Even though my emotions were switched off after my stroke stroke, my mind wasn’t so awareness was ever present to every twinge or tingle or pain. But because of my emotional shut down, I had a chance to better able to analyse and rationalise just as you have listed above.
Now that emotions are switching back, its even more fascinating for me.
I can be happily sitting reading a book/watching tv and I will suddenly start to worry or feel anxious maybe even a moment of panic, and I wonder what the heck that was in aid of😅
So then I go through my mind to see if there was anything I’m meant to be concerned or worried about. Usually there’s nothing. So next I wonder what I may have consumed that could have triggered that attack, it may have been that carmel latte at Costa I today while out that spiked my sugar levels or the caffeine in it that’s raised my blood pressure a bit.
People do forget that what they consume can also trigger these emotions of stress, anxiety, panic and depression as well as the more positive motions. And it can be easier to track down to what you’ve consumed if these emotional episodes are on and off, if you go days or weeks even feeling just fine.
And once that negative emotion is awakened it needs something to feed off of in order to keep it alive. And the freshest food from us is our stroke! If that’s not sufficient it try something or create it’s food from nothing, it can just look at the telly and feed off that, the local gossip. If it’s desperate enough it will find food anywhere. To starve it out, you have to distract yourself. If you know this emotion has no grounds for being then you can easily get rid of it, it just takes practice!
The physical feeling when these emotions come on, the sensations of it, usually sit in the stomach, chest and the back of the throat, well, it usual does for me, and of course the head. To ease these sensations, take a deep breath in and blow out into an imaginary balloon a couple of times or however many it takes to rid yourself of that sensation.
At the same time, go do something else, because whatever you were doing gave it too much to fester and feed. Distraction is always the key. And this site is great for that, even I use it for that reason. Reading about and helping others with their real issues soon has me forgetting about my sudden bout of unexplainable anxiety. And even if know the root cause i.e. costa coffee, then I’m usually on here long enough for it to wear off and the negative emotion dies.
The mental process for doing something else has a whole new process to follow, like a train having turn around and go down a different track, it takes some doing. So the mind is freshly occupied with the new task in hand. That in itself may be enough to forget the anxiety, the panic or whatever, long enough to die. Poor short term memory can be an advantage for that too 
But I always practice these techniques even the emotion does have grounds for being. Nine times out ten either nothing can be done about it or it’s out of your hands, so all you can do is ride it out. So it’s a good practice to fall back on for those times; and I’ll do anything to keep my blood pressure down 
Which brings me on to another root cause for these emotional spikes and blips. Is your blood pressure, and medication for it, being managed correctly. Panic attacks, anxiety, depression, mood swings, migraines, dizziness, etc, can all be brought on by high or low. Blood pressure is a viscous cycle, stress can be what brought on your high pressure and stroke, but high/low blood pressure can also trigger anxiety, depression, etc. It can be both the cause or the result of it!
Top of my mental check list (mentioned above) are to check both my blood sugar, as I’m type2 diabetic and blood pressure. They are so part of my routine I forget to mention them here, they’re just something I do so regularly anyway.
So if anyone has not questioned or had them checked to see whether they are working for you or not since you were put on them, then I’d advice you see your GP to review them and tell them why. It could be that they need to be increased/decreased or switch to a brand that works for you.
Lorraine
