Post 5: Part 2: Apparently if you are anxious you are a witch.

O’Reilly’s national convention which consisted of over 7000 people will easily be an intimidating event for many people. Executives, presidents, directors are all there watching the thousands of employees attending and it can be a very stressful situation. As in the previous post, I covered how many patients were hypertensive and mentioned that obesity was a common figure amongst the people.  Many other patients came to us saying they were not feeling well as they were facing stress and anxiety due to the grandeur and presence of the convention. We saw signs and symptoms of mental breakdowns, trouble breathing, elevated heart rate, and those who were obese had elevated blood pressure along with chest pains.

 There was not one patient I cannot highlight as they all had the same symptoms, and our team used the same methods to calm them. One method was used was guided breathing which, was very effective as it was able to get their heart rates under control and more relaxed. If they had low oxygen saturation in their body, we would give them oxygen but luckily, we did not have to do that for anyone. Other methods we used for those who had nausea with anxiety was we offered emesis bags and we also let our patients smell alcohol wipes as it helps with nausea. Overall, there isn’t much to be done for anxiety in a pre-hospital setting unless the patient’s condition worsens to a panic attack to where they stop breathing or go into cardiac arrest. However, there is a deep history about anxiety and stress on its effect to the body throughout history. Every era until the modern era interpreted anxiety differently.

  In the Early Renaissance era it was believed that those who had anxiety and were woman were accused of witchcraft. Anxiety tends to let people act a bit ‘hysteric’ and people overthink, leading to possible outcomes that actually happen. This led many people to believe that anxious woman could see the future and would be used as evidence to accuse them as witches. Having the label of being a witch during this era meant execution and rarely people get away with just torture. In the Victorian Era woman who had anxiety were just labeled as crazy. Many women had a life of just living inside as a homemaker and not able to be employed. This often led to different behaviors as they felt imprisoned and were sent to an asylum. Victorian Era asylums were also not very helpful as their main treatment to combat anxiety was electroshock therapy. During the American Civil War those who had anxiety were thought to have ‘irritable heart syndrome’ due to the shortness of breath and heart palpations. Treatments during this time would have been opium and alcohol. Without any explanations we can see how those two methods of combating anxiety will never work. It wasn’t until the 1980 that the term ‘anxiety disorder’ was created and was officially recognized in America. Soon after this, medicine was developed to help people with anxiety. Many ancient practices that were used such as meditation and prayer are also now commonly used to combat anxiety.