Moments of Euphoria

I had a request/suggestion to discuss moments of 'euphoria': that moment where you feel like you can achieve anything and very often become extremely productive. For the record, I do get those moods. Mood swings, both positive and negative, are key symptoms of suffering from anxiety and/or depression. I can experience incredible highs, but also feel terrible lows. This post has really made me think about how I can properly articulate such experiences in an eloquent manner. It's taken some time to try and structure everything in a meaningful way.

Having done a bit of reading on the subject to supplement my experiences, and having put my thoughts onto paper to try and make sense of them, I think for me, these moments of euphoria are prominent at two specific times. First is the immediate aftermath of a panic attack. The second is the absence of anxiety generally. I'll take both in turn, whilst trying to distinguish between them. I do appreciate that there is a significant amount of overlap between these two events.

Post-Panic Attack

I don't think I've ever written a post specifically about the sensation of panic attacks, although I have written about what anxiety and depression look like. If that is of interest, please look here. The best way that I can explain a panic attack, for me, is the feeling that you are completely out of control of everything. My experiences tend to have both a physical and a mental impact. Physically, I'll feel my heart racing to the point that it'll burst out of my chest. On top of that, I get this shaking sensation, shallow breathing and my stomach churns. The mental element is the sense of being overwhelmed, racing thoughts and just not being able to think in any way because you can't focus. As you can imagine, these moments are so draining.

I've noticed with some people, through conversation on mental health, that after an anxiety attack is over, they have a feeling of euphoria. For some people, the response is immediate. For other people, such as myself, there is a slight delay in how it works. There is currently very little evidence or explanation as to why this occurs. I'll be completely honest when I say I can't even begin to explain the science behind it. For me, however, it does seem that once I've had the 'come down' from a panic attack, a lightbulb in my head turns on. Usually, I need some down time to recover from a panic attack to regather my thoughts. After a short while, I have a surge of productivity in my mind. Over the following few hours, I find myself becoming more and more productive, with my brain working at an ever-higher capacity. After a few hours, possibly from exhaustion or satisfaction that I've made progress, I'll start to slow down back to my normal rate of thinking.

During this post-panic attack state, it seems as if my mind is trying to compensate for the time 'lost' having an anxiety attack; my mind is essentially telling itself to pull itself together and to address the problem(s) (should they be work or project related and solvable issues).

Absence of anxiety

The second situation is where there is a total absence of anxious thinking. This is slightly different to the first situation, where the surge in productivity occurs after an anxiety attack. As I've written before, and is well documented, anxiety is a mental health condition which has very little predictability in both duration and frequency. As a result, people can find themselves having 'good' and 'bad' days. My experiences might well be linked to the fact that I use these 'good' days as a way of piling up my productivity. It is because of this, I'm able to offset against the 'bad' days where I'm not able to function at the standard that I'd ideally like to. That is the best way that I can explain it from my own experiences. For the most part, the thought process is essentially: "I'm going to make the most of this whilst it lasts." There are of course, other times too, where I will genuinely be inspired to work myself to the bone.

I do appreciate that for some people, the absence of anxiety can trigger feeling complete relief and happiness. Some do argue that this is the natural reaction to feeling like you're no longer overwhelmed. Clearly, being in a state of euphoria isn't a bad thing because it gives people a sense of confidence that they may not have had in themselves. However, like all things to do with anxiety, too much it can have negative consequences. If you do rely on the euphoric moments without addressing the underlying causes of anxiety, it can lead to both over-confidence and stopping the use of anxiety treatments. This is problematic as the anxiety will inevitably find a way of coming back and you'll be back at the starting point.

Remember: you are a beautiful human being. You are loved. You matter. You have so much good that you can offer this world.

Until next time,

J x