Here are 3 great panic attack tips to help stop your next panic attack, and the more you use them the better control you will have to overcome your panic attacks.

These attacks come seemingly out of the blue, especially the first one, and they are very frightening. They feel like you might even be dying as the sensations going through your body mimic the symptoms of a heart attack… and a feeling of inexplicable fear becomes overwhelming.

What do you do when this happens?

Apply these three great tips as often as you need to reduce the severity of the attack and decrease the frequency till they are no longer an issue.

Firstly, let us have a look at the ‘make-up’ of this phenomenon:

What is it that brings them on? Stress is an underlying cause, but the majority of the time it is the fear of losing control that initiates the attack, so it is vital to learn how to treat them with the view to eliminating them so that you can live your life as you choose.

The horrible thing about these attacks is once they are established they ‘take over’ your life and doing normal everyday activities becomes extremely difficult or impossible in those circumstances. And the more of them that you have, the more you are going to have because now you live in fear of having another one and that in itself causes more to happen. It becomes a vicious cycle and the only way to stop them is to – stop the cycle! Take out one aspect of the whole experience and it is diffused.

The feelings these attacks produce are varied but do include – an extreme non-specific anxiety, sense of dread, fight or flight syndrome to name a few…

Panic attacks are not rational, so really, that means the thoughts behind it are not real, it is just the mind going wild on the ‘what-ifs’ and then the anxiety takes over.

So in order to treat panic attacks successfully control needs to be restored, and this is done by learning to control the emotions and knowing the difference between fantasy and reality.

Tip #1:

To stop the flight/fight syndrome stay grounded in the here and now. To do this, start by looking around you and taking note of where you are. By doing this you are focusing on what is real. For example, say you are at home in your lounge, sitting on the couch – feel the couch, look at the other items in the room, look at the time, ‘ground’ yourself where you are, this is real, you have control over where you are and you know exactly what is happening at this time. Know that you are safe, this place is familiar and comfortable.

Tip #2:

Think of another place where you have been and even though you cannot see that place right now because you are not there, you also know that it is real, that it exists.

Think about family members and when their birthdays are, say the alphabet out loud backwards… stay focused on something that is real and that you have control over. (The important thing here is not to think about things that MIGHT happen, stay in what is real.)

Tip #3:

Time out your panic attack. Give it one minute, watch the clock for one minute and then move on, you have given your panic attack enough time and now that it has had ‘it’s time’, you are going to do something else now. The trick here is to act confident that you have beaten the attack, you have now ’shut it off’ and you are going back to what you were doing. (Similar to when a child has a ‘tantrum’, you give them a limited amount of time to express it, and then they stop it. Perhaps it is your mind having an outlet in the form of a ‘tantrum’…)

Tip 3 is probably going to be hard to get into the swing of doing, but it will get easier as you train your mind to follow your ‘orders’.

(The subconscious tells the body what to do, and the conscious mind tells the subconscious what to do.)

These 3 panic attack tips will help you regain control and help you end the negative affects these attacks have on your daily routine.
They can help you regain control so that you ARE the one who is in control, and help you stop – once and for all – these unexplained and uninvited experiences that scare you half to death.

Talking to others who have found a way to deal with their anxiety or panic attacks, is a great way of finding out what else works!