What To Do About Panic Attacks

If you have any form of anxiety disorder, you definitely need to know what to do about panic attacks. I hope you never have one, but if your do you’ll find that a panic attack causes intense distress, both physical and emotional.

Ongoing panic attacks completely destroy a person’s quality of life. They limit what a person feels comfortable doing. If they aren’t stopped, they severely restrict a person’s activities.

There’s a lot of information about panic attacks on this site. Here I want to give you a quick summary of what to do. You can find more detailed information on other pages.

There are two overall goals: to avoid a panic attack if possible and if not to minimize its severity.

First Step Is a Check-Up

When you first experience anxiety problems you definitely need to get a thorough medical check-up.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that some diseases can cause symptoms like those of a panic attack. You need to be sure that you don’t have a heart or thyroid problem or something else.

The other thing this check-up does is give you peace of mind. Knowing that you’re healthy can alleviate the fear that occurs during a panic attack, at least to some extent.

Another good thing to do is to find a support group, either on or off line.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of comments I’ve seen on some forums.

Even if you don’t use any of the advice, just seeing that other people have difficulties similar to yours is helpful. Actually, a lot of times I’ve read about people that have been in much more distress than I ever was.

Seeing that helps you keep perspective.

Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing

I also recommend that you go to my page A Breathing Technique To Help With Panic Attacks and Anxiety.

You will learn how to use you diaphragm to breath deeply there. Breathing like this is good for you in general and sends messages of relaxation to your body.

Diaphragmatic breathing usually isn’t enough to end a panic attack by itself but it’s part of the answer.

The Relaxation Response

You can also visit the pages on the relaxation response and follow those instructions. It will take a little more practice to get good at eliciting the relaxation response, but it’s well worth the effort. You can learn this from a therapist, online or even a book.

A Therapy to Use and One to Avoid

I believe cognitive restructuring is the best form of psychotherapy to deal with panic attacks. That’s only my personal, non-professional opinion, but a lot of therapists use it very successfully.

It also has the advantage that it is possible to learn it on your own.

Personal opinion again, but I recommend you stay away from operant conditioning therapies. Some therapists seem very insensitive if not outright cruel in the way they use this approach.

Medications

Finally, may benefit from short term use of medications. For most people it will only be short term – a matter of weeks to months. But they can be of great benefit during that time.

Learn How to Prevent Attacks In The First Place

Of course, what you really want to do is to address the underlying cause of the panic attacks and defuse them of their ability to seemingly overwhelm you. I’ve found a technique that is extremely effective at doing just that.

I encourage you to read my review of this program at the page Panic Away Review.

I hope you now have a better idea of what to do about panic attacks.

May you never have another.

The Panic Puzzle system really works!

Check below for more information:

Panic Puzzle