Nerves

[sourpuss]

I think he did a lot of trying to figure out where the anxiety was coming from. Then they did a lot of positive visualizations and relaxation exercises.

I'll have him post from my account so he can explain it to you.

[sourpuss]

Ok, this is Amy's friend posting now. I'll explain what I dealt with. First of all, I don't have any really bad anxiety disorder in day to day life. Outside of boxing I've never had real extreme anxiety or nervousness in my life. With me it felt like I was throwing up even though nothing was coming up. And also, just to correct the record-my first two fights I had anxiety in a bad, bad way. I got RSC'd in one round in both of those because I was pretty much dry heaving in the ring. After the second time I saw a therapist and we started working on relaxation exercises; abdominal breathing and visualization and Socratic reasoning to help overcome the irrational nerves. I overcame it pretty well in my 3rd, 4th, and 5th fights where I didn't have full blown panic attacks, but I Still got nerves and gagged, for lack of a better term, once a fight or so. After that I had two more fights where the anxiety resumed, for no apparent reason that I could see. One of them was understandable, because I didn't do the breathing exercises beforehand and got kind of overwhelmed by my opponent (he was a southpaw who was crazy aggressive), and it happened in the 2nd round. But the other time truly made no sense. It was a rematch against the guy I had fought in my 3rd fight, a guy I gave 3 standing 8 counts to and who, by all accounts, I should have zero reason to be nervous about. So I went back to the drawing board, continued working on visualization; etc, but realized the way I was doing the breathing wasn't working for me and if anything might be making me tenser. So I worked that out but also went to my doctor, who as Amy said, prescribed me a Beta-Blocker, an extremely low dose of it. For all I know it could just be a placebo and be proof of mind over matter, but it works for me. I don't feel wound up and I'm much, much more relaxed before I box, which helps a lot. I don't even get the gagging feeling and now I'm able to improve in leaps and bounds because I'm more able to focus on fighting rather than having the worry in the back of my head that I might have a panic attack. Not only that, but it's helped me reach a point where I'm comfortable and excited to be in the ring, rather than nervous, and so I'm much more desensitized to a live fight environment with a crowd, etc. So that's my story. I also usually pop a few Tums before I fight to help settle my stomach down, because that's how it always manifested for me-like I was throwing up, so this keeps my stomach acid from churning and making me feel queasy.

[Youngblood]

Thanks for sharing that, Amy's friend.

That is some intense nerves, that I really have no comprehension of. What I do believe, is that it is a testemant to your will that you went through that and continued on be it for love of boxing or to overcome it in itself, and that it speaks volumes about your character. I honestly don't think I would have kept going.