Anxious thinking

The surprisingly spiritual tale of one man’s journey through heart palpitations, catastrophic thinking, and a forgotten banana.

Let me take you on a little journey, one that begins in a perfectly ordinary kitchen, winds its way through a cardiological anxiety spiral, and ends with a peanut butter–smeared revelation. This is the story of how I mistook hunger and dehydration for imminent cardiac arrest, and how mindfulness (plus some decent lunch) pulled me back from the brink.

Because let’s be honest: nothing screams “modern male in midlife crisis” quite like panicking about your heart after skipping breakfast and doing a sweaty Tabata workout in 27-degree heat. Welcome to my brain.

The Warning Signs (Or So I Thought…)

It all started innocently enough. I was having one of those days, you know, the kind where you wake up thinking you’re going to crush life, but instead end up being crushed by it. I had just come off a string of active days, was running low on sleep, and decided to do a savage workout anyway because, obviously, that’s what your body needs when it’s already depleted.

Somewhere between burpee number 84 and the final mountain climber, I felt that familiar little thud in my chest.

Palpitation.

Harmless, maybe. But to the overthinking mind, it might as well be Morse code for “this is it, goodbye loved ones.”

Now, I should say I’ve been down this road before. Years ago, I went through a bout of fairly consistent palpitations that turned out to be, drumroll, nothing. The doctor, who I’m pretty sure had a side hustle in sarcasm, told me, “You’re healthy. You’ve just got a dramatic heart.”

But years later, even knowing this, every time it happens I’m somehow convinced I’m minutes away from being memorialised in a very moving social media tribute: “He was always a bit weird but made good pizza.”

Enter: Catastrophic Thinking

There’s a very specific kind of thought spiral that happens when you feel something unusual in your body. It's not like regular thinking. It's turbo-charged. It bypasses all logic and races straight to the worst-case scenario.

Mine went something like this:

1. That’s weird. A little flutter.

2. Probably just dehydration.

3. Or maybe I’ve got some rare athlete’s heart condition?

4. Wait—didn’t that one footballer drop dead mid-game?

5. This is it. Goodbye, Whitney. Tell Bodhi he was a good boy.

And while I was spiralling into obituary territory, my stomach made a noise not unlike a distant bear groaning in a cave.

Oh. Right. I hadn’t eaten. At all.

Unless you count a rogue banana and two leftover chicken wings at 10am. Which, for a 6’3" man with the metabolism of a Labrador, doesn’t really cut it.

The Missing Link: Mindfulness

Now, this is where the magic happened, or at least, where things started to get interesting.

You see, I teach mindfulness. I live and breathe sourdough, patience, presence, and noticing what the hell is actually going on in your body. So you'd think I might have had the self-awareness to go: hmm, maybe my nervous system is freaking out because I haven’t given it anything to work with all day.

But no. Because mindfulness, like fibre, only works when you actually remember to use it.

So there I was, pacing around the kitchen, heart fluttering, catastrophising in one brain hemisphere, rationalising in the other, when a rare moment of clarity slipped through the cracks.

I stopped.

Literally stopped.

Put my hand on the counter.

And breathed.

Not a dramatic, yogic, “I-am-Zen” breath. Just a human breath. The kind that reminds you: hey, you’re alive. And probably just a bit hungry.

And that’s when I made the sandwich.

The Sacred Sandwich

I won’t lie, it was nothing gourmet. This wasn’t a slow-fermented sourdough with truffle oil and locally-foraged radish leaves. No. This was a supermarket wholemeal slice, peanut butter (the crunchy one, obviously), and some squishy banana pieces I found clinging to respectability in the fruit bowl.

But dear reader, I ate it with the reverence of a monk sipping sacred tea. I chewed slowly. Felt the texture. Noticed the salt, the sweetness, the way the peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth like an edible meditation bell.

And I kid you not, ten minutes later, the palpitations stopped.

Not faded. Not “reduced in frequency.” Stopped.

Science, Stress, and Sandwiches

This isn’t magic. It’s physiology.

When your body is under-fuelled, especially after exercise, your blood sugar drops. Your nervous system freaks out. Your heart tries to compensate. If you’re also dehydrated, hot, anxious, or just generally not paying attention, you’re going to feel the effects. Palpitations, dizziness, foggy thinking, irritability. All things that, if you’re a recovering hypochondriac like me, feel exactly like death.

What I learned (again) that day is that mindfulness isn’t just about noticing your breath during a meditation session. It’s about catching yourself in the act of spiralling. It’s about asking better questions.

Not: “Am I dying?”But: “Have I eaten today?”Not: “Is this heart failure?”But: “How much water have I had?”Not: “Should I call 999?”But: “Would a sandwich help?”

From Panic to Presence

One of the greatest tools mindfulness gives us is the ability to pause between the sensation and the story. The story in my head was that I was unwell. But the sensation was just a flutter. It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t dizzy. I could breathe. I was just… panicking.

And that’s the wild thing: when we add fear to a perfectly manageable sensation, we create suffering. When we remove the fear, even just for a second, the body can start to self-regulate again.

It’s not always that simple, of course. Sometimes the symptoms do need medical attention. And if you're genuinely unsure, always check.

But most of us, most of the time, are simply overwhelmed. We’re juggling stress, expectations, lack of sleep, too much coffee, not enough food, and a deeply embedded belief that something’s about to go terribly wrong.

And into that circus comes mindfulness, not as some airy-fairy escape, but as the one thing that brings you back to reality.

The body speaks. Mindfulness helps us listen.

What I’ve Learned (Besides “Don’t Skip Breakfast”)

So here’s my takeaway, no pun intended:

1. The body whispers before it screams. Pay attention to the early signals,hunger, thirst, tiredness. Don’t wait for the palpitations to hit.

2. Catastrophic thinking is addictive. It gives you the illusion of control. Mindfulness breaks the cycle by asking better questions.

3. A sandwich can be spiritual. Honestly. Eat slowly. Notice what happens. It’s basically enlightenment in a crust.

4. You don’t have to believe your thoughts. Just because your brain yells “we’re dying!” doesn’t mean you have to listen.

5. Pausing is underrated. A single moment of conscious breathing can derail a whole freight train of panic.

   
   

The Final Palpitation

Later that day, after my mind had quieted and my blood sugar was safely back in “human” territory, I went for a gentle walk with Bodhi. He sniffed a bin, I sniffed the air, and we both took our time. It was like we were two monks walking back from the monastery. Except one of us peed on a tree.

Life didn’t feel so dramatic anymore. My heart was fine. I was fine. And I made a little vow right there and then:

Next time I think I’m dying, I’ll have a sandwich first.

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