In Montgomery Alabama
Panic Attacks and Anxiety Disorder
Copyright
2003
The navigation menu has been removed as part of reorganization.
Click HOME to enter the site and see the full list of pages
Please read the Copyright page for generous permissions.
When you have read the material on this site and believe you understand exposure from Subliminal Distraction,
Go through you daily activities to locate and limit those problematic behaviors you have.
Simple small changes will prevent exposure.
Prevention of exposure does not require you stop any treatment you already have.
Long term panic attack sufferers will not have an immediate result.
You must unlearn the behavior of panic attacks.
Until I can find a volunteer to illustrate the problem there are NASA space station photos that show the "special circumstances" to cause exposure.
My Own Panic Attacks
At one point I had panic attacks. I did not understand them at the time.
They stopped. I didn't make note of it they just no longer happened.
While writing the text for this page I remembered them and now I know what I did to stop them.
I changed the position of a computer workstation I had set up in our home.
That first workstation allowed exposure to Subliminal Distraction.
The second position prevented exposure to Subliminal Distraction.
Even those who have full mental breaks associated with Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga are able to stop the episodes by discontinuing the exercises.
Psychotic mental breaks that happen in hospital ICU units stop when the patient leaves the hospital.
All of these situations and exercises have the "special circumstances" for exposure.
Use your backspace key to return here.
Anxiety Disorders
As the text is composed for this page it is a collection of links to support the thesis that a little known problem discovered by civil engineers designing the first close-spaced office workstations is an unevaluated stressor for mental illness.
The links and references will not have information about the conflict of physiology. Absolutely no one outside the engineers who design Systems Furniture, Cubicles, is aware of this problem.
The psychologists who solved the problem, 1960's, did not understand what they found.
They made three basic mistakes:
They thought they had caused the problem for the first time
They believed that it could only happen in a business office.
They thought the episode they saw, a harmless period of confusion and pseudo-psychotic behavior, was the only possible outcome.
The phenomenon is explained in psychology lectures on Psychophysics, Physiology of Sight, Subliminal Sight, and Peripheral Vision Reflexes.
The explanation given in my psychology course in about 1990 was, 'as the subject continues to ignore peripheral vision reflexes a conflict arises in the mind then builds to a mental break.'
At the end of the lecture segment there was a brief mention of the historical discovery. "Subliminal Sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design."
The problem was discovered when it caused sudden dissociative episodes in office workers. So little is required to set up the conditions to cause exposure that you can say exposure is almost everywhere. All of us have minor exposure every day. It is usually harmless.
Occasionally someone engages in an activity that causes heavy exposure in a compact time frame. They have an activity that requires mental investment while there is repeating detectable movement around them. In the business office this was staff members walking beside a concentrating worker sitting at an unprotected desk.
Think of that example as your model when you search your daily activities for exposure.
If you work in a business that does not use Cubicles, start there.
If you are a student in a two person dorm room, examine the design of your study desk and how it is oriented in the room. Your back should be toward any activity in the room. Read ...Prevention... at the bottom of most site pages.
Suspension of Disbelief
'Suspension of disbelief' means that the mechanics of the activity fade away and you become a participant-observer to the action and story you are reading or watching on TV or in a movie. While the term is not applied to the mental investment to perform math calculations, or study for an exam, the mental state you engage is the same. You slightly dissociate and become unaware of anything around you. Daydreaming causes the same level of dissociation.
Place of exposure
Any place you sit and do something requiring your full mental investment is a possible Place of exposure. The activity can be reading, watching TV (with full suspension of disbelief), using a computer, or performing craft activities such as sewing. Even daydreaming can create the necessary mental state.
Source of stimulus, exposure
Exposure can be from odd sources. On the Everquest Connection page it was a large fish located in a tank within arm's length of a computer game playing workstation. Anything that moves or any light that blinks is suspect. (See blinking lights below.)
Cumulative exposure
The subliminal system to detect movement does not include information on size, shape, or color. Only position and movement is reported. The amount of your retina covered by an object reflects apparent size. Something very large but far away will be evaluated relatively the same as something small but very close. Those two factors mean that the system does not identify the object. It is warn first evaluate second. Therefore you can have exposure from several sources each day. It's all the same at the subconscious level in your brain where vision reflexes are created. Knowing the correct identity of the object is not as important as instantaneous reaction to it. The system is primitive so that the reaction happens if the movement is detected. It was not a problem if a pre-human or early hunter gather reacted to a harmless movement. But if they failed to react to dangerous movement, a predator, the outcome could have been fatal.
Evaluation of the movement would require thinking about it. There was no time for that. What the system does is trigger a fast reaction, reflex, when movement is detected near you in peripheral vision.
Habituation to Extinction
The first time something moves and causes a peripheral vision reflex we do experience that first reflex. If you have ever been startled or caught something out of the corner of your eye, that was a peripheral vision reflex. But we have the ability to ignore additional reflexes once we turn, look, and identify the source of movement as harmless. The folk saying, "You can't be startled twice by the same person," arises from this feature of physiology. You learn to ignore safe movement without thinking about it. It is almost automatic. You can experience that much of the phenomenon by performing the exercise on the Demonstration page.
You learns this behavior so that if you return to the same location or same activity the next day the reaction upon first reflex will be milder or not happen at all.
Important. The reflexes don't stop. The detection of movement is not under voluntary control. You can't turn off the brain system that creates the reflex. After habituation they become subliminal. Thus you are not aware they continue. Attempts to form a reflex will continue as long as your position and the position of the source of movement remain the same.
Blinking lights on or near a computer can cause exposure.
Peripheral vision reflexes are created below thought, reason, or consciousness. You could say they are created in your subconscious mind. At that primitive level there is no memory so that the reflex will happen every time threat movement is detected.
In addition, at that level, everything is just neural impulses on nerves then exchanges through synapses between neurons. The threat movement detection system cannot distinguish between reflected light from movement and pulses of light from a point source or reflection.
It's not just the blinking. The blinking light will only be mistaken for threat-movement when it is swept into peripheral vision as your head turns while using the computer.
Again, sources of stimulus to create a reflex can be strange. Anything that blinks or moves is suspect.
Panic Attacks and low levels of exposure.
When that exposure is too low to create the expected mental break, panic attacks might be the outcome. One of the purposes of this page is to inform people who have panic attacks so they can evaluate daily activities and determine if they have significant exposure.
If you do find you have exposure and eliminate it, the cure will not be immediate. It will take some time for the effect of limiting exposure to be realized. This is because your brain learns the behavior of an attack. The brain can then reproduce an attack from other sudden stimulus. (PTSD on the Cause of Psychotic Mental Illness page.)
The phenomenon is silent and painless. The victim is never aware anything is happening to them. In posts on forums around the world members have replied that they now understand the source of their feelings of being watched while working in offices without cubicles.
___________________________
Un-attributed fear is an an outcome of this phenomenon. This is demonstrated in three cases.
Mark Barton, the day trading shooter in Atlanta, left notes that he was experiencing unbearable fear and believed he was having a mental break down. Mark Barton shooting page.
Mary Shotwell Little disappeared from Lenox Square, Atlanta, 1965. An account published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution described her fear and that it caused her to stop going out at night.
On the Personal Experiences page my wife, Connie, believes that someone is after her. She hides in the bathroom or in a hallway so "they can't see her." She will get up from the dinner table then eat standing in a hallway or the kitchen using walls or the refrigerator as a shield.
___________________________
Awakening of
Kundalini
The Awakening of Kundalini is believed to be a religious experience. But descriptions of the experience include, "visual and auditory hallucinations with intense fear." The exercise begins with meditation. This trains the mind into a state similar to that of knowledge workers. To be able to maintain the state of concentration you must ignore everything happening around you. In that mental state you can subliminally detect the movement of others nearby. The Awakening is the same mental event that knowledge workers experience in an incorrectly designed business office. It is experienced as a religious event because you are told it is a religious event. (See the Kundalini Yoga psychotic episodes page.)
Paranoia/Fear
There is no reason to believe there is a complex meaning in the signals occurring from the visual detection of movement from behind. But the fact that peripheral vision reflexes can only happen when movement is detected approaching from behind may be the source of paranoia. (You will be surprised and react to movement in conscious sight but you will know what the object is.) That repeating detection of an unknown object happening subliminally eventually colors thought and reason creating fear and paranoia.
To be continued Sunday March 16, 2008 09:53:54 PM -0600
Links
GAMIAN
GAMIAN is a world wide alliance of mental health professionals. There is a link to a list and explanation, overview of the DSM and panic disorders.
overview of DSM http://www.gamian.org/genanxiety.htm
Home page of GAMIAN .http://www.gamian.org/default.asp
PANIC ATTACKS AND THE RISK OF PSYCHOSIS
Goodwin RD, Fergusson DM, Horwood LJ. Panic attacks and psychotic symptoms. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2003; 161: 88-92.
"Findings from several recent studies suggest that panic attacks and psychotic disorders co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. The mechanism of this association is not known. ... Previous epidemiologic data show that anxiety disorders, especially panic attacks and panic disorder, are more common than expected among individuals with non-affective psychosis and schizophrenia in the community. "
Site Quote-- there is too much related material in this article to quote under fair use.This article makes my case that there is a connection between panic attacks and mental illness. The author is missing the same key piece of information. The source is New Zealand.
Adobe file, a reprint of Journal Article http://www.chmeds.ac.nz/research/chds/publications/2003/panic.pdf
The ASAP Dictionary of Anxiety and Panic Disorders 4th Edition
http://anxiety-panic.com/dictionary/en-main.htm
4th Edition
Articles on causes of Panic Attacks
Mark Sichel, 420 East 54th Street, New
York, NY 10022 -Psychotherapist
http://www.sideroad.com/Mental_Health/cause-of-anxiety-attacks.html
This PubMed article gives the state of the art for Panic Attacks.
"The DSM-IV delineates the following
potential symptom manifestations of a panic attack:
Palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart
rate
Sweating
Trembling or shaking
Sense of shortness of breath or smothering
Feeling of choking
Chest pain or discomfort
Nausea or abdominal distress
Feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded, or faint
Derealization or depersonalization (feeling
detached from oneself)
Fear of losing control or going crazy
Fear of dying
Numbness or tingling sensations
Chills or hot flashes"
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic1725.htm
The British Journal of Psychiatry Co -Morbidity Study
The Royal College of Psychiatrists
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/176/3/229
Cubicle Bed
US Patent Office filing.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4953246.pdf
Treatment of
Panic Disorder, Consensus Development Conference Statement
September 1991
http://www.healthieryou.com/paniccon.html
Healthy Place is a treatment facility in Australia
http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/anxiety/paems/people/index.htm
Ohio State has a panic attack clinic
The DSM-IV criterion for diagnosis is also on this site.
http://anxiety.psy.ohio-state.edu/default.htm
Women's News
Panic attacks inherited more often by daughters.
"The disorder often runs in families and, while researchers don't know its physiological or psychological sources, they do know daughters are more likely to inherit the disorder. A 1983 study of 43 people--male and female--found that among female relatives the risk of developing the disorder was twice that of male relatives.
That study, led by Raymond Crowe of University of Iowa Health Care, left many unanswered questions about how panic disorder is inherited. "Its method of transmission remains uncertain," Crowe noted at the time. "
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1954/context/archive
The Sideroad The Cause of Anxiety Attacks By Mark Sichel
Near the end of this article there is an explanation of how the brain creates panic. This is actually a good explanation of how delusions could be created when we experience the confusion of a sudden dissociative or psychotic episode.
"One biochemical explanation for panic is that there is an over-activity in what's called the locus ceruleus. The locus ceruleus is the part of the brain that triggers a response to danger. It's like our brain's alarm system. ... It is in the amygdala that we store, among myriad other things, all of our primal memories of powerlessness and helplessness that we experienced during infancy and early childhood.... when the neurotransmitters pick up over-activity in the locus ceruleus, the part of the brain that instructs us to run from danger, the amygdala hears the alarm, and instantly calls up the memories of past events that were dangerous and terrifying."
http://www.sideroad.com/Mental_Health/cause-of-anxiety-attacks.html
Health Matters
Origin of the word "panic" by Ronald L. Hoffman, MD, CNS
"Few individuals know the origin of the word "panic". Its roots lie in Greek mythology, namely the legend of the Greek demi-god Pan. Pan was a mischievous forest sprite, inhabiting the lonely stretches of wilderness that separated the Greek city-states."
The story is that Pan delighted in freighting travelers with pranks. Their distress became known as Pan_ic.
http://www.mental-health-matters.com/articles/article.php?artID=296
End of current edit.........................Sunday March 16, 2008 09:53:54 PM -0600
Links
University of Utah
http://webvision.med.utah.edu/
Kimball's Biology Pages
A simple explanation of the eye and sight.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/V/Vision.html
Anxiety-Panic History
There are pages which cover the period from Prehistory, 3000 BC to the current period. A list of references given will allow you to replicate the cited facts.
http://anxiety-panic.com/history/h-main.htm
Brain Physiology and Panic
Locus ceruleus and panic/anxiety
"It has been shown that electrical and pharmacological stimulation of locus ceruleus produces anxiety or parallel behavior in animals."
http://www.queendom.com/articles/mentalhealth/pd_lc.htm l
Healthy Place
The Biochemistry of Panic
"There are those who would make the argument that panic disorder is solely a biological phenomenon, whereas others would take the opposite stance and contend that panic is related solely to environment and developed personality traits. ...There is some evidence of genetic pre-disposition to panic. About 20 to 25 percent of people with panic have close relatives with panic disorder"
There are other site links to pages that explain the current theory of panic. Remember though, that none of the authors is aware of the conflict of physiology or of the mental break it was discovered to cause.
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Anxiety/causes_3.asp
Brain Anatomy
Although the illustrations are not high quality this site has simple explanations.
http://www.benbest.com/science/anatmind/anatmd2.html
++ Use your [Home] key to return to the top of the page
and site navigation.
Prevention:
This section is now repeated at the bottom of most pages.
The rare occurrence of the
injury establishes that is difficult to create enough exposure to cause an
injury. But when it does happen the consequences are serious, possibly fatal.
Our personal experience
was intermittent human traffic during eight-hour workdays for thirty calendar
days.
If you have a tower CPU mount
it under your desk. That's the way they position it in a cubicle. The hard drive
busy light is about the height of your low peripheral vision if you put the
tower on the desk. Desktop reading of text or writing notes beside the keyboard
on the side of the monitor away from the tower makes the blinking hard drive
busy light appear to approach from behind when you turn to view the screen
again.
If you have a computer work
station/desk in which you turn ninety degrees to write or do other non computer
work, turn off the monitor when you turn aside. Remove screen savers in this
instance. The movement, animation for example, in your screensaver,
two-dimensional movement, might well be detected by your peripheral vision at
close range. Alternately cover the monitor screen.
All home, apartment, or
dorm computer workstations are in unprotected workspace.
To change that put the computer in a quiet room with no possible movement. If
that is not possible in a dorm or apartment position the computer so that your
peripheral vision can see only stationary walls as you use the computer in a
busy room. In Cubicles and 'Systems Furniture' these protective features are
achieved with peripheral vision blocking panels and corner seating positions. It
is called 'Cubicle Level Protection.'
If you use computer or CD-ROM
games for many hours day after day, the game playing position should follow the
same rules as the computer workstation. Battery operated games will not run long
enough on a single rechargeable battery to cause a risk for SPVP.
Although a laptop does not
have a visible blinking light in peripheral vision the same rules apply to your
work position. There should not be human traffic moving to you from
behind. There should be nothing behind you, which could enter your subliminal
peripheral vision field as you turn your head while working at the laptop and be
mistaken for threat movement.
Only movement coming from
behind you into your Subliminal Peripheral Vision can cause a peripheral vision
reflex. If the movement source approaches you from ahead then enters your
Subliminal Peripheral Vision from conscious sight there can be no peripheral
vision reflex.
Repeated for Emphasis:
A single session or rare
sessions will not cause this problem.
It is the same day after day
long hours of play or computer use with detectable movement in ‘Subliminal
Peripheral Vision,’ which would form the basis of a risk for SPVP injury.
The brain’s detection system only evaluates movement. There is little recognition of the nature of the object in peripheral vision. If you have several hours exposure from human traffic at the library, while reading at an open table or seated in a reading room chair, followed by long hours watching TV with a critically misplaced ceiling fan sweeping detectable shadows around the room, the combination of those two behaviors might cause the problem. The suggestion is that either activity alone would not consume enough exposure time even if the critical movement is present.
Copyright 2003
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Tell everyone you
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##########
Site links to related material
This site is about a conflict of human physiology that shaped history but was undetected until the 1960's.
You can experience the habituation to extinction of movement in Subliminal Peripheral Vision on the Demonstration page.
If you are having doubts about this phenomenon I suggest starting with that psychology demonstration.
If you do not understand the physiology, the material on this site will seem to be nonsense to you.
The Everquest Connection page explains the simple first-semester psychology of what happens,
The solution for this problem was the office Cubicle.
This site argues that the this phenomenon causes College Suicides and Missing Students.
The phenomenon causes mental events around the world, Chaco Canyon.
If you use computers in unprotected workspace such as homes, dorms, student apartments, and small business offices read ...Prevention... at the bottom of most pages.
Long term low -level exposure can cause severely altered mental states. Qi Gong Kundalini Yoga
The material on these pages draws one to the conclusion that there is more to this problem. Cause of Psychotic Mental Illness