5 Steps to Stop Claustrophobia

Hey, Today you're going to learn five steps to stopping claustrophobia. Do you get stressed out when you're in a small space? Or do you ever feel like you're suffocating when wearing a mask? Or maybe you dread getting into elevators or on airplanes? If any of these resonate with you, you might be struggling with claustrophobia. And today you're going to learn three key things. One is, what is claustrophobia? Number two is, what causes claustrophobia. And then number three is you're going to learn five amazing steps to stop claustrophobia. Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Kane, and I'm a former anxiety sufferer turned anxiety Freedom Rebel. Stick around to the end of the video because I'm going to share with you my favorite strategy for combating claustrophobia. So let's get started. If you have claustrophobia, you may find yourself anxious in airplanes. Wearing face coverings like a mask. Being in crowded spaces or small windowless rooms, or maybe even wearing tight clothing or like a choker may cause a huge amount of feeling trapped, anxious, or panicky. My claustrophobia started years ago when I went into a bathroom on vacation and the mechanism in the lock got stuck for just a minute. But it was enough time for the danger signals to go off into my brain, and it decided that small space equals death. And so why did this happen? Because obviously, nothing terrible came from that extra minute in the bathroom. And so the question is, why did my body decide to panic when that door wouldn't open for just an extra couple of minutes? It required a little extra jiggling, but my body was like, nope, the world is ending. And ever since then, my body would go into panic anytime that I would go into a small space, like a small bathroom, and I would catch myself going in and looking and seeing if there are ceiling tiles that I could climb out if I needed to, or I wouldn't want to lock the door, and I'd ask someone to stand outside of the door just in case the lock got broken. Does any of this resonate with you? The good news is, is that I was able to get to the bottom of my claustrophobia, and I used these five steps I'm going to share with you to help send the claustrophobia backstage. So what's happening with claustrophobia? Number one is that your body is naturally designed to go into alert if there's anything potentially risky going on, and that's protective for you if you're out gathering berries in a field and you hear the low roar of a hungry lion and you run away, you are much more likely to survive and reproduce as opposed to if you ignored that little roar of a lion. Right? So your body has evolved to be able to sense danger and then send danger signals to your body that help you with the fight flight freeze response. Right? And so that may be your heart is racing, you feel like your heart is palpitating, you may feel restless or all this pent up energy. You may like, you have to get out, you may run, you might feel like your stomach is upset or like you're going to throw up, or maybe even feelings of dread or foreboding. When I was in this situation, my cortisol, my stress hormone, was through the roof and my relaxing GABA neurotransmitter was nowhere to be found. So when I went into that bathroom and unluckily, the lock mechanism got stuck for just a minute, my body was already in an activated state. And so that response was just super extreme and super through the roof. So if you're already stressed, if your nervous system is already amplified, you are at a higher risk of having an extreme and inappropriate response to a trigger. Right? So why is your nervous system going crazy? Why is this happening? So, so a phobia, claustrophobia is a phobia. And a phobia is a persistent or excessive or unrealistic fear of a situation or an object or an activity or a person or an animal. And the thing with phobias is the thing that you're afraid of is not actually dangerous, or at least not as proportionally dangerous as your nervous system has decided it is. An example of this is that my cavapoo was totally terrified of vents in the floor. So we have air conditioning, central air, there's vents in the floor. And for whatever reason, her brain decided that vent equals death. And so we would be playing a really fun game of fetch. I would throw her little toy bone, it would land accidentally on the vent. And then her nervous system decided that this is really scary and dangerous. And so she would cry and bark and avoid. And I knew one of the five steps is you can't avoid the thing that's triggering you, because the more that she'd avoid it, the more that reinforces that drama, that anxiety taking center stage and telling her that the feeling of fear is the same thing as actual danger. Here are the top eight signs that you may be struggling with claustrophobia. And that means that being in a crowded space may spike fear. You may feel sweating or chills, maybe your mouth gets really dry or you get racing of your heart or tightness of your chest or maybe even chest pain. Oftentimes claustrophobia can create a panic attack that a lot of people may mistake for a heart attack. Right. Maybe you feel disorientation or dizziness or dissociated like a little bit, not in your body. And maybe you feel like you are just going to pass out. Right? So getting your life back from claustrophobia means that you have to retrain your nervous system into realizing it's not actually in danger. And so the good news is that we were able to help Shiva do that. We were able to use treats to help her go to the experience that was originally scary for her. And so her brain was distracted from being afraid of the vent to pursuing a really high value snack. And then she was able to do that again and again to the point where her brain no longer cared about the vent. It was focused more on the reward that going on the vent would offer. And now we can throw the toys and she's hunky dory. Similarly, I've been able to use the five steps I'm going to share with you to actually go into the bathroom and not have a panic attack or think about crawling out the ceiling tiles. So let's go over these five steps. Number one is you have to embrace logic. Because remember anxiety and claustrophobia, the phobia in and of itself is something that is generally safe, but your nervous system is deeming as dangerous. I did a whole video about this, about the fear of flying. And so if you want to see something like this in really specific detail, check out that video. In order to embrace logic, I want you to research and prepare ahead of time and look at facts. I thought about the facts of being afraid in a small bathroom and that I have gone into literally thousands of bathrooms throughout my 30 plus years on this planet and I have never had anything terrible happen to me. There's been no death, no mortal wounding in a bathroom. I've gone in and out and it's been completely unremarkable. And the one time that something scary happened, nothing actually bad came of it. And the same with Shiva, her fear of the vent in the floor, she was really scared that it was going to hurt her, but it never had, and it didn't when she started to face that fear. So the first thing is that you have to evoke your logical brain. And when we think of neuroscience, fear, fear isn't just in your logical brain. Fear lives in your body, which is those Responses, the fight, flight, freeze. So that comes from your brain stem. And then the emotions of danger and foreboding, that comes from your midbrain, your amygdala, the center of your brain, which isn't logical, and then the logic. So what we want to do is get your logic on board so that you can start training these other parts to not make you feel like death is imminent. Right. Then to not engage in the drama. That's the second step, is that your anxious parts want to control an uncontrollable situation with their own flavor of behavior. Like my anxious parts is I hyper analyze everything. I get hyper vigilant. I need to try to control. And that just makes everything worse, Right? And so your best weapon against anxiety is to not engage in the drama. And that means that you don't engage in the brain's worries and you don't let yourself fall into those old habits. It's just like if Shiva would go to that vent and whine and cry, and I always get the bone off of the vent for her. She will always continue to do that because that behavior has worked to reduce her stress. And right now, when you get into a small space and your body panics, it's not helping you. It's actually making the process more miserable for you. So you have to force yourself to not care. You have to force yourself to ignore and distract. So when I get on an elevator, I don't really love elevators, but I ride them every single time that I can because I have to prove to myself that even if on that teeny, tiny, rare chance the elevator gets stuck, that I will not die. So you have to force yourself to face your fears and get on the elevator, get in the airplane, make sure that you're being logical and safe about it, get the data. That's why that's number one. But number two is to face your fears and to not engage in the drama. And so the third one is to realize that you are safe, even if you feel like you aren't safe. You have to be able to give equal attention to the brainstem, to the emotions, and to your logical part of your brain. And then the fourth step is to make a panic pack or a claustrophobia kit, which is something that I love to use. And so if I were to get stuck on an elevator, I may have. If I'm preparing ahead of time, I will have my panic pack. I'll have my kit. And so things that you might keep in your kit would be things that would help with the stress and the anxiety so you can blow bubbles. And blowing bubbles is a way to slow the exhale, to slow the breath, which will slow that nervous system response. Other things I have in my kit are essential oils, and so that is part of the 4S model. So you stimulate the brain stem. Remember, we have to talk to the body and the brainstem. Other things I have in my kit is you might want an extra battery pack for your phone. And then I have headphones and earplugs. And then something else that I have is calm on command. And this is a supplement that I love and it's a game changer for me. And so I'll tell you more about that. So we have talked about five steps for clearing claustrophobia. And these work. This has been life changing for me, life changing for my cavapoo and for thousands of anxiety freedom warriors. And it can work for you. You just have to make the effort again and again and again. And the way that you wire your brain is the way that it will ultimately start to fire. So in conclusion, my loves, I want you to know that fear does not mean danger. That your body is trying to protect you by making you afraid. But it's taken center stage and now it's time for you to reclaim your rightful place as the star of your life show. So practice the five tips we went over today and learn how to overcome claustrophobia. And as promised, I wanted to share with you Calm on command. It's my favorite resource for sending anxiety backstage quickly because sometimes this emotional part of your brain and the brainstem are in such a state of fight and flight. And like when I got locked in the bathroom, my nervous system was already in such a state of fight or flight that my body and my mind weren't as receptive to the other steps that I taught you about today. And so I love common command. It actually will reduce the likelihood of future panic and anxiety after it's been established for six weeks. And you can take it if you feel like you're going to have a panic attack or you're going to enter a situation that could be potentially triggering for you. I'll put the information in the show notes if that would be value for valuable for you. Check it out. And as always, we're here for you. If you like the video and if claustrophobia is something that you're working to overcome and if there's anyone in your life that you feel would benefit from this information, if you could hit the like button, that empowers the algorithm to make our videos viewable so other people can benefit from the material. And if you have a hankering, hit the share button because you never know who might be dealing with claustrophobia, who's just not talking about it. I'm Dr. Nicole. You can learn more about the amazing things that we're doing by jumping into our anxiety free Facebook group. We'll make sure to put the link in there. There's tons of resources. They're all free because you can turn the page in your anxiety. And as always, this is Dr. Nicole and here's to your next chapter. Thanks for watching.