My Panic Attack Solution

do your panic attacks happen almost daily?
can they ever go away?
how do you cope with them?

my panic attacks sometimes scare me to the point where i dont want to be alone. i physically hurt and i am afraid of what is going on with my body to the point where i think all about my past… like, THIS incedent is what is causing my chest pain, THIS is why my veins seem big or hurt… etc. normal?

I suffer from the exact same problem. Randomly throughout the day i would/still do become overwhelmed with anxiety. My heart beat increases, and then i notice that and it fuels on itself and develops into a panic attack that leaves me pacing around and embarrassing myself… Trust me i have been there. Your panics attacks can go away if you know how to anticipate them.

Mine became so bad i went to a cardiologist to get my heart checked, and i went and got blood drawn because i thought i had a brain tumor from anxiety headaches.

Your fear of being alone is agoraphobia. It is very common.

Anyways, to stop a panic attack, breathe in very deeply and hold it for a few seconds and then breathe back out deeply and slowly. Repeat this for a few minutes and think of yourself in a very peaceful location. For some reason, an empty church works best for me. Im not even a religious person… Its just the thought of me entering this great large structure that is completely empty and talking to God is very peaceful and calming to me. Try it, it really does help.

Also, i recommend going to a psychologist if it becomes so bad that you cannot cope with it and it is affecting your everyday life, like it was mine. I now take xanax xr every day. It stops the anxiety from occurring in the first place so i can continue with my life, uninterrupted. Before medicine, try other techniques though.

I really understand what you are going through and it is very very tough. Be strong, and do not let it take over. Talk to a few people you trust and are close to if you need help with it. I wish you the best of luck.

What is your best way for coping with an attack?
I take lorazepam/ativan when I get really overwhelmed and I can’t sleep because of my disorder..
How do you calm yourself down?

I exercise regularly, I eat a vegetarian diet and I’m a very healthy eater..
So, none of the exercise and eat right stuff.
It helps, but I’m already doing it..
Any new ideas that could help..
Please..
Thank you so much..

I get anxiety attacks too.
What usually helps me is breathing through my mouth then out my nose. Get a cup of water and take little sips every once in a while.
You just have to try and not hyperventilate too much because that could cause you to faint.
Well i hope this helped! It always helps me! (:

What are the best ways to cope with panic attacks when flying? I literally got on a plane w/ my mom & my sister this morning, and completely freaked out, told the flight attendant I did not feel well and got right back off that plane (it hadn’t taken off yet of course). It really didn’t help that we were sitting for about 1/2 hour in a tiny plane waiting for the crew to de ice the wings. I just started feeling really light headed, pulse quickened, and thought I need to get off this plane NOW!! The majority of the fear was what if something happens to ME during the flight (stop breathing/faint/have a heart attack/etc) not about the plane crashing. I have a chest cold right now so that didn’t help either, worrying that I would start coughing & not be able to stop/etc. Anyways, I want to overcome this & go join my family on the rest of the vacation, and my husband even agreed to fly with me (even though the thought of spending a week with his sister in law & mother in law, and cancelling an ice fishing trip with his buddies, doesn’t really thrill him), and I feel fine NOW. But what if I panic again? What are some techniques people use to overcome this?
and to add – Medications actually make me more panicky (worry about how they will affect my body in the plane, etc) so I’m looking for non medication ideas

Go to this website:
http://www.fearofflyinghelp.com

Lesson one in particular covers anxiety and panic attacks, and not only those that come from a fear of the plane crashing; it also mentions that some people have a fear of having a panic attack on a plane where they can’t get help. Look through all of the lessons; at the end in particular is a printable list of breathing and relaxation exercises, and numerous times it is mentioned that it’s okay if you have a panic attack, a panic attack cannot harm you, and you have to remind yourself of that.

I am ready to move, once again. But I have horrible nightmares and panic attacks about my flight. Does anyone know how to cope or overcome fears or flight or panic attacks. I also continue having horrible nightmares in which my family is put in danger. I’m just lost, confused and scared to move (in both physical senses, if that makes sense). Any advice welcome.

If you want to reduce stress and anxiety watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPcb3eMS6s
the Lil jack method works wonders

please give me some advise???

panic attacks are from anxiety. You need to decide if this is something you want to live with because although it can be controlled somewhat with meds, if he is that ill he needs to see a counselor or psychiatrist.

i find that before i get anxious and feel like im going to havea panic attack i tend to ruminate a lot and just let my mind wander, so what i do when i get annxios is focus on something, but something concrete not vague ideas, so i stat counting backwads from 100 over and over until i feel less anxious. is there anything wrong with this approach?
well it works for me inthe short term but im just wondering if there are any possible negative effects

I think if this works for you then that’s awesome. I notice when I feel anxious or aboout to panic if I redirect my mind to something else I calm down much faster. I tend to hold something cold or run my hands under freezing water because its the only thing ill focus on. I say if this helps you then keep doing it!

i find that before i get anxious and feel like im going to havea panic attack i tend to ruminate a lot and just let my mind wander, so what i do when i get annxios is focus on something, but something concrete not vague ideas, so i stat counting backwads from 100 over and over until i feel less anxious. is there anything wrong with this approach?

There is nothing wrong with this approach if it helps you! Different things work for different people, and if letting your mind wander and counting back from 100 helps you decrease your anxiety then you should stick with it.

You might want to read up on other techniques for coping with panic attacks like deep breathing, cognitive restructuring, etc. Deep breathing involves taking a long, deep breath for 3 seconds, holding it briefly, then letting it out for 3 seconds. By stabilizing your breathing you get enough oxygen to your brain, slow your respiration and heart rate, and basically stop the physical signals that tell your brain to panic (the fast heart rate, rapid breathing, etc.)

Cognitive restructuring involves re-thinking the things that make you anxious. It is a method where you take apart your thoughts and say, "Okay, this makes me anxious, why? Is there anything anxiety-provoking or dangerous about the nature of this? Am I in any danger? Will this harm me? Then why am I afraid of it?" You learn how to "think your way around" your fear, and eventually stop the panic. This is best done with a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). If you are having repeated panic attacks then I would VERY strongly suggest you look into therapists in your area who do CBT. It has been a life-saver for me, literally.

Good luck!

I have suffered from panic attacks and anxiety for along time now and Im just wondering how other people cope with them..besides from taking medication…how do you deal with it??What do you do when you feel one coming on? Any advice would be great.

Advice from a clinical psychologist is to breathe in to the count of 3: (one thousand one; one thousand two; one thousand three) each takes around a second to say to yourself, in your mind, and out to the count of 3.

View http://deeplyrelax.com & www.deepsloweasy.com/html/intro.htm Note: the controlled breathing only helps with the symptoms, as do medications/herbal remedies. Address the underlying cause, which requires some form of therapy; see your-mental-health.8m.com, below, re anxiety, on pages H, & I. Imagine that the cause of your panic; your anxieties, fears, your self doubts, self recriminations, all the agonizing "I’m-so-Stupids"; every painful "I-can’t-do-it" are huge raging, hurtful bulls snorting and charging at you. You see them coming at you and you hold out your red matador’s cape at arms length and simply let them charge right by. Every time they come at you, hold out your arm with the red cape and let them rage and snort and go right on past. Some people recommend nettle tea, with a little honey. Others use Lavender tea, Lemon Balm, Chamomile, but use no milk or cream with herbal teas, or Valerian (caution: use it for 3 weeks at most!). Know how these affect you before driving, or doing anything dangerous, and it is far better to use the treatments, rather than relying on herbal remedies. Free online PANIC COURSE – www.panic-attacks.co.uk also available by email. See the section on panic attacks at www.mind.org.uk also Ebooklet form. They recommend letting a panic attack run its course, without doing anything to treat it, so you KNOW you will survive it. The usual maximum is 30 minutes, until symptoms begin to subside.

Also see www.anxietypanic.com/signs.html
and http://www.onestepatatime.com (chatroom, and one free email is allowed to their resident expert on joining [free] – more if a paid up member) and www.medicinenet.com/panic_disorder/artic… and www.squidoo.com/controlpanicattack/modul… and http://panic-attack-over.com and http://www.anxietynetwork.com Practice a relaxation method, daily, and when needed, such as http://www.drcoxconsulting.com/managing-stress.html or http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/mindbody/a/Meditation.htm or http://www.wikihow.com/Meditate or Yoga Nidra, (a series of easy mental exercises only; no flexibility required) at http://your-mental-health.8m.com/blank_11.html

I was wondering if anyone had any good advice relating to this – I am 24, male, 33” waist, fairly healthy active live style I don’t really drink (2-4 units a weeks at most). I have been checked over by two doctors – I always like a second opinion (trust no one!) and I was assured by both that there was nothing wrong and these ‘palpitations’ were merely panic attacks. How they know this from a quick listen on the stethoscope I don’t know! But these episodes are particularly scary – I have had 3 in the last 4 months! I will probably go back to the doctors again! My main issues now though are:

a) What are the best things to do at the onset of an attack?
b) How can I stop worrying about the onset of another panic attack or fear of death on a daily basis?

I would like to explain what happens when an attack comes: I am usually sitting still, watching the television or just lying in bed usually somewhere where my mind isn’t occupied allowing me to think only about myself or body. So I am sitting there quite quietly and comfortably, no exercise, no stress and boom my heart seems to beat or pound just once but furiously! It feels like it’s ‘gulping for blood’ or maybe beating in very quick succession and then my heart starts to beat normally again, at least I then have no more sensation of my heart beating weirdly – I sit there and I already I am trying to convince myself that it was nothing, a one off, you are fine and then 10 seconds later it will pound again. This is what they describe as palpitations I believe and I feel no pain I might add. I now start to feel a sensation of adrenaline pumping through my veins. I then start to panic and already I am starting to convince myself that something is wrong I might be dying and this is a heart attack and I start to mentally prepare myself for the one big bang, chest pain or shooting pain up my arm. I feel like Jason Bourne must feel, at this moment there is nothing on my mind and nothing can enter my mind apart from the situation and getting out. I can’t really listen to people talking to me trying to distract me, I hear them and they will ask questions but it’s like I am impatient my mind tries to block them out or part of me is really struggling to answer them quickly. I feel a great sense of urgency to leave the room and go to a heart monitor I have on an exercise bike to check that my heart is still beating at a normal pace. I need some form of technology or even someone professional to tell me that I am ok. The heart rate monitor is usually the worst thing to do but I can’t help it! My heart rate will be around 90bpm and then I start to panic even more as my heart rate is usually around 72-82bpm and I believe this is high, so it will then rise again to around 100bpm. I just don’t know what to do, my instant goal is to try and get the panic out of my mind, I feel sick and believe that the cause might have been my dinner so I throw up. I try and jump in the shower. I lie down, I stand up and I can’t do anything for any great length of time. There is a feeling of complete urgency to get somewhere!

During this entire episode my mind is constantly racing and I am trying desperately to convince myself that nothing is wrong with me. I feel like my mind is battling against itself and my thoughts would sound something like “You are fine, you are fine, relax, breath, it’s just a silly panic attack, relax…” to “ok your fine, wait it’s doing something again, what’s going on? This isn’t right, you are going to faint soon” back to “The doctor has checked you out you are fine”, “God another palpitation!” It seems to run around in circles. I even fear about the breathing to heavily as I know that if you take a deep breath you will make your heart work faster and when it does beat faster my mind believes that the attack is getting worse.

I believe these attacks and daily fear/anxiety is affecting my personal life somewhat as it is not only the panic attacks themselves which usually last for about 20 mins and then maybe a 2 hours calm down mental re-preparation stage but I seem to be living in daily fear that one will come back – it never affects me during the daylight.
When a panic attack comes it seems that there is absolutely nothing that I can do to divert the attention of my mind from the panic attack. My mind goes into a permanent loop as described above and even when I have successfully managed to calm myself down it doesn’t stop. I realise that I am not going to die and then I start evaluating myself, is my heart beating normally again? Back to 72bpm yes! So I am ok but then any slight twitch seems to set me right back off again. I struggle to sleep sometimes after a panic attack worrying that it will come back or I might die in my sleep but when I wake up I feel completely and utterly fine again and the problem or worry doesn’t come back.

I have been to see two doctors as I described above one GP and one in an A&E department (ER), both doctors took m
my blood pressure and listened to my heart – the A&E department (ER) even gave me an ECG heart monitor and said that my heart was completely fine – which of course they would! I was surprised both times by there almost instant diagnosis and speed to say you are fine! I was worried that they may have missed something but later I was just more annoyed that they didn’t suggest anything to fix the problem. I think I will keep going back until they give me some form of medication or advice about how to stop these stupid panic attacks.

I have read numerous articles not blogs or people’s opinions and they are usually quite helpful in explaining things and quite often this is the only thing that I can do to put my mind at ease from the panic attack itself and then from there I can start concentrating on something else. I am sure that the problem steams from some form of psychological issue and I believe that these two items below help me to understand my personal problem.
1) My Girlfriend showed me a picture of a work college that died aged 24 from a drugs related overdose (cocaine). A city worker! The guy in the picture that she showed me I believe looked a lot like me! So from that moment on this has had me worried. I am told that this shouldn’t concern me as I have never tried cocaine (I do not intend to try either) died in his sleep.

2) My Grandmother (86) died last August from a heart attack in her sleep but she had a bad heart for twenty years.

They both died in their sleep from heart attacks so perhaps this can help to explain why my fear is heightened at night. You can also see that my situation is not like the above two people and any rational person can also see that too, I can see that but my mind still won’t accept that it can’t happen to me. I think my anxiety steams from a general fear of death.
These worries and fears have been constantly on my mind for the last 5 months. This does seem to affect me in the following ways – I try not to exercise for fear that this will set off a panic attack. I try not to drink alcohol, I try not to eat too much, I try to avoid conflicts or stressful situations, although I am not your quiet/timid person.

I have also been told by my mother that she had palpitations 10 years ago and it past off after 6/9 months and furthermore these panic attacks always seem to happen at my family home which is really strange as this is the place I feel the safest, maybe that’s why they happen! If you do have any advice whatsoever or ways I can clear my mind during a panic attack that would be most helpful. I tried to be as descriptive as possible to put other people’s minds at rest while reading this.
I did read something “go to the toilet (where it is quiet) and cover your nose and mouth with your hands or paper bag and breathe in and out, this regulates the over-oxygenation process you’ve created and helps calm this down.”

dude been there ,know exactly how your feeling so liston to me your body is not the problem its your brain man .theres a powerful 4 letter word stuck in your head called "fear" it can make you very compulsive at dwelling on anything that makes you afraid .im sure deep inside you ,you know what your afraid of and dude dont worry about your heart ,there about 1000 times stronger than you think .write down and take a good look at what your doing with your life right now think of somthing your passionate about weather its a sport music love hobby or work pick one start aiming for it and put yourself into it 100% what im saying is doing things that give you pleasure or fullfilment create the release of indorfins in the brain thats the feel good chemical .now that chemical is produced from another chemical called seratonin this one is responsible for giving you all sence of logic mental well being happyness .if you through yourself into doing somthing you love your not inside yourown head were fear lives .when your lying by yourself and you have a fear of anything negative just barges its way into your head but if you make it your new gospel in life to use that time to think obout somthing different your going t do the next day you auto relax .when the good chemicals get a chance to flow you will find pease of mind . i used to be haunted by panic attacks they stoped dead for me when my son was born ,way to bussy to be thinkin about things that dont matter .about 4years ago the last one i ever had i did somthing my doctor told me to do guess what that was "do nothing" i mean nothing focus your eyes on somthing and just let it happin knowing it cant hurt worst possable case is ye pass out for like 30 seconds the bodys way of venting and resetting ,and je know what i let all the sensations come over me without tring t do anything about it .the panic attack left me quicker than if i were to stop it and i was left feeling chilled out they cant hurt you a few tips get at least 8 hours sleep drink about 8 glasses of water a day avoid coffey go to a healt shop and buy high strength omega 3 great for ballance in your brain and also get a good multivitiman because vitiman b plays a big role in the brain producing seritonin .unfortunatley for people like me or you alcohol is a major no no any drug specially hash will put ye in a nut house

I have been feeling depressed by what i went through and have overwhelming anxiety at times. Until now i had never had these types of feelings.

As hard as it is, you have to not allow things to get out of proportion. A panic attack won’t kill you. I know, when I was having panic attacks, that I thought I was going to die. That’s just what it feels like when it’s happening, but panic attacks won’t kill you. No matter how bad you feel – just remember that it will pass and you will survive and it’s not your fault. You aren’t weak or stupid. It’s just a medical condition and it’s one that you can overcome.

Find coping strategies and study techniques, if you google it, you’ll find loads.

One thing that helped me was walking my dog. I used to panic when I was walking down the street on my own, and I used to panic that people were staring at me or that I was ugly and that everyone was looking at me and thinking how ugly I was or something.

But I started taking (my parents) dog out with me when I went out and when the panic was starting I used to bend over and pet the dog and talk to him and it was like I was drawing attention away from myself, which made me feel better.

My thing was that other people could see that I was anxious and panicking and when I’m concentrating on the dog then I felt like they didn’t notice that my hands were shaking or that I was avoiding eye-contact with them.

It doesn’t have to be a dog, it can be a newspaper or something. Just something to pay attention to you so that you can compose yourself without letting anyone else see that you’re feeling anxious.

Please do google, panic attacks, or anxiety attacks. You’ll find lots of coping strategies to get you through this.

And Good luck. You’re obvously intelligent and determined to help yourself or you wouldn’t have asked this question in the first place.

You take care…