Anxiety Attacks Can Worsen Your Credit
Credit card companies have been jacking up interest rates and cutting credit lines regardless of credit history. What happens when you get your letter in the mail that tells you among other things, that your minimum payment just went up 30%.
How do you react?
If your first emotion is anger and it motivates you to pick up the phone and call the credit card company that’s healthy. If you take it calmly and analyze what your options are and then act on them, that’s healthy.
If however, your reaction is a sense of being overwhelmed to the point where you can’t take action, that might be anxiety. If your mind is focused on the negative impact of this news to the point where your fear keeps you from dealing with the issue, that’s anxiety and that’s not healthy.
Overwhelming credit card debt, increased interest rates or credit lines slashed can trigger anxiety. If those events cause you to experience a shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat or a general state of uneasiness you are probably having an anxiety attack. To counter those symptoms it is important to understand what anxiety really is.
Life Coach Michael Knowles offers this explaination of anxiety:
Anxiety is a state of mind and a label we use to describe a set of physical symptoms we experience. The physical symptoms, rapid breathing, tightness in chest etc., actually happen faster than we can think. The thoughts we have about these symptoms are simply our minds trying to explain them.
Bad biochemistry can result in anxiety, however for most people it is a state of mind, specifically a regressive trance.
Regressive trance state is triggered by a fundamental fear experience that happened sometime in the past. That experience then projects irrational fears for the future. Say you were seriously bitten by a dog as a kid. Walking past a dog today could trigger an attack that would project you being horribly mauled. It’s irrational but real to you.
Literally, in an anxiety attack we are living in the past and the future at the same time.
A second cause of anxiety is biochemical. Our bodies are unique sacs of chemicals. My biochemistry is different from yours, as yours is different from anyone else’s. That’s why no one pill works for all people.
If you are having an attack what should you do. Your brain is focused on a pat fear and projecting a horrible future. You need to get your brain grounded in the present. One way to do this is to survey your symptoms and describe them aloud in grounded terms. My shoulder muscles are stiff is “grounded”. My shoulder muscles are unbearably stiff is not grounded.
As you examine how you feel in the present you will notice that the symptoms of the attack will lesson. Remember that anxiety is a state of mind. It has to be controlled so you can function. Your credit problems may be real but they are not as bad as anxiety projects them to be.
