This is a first-person account by Craig Ballantyne describing severe anxiety episodes beginning around 2006 despite professional success and good physical condition. He links attacks to a conflicted lifestyle (binge drinking, internalizing thoughts) and recounts physical symptoms (pacing, heart-pounding, tingling, poor sleep, impaired concentration). He resists medication but experiments with mind-body practices (tai chi, yoga, qigong, meditation), adopts gratitude and planning-focused journaling, and uses writing and public sharing (podcasts) as therapeutic outlets, concluding that externalizing worries and serving others helped reduce anxiety.
Chapters
What were some of the things you did to help the anxiety side? In 2006, I was making the most money. You know, I was switched from personal trainer to online business owner. I had a product launch. So I'm making money. I am in the best shape of my life. You know, I look like I belonged on the COVID of Men's Health magazine. And yet something. And it was probably the hypocritical way that I was living that, you know, I was leaving that personal training world where I was a good boy from Monday to Saturday, and then Saturday night I was a big a binge drinker till Sunday morning. And that hypocritical lifestyle combined with my introverted tendencies of keeping everything in my head and never sharing anything, never writing anything down via journaling or anything like that, it all just compounded into this anxiety attack. Paced my room and I, you know, for 11 hours and I thought I was having a heart attack. And eventually I went to the emergency room and then I got rid of it and then it came back again harder three months later where I again binge drinking weekend. And I was exhausted and I remember having this like disturbing dream and I woke up and my heart started pounding. And that one went on for six weeks, 24 hours a day, tingling from the top of my head down the end of my fingertips. I could sleep about four or five hours a night, couldn't concentrate. And then I realized I had to turn over every rock. I wasn't going to go to the doctor and get medication, but I was willing to do tai chi, yoga, qigong, meditation. And then I started taking up journaling. I realized I needed like an outlet and so gratitude journaling. And I'm doing more planning and preparation for my days. I don't talk to a therapist, but I've used my writing as therapy. You know, I write about all of this stuff and I share it willingly. I go on these podcasts and talk about it. So, you know, this is like a therapy session just by sharing. And I realized like, oh, I got to get out of my own head and I got to go out and serve other people. Because if you just, if you're anxious, it's because your wheels are spinning, man. Like, oh my gosh. And they're spinning in the mud because you're worried about something and you're worried about something that's probably not going to happen and it's not going to be as bad as you think. But you are just inventing these stories in your head and if you keep that in your head, then it just gets worse. But if you go and you journal about it, if you tell somebody about it, you feel better.
