Psychology Today: 5 Proven Techniques to Deal With Panic Attacks

"Panic is a runaway fear reaction that hijacks the body and mind. It’s driven by our fight, flight, or freeze response, which is powered by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. If you’ve had panic attacks, you know how terrifying they can be.

Certain situations tend to trigger it more often, including:

• Driving on a bridge
• Being in a crowd
• Grocery stores
• Movie theaters
• Restaurants
• Airplanes
• Elevators

What do these situations have in common? In each of them, it would be difficult or awkward to escape in the event of a panic attack.

Rigorous research studies have shown that mindful cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for panic. The goal of CBT is not to make sure that panic never happens again. That would be unrealistic since panic by nature is unpredictable and hard to control. Moreover, trying to avoid panic actually makes it more likely that we’ll have a panic attack, like trying not to think of a certain word, and then it’s all we can think about.

The following five techniques form the core of mindful CBT for panic;

1. Take Calming Breaths

The breath is tied directly to the nervous system, and slow, even breaths are generally calming. Focus especially on slowing down the exhale, which has the biggest effect on the parasympathetic nervous system—the antidote to the sympathetic system. Inhale for a count of four, and exhale for a count of six (or longer).

2. Let Go of Resistance

Panic is an overwhelming experience, so it’s easy to understand why we spend a lot of energy trying to push it away. But resistance to panic tends to exacerbate the symptoms while being willing to panic can actually make it less likely. It’s as if by saying “yes” to what we’re feeling, the brain understands that there’s no emergency after all and shuts off the alarm

3. Question Scary Predictions

Panic usually shifts our thoughts toward expecting the worst. If we’re driving on a bridge, for example, we fear that panic will cause us to crash through the guardrail and plunge into the water below, or we believe that the tightness in our chest isn’t panic but a heart attack.

Panic-related thoughts tend to exaggerate:

• The likelihood that something bad will happen.
• The severity of how bad the outcome would be.

If you’ve dealt with panic for very long, you have probably noticed that these panic-related fears generally don’t come true. They might feel true at the moment, but a part of us can see that our fearful thoughts are not accurate.

4. Bring on Physical Sensations

Bodily sensations like a pounding heart or dizziness can become associated with panic; as a result, we may start to avoid activities that bring them on, like exercise or vigorous sexual activity.

In CBT for panic, we deliberately trigger panic-related physical sensations. Example exercises include hyperventilating (lightheadedness), breathing through a straw (shortness of breath), spinning in a chair (dizziness), and jumping jacks (pounding heart). With repeated practice facing these sensations, we learn that we can tolerate them, and they become less frightening.

5. Gradually Face Feared Situations

Finally, effective treatment involves exposure to the places and situations we’re afraid of because of panic.

In CBT, we start with mildly challenging activities to build our confidence and work progressively to more difficult ones.

We can use all of the preceding tools as we’re doing exposure: coming back to the breath to focus our energy and help us to move through our fear; dropping resistance as we open to the possibility that we may experience a fear reaction; challenging thoughts about bad things that might happen, and facing the possibility that we’ll have some uncomfortable physical reactions.

We don’t have to let panic control our actions and shrink our lives. I have seen these tools enable people to get back to things they had been avoiding for months or years. As we practice techniques that help us face our fears, we can reclaim the life we’ve been missing out on.

Read the full article here!

#PanicAttacks #Coping #MentalHealth