How I got rid of General and Social Anxiety

I'd like to pass on the knowledge I've been given my Tim Johnson, a man who went through transformation of being alcohol and opioid addict for 30 years to the amazing person he is now, helping others getting out of addiction.

First let me say I was VERY SCEPTICAL when I first heard of Wim Hof method. I saw it as just one more new age commercial bullshit, promising quick fix and delivering nothing. I must admit I was wrong.

Let me talk a bit about my PMO recovery background. I did lots of reboots in the past all resulting in relapses after abstaining for x number of months. Last one was especially demotivating as I managed to do 6 months of monk mode just to end in 4 months long full blown relapse and additional 5 months to get back on track. I finally noticed a pattern. It was not the cravings for porn or masturbation that led me to constant relapses, but a built up social and general anxiety soon after I stopped self-medicating with PMO. When I stopped PMOing, negative emotions I tried to escape from resurfaced with vengeance causing severe anxiety/depression. It was just a matter of time when I couldn't bear it anymore and relapsed. Let me describe how my social anxiety looked like. I've started holding my breath involuntary when around people resulting in hypoxia, feeling dizzy, not being able to follow conversation, body trembling... even resulting in blackouts a few times. As a general anxiety I mean I stopped living as every action and decision became to difficult to make.

OK, I decided to do some pro psychotherapy counseling which resulted in what I already knew in the first place, that my anxiety/depression has origins in long lasting childhood trauma (I'm not gonna go into more details about it here). Great, so what was suggested "professional" solution to the problem? Lifelong antidepressants and anxiolytics drug therapy. WTF, going from self-medicating with daily PMO binges to daily SSRI's & anxiolytics is all the shrink could think of? I knew that anxiolytics would be my wish come true for anxiety, but knowing myself, I also knew it's not the way I wanna go as I'd soon become completely dependent on them.

I said f... it, no way I'm gonna exchange one addiction for another, I have to find another way to control my anxiety. I started exercising like crazy during my current monk streak which helped lessen my anxiety to a degree, but only temporarily. I've tried yoga class, again it has helped a bit but not much.

So what helped? I heard of this Wim Hof Method. I didn't believe shit, BUT I was desperate enough to try it as I was 6 months into the monk mode and my anxiety/depression were getting so bad, I could barely function and was really afraid I'd just give up and return to my old ways. I've gathered all the free information on the method I could find and put it into action. I've been only practicing it for a month, still complete beginner, but I've already had better results with it than with anything I've tried so far. My social anxiety has disappeared in the last week. I went to a swimming pool with friends, talking to strangers at job, had a minor accident etc and managed to stay completely calm and confident in the presence of people. I have no explanation why, but this method works for me. It's bloody uncomfortable to do it at first, especially long cold showers (I didn't come to ice baths yet), but maybe that's the thing I needed. When you expose your body to very cold water every day this generates extreme stress and some kind of immune system response. Maybe your mind switches to higher stress tolerance mode "saying", I survived falling into icy cold water today, what can be worse than that… not much and stops being stressed over small life stressors. I don't know, I'm just guessing. The important thing is that it works. If you have similar problems and would like to try it, here are some YT videos I found very useful (otherwise it's ton of this stuff on the net, no need to buy the official course, at least I didn't) -> Yesterday at 12:55 AM

 

Maybe you should try it. It's not hard to learn, but is not very pleasant experience. I've been practicing it for a few weeks now and it is working for me. I do it right after an hour of intensive aerobic exercise (runing/walking uphill or cycling) as it's easier to endure cold shower when my body is all warmed up. I do 3 rounds of 30x breathing exercise, do a few push-ups and go under the cold shower for as long as I feel comfortable.

 

Very interesting study, thank you.

 

Here are step by step guides how to do Wim Hof correctly ->Aug 20, 2019
I usually first go for walk/run or cycle uphill, do 3 rounds of 40 breaths, do dynamic stretching (2 rounds of Surya Namaskar - Sun Salutation + few push-ups) followed by 5C shower for 8 to 20 minutes.

 

You have to take is slowly, first switching between warm/cold shower and progressing from there ->Aug 20, 2019
You also have to listen to your body. Hypothermia is real possibility, so don't push it. I do only Wim Hof breathing in winter months if I do outdoor cycling session below 10C prior to that. You only have so much internal energy to spend. From my own observations if you induce hypothermia, you will get sick as your immune system won't be able to cope with stress so use your head.