How to Stop a Panic Attack, Part 2

In the first part of How to Stop a Panic Attack , I gave some basic tips on how to stop a panic attack by consciously controling both your physical response and stopping your panicky thoughts.

Now let's go to the next steps.

Thought Replacing to Stop a Panic Attack

Stopping the inaccurate thoughts helps a lot.

The next possibility is to replace the distorted, panicky thoughts with more accurate thoughts. Knowledge comes into play here as well.

For example, as a panic attack starts to take hold your pulse starts to race as your heart pounds.

In the past, you’d start to hyperventalite and think thoughts like “I’m having a heart attack!” or “I can’t take this! _ I’m dying!”.

Now, you know your heart is fine – your doctor has checked it out, maybe even put you on a treadmill for an (accurately named) stress test.

You also know you’ve had these spells before and survived them. And you know why you’re having the symptoms – some adrenaline got released when it wasn’t really needed.

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With that knowledge you can choose some more accurate thoughts. Thoughts like: “This feeling of panic comes from hormones, not from any danger here.” Or “I’ve felt this before and nothing bad happened. It will probably be like that again.” Or “Isn’t interesting to see how I respond to this situation and how I can take control.”

The more accurate thoughts not only are more soothing, they replace the anxiety generating thoughts you’d otherwise have.

And they’re true. If you’re having a panic attack at the thought of giving a speech, it’s not true that you’re going to die. It is true that your stress response is in hyper-drive for no good reason.

You can’t think two different thoughts at the same time so if you’re thinking a calm thought you can’t be thinking a panic thought.

If you have a prepared thought that your conscious mind accepts as true, you’re in an excellent position to use that thought to replace the panic thought you stopped in the thought stopping step.

Barring that, even thinking a nonsense thought can help.

There’s technique called brain switching for dealing with severe depression. The crux of it is to have an meaningless, neutral mantra (“green frog”) that the person suffering from depression uses to fill their mind rather than the depressed thoughts they usually fall prey to.

It’s challenging commitment, especially at first, but people have dramatic results using it.

Observing and Allowing

Another approach to stop an anxiety attack is to adopt the role of a witness.

Rather than react and fight against the panic attack, just allow it. Don’t get caught up in it or fight against its symptoms, just allow them.

People who succeed with this approach report that when they stop fighting, they find that nothing is there. Their distress was internally generated by their fear and resistance, not anything outside themselves or “taking them over”.

Of course, such detachment is easier said than done.

Some find it helpful to adopt the pose of an observer watching themselves. Some like to imagine they’re looking down on a scene of themselves, others imagine it as if they’re watching a movie.

In either case, they witness the situation in their minds eye as if it’s a film or happening to someone else. They see the physical location and situation and any people present and witness the response they’re having.

Somehow the fear is no longer something that’s going to overwhelm them. It’s a response that woman on the screen is having to something that doesn’t really justify it. Isn’t it interesting how she's responding?

Summary of How to Stop Panic Attacks

Having read part one and two, you now have several ideas of how you can stop a panic or anxiety attack before it spirals out of control. There are other methods, but this is a good start.

Remember, though, that stopping a panic attack is more or less first aid. The long term goal is to get to the place where panic or anxiety attacks just don’t come up at all. That’s an ambitious goal, but one you deserve to reach.

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