WEBVTT - Thursday Therapy: The Panic Button 0:00:01.960 --> 0:00:07.000 Wind Down with Janet Kramer and iHeartRadio podcast. This week's 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:10.639 Thursday Therapy, We've got Matt Gutman. He is ABC news 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:15.120 Chief National correspondent, a multi award winning reporter, and he's 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.160 got a book out called No Time to Panic. How 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.400 I Curb My anxiety and Conquered a lifetime of panic attacks. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.720 Let's get him on. How are you, Matt good? 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:24.280 How are you? 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:26.880 Thank you for coming onto wind Down? 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:28.120 So excited. 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:33.560 I'm excited because I have dealt with anxiety since I 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:38.760 was nineteen years old and I'm forty now, so it's 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.880 been just a journey, and so I love I love 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.040 speaking to people that are open about talking about anxiety 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.239 because just like when I was reading more about you, 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.199 because I know who you are, obviously I've seen you 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.080 on the news and everything that you've done, But you 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.080 don't know what actually someone is going through. You just 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.120 see who they are, you know, and what you might 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:03.120 think they are. 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:03.440 Right. 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.080 So the fact that you even said yourself like that 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.320 you were privately dealing with anxiety for how many years? 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.240 I mean with panic for twenty years? Yeah, anxiety my 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.039 whole life, right, Like I just you know, I'm a 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.960 little bit older than you are, and so maybe there 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.800 was like a half or like quarter generational difference. 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.720 But not by much. What are you forty five forty six? 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.000 Yeah? Okay, But nobody talked about anxiety when I was young, 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.320 Like they talked about depression. That was something that people 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.920 were concerned about, but nobody like I don't remember hearing 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.959 anxiety or maybe that was reserved for like you know, 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.800 just like the most neurotic Jews, like, oh, they have anxiety, 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.000 but nobody talked about it. It's like something that everybody experiences. 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:47.160 Are many many people do? 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:49.280 What was for you? 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.120 What was the moment that you had your first that 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.360 you can tie back? Because for me, have you done 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:56.560 EMDR and stuff too? 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:58.600 Do you know that's the one thing that I have 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.320 not done. I've done everything I've done, like all the 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:05.320 cognit to behavioral therapy, every pharmacological thing. I never did 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.440 EMDR and I had a practitioner and I was like, eh, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:09.640 but I've heard it's great. 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:14.240 Yeah, I love it, big advocate for EMDR. But in 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.760 your past, like, can you draw back that moment like 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.080 where you think that anxiety was a coming from and 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:20.960 then one was the first kind of panic attack? 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:21.480 That you had. 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:25.520 I mean, my first real panic attack was I think 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.480 I had meaning while I was like super high achiever 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.360 and put a lot of pressure on myself and like, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.600 I think my mom did too. So I went to 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.080 a school called Williams College, which is a pretty fancy 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:39.920 liberal arts college, and my essay to get in was 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.280 about like a tongue in cheek thing about how my 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.120 mom thought I was a prophet, and like, well, do 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.200 you offer classes in being a profit or prophecy at 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.720 Williams Because my mom thinks that I'm a prophet. So 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.200 there was like a lot of press and I love 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:56.440 my mom. 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.040 It's a lot of pressure, A lot. 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.360 Of pressure like it, but it was like super high cheap. 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.000 I was captain of the football team, captain of the lacrosse, 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:08.040 school council president, all aps, you know, is super hard charging, 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.960 but I was also a disaster inside. And when I 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.640 was school council president, you have to deliver, you know, 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.240 a daily address to the school in front of the podium, 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:19.720 and I would have these bouts of what I thought 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.079 were nerves and I get very anxious and I kind 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.680 of have tunnel vision and my mouth would get really dry, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.480 and these were all symptoms of anxiety or panic, but 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:37.160 my first like sweating through my underpants. I'm molting into 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.360 a werewolf. Something is taking over my body and I 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.880 don't know what it is type of panic. Was giving 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:48.720 my or defending my college thesis my senior year, and 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.920 I remember I was wearing a turtleneck sweater, which is 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.600 a really bad idea whenever you're giving an address, do 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.840 not publicly wearing a turtleneck sweater. But I thought it 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.720 looked like very cool lead you, like, you know, academic 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.080 and intellectual, and so I remember going up there and 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.800 sudden they're cats clawing at my neck and their feral 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.600 cat like started itching and like I had tunnel vision, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.360 and my heart started to feel like it was bursting 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.479 through my chest and I couldn't breathe, and my mouth 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:24.760 went dry, and I had feelings of like complete loss 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.320 of control. This is like classic panic attack, and I 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.760 had no idea what was happening to me. 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:32.919 We thought you were probably my first panic attack. I'm like, 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.040 I'm dying. I'm having a heart attack and I'm dying. 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.159 Well, which is super common, right, Like you know, forty 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.359 percent of everybody who goes to the er complaining of 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.760 chest pain in the United States is having a panic attack. 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.880 And fifty eight percent, almost two thirds of all the 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.960 people who checked themselves in where cardiac issues at the 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.120 er are either having panic or anxiety. Wow, that's how 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.240 chronic it is in the US, and that's how or 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.000 diagnosed it is. And most of those people are sent 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.400 packing back home not being told that it was anxiety. 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.440 They're told, Okay, you know, we can tell you, we've 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.200 done the EKGs. You're not having a heart attack. We 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.320 don't exactly know what it is. Only some of them 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.919 are actually told this is anxiety related. You're okay, you 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.240 don't have to come back if those exact symptoms persist, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.239 if you you know, I don't want to let anybody 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.160 think out there that if they are having a heart 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.120 attack that they should not go to right. 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:31.200 Yeah, yeah, still go to the doctors if you feel, yeah. 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.400 The problem is. And it's like in the intro to 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.400 my book, is that you know I interviewed this woman 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.480 named Kelly croppol Or, who is the a nine to 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:44.040 one one operator for seventeen years. Jennen. She was like 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.400 she had done everything, she had heard every possible call 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.000 you could imagine, and she was never in her seventeen 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.200 year career, able to discern the difference between someone who 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.039 was having a panic attack given the symptoms, and someone 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.960 who was having a heart attack. To her, it sounded 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:05.520 the same. It's chest pain, shortness of breath, sweating, trembling, shaking, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:10.240 tunnel vision, feelings of impending death. Like all of the 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.680 symptoms are so closely linked. And there's actually a reason 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.360 for that evolutionarily. And I know you just recently did 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:22.239 a podcast about the good anxiety, right, yeah, and there is, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:27.680 like there's really good science behind it, and that is 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.520 your body is trying to let you know that whatever 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.919 behavior you're doing at that time is a threat or 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.200 is scary to it, and so it's trying to tell 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.000 you in the most powerful, possible memorable way not to 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.440 repeat that behavior. So for some people it's not you 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.080 don't always want to listen to that anxiety. It's not 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:47.880 always the good. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.479 Anxiety, right exactly. 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.000 You just have to like figure it out. But you know, 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:53.800 public speaking is something that we have to do in 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.720 our society, so there are ways of getting over it. 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.400 But basically, yeah, a panic is like the evolution tionary 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.159 way your body is trying to tell you to avoid 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.040 a certain behavior and to make it memorable. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.159 Have you ever had a panic attack when you were 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:08.720 on air? 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:16.040 Hundreds of my problem. I just want to tell people 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.040 what a panic attack is, right. So a panic attack 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.880 is your brain telling your body that it is in threat, right, 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.120 and it is essentially the stress response. And it's that 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.880 same thing that you'd feel when you're driving on the 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.640 freeway to downtown Nashville and there's a pile up in 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.840 front of you, and your body just jumps into action 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.240 and you feel like the loosening of your teeth kind 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.840 of you feel that jolt of adrenaline, and you feel 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.160 the bubbling in your stomach. It's the same kind of thing, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.960 and your body wants you to remember it, and your 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.320 body basically would prefer you having a thousand false alarms, 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.040 which is a panic attack, so long as you don't 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.960 miss the one real alarm, which is the pile up 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.200 on the freeway or the interstate. So your body's kind 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.480 of rig to protect you in that way, even though 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.440 a panic attack is massively uncomfortable. But I didn't know 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:08.760 any of this at the time. So, like after college, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.920 and men are really good at this, I compartmentalized panic 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.800 attack talking about my thesis and Jenna like, I know 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.160 a lot of people experience this too, but like that thesis, 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.800 the thesis was graded, the talk was not like it 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.640 wasn't even mandatory. There was nothing riding on my performance, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.720 and yet I felt that I was inadequate and that 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.040 everything was writing on it, and I put so much 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.640 pressure on myself that I had this panic attack when 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.680 there was nothing riding on it, and so I put 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.880 it away because I'm really good at compartmentalizing stuff, and 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.080 I didn't deal with it. And then I started to 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.840 do print reporting, and I moved to Israel and I 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.680 was covering the Palestinian uprising there in the early two thousands. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.600 Then I covered the war in he and Afghanistan, and 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.440 I went to Syria and Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. I 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.760 was all over the Middle East covering wars and conflicts, 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.600 and I was okay. And then I started doing ABC 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.960 Radio and I realized that words started to magically disappear 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.319 from the paper I was reading off and my hands 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.040 would tremble, and there was sort of the telltale signs 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.160 of whatever terrible experience I'd had in college and then 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.080 came back to the US, and I realized that I 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.640 was having these bouts of quote unquote nerves more frequently 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.120 when live on air and on television, and over the years, 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.200 I had them hundreds of times, hundreds and hundreds of 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.679 panic attacks on air, and the brutal irony of it 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.240 was that the EPs, the executive producers of the shows 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.360 were like, oh, man, Guvernment really has so much energy 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:51.840 on air. I love him live, Let's put him on 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:56.000 live more. Because I was literally like pooping my pants. 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.040 You know, I'm having a full on panic attack, which 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:00.600 is like a surge of a right on it. So 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:05.760 I am zinging with energy and lifeblood. But it's massively 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:13.040 uncomfortable and painful and just it sucked. But it kind 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.800 of like helped me get where I was, ironically and 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.800 where I am today, because it seemed like I was 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.200 just so full of energy, but what was happening was 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:27.280 we're panic attacks, and that just like it continued until 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.280 January twenty sixth, twenty twenty, when. 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.600 I like, that's when it stopped. In twenty twenty, No, 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.640 that's when I had a reckoning. 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.880 Oh okay, was it because you had more time to or 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.240 was it because everything was falling apart around you and 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.160 the world and everything happening, that you were able to 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.440 kind of look more inside because I think there was 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.920 so much reflection during that time, because it was so 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.280 noisy but yet so quiet in our homes that we 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.640 had to kind of face what was our internal loudness? 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:00.000 Right? 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.720 Yeah, I mean I had to face this internal loudness. 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.440 And it was just before the pandemic actually started. And 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:11.400 you know, I've been all over the world for ABC. 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.959 I've reported now from like sixty countries, forty eight states 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.440 or nine states. I still haven't done North Dakota, but like, 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.559 I've been everywhere, and I've done a lot of things. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:28.000 And I was home actually on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.160 and I got a call from my boss and she's like, 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.080 and I live in Los Angeles in an area called 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:38.840 Encino and Calabasas, where Kobe Brian's helicopter went down is 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.640 only like ten miles away, and suddenly there is this 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.680 global story happening in my backyard. And the boss is like, hey, 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.839 I need you to get to Calabasas asap. We think 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.400 Kobe Brian's helicopter went down, and we think his daughter 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:54.360 Gianna and maybe some of the other we're not sure 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.520 who's on there. We've got to get you there a SAP. 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.880 So I jetted out and during our first live special 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:08.319 report on Kobe's death, I made a critical reporting error. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:14.839 And I'd had something very similar happen to me when 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.480 I was twelve and my father was forty one, so 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.640 basically the exact same ages as Kobe and Gianna. My 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.120 father was killed in a plane crash and he was 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.320 exactly it was forty two and three months when it happened, 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.600 and I had just eclipsed his age, and so my 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.880 whole life, Janna, I thought. And I'd lived life with 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:40.120 like blazing speed. I got married, I had kids, I'd 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.680 been to war, I fallen in love in Argentina, I had, 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.480 you know, jumped from airplanes, swam with sharks, you know, 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:52.079 been shot at. I'd packed everything that I possibly could 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.880 into the forty two years because I thought, well, I'm 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.199 not going to live past forty two. That's going to 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.920 be a natural terminus of my lifespan. And then once 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:05.480 it happened, I was like, oh what now, And I 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.640 didn't And that was just before the Kobe crash happened, 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:11.720 and so I was in this weird like you mentioned 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.920 that that headspace. I was in that weird headspace when 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.040 this happened. And then finally the thing I'd feared most, 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.520 which is losing control while live on television, yeah, and 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.840 making a critical mistake happened and ABC suspended me for 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.640 a month. I had to make a decision with my life, 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.560 like I had been miserable in my job because of 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.760 the panic attacks for years. I told my wife about it, 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.840 and she's like, you know, babe, if this makes you 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.760 so unhappy, we'll downsize. We'll change jobs. Dude, do whatever 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.319 you need to do. She was very supportive, And I've 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.880 been thinking about getting out of TV news because, like, 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:54.600 it sucked. I hated the experience of having not only 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.840 to experience the panic attack, but anybody who's got anxiety 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:02.520 out there or experiences panic knows that the anticipatory anxiety 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.880 of having a panic attack is as bad as the 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.720 actual feeling of being in one in the moment. And 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.520 she's like, do what you gotta do. And you know, 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.439 suspension has a way of opening up your schedule. So 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:20.680 during the month that I had to like twittle my 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.920 films and like beat myself up and not sleep and 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.280 hate myself and feel guilty for the mistake I made 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.640 and any pain I caused this poor family. You know, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.240 Kobe Bryant's the patron saint of Los Angeles. Like the 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.000 guy was a hero to so many. Aside from being 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.680 a great basketball player, he was like massively philanthropic and 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.360 great for this city and like just a good person 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.880 and so like I was like, okay, what now. So 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.800 I had a buddy who was on the lacrosse team 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.600 in high school who'd now become a yoga instructor and 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.120 breath coach, breathwork coach, and so was like he'd been 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:58.920 telling me for so long to do breath work, and 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:00.480 I'm like, oh, I have a bread or what is 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:01.760 this meditation to voodoo brews? 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:02.200 Exactly? 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.280 Yeah, And then I went and did it because I 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.280 had time. And I was like, you know, sitting in 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.080 this room in Venice, California, which is like the crunchiest 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.280 hippiest place, and what was it called like serenity or 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:19.320 sanctumy called sanctum like weeked of Petuli, And I'm like whoa. 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.280 I go in there and I lie down on my body. 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:27.440 Lane Jaffe, who was just a fantastic practitioner and breathwork coach, 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.560 just starts telling us, like gets us in the spirit 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:33.480 in the head mode, and you know, if people have 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.640 ever done holotropic breath work, it's kind of like this. 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.680 You're breathing in twice belly chest out, and you're doing 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.320 it over and over and over again, and eventually what 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.480 happens is you're going to hyperventilate, and that means you're 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.240 taking in too much oxygen and you need carbon dioxide 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.640 to break down oxygen. So what you're doing is depriving 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.040 your body of oxygen. So the oxygen rich blood goes 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.480 to the center of your body or core, and the 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.040 rest of your body starts to go numb, and so 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.160 people get lobster claws, and like I started locking up 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.200 like this, and my legs locked up, and you go, 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.320 if you keep going into an altered stake and you're 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.240 not taking drugs, you're not on anything other than living 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.800 and changing the pH balance in your body, it's nuts. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.440 And suddenly, like I'm lying there on the floor with 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.760 a bunch of total strangers and I started sobbing, you know, 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.480 really crying in a way that I hadn't done in many, many, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.680 many years, probably since my father died, like thirty years 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.640 before that. And I'm crying and crying and Lane comes 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.400 and he holds space like he just presses all my legs. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.800 It's like, I'm here, but keep going, like he doesn't 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.720 say that, but that's what he's saying. And it was 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.080 an amazing cathartic experience weeping in front of these people, 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.880 and then they were like so massively supportive. And I 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:55.960 went back and did it again the next week and 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.360 cried again, and it was just wonderful, and I realized that, 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.920 you know, so the panic is a symptom of something 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.359 else that I've got to go find. I don't know 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.879 what it is, but I threw myself in it like 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.280 I would throw myself into any other reporting project or investigation. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.080 And that's like in my own everybody's got to find 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.280 the modality that works for them. For me, it's like, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:20.959 all right, I have an objective. I am an investigative reporter. 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.359 I am going to go report the crap out of 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.440 whatever this thing is that's bothering me. And that's how 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.960 actually actually not how the book started yet, because I 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:31.960 was just trying to fix me. But this is how 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.000 the journey started. And I know journey is like a 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.359 cliche term at this point, but that's what it was 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:37.960 for me. It was like three and a half years 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:43.000 of trying everything other than the MDR to like figure 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:43.480 this out. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:59.280 Sure, in your book, no time to panic. What is 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.480 one of the best tips that you think you've put 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.879 in there for people to help overcome this panic anxiety 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:06.879 order disorder? 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.320 Listen, I'll put it into a couple of categories. The 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.880 first category is like, and you know everybody is everybody 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:15.399 is different. 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.040 Sure, what works for one person might not work for 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:18.360 the other. 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.400 And yeah, I'm not a psychologist, and I don't think 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.520 a psychologist is a perfect fit for every patient. But 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.920 I know what worked for me. I am someone who 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.200 does things in the extremes, right like I have been 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:37.479 covering conflict in war for twenty four years, right Like 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.320 I am drawn to that place where life is closest 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.919 to death and where people are experiencing often the worst 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.080 days of their lives. For me, the intensity of being 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.800 there and trying to tell their stories is what gets 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:58.119 me going and what keeps me in this business. And 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.600 I'm drawn to it in the US as well, and 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.600 that's just part of what I do. So for I 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.920 was so good and had become so good an expert 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.800 in fact, in compartmentalizing and saying, Okay, whatever is the 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.399 symptom of this panic or whatever is the underlying disease 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.679 quote unquote of my panic. I'm going to put that 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.480 to the side because I'm really good at that, and 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.360 I couldn't access it even in talk therapy, which I've 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.760 been in for many many years. Couldn't access it with 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.960 just talk therapy. I needed Jennet to get out of 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.919 my right mind in order to access it. So for me, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.160 psychedelics were very, very helpful because I needed to get 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.960 out of Matt Gutman in order to examine Matt Gutman's 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:43.720 That's interesting. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.800 I was going to do I was going to try ayahuasca, 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.399 but I'm so I hate not being in control that 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.919 I was like, I just can't do it. I just 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.280 I literally It's why you know, I've been drunk once 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.199 in my life. Like, I don't do drugs. I don't 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.679 like to feel out of control. It's the fear for me, 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.200 it's always my anxiety is like the fear of kind 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.680 of the unknown right, So like I'm afraid the plane 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:08.760 might crash when I'm on it. 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:10.880 I'm afraid, you know, I'm going. 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.359 To get stuck in Italy when we go on our honeymoon, 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.960 and it's going to be a disaster. Like I fear 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.600 the unknown coming up. And that's what always kind of 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.439 holds me captive with my anxiety now a days. But 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.560 it's I just for some reason, I couldn't do it. 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.920 And then again, like it says it works for I've 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.920 heard amazing things about psychedelics for that, I just I 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:33.919 just can't do it. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.440 I needed to lose control. I understand why you are. 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.160 And worrying is like one of the greatest evolutionary traits 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.840 that primates apes, great apes humans had ever developed, Like 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.960 we learned. The reason you're sitting there with your MacBook 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.280 on your lap and you know, a really nice microphone 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.600 and we're able to communicate two thousand miles away from 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:01.960 each other is because humans created were worriers. We got 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.199 scared sooner, and we developed technologies to be able to 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.119 make our lives easier or to be able to alleviate 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.520 some of our worries, from fire to the wheel to 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.480 wireless technology to the iPhone, right, Like all of this 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.840 is because humans were trying to alleviate their future concerns. 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:25.719 So anxiety has been like the greatest invention ever in 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.560 the history of the planet. It just doesn't feel good always, but. 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:31.640 It's very helpfulful. 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.840 Yeah, I had to lose control, right the only way 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.120 I could find healing is if I found a way 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.639 to lose control, and if I was essentially conscious or like, 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.240 if I had control over my mind, I wasn't going 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:44.719 to let go. 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.480 I heard a therapist tell me recently on here actually 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:53.639 that you should you should do the thing that worries 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:55.720 you and have your anxiety because then you realize it 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.320 didn't kill you. So she's like, like, I am so 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:04.119