Doctors have been suggesting panic attack treatments to their patients for decades, and the distress of anxiety and panic disorders ensure that sufferers will do their best to try them out when they feel an attack approaching. But do these methods of coping really help?
Typical panic attack treatments used to calm oneself during an episode can be illustrated with a familiar scene:
There you are, standing in line at the grocery store, just another errand in an ordinary day. All of sudden, you begin to feel a familiar and distressing pressure in your throat, and you start breathing short, shallow, gaspy breaths. Tightness begins growing in your chest, making your heart beat in an erratic rhythm. You realize exactly what is going on, because you've felt it all before. And the more you dread what's about to happen, the worse the symptoms get. However you may plead with the powers that be that you might avoid this, you have no doubt that in a few seconds you are going to lose control completely and fall into a panic attack. Your only hope is to start putting into practice those damage control techniques you've been taught.
The first of the panic attack treatments you've been told to try is deep breathing exercises. You focus on breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth. You try to think relaxing thoughts, but it doesn't seem to have the positive effect you're hoping for. Just the fact that you're concentrating on breathing makes you feel more embarrassed and stressed out.
The second of the panic attack treatments you try out is gradual muscle relaxation, another physical intervention. You tense your shoulders, holding the tension in for several seconds, and then relax. You do it a second time. A third time. Why isn't this working? Your stress increases as you realize that this isn't working, and coupled with the knowledge that you're running out of ideas for how to cope, your fear begins to get the better of you.
Finally, you pull out the last of the panic attack treatments in your arsenal. Running for your life. The adrenaline is coursing through your body, and when the fight didn't work, the flight was all that was left. You are convinced that this is the worst case scenario, you're going to finally go crazy for real, right there in public. Your only option is to get away as fast as you can, and at least save some shreds of dignity before the end.
Ten minutes, thirty minutes, maybe an hour later, your panic has subsided. But you still don't have your groceries.
While there may by differences in physical and emotional feelings, intensity levels, or circumstances that trigger and attack, what's described above is likely very familiar to those who live with panic and anxiety attacks. The conviction and fear that something terrible is about to occur is very real, very intense, and very overwhelming. It may be small comfort to the sufferers, but the fact is that they are by no means alone. It's been estimated that something like 5% of the population are dealing with anxiety disorders in some form.
It seems that all those panic attack treatments that have been passed around for so long aren't really having the positive effect desired. So what does work? No one wants to live with stress, and medication isn't a happy solution. Can't a way be found to halt a panic attack in its tracks, before it even gets going? It would sure beat trying to cope with one after it starts, using useless techniques, wouldn't it?
In fact, it is possible to end the cycle of panic attacks. It involves a method of curing the fear by facing it head on. Deep down, we all know that the only way to overcome a fear is to turn and face it - if we continually run from it, it will only follow us. It may seem paradoxical, but the most effective of all panic attack treatments is to welcome an attack, even to hope for one to come.
You begin to shift the balance of power in your favor when you choose to embrace a panic attack, rather than fight to push it away. Soon, the panic no longer controls you; you control your panic. Making the conscious choice to induce a panic attack results in the increasing impossibility of one actually coming on. You'll learn that you can look your fear in the face and spit in its eye. You may understand intellectually even now that panic can't hurt you, but when you finally receive this truth deeply and emotionally, you will have truly gotten your life back. - 16890
Typical panic attack treatments used to calm oneself during an episode can be illustrated with a familiar scene:
There you are, standing in line at the grocery store, just another errand in an ordinary day. All of sudden, you begin to feel a familiar and distressing pressure in your throat, and you start breathing short, shallow, gaspy breaths. Tightness begins growing in your chest, making your heart beat in an erratic rhythm. You realize exactly what is going on, because you've felt it all before. And the more you dread what's about to happen, the worse the symptoms get. However you may plead with the powers that be that you might avoid this, you have no doubt that in a few seconds you are going to lose control completely and fall into a panic attack. Your only hope is to start putting into practice those damage control techniques you've been taught.
The first of the panic attack treatments you've been told to try is deep breathing exercises. You focus on breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth. You try to think relaxing thoughts, but it doesn't seem to have the positive effect you're hoping for. Just the fact that you're concentrating on breathing makes you feel more embarrassed and stressed out.
The second of the panic attack treatments you try out is gradual muscle relaxation, another physical intervention. You tense your shoulders, holding the tension in for several seconds, and then relax. You do it a second time. A third time. Why isn't this working? Your stress increases as you realize that this isn't working, and coupled with the knowledge that you're running out of ideas for how to cope, your fear begins to get the better of you.
Finally, you pull out the last of the panic attack treatments in your arsenal. Running for your life. The adrenaline is coursing through your body, and when the fight didn't work, the flight was all that was left. You are convinced that this is the worst case scenario, you're going to finally go crazy for real, right there in public. Your only option is to get away as fast as you can, and at least save some shreds of dignity before the end.
Ten minutes, thirty minutes, maybe an hour later, your panic has subsided. But you still don't have your groceries.
While there may by differences in physical and emotional feelings, intensity levels, or circumstances that trigger and attack, what's described above is likely very familiar to those who live with panic and anxiety attacks. The conviction and fear that something terrible is about to occur is very real, very intense, and very overwhelming. It may be small comfort to the sufferers, but the fact is that they are by no means alone. It's been estimated that something like 5% of the population are dealing with anxiety disorders in some form.
It seems that all those panic attack treatments that have been passed around for so long aren't really having the positive effect desired. So what does work? No one wants to live with stress, and medication isn't a happy solution. Can't a way be found to halt a panic attack in its tracks, before it even gets going? It would sure beat trying to cope with one after it starts, using useless techniques, wouldn't it?
In fact, it is possible to end the cycle of panic attacks. It involves a method of curing the fear by facing it head on. Deep down, we all know that the only way to overcome a fear is to turn and face it - if we continually run from it, it will only follow us. It may seem paradoxical, but the most effective of all panic attack treatments is to welcome an attack, even to hope for one to come.
You begin to shift the balance of power in your favor when you choose to embrace a panic attack, rather than fight to push it away. Soon, the panic no longer controls you; you control your panic. Making the conscious choice to induce a panic attack results in the increasing impossibility of one actually coming on. You'll learn that you can look your fear in the face and spit in its eye. You may understand intellectually even now that panic can't hurt you, but when you finally receive this truth deeply and emotionally, you will have truly gotten your life back. - 16890
About the Author:
Susan May needed a medication-free solution to panic attacks, one that would really work. She finally learned how to eliminate anxiety and panic attacks once and for all, and you can too. Visit her site at Panic Attack Pain and reclaim your life, just like Susan did.
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