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Learning how to deal with the panic attack

The sensations of a panic attack have to be felt to be believed, which is why so many people are dismissive of those who are unfortunate enough to suffer them.

Coping with Panic
Although scary to the person who experiences them, they cannot kill nd there is a great deal that can help to get rid of them, including some self help methods which are surprisingly effective.

There are a huge number of symptoms, though few people experience all of them. They can include:

• Dizzy or giddy spells
• Visual disturbances of various types
• Sweating profusely
• Tachycardia (extremley rapid heart beat)
• Hyperventilation (over-breathing)
• Hot flushes
• Odd sensations in legs and arms - feelings of turning to jelly
• Shaking or trembling
• Breathless feelings
• Clammy palms
• Diarrhoea
• Vomiting and/or Nausea
• Feeling Paralysed
• Whole-body tingling
• Feeling numb
• A feeling of a creeping scalp or other skin sensations.

The one that has been deliberately left out of that list is the one that is the most distressing of all - FEAR

Even though the person suffering the symptom(s) knows absolutely logically that there is not really anything to be frightened of, the fear still builds up to unbearable levels. The knowledge that it is irrational actually tends to make it worse, in fact, and anybody who imagines that it is simply a matter of 'pulling yourself together' is illustrating that they have not the vaguest idea of what they are talking about. The fear is REAL - and it matters not that it is being generated by the nervous system for no real reason.

There are two specific ways in which the panic attack is self-genearating and self-sustaining:

• As soon as an attack has subsided, the sufferer begins to wonder just how long it will be before the next one strikes and are absolutely convinced that it will be even worse than the last.
• Body Chemistry - a surge of adrenaline, nor-adrenaline, cortisol and other chemicals flood the blodstream as a result of the fear intitiating the fight/flight reflex. This abrupt change triggers the autonomic nervous system to speed up breathing in order to ensure a faster oxygen exchange in the lungs - and this causes the heart rate to increase in order to keep pace. The increased heart rate is noticed by the 'victim', who translates the cuase as fear, which triggers a surge of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline...

Once this has happened, the imagination kicks into play and this produces an overwhelming certainty that something absolutely terrible is imminent - and at that point, any logical approach to the situation is pointless. When it comes to a conflict between willpower or logic, and imagination, abstract imagination will win hands down.

Preventative measures
Gaining an understanding about the reality of this sort of attack is a huge step forward in the struggle to deal effectively with panic attacks and is perhaps the best preventative measure available.

• Recognise that it is nothing more dangerous than that the fight or flight response has been triggered in error. It is designed to protect you and is therefore an evidence that your body is working perfectly.
• Recognise that although it feels frightening, no actual harm will come to you as a result of an attack
• Recognise the self-cycling manner in which the attack works so that you can often avoid it getting worse once it has started. Keep focussed on what is rather than what you fear
• Recognise that it's not a permanent state however bad it gets - it WILL pass
• Recognise that the body and mind actually cannot sustain any feeling indefinitely, whether it's good or not so good. Whatever you feel always fades with the passing of a little time - it does have to stop eventually

It's an interesting thing that those recognitions, taken on board, can help enormously and it is a fact that once you have managed to get one panic attack under control, it gets progressively easier as you gain confidence. The next one will be easier still, improving your confidence still further, and so on. There other preventative methods and a few are listed here:

Therapeutic Strategies

• Medication Some of the newer medications can work so astonishingly well that you might end up wondering if there was ever anything wrong in the first place
• Analytical Therapy This sets out to discover why the attacks ever started to occur and can be amazingly effective.
• Cognitive Therapy a relatively modern style of therapy that can work well when the attacks are moderate
• EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). One of the 'meridian therapies' which more often provides a control rather than a cure
• Hypnotherapy This takes various different forms and can provide permananent relief in a high number of cases - Find out more

Self Help

If you have ever felt that you or your body were totally 'out of control' during a panic attack, you were quite wrong! It's your own body that's doing this, not somebody else; it's your own subconscious mind that is creating the irrational fear, so it is actually you who is controlling it. It might well be the case that you are not controlling it in the way you want to but that's partly because you have been practicing the wrong thing... you've practiced panicking instead of relaxing.

Here a few suggestions to help you make changes to the way you approach dealing with an attack:

• Breathe easily
  Probably the most effective way to get control of a panic attack is to control your breathing, since it is the easiest element of an attack to control by thinking about it. A good method is to breathe all the way out and hold your breath 'out' like that for several seconds before breathing in again s-l-o-w-l-y. Relax as you breathe out again and imagine that there is a feather right in front of you that you dont want to disturb, not even a single strand. Concentrate on breathing like this for a few moments and the heart rate will begin to slow down and the blood chemistry will gradually correct itself.



• Don't fight
  Some people can get on well with a quite radical method: simply don't bother to try to control it any way at all but just sit down and observe your bodily reactions, while wondering just how long your subconscious will be able to keep it going for. Be interested, rather than anxious - as long as you trust that no harm can come to you, this is actually quite easy, certainly easier than you might think. It's not unusual that as soon as the decision has been made to just let it run its course it instantly subsides.



• Exercise it away
  'Use it and lose it' is the best way to describe this method. It can work well, simply because the body has been chemically preparing for running or fighting and so discharging the chemicals with pretty much any exercise can work wonders. Some people actually experience an urge to physically run when they feel the beginning of an attack so this method is really going along with the natural responses. Jogging or running on the spot works well, as will anything that would normally make you warmer and breathe harder than usual.CAUTION: This method is for those individuals who are reasonably physically fit.



• Visualisation
  Visualising or imagining a tranquil scene such as a calm lake surrounded by mountains and mist-covered hills on a quiet summer evening; lazing by a pond watching fish swimming lazily in and out of lily pads; floating on air and just driftng without a single care in the world; laying gazing up at a clear blue sky with absolutely nothing to do; lazing around on a beach on a tropical island somewhere, gazing across the ocean to a distant hazy horizon; listening to the sound of a gently trickling waterfall... images like these have been shown to produce a calming influence on the mind and you can probably think of others that might work even better for you. Make it truly vivid in your mind so that it becomes a 'VMI' - a Vivid Mental Image. Once you've created it, it will be there whenever you want to find it.



• Self-hypnosis
  Probably one of the best methods of all, self-hypnosis might condition your mind to dealing with the panic attack so easily that your subconscious no longer bothers to start one off in the first place.
  
  You can find out more about hypnosis and self-hypnosis here - and if you prefer to find out even more, you can download a professionally written 7 Lesson self-hypnosis course from www.hypnosense.com