Treating Panic Attacks is about calming down an overactive mind and is not a “mental health” issue. Click here to learn how Panic Attacks can be cured naturally and within a matter of hours – without the need for drugs or months of therapy. This post looks at how to Stop Panic Attacks.
Many suffer panic attacks
If you suffer panic attacks you’re not alone – in fact many people suffer panic attacks. Nor does having panic attacks mean that you’re going crazy (even though sometimes that’s just what it feels like).
One of the most awful things about panic attacks is feeling out of control. Symptoms include feeling dizzy, feeling that you may faint, tightness and difficultly breathing and a racing heart. Often people worry that they may be having a heart attack – which of course just makes things worse.
Not being able to control the attacks makes them all the more worrying. When will the next one come? Where will you be? Will you be able to cope? These worries can help make the next attack a self-fulfilling prophecy. Panic attack sufferers often feel that there must really be something wrong with them. Everyone else can get on with their lives, but not them. Some worry they are going a bit crazy.
The reality is that around 1 person in 20 suffers panic attacks (National Institute of Mental Health figures). This may even be an underestimate, because lots of people either don’t get properly diagnosed or don’t seek treatment.
It’s often a great help just to know that you’re not alone, but that is only a first step to treating panic.
Panic attacks: not a “mental health” issue
The next step is to understand that, while it’s hard to believe, panic attacks are actually a natural response to events in our lives and that you’re not going mad.
Panic attacks are the result of the body’s “fight or flight” mechanism being triggered. Usually a person’s first panic attack is caused by something particularly stressful or during a particularly stressful period in their life.
The problem is that the sub-conscious mind has overreacted to a perceived threat. It triggers the “fight or flight” mechanism to protect us. In the past this might have helped us escape from a saber toothed tiger. Unfortunately, our minds aren’t good at telling the difference between a build up of day to day stress in our lives and a life or death situation.
And once a person has had one panic attack another is more likely, as the mind may react to “triggers” that remind them of the original attack. For example, your first attack might have happened while driving. It wasn’t necessarily the driving that was the real cause – more likely the stress had been building for some time. But your mind remembers that you were driving when the attack happened and links the two. Now driving has become a “trigger” for the next attack.
Stop panic attacks
Being aware of this can be another important step in treating panic. To fully overcome panic attacks, however, what’s needed is a treatment that breaks the cycle of attacks.
The amazing thing is that the treatment is so simple. It interrupts the “fight or flight” hijacking of your brain while it is actually happening, which immediately puts you back in control. Within a few days this technique can be used not only to control panic attacks, but to stop them before they have even begun.
The problem with traditional “coping” mechanisms is that they focus on controlling the physical symptoms of panic attacks such breathing and not on what’s happening in our minds. Yet this is the wrong way around. The physical symptoms flow from our mental state and not the other way around. If we can control what is going on in our mind therefore, we can control what is going on in our bodies.
So how do we do this? The trick is to engage with the panic attack rather than trying to fight it. This may sound counter intuitive, but it works!
Remember that a panic attack is a reaction to a “perceived” threat. The reality is that we are not actually in danger even though we think, feel and act like we are.
Once you realize that there is no “real” danger you can then focus on the experience you are having. Instead of feeling terrified become an objective observer of what you are feeling. Notice the feelings and sensations as they wash over you. By “observing” instead of “fighting” these feelings you reduce rather than increase the level of stress and conflict in your mind.
The process of observing is crucial because what it does is engages your rational mind. Normally during a panic attack the emotional mind takes over and controls you until the symptoms have run their course. The rational mind is nowhere to be found!
By turning yourself into an objective observer you allow your rational mind to function. It’s very difficult for the emotional mind to dominate if you are thinking rationally, so what happens is that the panic attack symptoms will start to fade away.
This allows you to overcome the panic attack quickly and naturally. As soon as you realize you can do this your chances of another attack are immediately reduced, because you know you have a new ability to control them. And quickly, often within a few days, this observation technique will allow you to stop a panic attack before it has even begun!
Recent Comments