiety and works in Downtown Los Angeles, I want to give you a few tips to reduce your stress at work… and be more productive.
Meet Ian. Ian just accepted a new job at a law firm in Downtown Los Angeles. Ian’s excited, and willing to put in whatever work is required to prove his value as a lawyer. The first 2 weeks go well, and while he’s tired, he also gets a bit excited when he gets an email from a client on a weekend – he doesn’t mind replying, after all, it seems to be expected of people at his firm.
But 2 months into his new job, Ian is exhausted. The things that he loves are less exciting. He used to go on hikes on the weekends, but now he needs to be around his phone in case a client calls. He wishes he could couch in at the end of the day and not check email, but he feels an implicit pressure to answer emails immediately, even late at night. Now he isn’t sleeping well, he’s not enjoying things he used to, and he is having trouble calming down.
How do you know if you’re stressed?
Have you ever felt like Ian? Each of us comes up against tasks, whether in our professional or personal lives, that feel too overwhelming. Our anxiety or overwhelm is often a signal that we’re “red-lining”, that our brains are taking in too much information to regulate effectively. While stress is a normal experience, it becomes problematic when the body can’t calm back down. This inability to regulate anxiety is what constitutes workplace stress and overwhelm. As a way to manage the stress, often we work harder. Here’s a list of common behaviors people engage in when they experience chronic stress at work:
Taking on more projects, despite busy schedule
Checking work email during personal times or breaks
Working or responding to email during weekends
Social expectation to match work load or habits of others
Giving unrealistic deadlines for finishing projects
How many of these behaviors do you struggle with? Often they co-occur – people stressed at work do all of these to a varying degree as a way to reduce their anxiety. The trouble is, working harder to avoid stress doesn’t work – it seems to entrench the person in the same exhausting and stressful pattern. The more you respond to your anxiety by working harder, the faster the train goes, and the more difficult it is to get off. There’s a different way to manage stress: caring for yourself and setting boundaries.
Caring for yourself increases, not limits, your productivity
It’s true. The only way to escape stress is to slow down. And when we escape stress, we actually free ourselves up to work in a more productive way… a way that’s actually backed by neuroscience.
How can this be? We usually think of “self care” or “setting boundaries” as something warm and fuzzy. Something that’s for “me” at the expense of work or other obligations. Yet there’s more going on here. Think about it this way: You wouldn’t drive your car without changing the oil, or getting regular maintenance, especially when the warning lights come on. Caring for your car isn’t simply about making the car feel good, it’s about the reality that a car has a very finite ability to push itself without receiving the care it needs to continue functioning.
Just like a car’s warning lights, when we don’t listen to our overwhelm, we increase our chances of getting sick, suffer from lack of focus and lower energy. You know the feeling, don’t you? I’m sure you’re familiar with how well your body performs on a task when you’ve had good, peaceful rest. The opposite is true when we don’t listen. We start to break down, effecting our mind and body’s performance in all areas.
There’s a few common things our bodies feel when they’re trying to get us to slow down and take care:
Lack of energy
Lack of focus
Irritability at work
Inability to be present in personal life and relationships
Overeating
Undereating
Lack of restful sleep
When we don’t listen to these signs, it’s impossible to avoid the cost of overwhelm. The only way to move past these things isn’t more caffeine, or a fresher cold-pressed juice. There’s 2 ways to reduce your stress at work, the short way and the long way. I think you’ll find both apply to most situations of stress at work.
How to reduce stress at work: The Short Way
Your brain is made to swing like a pendulum between two primary modes: active and passive processing. Active processing is when your mind is actively working on a task. Your brain receives, processes, and acts on information it receives from its environment. Passive processing is what your brain does when it doesn’t have a task to do. Rather than turning “off”, your mind actively sorts through all the connections made during active processing, pruning them back and retaining the important details.
If we don’t ever give ourselves room to pull back from a stimulus, our minds struggle to find new ways of approaching a problem and to stay focused on what’s important. When we never pull back from our task, we slowly lose energy, and approach tasks repetitively. Doesn’t sound like the smartest way to work, does it? Here’s some quick things you can do to allow that pendulum to swing back toward passive processing, so you can regain energy.
TURN OFF EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS.
This is a quick win. You want to protect the time you spend away from your desk, so you can allow your mind to enter passive processing. Turn off email notifications on your phone. In fact, you can experiment with taking email off your phone, that way you’re only checking it when YOU decide to. Take Gmail off your phone, see what it feels like for 24 hours.
WALK.
Put down your phone, and take a walk in the middle of your work day. Maybe that means going out to lunch without your phone, or parking farther away from work so you need to walk. This is an easy way to give your mind space to passively process. Notice the energy you have when you return to your desk.
NEGOTIATE REALISTIC DEADLINES.
You might consider, just as an easy rule to start with, to extend your deadlines for projects by 25%. Most of us have a future bias concerning time, meaning we overestimate the free time we’ll have in the future. Account for this extending your expected time to complete a project. If you finish it early, you’ll have another win. Plus, you’ll be setting a different expectation for others about how available you are.
SET APPOINTMENTS.
Instead of jumping on the phone immediately with a client or colleague, give them appointment slots they can apply for.
“BUT! I can’t do those things!” Let’s think about this. There are some very real things that seem to inhibit you from following this list. You operate within a powerful culture of ceaseless work, constant availability, instant access. I’m very aware that I’m directly pushing back against that.
But let’s think about what happens if you don’t make these changes. There is an unavoidable cost to being constantly available. You’ll likely spend at least 50% of your waking hours at your job during your adult life. And these costs add up. It will be difficult to actually get off on weekends and holidays to enjoy your life. Maybe you can already feel the costs. You feel the exhaustion, the burnout, the “why did I get into this job?” feeling. So what is it worth to you to slow down? Is it worth possibly disappointing your co-workers? Or losing a client? Or having to find a different job?
Slowing down won’t just make you happier, it’ll help you work better too.
How to reduce stress at work: The Long Way
One very common voice that pops up, even as we consider letting go of being constantly available, is “I don’t want to”. The truth is, many of us, for many reasons, don’t want to make these changes. It’s not that we can’t, it’s that we won’t. The mind is like that – sometimes very divided and at-war with itself. We don’t just have a foot on the break pedal, there’s another foot on the accelerator that likes the speed.
Let’s take a look at some of the common reasons people like the speed of the Stress Train:
I enjoy feeling overwhelmed
“People pay attention to me when I’m busy”
“I’m only valuable when I’m busy, I feel good about myself when I accomplish a lot”
“I feel powerful when I’m busy and stressed”
“I’ve always had to do everything for myself, at least I have control over my life”
If I slow down I’m afraid worse things will happen
“People won’t understand my need to slow down, they’ll look down on me”
“People will be angry with me if I don’t meet expectations”
“I’m afraid I’ll be discarded if I don’t produce the value I feel is expected of me”
Now I realize often there are real expectations we’re up against. Our job may require a certain amount of hours or deadlines. Yet if we’re not careful, the employer can unknowingly collude with the parts of us that WANT to pick up speed, pressing two feet down on the accelerator. Only when we’re self-aware can we notice this happening and slow down. Slowing down means being willing to negotiate, to encounter conflict, and even disappoint someone.
So I challenge you today to slow down and care for yourself, no matter how difficult that might seem. Set a realistic boundary, even knowing it might invite a difficult conversation. A more productive and happier life is on the other side.
Connor McClenahan, PsyD
I help lawyers and other professionals overcome difficult emotional and relational patterns through psychotherapy.
