Tips for Preventing Panic Attacks
If you’re suffering from panic disorder or even severe anxiety, you know how diffilcult it is to manage in everyday situations. Sometimes when you start to feel anxious and the adrenalin starts to flow, its like a snowball effect and you feel nothing can be done to prevent it.
However if you follow these tips for preventing panic attacks, you should be able to manage to cope with the attacks in the short term. Of course, these tips just represent a way to deal with the attacks.
If you want to learn how to completely rid yourself of panic and anxiety, try the guide in the link below.
>>Click here for Advanced Panic Attack Help<<
Breath
The first tip for dealing with panic attacks and even suppressing them before they happen is to focus on your breathing. You’ll probably read this advice wherever you look for tips for preventing panic attacks, and that’s because it’s the number one thing you can do. When you find your adrenalin levels rising, simply become aware of your breathing and make it very slow and very deep. This technique sends a message to your subconscious that you are relaxed and in no danger. Your conscious mind relays the signal to the unconscious and it responds by stopping the release of adrenalin because it believes everything is fine, and you should start to feel the worst of the anxiety subside.
Distract Yourself
While you are focussing on your breathing, be sure to distract your mind at the same time. Taking your mind off your anxiety will break the loop and help with getting you back on the level. There are a variety of ways to distract yourself when you feel an attack or episode of extreme anxiety coming on:
- Observe: Look around you, focus on mundane objects, count people as they walk by, try to estimate people’s height and weight. It doesn’t really matter how dull your observations are. You’re just using them as a distraction to take your mind off the irrational fears that it is perceiving.
- Talk: If you are in company, engage with the people around. Don’t go into a shell. I don’t mean talk about your panic or anxiety. Talk about the weather or a football game or what was on TV last night. Ask them a question and really focus on what they are saying when they answer. This is another way to distract your mind from doing what it wants (sensing danger that isn’t there) by making it do what you want (talking to a friend or colleague)
- Run: This option isn’t always available but if you’re at home and you start to feel the anxiety rising, jump into your sneakers and go for a jog for 10 minutes. Exercise is one of the best long term ways to deal with stress and anxiety and it also has great short term benefits too. As well as changing your environment from the one which you began to feel anxious in to one where you can distract yourself with new sites and sounds, the act of running and getting exercise releases endorphins in your body which actually reduce anxiety levels through chemical reactions in your brain. A free, home-made, anti-anxiety drug!
- Affirm: The last tip I have for suppressing your anxiety is to try some affirmations. Again, this is a way of making your conscious mind force information into your unconscious which it will act on. Pick 4 or 5 positive sentences and say them aloud to yourself, or write them down on a piece of paper. They could be something like: ‘I am in total control of my feelings and my physical health is exceptional’. Make sure they are positive statements and not things like ‘I’m not going to die’, as the subconcious can have difficulty zoning in on ‘not’ statements and these may actually increase your anxiety.
Remeber, all of these tips for preventing panic attacks are just coping mechanisms and not long term solutions. You will need a more detailed and structured self help guide if you are to truly rid yourself of anxiety and panic disorders.