it some people also call it a loop or a
circle this geometrical figure tends to
appear almost anywhere in the physical
world but they also appear in our minds
for better or worse four years ago I
experienced something that changed my
life dramatically I remember it was a
snowy day and I was attending a workshop
for an international conference in
Beijing and over all of a sudden this
weird feeling catches my attention I
couldn’t breathe I mean I was
technically able to breathe but it felt
that there wasn’t enough oxygen in the
air so I ran outside and I grabbed some
snow I shoveled it into my face but it
would immediately melt because I was on
fire and I was burning from the inside
and this was my first panic attack in
Germany 14 to 15 percent of all adults
suffer from a panic disorder once in
their life and this is often due to a
lot of stress
now stress can come from many different
sources but it’s often our job that
produces the bulk of it although that we
know that stress is not good it seems to
be a good thing for a lot of people
being stressed is better than being
bored being busy seems to be better than
being productive and doing a thousand
things a time is better than just one we
are constantly trying to be better
faster and stronger it feels that we are
restless and the mob talked about that
was with friends the more realized how
common feelings of exhaustion
purposeless and not getting anywhere are
it feels that we are all being trapped
in a hamster wheel on our pursuit to
happiness and the common attitude is if
we only work enough then we become more
happy but we are wrong science shows us
it’s actually the other way around
ignoring that we keep on accelerating in
this hamster wheel although everybody
knows what happens if you run too fast
right you fall out and this falling out
it can take the shape of the depression
of a burnout or like in my case a panic
disorder I really suffered bad over the
course of three years from those attacks
but today I not only haven’t had a panic
attack than more than a year
I also become managed to become less
stressed physically heavy and even
happier and this is not only due to
behavioral therapy I did but discovery I
made that made it significantly easier
for me to find the way to my inner
balance and be less stressed but let’s
start from the beginning now the root
who in my balance was forming new
routines and the key to my recovery was
to find out how to influence and depth
and change them and I’m not talking
about single routines here to gain
muscle mass to floss your teeth or to
water your flowers but to enrich your
life with a new some with a full sum of
new routines that work on you I’m
talking about breaking out of bad loops
and implementing good ones that have a
positive effect on you and I see
routines only in the first place as a
tool to overcome panic but in a more
broader sense as an opportunity to
create less stress and now let’s start
from the beginning because it’s
essential that you understand what
happens if an attack hits you you
typically realize them through a
combination of three things
uncomfortable physical feelings
upsetting thoughts and distressing
emotions now you start to perceive those
feelings as a threat which leads to
anxiety and that usually marks the
beginning of an attack in this stage of
anxiety those physical symptoms start to
intensify and they actually trigger a
fearful thoughts such as I’m losing my
mind I’m going to go crazy or I will die
in the next minute and this in turn can
lead to an increased feeling of anxiety
again and the vicious circle starts to
evolve
now given how frightening these feelings
can be it’s not uncommon for panic
attacks here for us to actually fear the
onset of a future attack people with
panic disorder therefore often change
their behavior in respond to the fear of
fear for instance you may avoid certain
places or certain situations you believe
could bring on a panic attack but
unfortunately those short routines they
only ease the anxiety in the short run
but they actually lead to more like long
lasting fears and that is exactly what
happened to me in the first couple of
years of my disorder and let me give you
a few examples and let me show you these
examples in a two dimensional way
one being the intensity of an attack and
one being the time they last so first of
all I got some pills from my doctor and
even though I never used them I would
always carry them around so just in case
I get an attack I could use them this is
called a security signal and it’s likely
that it lowers your your panic like
shown in this graph you I tried other
things too like calling my mom in the
middle of an attack which is an attempt
to escape likely leaving you with a
panic shape looking like this one with
high returning Peaks
at last I would isolate each thought I
had during an attack write it down and
see how they feel this is a deflection
and it really calms you down for a
minute but as soon as you stop intensity
goes up again leaving you with a shape
like this one here
so all these routines they had a certain
effect on me but they didn’t help to
overcome the panic in the long run then
in the therapy I learned this the key to
get out of those routines was not to
avoid them or to flee or to distract
myself but to acknowledge and to accept
them I know this sounds like an O’Brien
brainer but and it’s somehow annoying if
somebody tells you you gotta accept your
your attacks but in the moment I
realized what that mean it had a huge
huge
packed on me and as soon as you start to
accept you can actually start to change
the e reaction to an attack now the more
you do that the more you get used to it
and you ultimately end up with shorter
lesser intense attacks so all I did was
changing one step in this loop and by
that I broke the vicious circle and
created a virtuous circle and I would
realize when I would enter these circles
what the triggers were for me a physical
routine like dizziness sucked me into
that downward spiral that puts you
straight into hell for other people this
might be a certain social situation an
uncomfortable thought thought or just in
temptation and then finally in dawned on
me that each attack I would follow the
circular pattern which constantly
repeats realizing that these loops
somehow appeared in a systematic
sequence of trigger action and routine
made me realize how to better influence
them how to change them on how to
control them and not only that I
discovered that I could use those
patterns and apply it to different
habits in my life and by that
established all different kind of
routines check them and see how they
would affect me for example I stopped
drinking coffee for over a year I
stopped drinking alcohol for more than
six months I stopped smoking I started
running I actually just ran my first
marathon and most of the exercise were
happening exist 6:30 in the morning
health and nutrition I started to eat
fruits and yogurts instead of toast and
croissants and I also stopped to eat
carbs for more than six months so today
I first must have to take breaks I also
implemented a decent timetable a time
management and project management system
that lets me set goals every day reflect
on them on a weekly basis and see my
progress throughout the
and don’t get me wrong I’m not saying
that eating less croissants and more
fruits ultimately leave to a less
stressed feeling but the sum of all
those routines truly made my life less
stressed now of course I wasn’t the only
one who found out about that the
peddanna just described is commonly
known as the habit loop
it’s a broadly accepted heuristic first
it is covered by dbj
and more recently used by Charles Duhigg
in his book the power of habits in
theory it trigger starts a routine let’s
say me desperately looking for a hot
energy the energizing drink in the
morning so I would walk into my kitchen
to make a cup of coffee but instead of a
coffee I would make a tea which is the
actual routine and as a result I would
feel that the tea does the exact same
thing the coffee what had done I’m
energized and after a while I wouldn’t
even bother about having a coffee
anymore so although I think this is a
really nice routine and it explains a
lot of habits and routines
I think it’s somehow missing something
the explanatory power comes from the
trigger reward system but it leaves a
gap on want to take what it takes on an
individual level thinking about that
made me realize that there are three
let’s call them individual attributes I
would name to successfully implement a
new routine and let’s have a look at
them discipline in terms of
self-discipline regulation to a certain
goal or rule motivation in terms of the
emotional and neuronal activity in
pursuing that goal and seeing the
benefit of it and continuity in terms of
being able what you want to do over a
long amount of time now where all those
three come together I think it is more
likely for you to really establish a new
routine but if you like one of them
things can get quite difficult and let
me explain you why let’s say we want to
become a vegetarian
and stop eating meat so if you have the
discipline and the motivation but the
lack of continuity then you will
probably start but only over a short
amount of time whereas if you have the
continuity and the discipline but the
lack of motivation then you have a lot
of potential to start but you probably
won’t because you’re not seeing the
benefit out of it and if you have a lack
of discipline you will probably start
but you end up with not eating meat
three out of seven days so you won’t
totally stop now my panic disorder was
one of those seismic events in life
where you actually have a before and an
after and I made these hidden
psychological processes automatisms
visible and by that I was able to break
out of bad loops and create good new
routines and find the way to my inner
balance some of these routines they
stuck with me and others weren’t
vanished but that’s okay I would love to
give you a step by step recipe to tell
you what you have to do to do the same
but it’s up to you to find the right
combination of what works and what
doesn’t stress is really subjective if
you only feel if you’re telling yourself
you’re stress or if you’re actually
suffering from an enormous amount of
stress it has the same consequences and
if it’s stop drinking coffee watering
your flowers or meditating for fifty
minutes each day that makes you a lesser
stressed and happier person
that’s up to you now I could only touch
this surface here of what it means to
overcome a panic attack and what it
means to establish new routines but it
is my deep hope that you have learned a
thing or two today on how to break out
of bad ones and how to create good ones
whether it’s the hamster wheel or the
vicious circle of anxiety most of us
have been trapped in one of these loops
if you constantly seek to change
yourself itself might become a new
routine [Applause]