When The Cure Misses The Cause

"Well, Mr. Henry, there's a new drug on the market and you may find it could help. It’s called Seroxat, and from what I've heard, it can be very effective in relieving anxiety".

"Thank you, Doctor, I'll certainly give it some thought", I replied.

This was the conversation I had with my Dutch doctor when living in The Netherlands back in 1993. I'd been suffering from frequent bouts of crippling anxiety for weeks.

At the age of 30, I'd been posted abroad by my UK employer to set up a new sales office in Amsterdam (this sounds somewhat grander than the reality, since the office was in the back room of the apartment I rented!)

Establishing a new business entity in another country is not an easy undertaking and I had to start from scratch, learning on the go as I struggled to find my way through the maze of bureaucracy. Since no-one in the company had done anything quite like this before, there was no blueprint for me to follow. I was effectively the guinea pig. 

I was simultaneously excited and apprehensive about the prospect of this new venture. I had no support network other than at the end of a phone, no colleagues close by with whom I could share the burden or who could help me to solve any issues as they arose. As a sales manager, I also had targets to hit and so I needed to hit the ground running.

Things gradually began to take their toll. I began to feel anxious and found it hard to relax. I felt constantly tense and  suffered from dizzy spells and strange body sensations. I sometimes felt a lump in my throat which made it hard to swallow and felt like I was being choked. My heart would pound like a pneumatic drill in my chest and I frequently felt like I couldn't breathe in enough air, no matter how hard I tried. I was convinced there was something seriously wrong with me and that I was going to die. The very prospect of meeting customers threatened to push me over the edge.

I now recognise these were the classic symptoms of anxiety and hyperventilation (overbreathing). As a breathing coach, I now understand that my breathing had become compromised as a result of the stress I was undergoing. I was experiencing the classic 'fight or flight' reaction that is our body's response to deal with a temporary threat. Except in my case, the 'threat' was constant and my brain was telling my body, all through the day and all through the night, that I needed to be prepared for action.  As a result, I was unconsciously breathing faster and harder than normal and suffering some of the symptoms that result from exhaling too much carbon dioxide - tingling, brain fog, feelings of panic, dizziness. 

The doctor failed to recognise the link. He listened to my heart and my lungs and said everything seemed to be normal. He didn’t observe how I was breathing. He was convinced I needed medication, hence the recommendation of Seroxat*, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor)  that is prescribed for depression and anxiety disorders. The same drug, incidentally, that has subsequently been subject to intense scrutiny due to findings linking it to an increased risk of suicidal behaviour and self-harm in young people.

I'm thankful that in the end, I decided not to take the doctor up on this particular recommendation. Something about it didn’t seem right to me. I called my mother to discuss it with her and ask her opinion and she shared my unease. She, like me, felt that there may be undesirable side effects and that whilst the drug might help to manage the symptoms, it wouldn't address the underlying cause of my condition. 

I will be forever grateful for that conversation with Mum, as it helped as a counterpoint to the consultation with the doctor. Most of us (and I would say men in particular) generally trust what the doctor says and go along with their recommendations without questioning them, because we believe they know best. I've since learned, through a combination of experience and the wisdom I've acquired over the course of 60 years of life, that it's important to exercise a degree of critical judgment before doing so, especially if we bear in mind that Western allopathic medicine is very much about adopting a pharmaceutical approach to treating disease and tackling symptoms instead of the root cause. Are we not sometimes the best judge of what is right for us? 

Notwithstanding this, I'd not yet developed this degree of conviction and self-assurance back then, and though I declined the offer of the Seroxat, I did agree to taking beta blockers to help with the anxiety and associated high blood pressure and I continued to take these and another blood pressure medication for the next 20 years of my life. Eventually, I was able to come off all medication in 2016 after radically changing my lifestyle and diet. Losing more than a third of my body weight normalised my blood pressure, a convincing argument for getting to the root cause of a condition, if ever there was one.

My only regret is that I wasn't to discover for many more years how our moment by moment breathing can influence anxiety. Just as what we put on our plate can be a vital part of the health jigsaw, so is how we breathe. So many of us fail to breathe in a way that is supportive of our health, but we are usually not even aware of it. My wife and coaching partner Annette also shares my passion for self-healing and giving what our body needs to give it the best chance to thrive. If you'd like to learn more about what dysfunctional breathing looks like and why it's so prevalent today, go to our Breathing Space.

* I would like to make it clear that my decision not to take Seroxat was based on personal choice and that I acknowledge that individual circumstances are different. 

~ Graham Henry