Panic Attacks

I would like to talk to you about panic attacks today. Those of you who have never experienced a panic attack might still find this post helpful for future reference. Of course I hope you will never need it, but who knows.

For all of you who are familiar with panic attacks either in a mild stage or in its most extreme form, welcome. I sincerely hope I can encourage you with this post and give you the confidence to fight each future attack before it can break out properly.

Personally, I have experienced one major attack a few years ago and many many lighter ones after that. Even today I can feel the panic creeping up on me from time to time.

Here is what I have learned from my own attacks and from other people who have suffered from this:

1) If your attack is so severe that you feel like you cannot breath anymore, lie down and close your eyes and let your body take over. In this state of extreme fear your brain will ensure that your body receives enough oxygen even if you are failing to breathe normally. Its our body's protective army that takes over when we are failing, it regulates your breath, your heartbeat and makes sure you stay alive. So don't think that you will die, your body will always take over and keep you safe.

2)After your first attack, it's not the actual situation you're in that triggers your next attack. Its the fear of another attack that makes you so anxious that you have another attack. Crazy right? Tell youtself that you can handle each attack just fine, that you're safe , and you will help pevent another attack!

3) NEVER, and I really mean NEVER give in to your fear and let it control your behaviour.
If you are out with friends and you feel an attack coming, breathe through it, distract yourself by talking to your friends. DONT go home and let the fear win.
Also, don't avoid social contact or leaving your home. If you let the fear win, you feed it and make it stronger each time.

4) Work with my TRUST exercise which I have spoken about in an earlier post. Trust in your ability to withstand the urge to run away from or avoid potentially dangerous situations. You are in control!

5) Turn your fear into anger! As mentioned before, focusing on how annoying it feels to be so fragile is extremely empowering.
You will not tolerate this any longer!

I hope this will be helpful for you in some way. Let me know, I always like to get some feedback!

Turning Fear into Anger

We often find that fear surrounds us like a cage, we cannot do anything else but focus on our fear. We cannot escape, sometimes we cannot even speak anymore. It's paralysing.

Fear is one of our most powerful emotions. So how do we break through this cage? How can we regain control of our emotions and of our life?

One very effective and simple way is to turn your fear into anger. While fear is strong and paralysing, anger can be equally as powerful and, in fact, empowering.

If you find yourself caught up in your anxious thoughts about losing your job, replace your fear with the anger inside you that is screaming: I am sick of being afraid, I am bored of feeling so weak, I have had enough!!

We all have access to our inner strength, the inner power centre which is bigger than any fear. I have found that focusing on your anger about your situation is a very powerful tool in escaping the cage of fear.

Beliefs

Another central aspect of fighting anxiety and a negative self-image is the close analysis of your belief system.

You might not be aware of your underlying negative beliefs about yourself and the world/people around you; however, they strongly influence your daily ability to deal with stressful situations. In fact, they determine your actions and thus the direction your life is heading toward. Better get those beliefs right!

Get many smaller pieces of paper /one big piece of paper and tear it into smaller pieces. Write down your main beliefs about yourself and about the world, everything that feels fundamental. If you are unsure what your beliefs are, start with your fears. You will find that your underlying fears stem from a similar belief. Here is an example.

Fear 'I am afraid of getting things wrong/embarrassing myself'

Your underlying belief could read like this:

'I am only loved/accepted by others if I succeed' or 'I can only love myself if I succeed'

You get the picture. Once you have written down what feels like a fairly complete collection of your major fears/beliefs, I want you to turn each piece of paper on its back and rephrase the sentence into a positive belief.
'I am only loved/accepted by others if I succeed' could be rewritten like this: 'I am loved unconditionally by my family and friends' or 'Other people already know I am not perfect, and they still love/like me'

Read these new phrases out to yourself on a daily basis, before you go to bed might be a good time. Once again, repetition is the key here. You will find that these new belief-phrases will pop into your head from time to time when you attempt to draw from your usual thought patterns. The more you consciously decide to replace the old with the new, the more they will actually replace self-damaging pattern with new, empowering feelings.

You are beautiful, You are safe, You are in control.

Trust

Let me expand on what I said before. In order to beat fear, you need to replace it with a different, empowering concept. A concept that works for you and not against you. I have found the following exercise to be extremely helpful in various situations, so why don't you give it a go yourself? The real beauty of this concept lies in its simplicity and its universal relevance to any kind of anxiety you might have! And I really mean ANY! You might recognise some of the fears below.

'I'm not safe!'
Are you anxious about a natural disaster hitting your home, or another person inflicting harm on you? Or is it yourself that you don't trust? Whatever the reason behind this feeling is, you can conquer it by reinstating a natural feeling of trust in yourself and in your surroundings. Trust in the fact that natural disasters or plain crashes are statistically exremely rare, trust in the fact that even IF you would find yourself in a life-threatening situation, you would always do your best to keep yourself and others safe. Also, trust that whatever you are going through, you are not alone. Trust in those around you to keep you safe.

Say the following phrases out loud until you feel more positive and powerful: - I trust myself with my own safety and with the safety of those around me - I trust others to keep me safe - I trust that I will handle every situation to the best of my ability - I trust that I can count on others to support me in difficult situations

'I will lose my job/my financial security'
Trust in yourself to do everything in your power to keep your job. IF you actually lose your job, trust in yourself to find a new position fairly soon. Say the following phrases out loud until you feel more positive and powerful: - I trust that I won't lose my job because I am extremely good at it - I trust that I will find a new job very quickly because I am skilled and ambitious


'I can't do xyz'
Replace your fear of failure with the all empowering feeling of trust. - I trust that I will succeed in xyz' Also, add this one: - I trust in others to treat me with respect if I should not succeed' You get the idea. Have you ever wondered what the main difference between people without anxiety and us is? It's certainly not the fact that they just haven't realised how dangerous this world can be, or that they won't always succeed in everything. What makes them relaxed and happy individuals is a natural feeling of trust!
As always, this exercise proves beneficial only if you repeat it over and over again.

You are beautiful, You are safe, You are in control!

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog! You are probably here because you are suffering from anxiety and you are looking for a way out of this crippling situation. Good on you! You have already taken the first step into your new life by looking for help! The fact that you found yourself on this website shows me that you have already understood the single most important fact when it comes to beating anxiety: YOU ARE IN CONTROL. What do I mean by that? It's simple. Everything you believe, everything you feel, is in your control. In contrast to what we feel when we are anxious, i.e. victimised and controlled by fear, everyone of us has the power to change their state of mind at any time. How liberating! How unrealistic, you might think. You won't succeed in continuously taking control of every negative feeling straight away, it is very much a learning process. The same way you taught your brain (subconsciously and unintentionally) for years to feel and react the way you do when you are anxious, the same way you can teach your brain to make you feel powerful and in control. The same principle applies to anxieties rooted in what I call 'outside experiences', i.e. conversations with other people, natural disasters, the loss of a loved one. Independent of whether you have actually experienced a traumatic situation or whether you are simply afraid of experiencing one in the future, you can learn to take control of your fears and replace them with one of my new favourite concepts: TRUST. More on trust and how to use this concept to empower yourself in my next post. You are beautiful, You are safe, You are in control.