It’s not easy to reprogram our brains, but understanding how and why panic attacks happen can help us manage them.
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Do you often have anxiety? I am not talking about the small anxiety that everyone gets from time to time in their life, but the one that makes your life a living hell. Are simple activities or actions a real challenge for you sometimes? For example, does the idea of taking the metro, sitting in a cinema, or simply staying in a queue at the supermarket make you feel anxious?
All that, because you know that when you are actually in those situations, meaning surrounded by other people, your anxiety gets more intense; to the point of having difficulties to breathe, feeling a big acceleration of your heart rate and making you want to urgently leave that place?
In your mind you are convinced that something terrible is going to happen, like passing out, having a heart attack or even dying. If this rings a bell, then you are experiencing what we call panic attacks.
I know this because I have been struggling with panic attacks on a daily basis for 6 years. But I’ve learned how to manage them, and today I am a happy man who can live his life without being worried to be in total panic wherever he goes.
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I know that because I have been struggling with them on a daily basis for 6 years of my life. In my case, I was not afraid to pass out or have a heart attack; I was afraid that I would vomit in public. This fear appeared suddenly 9 years ago when I went to my dentist just after eating lunch, and almost vomited in my chair. Then went to school, and because I was still feeling sick, I felt terrified all day that I would vomit in my class. That never happened, but the fear remained there, haunting me every time I’d go out to crowded places.
And although there’s a specific reason why I was afraid at the time, now I know that this fear was linked mainly to a lack of self-confidence during that period of my life.
Even if the final fear (to pass out, vomit, or have a heart attack…) might be different for each of us, the process of our thoughts is the same. Doctors tend to regroup all those fears under the same word: agoraphobia, meaning the fear of the public places.
During the last 3 years, I have been learning a lot about the management of anxiety and panic attacks. Even if today my body is still reacting automatically to some places, I am able to calm it down easily without arriving to a horrible panic attack. Today I am a happy man who can live his life without being worried to be in total panic wherever he goes. Actually, I don’t even remember the last time I was in this state of emergency. Can you imagine this for yourself?! If I have succeeded to overcome those panic attacks, you can do it too, I assure you!
To help you, here are 5 key points that will explain how you can improve your life and decrease your panic attacks, and in the long term your anxiety.
1. Understand what is happening in your body under anxiety and during a panic attack.
You need to understand firstly what is happening inside of your body and how stress is created; because once you understand that, you’ll accept it more easily and know better what to do to decrease it.
People who have agoraphobia (fear of crowded places, where they can’t escape easily) will in some situations such as a crowded metro, a concert or a supermarket… see their body reacting as if it was a real situation of danger. Like in the jungle when you meet a tiger, your instinct will make you choose between two actions to survive: fight or flight.
We need to understand that this happens to us because of our personalities, which are by nature more sensible, some stories of our past that touched us deeply and our need to control our life perfectly.
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For people with anxiety (fear that something happens) and panic attacks (anxiety at its worst level), it is the same, the metro is the tiger. A crowded place will make their body react in order to “survive” to the situation, which is considered a danger. We need to understand that this happens to us because of our personalities, which are by nature more sensible, some stories of our past that touched us deeply and our need to control our life perfectly. Those are the main characteristics of someone with anxiety.
How does your body react to survive? Adrenaline is released in the body in order to act faster, have better reflexes and diminish any potential pain (if the tiger bites you). In more detail, adrenaline makes the heart pumping more blood in order to give more oxygen to the muscles and brain to make them “stronger” to fight or escape rapidly. The breathing increases consequently to bring enough oxygen. The digestion will stop because it’s considered useless on this moment of emergency. Everything in the body is programed to have the best performance to fight or flight. However, in front of a tiger, you don’t have time to think about all those symptoms inside of yourself, while in the crowded metro or at the concert, you tend analyze more those disagreeable sensations and that makes you afraid that something like vomiting, dying or passing out, could happen.
Therefore we need to understand the process our body is going through, before trying to manage our anxiety correctly. It’s always easier to recover from something that we understand than fighting the unknown. To do so, you want to read, follow programs and find people who had the same struggles, to feel better about the idea of having a panic attack.
2. Take Action
Most people with anxiety want to stay in their comfort zone (read home) in order avoid any panic attacks. But in this case they don’t live anymore.
But really, if you take your courage in your hands and never give up on trying to keep going with activities, you will be in the long term more and more used to this feeling of anxiety. You will manage it better and mainly won’t be afraid to do new things, and consequently your life will be much less limited.
After a time, the chance that it really appears will be really low, but if it does anyway, you know much better how to react to it, thanks to all this experience you have gained by going out and facing your fears.
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So if you force yourself to go out of your house and of your comfort zone as much as possible, you will see great results. Don’t expect to have zero panic attack while going out, because if this happens, you will be depressed and disappointed of yourself afterwards and won’t be able to go out anymore. Just allow yourself to go out and agree with the fact that maybe one panic attack might appear and even if it’s not pleasant on the moment. It is much more worthy in the long term to have tried again and again to fight it and finally diminish it, eventually getting to the point where you won’t even think about it anymore.
Then, your life will be so much more fulfilled because your body got used to never stop trying new things even if you know that a panic might appear. After a time, the chance that it really appears will be really low, but if it does anyway, you know much better how to react to it, thanks to all this experience you have gained by going out and facing your fears.
What to do when you have anxiety?
3. Recognize and Accept
Those two first steps are the key to a better management of anxiety. We want to know what’s happening in our bodies, and then try to go out of our comfort zones as much as possible.
But then when anxiety actually hits you… Everything starts from recognizing and accepting its presence.
When you feel that your body is reacting to a certain situation, like a crowded metro, with the symptoms that your heart is pumping faster, your breath is quicker and this feeling of escaping the situation arises, you need to firstly recognize that this anxiety starts. This is your body that reacts to something that you don’t like and trying to actually protect you from death with a solution to survive: adrenaline.
Your goal now is to reprogram your brain by telling it there is no need to be afraid in those situations. And to do so, you need to work on your inner voice.
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Once you recognize it and know what is happening to you, the next step is to accept it, meaning that you don’t go against it because it would make the situation worse for you and bring still more anxiety in the moment arriving to a panic attack. Keep in mind that those symptoms will appear automatically in some places because they have been programmed in your complex brain suddenly one day, since it thought that there was a danger.
They are actually not against you, but with you in order to make you survive! Except that your body does not use this survival reaction at the right time. Your goal now is to reprogram your brain by telling him that there is no need to be afraid in those situations. And to do so, you need to work on your inner voice.
When you feel your body starting to react to a situation:
1) First thing you do is telling to yourself: Okay, I am in a situation that my body doesn’t like and that’s why I’m feeling all these sensations in my body right now. I recognize it. I know that I am getting anxious right now because of…. (the crowded metro).
2) I accept that this moment is going to be a bit difficult for me right now, I am not going to blame myself for having that because it’s normal to react like this for me (because I am a person that is really sensitive to those symptoms, kinds of situations, external factors.
4. Breathe correctly!
Breathing is a natural thing that we do unconsciously. But when it comes to the subject of the anxiety, the breath needs to be a bit more conscious to decrease this sensation of suffocation and consequently avoid an awful panic attack.
When we breathe normally, the oxygen comes in and out naturally. When we do sport, our breath accelerates because more oxygen is required to feed the muscles. But what few people know is that when we get nervous and anxious, it is quite the same! Our muscles also need more oxygen in order to fight or flight. Therefore we start to breathe faster.
To breathe correctly under anxiety, we need to take long and deep puffs of air in the lungs in order to give a signal to the brain that there is no need to stress here. Tell him to relax. Even if our heart is pumping like crazy and asking for a lot of oxygen, if we somehow force the breath to be quiet and deep, the body will quickly relax. So next time you feel stressed, anxious or getting into a panic attack, start being conscious of your breath and control it into deep and calm puffs of air through your belly.
5. Talk to yourself positively.
Most people think negatively when they have a panic attack. They are sure they are going to pass out or vomit or even die! And all those negative thoughts make everything worse!
But if you start talking to yourself in a strong positive way (like you do to your best friend or a child), you will make your life much better. Indeed, when your body reacts to a situation towards which you are personally sensible, after recognizing the anxiety moment with the symptoms and accepting them, you need to start to talk nicely to yourself! That’s actually the most difficult part and your biggest job in this whole adventure.
Most people think negative when they have a panic attack. They are sure they are going to pass out or vomit or even die! And all those negative thoughts make everything worse!
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You cannot control your body to not have those symptoms in certain situation because your mind is kinda programed now to find the situation as a danger. To reprogram that, you will need many years of experiences, activities and going out of your comfort zone in order to make your body understands that there is no danger in those situation, so no need to have adrenaline.
So if you practice all the time, at the end your body won’t even react anymore. Till then, it will react and your job will be to get used to talk nicely to yourself and arrive to the point that you will have the automatic symptoms in a certain situation, but you won’t fear them and make the situation a hell with negative thoughts. Thinking negatively will make the situation worse because when your body reacts, you think that it’s gonna kill you, your body reacts one more time with more adrenaline because of that negative thought, you feel still worse, you think still more negative, and at the end you have a huge panic attack which makes you feel like this is the end of the world. Interesting fact, the only thing which is a bit more intense than a panic attack is an orgasm!
So if you start feeling the anxiety, start talking positively:
- Take it as an opportunity to practice.
- Don’t try to control it, let it come.
- The sensation lasts often a maximum of 30 minutes, then you get used to it. So just wait, it will pass.
- Use exaggeration: Whatever happens (pass out, die, vomit), it’s gonna be OK. It’s gonna be fine, you will survive, it’s normal to be anxious seeing your past “trauma”, I am confident enough to keep moving forward if something happens.
- It’s only your body that reacts, but no real danger, let’s breathe slowly and deeply.
- I am not afraid to have this anxiety and the symptoms in this situation.
- Use humor on that moment in your head or even thinking about sensual things help to switch from fear to desire.
- Focus on the positive in the situation. Relativize it.
- Imagine the end of the anxiety, this makes you feel already better.
- What‘s happening is natural, it’s just your body thinking that there is a danger.
Then the anxiety will pass much faster and in the long term you will be less and less afraid to do unusual things because you are more confident about how to manage anxiety. Plus in the long-term your body will not even react anymore to those situations (no symptoms anymore).
Be patient and courageous while implementing those 5 ideas. Step after step, you will see the amount of panic attacks reducing. Nothing is easy when it comes to reprogram the brain, but I assure you that it is totally worth it if you want to improve the quality of your life. It does not cost anything but a bit of action and motivation. Keep going, the end of the dark tunnel is closer than you think.
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Photo: Vincepal/Flickr