February 27, 2024 • 43 mins
Panic attacks are awful, they sneak up on us in the worst moments and make us feel overwhelmed by an invisible fear. In today's episode we are going to talk through the psychology of panic attacks including:
- Why they occur?
- Panic disorders vs. panic attacks
- The flight, fight, freeze or fawn response
- The car alarm analogy
- The function of anxiety and panic
- Anxiety avoidance vs. acceptance
- 7 evidence based tips for managing panic attacks
We also have a 7 minute meditation at the end of the episode that will talk you through a visualisation exercise for managing an actual panic attack. Listen now!
If you need immediate help please call your local crisis centre or access the following resources:
- 988 Mental Health Emergency Hotline (US)
- 13 11 14 Lifeline (Australia)
- https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/mental-health/find-an-urgent-mental-health-helpline (UK)
Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is so great to
have you here. Back for another episode. As we, of
course break down the Psychology of your twenties today, we
are going to be talking about a pretty significant emotion,
a very core emotion and experience both in our twenties
(00:50):
and I think beyond, and that is the experience of panic,
of fear, intense alarm, terror, whatever you want to call it.
But specifically, we are going to be addressing panic attacks,
that sudden onset of extreme dread and anxiety that engulfs
(01:11):
us normally in response to some threat in the environment,
whether that is real or perceived. Panic attacks are a
terrible sensation, really, and I'm saying that as of course
someone who has had for years experienced thesis kind of
part of my daily, weekly, monthly life, often in response
(01:33):
to things that I couldn't even identify or which was
so ambiguous and non worrisome in hindsight that I felt
like I didn't even know why these panic attacks were
occurring in the first place. They were just coming out
of the bloot. Really in that sense of confusion, and
more specifically, I think a lack of control felt equally scary.
(01:59):
And I think this idea or this sensation that I
couldn't control what my mind or my body was choosing
to do kind of kept that cycle continuing because I
began to fear the sensation, and fear the fear of
a panic attack rather than anything in particular. And the
(02:20):
more I think I began to actually learn about why
that was, how that happened, what a panic attack is,
the more I really felt that sense of control I needed,
not just a control over the bodily sensations that accompany
this experience, the racing heartbeat, the shortness of breath, the tingles,
the mental spiral, but I also just increased this feeling
(02:45):
of capability. I felt like I had a new found
ability to cope and to see panic as no more
than just an emotion, an evolutionary response to my environment,
an alarm system that was unfortunately broken for me. And
although it was quite debilitating. For a while, I used
to get these like really intense week or month long
(03:07):
periods where I was having them twice a day consistently.
I do now feel like I'm at this point where
I understand why that happened, and I learnt from it,
and I learned the best ways I think of dealing
with this very weird sensation, with this very unique type
of fear, and we're going to talk about it today.
(03:29):
I want to talk you through my best tips for coping,
tell you about what I've learned, and kind of provide
you with the ultimate guide to panic attacks. We're going
to discuss the true causes, some of the misconceptions, the
distinction between panic and anxiety, and why it is that
some people, perhaps like you and I, have this weird, misguided,
(03:52):
malfunctioning alarm system. I always think that psycho education talking
about the problem is such a valuable tool to begin
with when it comes to anything, really, because how can
we feel in control of our panic if we don't
even know where it's coming from, if we don't even
understand its emotional, biological, psychological origin. When we understand that psychology,
(04:19):
we no longer feel like panic attacks are some big
scary visitor that we can't get rid of. They're just
something a lot more simple and tame. They are a
series of bodily and mental reactions that have just gotten
their wires crossed. It's this combination of sensations that is
meant to be helpful, but right now it's not. And
(04:40):
that is all that it is. It is not some
big physical thing that is going to come in and
ruin your life. You are not going to pass away,
you are not going to die, you are not going
to feel like this forever. You will exhaust yourself. You
will get through this. So let's talk about it before
(05:01):
we start. A little persa that the final five six
minutes of this episode are a short relaxation audio if
you are having a panic attack right now, So if
you want to listen to that, please see the timestamp
in the description. And if you are returning to this
episode here as you're a reminder to feel free to
(05:23):
skip ahead if that is what you're here for. But
let's get started. Learning to deal with overwhelming and intense
emotions is kind of part of our journey as humans,
for some more than others. But I also don't think
that the end goal when we're talking about panic attacks
or any emotion that is scary. I don't think that
the end goal should be complete emotional regulation, to never
(05:47):
feel any negative emotions, constant peace and tranquility, because I
think that's depriving ourselves of some of the useful things
that any emotion does for us, some of the useful
things that panic does for us. I know that that
sounds a little bit ridiculous. As uncomfortable as panic attacks are,
I actually think that the worst thing we can do
(06:07):
for ourselves, either before, during, or after is try and
ignore it, to avoid or suppress the sensations of anxiety
and fear by rushing through, by distracting, by pushing them aside,
because eventually it will make them stronger. I think that
seems really counterintuitive, especially if you're someone who has a
(06:31):
panic disorder and you experience these very regularly. It is
natural to have a lot of fear towards the incidence
and the prevalence of your panic attacks, right Like, no
one wants to be in a place where they're feeling
this uncomfortable, and so naturally we want to push them away.
We want to run away, We want to put our panic,
(06:54):
our panic attacks our anxiety in this box and hide
it and hope to never hear from it again. When
we rely too heavily though on avoidance, especially when it
comes to feelings of panic, this only causes us to
focus on them more intensely. It also gives them more
power because the act of fearing fear, which is essentially
(07:16):
what you're doing by avoiding something, increases that fear. Now,
I know that sounds very convoluted, but when we refuse
to experience intense emotions like panic, we don't actually learn
the skills to deal with them in the long run
because we never have any practice. It also just causes
them to return. I would say the best way is
(07:38):
like to return stronger, because every time we avoid thinking
or feeling about our anxiety, it in many ways kind
of returns with the vengeance because we never provide it
with an outlet. And secondly, we never allow ourselves to
truly acknowledge what might be triggering our fear, whether it's
internal or external, because we are so scared of looking
(07:59):
at our directly, we are so scared of examining it. Now,
what is it that triggers a panic attack? Panic is
what we call a survival emotion. It is a reaction
that serves the function of preparing us to fight off
or escape danger by creating and triggering a fear that
(08:22):
is so strong that it prevents all rational and logical
thinking and it causes us to only really focus on
that one thing in our environment or in our mind
that we see as dangerous or threatening. So in this way,
panic is the result of our fight or flight response.
This response is very evolutionary. It also now includes freeze,
(08:46):
and it's essentially the automatic urge. We have to address
danger and ensure our survival by either fighting back against
this force, whatever it may be, running away, or in
some cases becoming paralyzed and being unable to really do anything.
This is triggered by something that we see as dangerous.
(09:08):
I think most people know this obviously. This automatic response
is for our survival. It came it has developed for
many many many generations, and in the past, the purpose
that it served for our ancestors was that if there
was a very real physical threat like a big hungry lion,
or an upcoming flood, or a sinister neighboring tribe approaching
(09:31):
us with weapons, we needed this panic to basically indicate
to us to get away or to do something about it.
Those were the threats that we've faced when this automatic
function and process first evolved and came about. Nowadays, these
same triggers are still kind of present. Maybe not a lion,
(09:51):
I don't know where you're living, though, But more commonly,
these triggers can be anything that we perceive as dangerous, stressful,
or acute events, but also a number of internal triggers phobias,
really bad dark thoughts, certain stimulants like caffeine, ongoing stress,
many other things. Anything that evokes fear will as a
(10:15):
result activate our fight or flight response. Because the part
of us that is activating that response is not very intelligent,
It is not rational, does not really have critical thinking skills.
It is just meant to be there, almost like an
instantaneous alarm system. It is meant to be responding rapidly,
(10:36):
and when something responds rapidly, as in this system, it
doesn't have the time to really process what this thing
that's scaring us really means, whether it actually is truly dangerous.
So when this automatic response is activated, a particular part
of our nervous system, known as our sympathetic nervous system,
(10:57):
goes to work switching on all the bodily functions we
will need the most for immediate survival, and switching off
all of those that we don't need. So things like
our digestive system, our sexual organs as a way to
divert energy away from one thing, from one part of
our body and put all of that energy to the
systems that are going to help us with the threat
(11:19):
in front of us. It floods us with neuropinephrine, with adrenaline,
cortisol to get the body ready to fight, flee, or freeze,
and this subsequently triggers the symptoms that we associate with
a panic attack, all of those bodily reactions, erasing heart, sweating, dizziness, trembling,
(11:40):
hot flushes, maybe that tingling in your arm, that tightness
in your chest, a sense of imminent danger, spiraling thoughts.
These sensations are caused by our body. They're caused by
our involuntary response to danger. For example, that tingling sensation
we were just talking about, that's actually caused by blood
vessels constricting and increasing blood to the heart so that
(12:03):
we can run faster, fight harder, But it also leaves
less blood flow to the rest of the body, causing
that strange feeling in our limbs. Those hot flushes that
we often experience, that's just caused by an increase in
body temperature because of the effect of those crucial stress hormones.
All of those sensations that we fear, that we associate
(12:25):
with a panic attack are nothing more than our body
doing what it evolved to do best, which is to
help us survive. But sometimes we actually misinterpret those sensations
and we begin to think it means something more. It
means something in our body has gone wrong, and that
just causes our panic and our fear to accelerate. The
(12:46):
biggest one for me is when my heart starts racing
and I think for sure I'm going to have a
heart attack, I'm going to die. I can't slay my
heart rate down. This big, essential life giving organ is
going to burst in my chest. And what I know
now is that that is the beginning of fearing the fear.
Because I'm fearing the sensations, I'm not actually fearing the
(13:07):
thing that cause those sensations in the first place. We
get more worried about that than the actual danger, about
our perception of danger. If you are someone who has
a panic disorder, meaning you experience more frequent panic attacks
of an increased severity. You also begin to fear having
an attack at the wrong time, maybe during a lecture
(13:29):
at work, during a date, and this begins to become
quite debilitating because you kind of have to fight back
against that very instinctual, natural, normal urge to avoid those
situations where you're going to feel exposed. You don't want
to be in a public place or in front of
other people and having this sense of fear, and that
(13:53):
can actually lead to anticipatory anxiety, and that is that
kind of constant panic that you will have a panic attack,
that you will experience a panic attack when it's inconvenient,
when you are unprepared. And the thing about panic attacks,
specifically those caused by a panic disorder or even a phobia,
(14:13):
is that they are often directed towards things that don't
pose an immediate threat, that are not going to kill us.
But that natural and instinctive alarm system has become broken
so that it starts firing off warning signs and getting
the body prepared for survival in response to a whole
(14:35):
array of triggers. Everybody has an internal alarm system that
warns them of when they are in danger. You need that,
it's important. But with anxiety or a panic disorder, our
alarm system has kind of become a bit miscalibrated, a
bit faulty, way too sensitive, meaning that our threshold for
(14:57):
what we should panic about is much lower than other people's.
The analogy I think we talk about a lot is
having a faulty car alarm. For example, you know, the
normal car alarm should really only go off when someone
is like out the side of your window with a
baseball bat trying to steal your sad's like it should
be triggered by things that are actually going to, like
(15:19):
cause the car to break down or be broken into.
But in the brain of someone with anxiety or a
panic disorder, that alarm is a lot more sensitive. So
using that car analogy, it could be triggered by a
leaf falling on the roof and that is enough to
set everything off to get everything going. I think knowing
that that is what causes some people to panic more
(15:42):
than others was really comforting to me. And there are
a number of reasons that might cause this lowered threshold
for emotional and physiological arousal. These include things like a
family history of panic attacks. We know that genetics and
DNA plays such a huge role in a lot of
(16:02):
mental health conditions, but also a past traumatic event that
has caused you to become hyper vigilant to your surroundings
and to your own internal state as almost a survival
skill to avoid that event happening again, to avoid future trauma.
Another example is really major life changes or shifts that
(16:27):
are taking so much energy from you already that there
are very few mental resources leftover to cope with small things.
That's why we often see someone who has maybe going
through like a big breakup, they've left their job, they've moved,
and then suddenly they're having a panic attack about something
that everyone else would think is super super minor, like
(16:48):
not being able to find their car keys or some
small comment that someone has said to them, because they
don't have the sufficient mental resources to deal with this
added stress. Remember, in those moments, though, all this alarm
system is trying to do is help you, not harm you.
It's just your job in that moment to consciously interpret it,
(17:12):
whether the system is getting it wrong, and correct that perception.
The important thing I want to remind you is that
panic attacks just cannot last forever. It is not physically possible.
We will reach a point of exhaustion. Right it's taking
so much out of you. Most therapists or psychologists will
(17:34):
tell you that a panic attack is probably going to
peak around ten minutes. It will most likely most certainly
subside within an hour, and within half an hour most
of the time. Sometimes, obviously, we can have multiple panic
attacks in a row, so there'll be a small period
where you're not panicking. Sometimes we can misinterpret that and
(17:58):
feel like we've had a panic attack for like a
whole day. But people will tell you this is not
one long continuous panic attacks, but when long sorry, continuous
panic attack, but multiple smaller panic attacks. Panic just takes
so much out of you. Though we genuinely do not
have the resources to sustain such a feeling. This system
(18:21):
that alarms you and sets you off and creates all
of these changes in your body, it is meant for small,
concentrated bursts of energy, so over time all that it
takes so much of your energy that you're going to
run out. And I actually think that that's really nice
to know you will get through this. You have to
reach an exhaustion point or a breaking point. Now, the
(18:44):
reason you might be experiencing a greater number of repetitive
panic attacks, it might have to do with something in
your environment or within your internal state that is causing
you to feel unsafe. It doesn't necessarily need to be
some big crazy it's eccentric, you know, very obvious threat
in your environment. For example, there was a time maybe
(19:08):
two or three years ago, where my panic attacks were terrible.
They were awful. They were so so frustrating. They happened
all the time, without control, and also without seemingly a trigger.
You know, I would be in bed and I would
be panicking. What I began to realize was that actually
the last few months when I looked back at them,
(19:29):
had been really really rough, really really hard. I don't
know if I want to go into it. And this
was in the past, so maybe I will give you
some datail. Like, there had been a lot of conflict
going on in my life with friends. I was moving
to a new city, I was graduating from university, I
was saying goodbye to people, I was going through a breakup.
(19:50):
There was I was just slowly being worn down. I
was taking a lot of my friends' problems on as well,
And I realized when I started, actually at the tail
end of this period, that this had been coming up
for a while, like this had been in the works,
this had been slowly brewing. But I kept suppressing it
because I just was like, I don't have time to
(20:13):
deal with this right now. I don't have time for
a panic attack. I don't have time. And the longer
I held back that wave, the stronger it eventually was
when it bursts through. The thing though about panic and
fear is that although they definitely are villainized because they
are uncomfortable, sometimes you actually just have to feel it
to get through it. Putting it off is going to
(20:36):
make it worse in the long run. It's almost like
playing whack a mole, right Like, every time you see
like the nose of the panic attack popping out, you
try and hit it down and hit it down. But
if you just let them pop up, they'll eventually go
away and you'll exert less energy trying to control everything
in your environment to ensure that you don't feel fear
when fear is actually a really natural response. Anxiety and
(21:00):
panic actually serves a purpose. It might indicate that something
is wrong and that you're unable to reach a state
or a balance of homeostasis. It might show you that
there is an ongoing stressor that you need to deal with.
And when we see people who don't have that fear
of response at all, I always think about Alex Hannell,
the very famous free selling rock climber. He's one of them.
(21:22):
These individuals obviously have like a smaller Amich Dealer, smaller
fear center of the brain, and they can't always identify danger.
They often do risky things. They can't always as well
identify other people's emotions. It's often the people who are
most anxious that are also the most empathetic, and in
some ways, maybe this is a very big claim, but
also the most intelligent, because they are the ones who
(21:44):
are sitting there thinking everything through, thinking how everyone else
is feeling, thinking how everything can go wrong, all of
that catastrophizing. That's a lot of big brain exercises right there.
Regardless though of how quote unquote functional panic and anxiety
might be might be to us as humans from a
scientific point of view, I'm sure that if you are
(22:05):
someone who has panic attacks, you have had a few
moments where you would have given anything to live a
life without them. They're scary, theility, it's so debilitating, they're inconvenient.
We don't like feeling disrupted by an emotion that we
can't control. And I get that, I really really get that,
(22:26):
and I want to talk about how we can bring
that fear back into the realm of what is conscious,
what is actionable, something that we can do something about.
How can we manage our panic attacks so they don't
feel like this separate entity that is going to storm
in and ruin everything for us. I want to provide
(22:46):
you with some of my tride and tested tips for
bringing you back down to earth and into your rational
thinking self during these times. Maybe you are in a
period of panic right now, in the depths of a
panic attack. Maybe you can save this for related time. Regardless,
we're going to talk through five of my best evidence
based tips for managing panic attacks after this shortbreak. Often
(23:13):
when we are having a panic attack, our first instinct
is to fight back, because that is our natural reaction
to fear is to fight back or to avoid to
distract ourselves. I always find that I immediately as soon
as I feel that like wave of panic coming on,
I immediately feel this weird judtery, urge to move about,
(23:35):
to get up from where I'm sitting, to move to
a new space, to run around, escape telling myself to
stop stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop
thinking about it. But when you're telling yourself to stop
thinking about it, to stop thinking about anything, normally, that
just puts more of a spotlight on that thing because
it still remains the subject. Right, stop thinking about this. This,
(24:01):
whether that's anxiety, whatever it is, is still the main
attraction of that thought. It just makes us a lot
more aware of the feeling that we are trying to escape,
and over time, trying to flee our fear, trying to
fight back against it, trying to escape it becomes really ineffective.
(24:22):
Panic attacks are a lot like quicksand the more you struggle,
the further entrenched and in trouble you become. So you
have to kind of force yourself to do the opposite
of what your body is telling you to do, to
do what is highly counterintuitive in these circumstances and relax
into it. It is just a feeling, it is just
(24:45):
a sensation. It's just fear, and fear does not have
a physical form. It is not going to break through
your door and grab you. It is not going to
come into your body and shut your heart down and
rip your limbs off, like it's simply a messenger for
something that is going wrong or something that you need
to address in your environment. I always like to give
(25:07):
my anxiety thirty seconds to do whatever it wants to do.
When I'm about to have a panic attack, thirty seconds
to ruin my life, to scream out loud, to cause
my heart to stop. But when that's done, I'm going
to move on. I'm giving my anxiety. I'm giving my
panic attack the reins. I'm giving it full control. I'm
(25:30):
not trying to hide from it. I'm not trying to
give it more power than it deserves. I'm saying, you
can do your worst, you can try your hardest, whatever
you have, throw it at me. And I often find
that in those moments, it never lives up to what
I thought it was going to do. It is like
a small, little yuppy dog. It has a bark that
(25:51):
is bigger than its bite because it is just an emotion,
and emotions cannot hurt you. The other thing I like
to do is to notice the fear and then visualize
it moving away visualize the feeling slowly dissolving, whether that's
being washed away by a tide or the other. One
(26:12):
I like to think of is I'm holding my anxiety.
I'm holding this trigger. I'm holding my fear in my hand.
It's a ball, it's a big baseball, it's a cricket ball.
And I'm going to throw that ball as far away
as I can, and then I'm going to walk off,
and all my fear is left with that object. All
my fear is no longer mine to hold. It is
(26:35):
in this tangible thing that is left that's left my body.
When you notice the feeling and you give it a
physical form that is not threatening, it's easy to see
how it's in your control. I also find that focusing
on those sensations that are very much aligned with a
panic attack, very indicative of a panic attack, and choosing
(26:57):
to just address one to begin with, is really helpful
because it takes it actually lets me focus on one
thing rather than feeling like there are a million things
I need to do in order to calm down. When
I just focus on one, Firstly, once that's under control,
the others will probably follow. And secondly, it almost distracts
me from what I'm worrying about because I'm focusing on
(27:19):
just fixing this one thing. Whether that is you're breathing
and you need to do a really quick breathing exercise,
a four in four hold four out, five in five,
hold five out, whatever it is, whether it is addressing
that tingling sensation that desired to run that is basically
just pent up energy coming from those stress hormones and
(27:42):
from restricted blood flow that is in your body. You
can find like a somatic and a physical outlet, give
all of that nervous energy a place to go, whether
that is going for a run, going boxing, doing twenty
star jumps right now, ten push ups. I can't do
ten push ups, but there you go. At least you
can try it. It just also shows your body that
(28:04):
like you're like, yeah, okay, you want me to do
something about this. You're telling me that I'm in danger.
I'll do something about it. I will move around, I
would be physical. I will make sure that all of
those extra hormones and all those stress hormones or neurotransmitters
that you've got flooding through my body, they are serving
a purpose. I'm going to do something about this trigger
and it tricks the brain into calming you down. I
(28:27):
also like to adopt the five five five rule. There
are different iterations of this. Sometimes it's the five four
three to one rule, the four four four rule. But
I always like to do the breathing acxis of breathing
for five, hold for five, breathe out for five. Identify
five things that you can say that are a particular color,
and five things that you can touch and feel exactly
(28:49):
how that fabric of that thing, that texture of that
thing feels on your finger, feels on your body. Focus
on something that is outside of you rather than the
chaos and the hurricane of emotions that is within you.
What this does is move you away from focusing on
the fear and panic sensation, a feeling that is automatic
(29:12):
and involuntary, and it gets you to focus on a
sensation that you can control, something that you can bring
into your orbit and do something about. It's also why
things like ice on your wrists or immediately putting something
sour in your mouth. I always have wart heads with me.
Is really useful because your brain is like, wait a second,
(29:33):
what is this weird feeling that is suddenly happening, Like
we need to focus on that because it's so shocking
and out of the blue, like that intense cold or
that intense sour taste. Really like your brain cannot juggle
too many stimulus or stimuli in the environment, too much
information at once, or it needs to choose what to
focus on. It it's going to focus on the thing that
(29:53):
just feels most immediate, and that might not be your
panic if there is something else more pressing in your environment,
like a really intense sensation, that is going to drag
you away from focusing on your fear. I also find
that grounding exercises are incredibly useful, particularly ones that allow
(30:16):
you to feel connected with nature. So going outside, taking
your shoes off and putting your feet on the dirt,
putting your feet in the grass, feeling how squishy it feels,
how kind of dirty it feels, the tingling, the tickling
sensation of the grass, feeling connected with nature. And we've
seen study after study that has indicated that this naturally
(30:38):
calms down our brain. Whether it's because of the wide
open spaces give us a sense of like a place
to escape to, whether the fresh air does something to
bring us back to a state of like homeostasis into
a feeling a place of calm. One particular study that
focuses on this says that the reason nature is an
(31:00):
important tool for integrative health but also for anxiety is
that grounding and earthing in particular utilizes the electric charge
from the earth and utilizes our nerve cells on the
surfaces of our body to bring us into contact with
the natural material. And this, as a result, stabilizes a
(31:20):
lot of that stress. It improves blood flow, It generates
just the greatest sense of calm because we're focusing on
what these things feel like for us, and it's bringing
all that blood black back into the nerves that are
on our extremities, rather than all concentrating on the heart
and the lungs and the brain that's creating all that panic,
(31:41):
that hot flush sensation, that tingling. I feel like this
goes without saying, but if you are someone who is
having a lot of panic attacks, I don't know what
you're doing drinking caffeine or drinking alcohol excessively. Maybe that
is all I need to say. But like caffeine is
a natural stimulant, and we don't often think about this.
Alcohol as well has an anxious effect. The morning after.
(32:06):
Alcohol is a depressant. It does slow everything down. It
might make you feel calm when you're drinking it, but
the next morning you're going to experience this huge spike
in hormones and neurotransmitters that want to bring you back
to that stable level in the moment when you're drinking.
It slows everything down, It releases these neurotransmitters and these
(32:28):
hormones that really bring like almost a sense of calm. Really,
it's just ethanol being processed by the body. The next morning,
the next day, your body needs to bring back a
sense of alertness. But because the sense of calm has
been so intense, it kind of swings too far in
the opposite direction, creating anxiety, contributing to panic attacks. Now,
(32:51):
not everything is going to be entirely effective for you
in managing this. Don't keep forcing habits or practices on
yourself that don't work, because you're just going to feel
more frustrated and less in control because you're trying and
not succeeding. I have a checklist in my phone of
everything that I know works for me, and there are about,
(33:14):
I think at this stage, over thirty things that I
know I can do that are going to calm me down.
So if the first one doesn't work, all the second
one probably will. And if that one doesn't work, I've
got the third fifth, all the way to thirty of
options for me. And even the understanding and even like
the fact that I know I have that list makes
me feel so much better because I know that I
(33:35):
have resources and options available that I'm not going to
be stuck in that panicked moment because I've done that before.
The biggest ones for me are meditations. I love going
through my photo albums as a distraction, cleaning out all
my photos, and I have my affirmations, my little reminders
that I have survived this before, I will survive this now.
(33:58):
I am safe. I'm going to hell the good thoughts,
exhale the bad ones, and I'm just gonna sit with
that feeling for a little bit and give it, give
it a chance to hurt me, And after a while
I realized that it won't. It won't hurt me. The
final thing that really helps me, that I return to
again and again in my own life are these short
(34:21):
five minute visualization exercises that I can put on listen
to and I find it really calms me down. I
even imagine them when I don't have immediate access to
that audio, like on a plane or somewhere without Wi
Fi or an internet. So I want you to pause
with me for a second, and we're gonna go through
one together right now. I know that right now it
(34:49):
feels like your panic is taking over. That's okay. Remember
it is just a feeling, no different to feeling joyful
or frustrated, or happy or angry. These emotions exist only
within you, and your panic is not going to hurt you.
It is not physical. It has come from you, and
(35:12):
therefore you can control it. I am here with you
now in this moment, and you and I like partners.
I'm going to watch out for you whilst you take
some time to realign all of your senses, make sense
of this feeling, and in only a few minutes you're
going to be able to return to whatever it is
(35:34):
you're just doing. Don't worry about what's going on around you.
I can do that for you. All I need you
to focus on right now is your body and what
you're feeling. I want you to focus on your breathing
with me. We're going to breathe in for five seconds.
Now five four three two one. Now hold for five
(36:03):
four three two one and breathe out for five seconds.
Good job. I knew that wouldn't be too hard. I
want you to pause for a second and repeat that
three more times. I'm sure you're feeling better now. I
(36:23):
can see that. Good job. I'm proud of you. Now,
I want you to focus on your heartbeat for a
few seconds and you take a few more deep breaths.
Just notice how it begins to slow down. You're doing
that because you're in control. Your anxiety doesn't have as
(36:43):
much control as it would like. You are the one
in charge. You're a bit like a scientist in this moment.
I want you to think of this panic you're feeling
as an interesting specimen you want to understand better. It's
sitting right in front of you behind a nice reinforced
pane of glass. It can't hurt you, it can't touch you,
(37:07):
but you can observe it and notice what it's responding to.
As you relax, it will too. And if you can't,
that is okay. You can always walk out of the
room and leave your anxiety behind. It is not going
to escape, it's not going to hurt you because you
are in control. You have the key and you alone.
(37:31):
To test this. I want you to give your anxiety
thirty seconds to break free, thirty seconds to try and escape,
to take over, to do its worst. You're being really
generous with your anxiety. You don't have to do this
for it, but you are deciding to be kind today.
(37:52):
You're going to look at your anxiety right now and say, Okay,
it's your turn. Do whatever you would like, just draw
the room, jump around, whatever you want to do. But
after thirty seconds, you have had your chance, and now
it's my turn. So let's count down together, okay. Thirty
(38:15):
twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven, twenty six, twenty five,
twenty four. You might feel like your anxiety is fighting
very hard right now to get out of that room,
but it's still trapped behind that glass while you're sitting
(38:35):
calmly in that nice, comfortable chair, watching each of its moves,
not needing to react. Twenty three, twenty two, twenty one,
twenty nineteen eighteen. Your anxiety is getting tired now. You
(38:57):
can see it losing its steam, knows it's not going
to win this time or the next. It's slowly losing
its energy seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven ten.
(39:25):
Your anxiety has run out of energy. It's not screaming
or yelling anymore. It is slowing down. Its eyes are
closing nine eight seven six five. There's your anxiety sitting
(39:48):
calmly in the corner. Four three two one. Now it's
your time. Focus on your breath again for me. Breathe
in again for five four three two one. Now we're
(40:13):
going to hold and finally breathe out with me five
four three two one. If you need to, you can
do that a few more times. It's always going to
be up to you. As you continue to breathe deeply.
(40:33):
I want to remind you that you are safe and
supported in this moment. Panic attacks can be overwhelming, but
you have the strength within you to overcome them, like
you just did. Remember to be gentle with yourself and
to acknowledge those feelings. You are so capable and brave
(40:56):
and strong, and I am so proud of you. I
want you to talk to your panic. Now, talk to
your anxiety. You can see really that it's just this
weak little creature sitting in the corner of the room.
You feel slightly sorry for it, and you're going to
speak to it with compassion. I know you're scared, anxiety,
(41:19):
and that's okay. I'm going to be gentle with you.
You can be at peace here. Nothing is wrong. We
are alive, we are breathing, we are loved, and you
are welcome here. I know that you have been misunderstood
in the past. I know I've been scared of you,
(41:40):
but it can see that under that scary exterior, you
are just an emotion trying to be seen. I see you,
I acknowledge you. You can stay here for a while,
but in exchange, you don't get to be in control.
I'm in control, So feel free to get comfort, to rest,
(42:02):
let me know. If you need anything, we can talk again,
but for now, I'm going to leave this room and
get on with my day. I'm going to leave in
three two one. Goodbye, anxiety. Are you feeling better? I
really hope so, And if not, please feel free to
(42:24):
listen again. When we visualize our anxiety is something that
is harmless, something that we can see, we can hold,
that we can approach. We release a lot of that
additional additional fear we have around what it can do.
To us the harm it can cause, because at the
end of the day, something that we forget is that
it is just another emotion, and you are the house,
(42:46):
the home of all of these emotions. They are you.
You have the final say. I really hope that this
episode helped you, just giving you more information about what
panic attacks actually are, guiding you through what to do
about some of my tactics, and my tips, providing you
with that psycho education. I hope you're just feeling better.
I hope that if you need to return to this
(43:08):
episode that you do, it will always be here. Feel
free to come back. I will still be here eternally
in this little voice in this little episode clip. But
if there is someone you know who might need to
hear this, please feel free to share it with them.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
to leave a five star review wherever you're listening right now.
(43:30):
If you liked this episode, I know it's a bit
different to what I usually do, Please let me know
if it was of any help. If you would like
me to do more episodes like this, you can DM
me over on Instagram at that psychology podcast. I would
love to hear from you. I'm sending you love, I'm
sending you strength, I'm proud of you. Good job you
got through it, and we will be back next week
(43:52):
with another episode.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is so great to
have you here. Back for another episode. As we, of
course break down the Psychology of your twenties today, we
are going to be talking about a pretty significant emotion,
a very core emotion and experience both in our twenties
(00:50):
and I think beyond, and that is the experience of panic,
of fear, intense alarm, terror, whatever you want to call it.
But specifically, we are going to be addressing panic attacks,
that sudden onset of extreme dread and anxiety that engulfs
(01:11):
us normally in response to some threat in the environment,
whether that is real or perceived. Panic attacks are a
terrible sensation, really, and I'm saying that as of course
someone who has had for years experienced thesis kind of
part of my daily, weekly, monthly life, often in response
(01:33):
to things that I couldn't even identify or which was
so ambiguous and non worrisome in hindsight that I felt
like I didn't even know why these panic attacks were
occurring in the first place. They were just coming out
of the bloot. Really in that sense of confusion, and
more specifically, I think a lack of control felt equally scary.
(01:59):
And I think this idea or this sensation that I
couldn't control what my mind or my body was choosing
to do kind of kept that cycle continuing because I
began to fear the sensation, and fear the fear of
a panic attack rather than anything in particular. And the
(02:20):
more I think I began to actually learn about why
that was, how that happened, what a panic attack is,
the more I really felt that sense of control I needed,
not just a control over the bodily sensations that accompany
this experience, the racing heartbeat, the shortness of breath, the tingles,
the mental spiral, but I also just increased this feeling
(02:45):
of capability. I felt like I had a new found
ability to cope and to see panic as no more
than just an emotion, an evolutionary response to my environment,
an alarm system that was unfortunately broken for me. And
although it was quite debilitating. For a while, I used
to get these like really intense week or month long
(03:07):
periods where I was having them twice a day consistently.
I do now feel like I'm at this point where
I understand why that happened, and I learnt from it,
and I learned the best ways I think of dealing
with this very weird sensation, with this very unique type
of fear, and we're going to talk about it today.
(03:29):
I want to talk you through my best tips for coping,
tell you about what I've learned, and kind of provide
you with the ultimate guide to panic attacks. We're going
to discuss the true causes, some of the misconceptions, the
distinction between panic and anxiety, and why it is that
some people, perhaps like you and I, have this weird, misguided,
(03:52):
malfunctioning alarm system. I always think that psycho education talking
about the problem is such a valuable tool to begin
with when it comes to anything, really, because how can
we feel in control of our panic if we don't
even know where it's coming from, if we don't even
understand its emotional, biological, psychological origin. When we understand that psychology,
(04:19):
we no longer feel like panic attacks are some big
scary visitor that we can't get rid of. They're just
something a lot more simple and tame. They are a
series of bodily and mental reactions that have just gotten
their wires crossed. It's this combination of sensations that is
meant to be helpful, but right now it's not. And
(04:40):
that is all that it is. It is not some
big physical thing that is going to come in and
ruin your life. You are not going to pass away,
you are not going to die, you are not going
to feel like this forever. You will exhaust yourself. You
will get through this. So let's talk about it before
(05:01):
we start. A little persa that the final five six
minutes of this episode are a short relaxation audio if
you are having a panic attack right now, So if
you want to listen to that, please see the timestamp
in the description. And if you are returning to this
episode here as you're a reminder to feel free to
(05:23):
skip ahead if that is what you're here for. But
let's get started. Learning to deal with overwhelming and intense
emotions is kind of part of our journey as humans,
for some more than others. But I also don't think
that the end goal when we're talking about panic attacks
or any emotion that is scary. I don't think that
the end goal should be complete emotional regulation, to never
(05:47):
feel any negative emotions, constant peace and tranquility, because I
think that's depriving ourselves of some of the useful things
that any emotion does for us, some of the useful
things that panic does for us. I know that that
sounds a little bit ridiculous. As uncomfortable as panic attacks are,
I actually think that the worst thing we can do
(06:07):
for ourselves, either before, during, or after is try and
ignore it, to avoid or suppress the sensations of anxiety
and fear by rushing through, by distracting, by pushing them aside,
because eventually it will make them stronger. I think that
seems really counterintuitive, especially if you're someone who has a
(06:31):
panic disorder and you experience these very regularly. It is
natural to have a lot of fear towards the incidence
and the prevalence of your panic attacks, right Like, no
one wants to be in a place where they're feeling
this uncomfortable, and so naturally we want to push them away.
We want to run away, We want to put our panic,
(06:54):
our panic attacks our anxiety in this box and hide
it and hope to never hear from it again. When
we rely too heavily though on avoidance, especially when it
comes to feelings of panic, this only causes us to
focus on them more intensely. It also gives them more
power because the act of fearing fear, which is essentially
(07:16):
what you're doing by avoiding something, increases that fear. Now,
I know that sounds very convoluted, but when we refuse
to experience intense emotions like panic, we don't actually learn
the skills to deal with them in the long run
because we never have any practice. It also just causes
them to return. I would say the best way is
(07:38):
like to return stronger, because every time we avoid thinking
or feeling about our anxiety, it in many ways kind
of returns with the vengeance because we never provide it
with an outlet. And secondly, we never allow ourselves to
truly acknowledge what might be triggering our fear, whether it's
internal or external, because we are so scared of looking
(07:59):
at our directly, we are so scared of examining it. Now,
what is it that triggers a panic attack? Panic is
what we call a survival emotion. It is a reaction
that serves the function of preparing us to fight off
or escape danger by creating and triggering a fear that
(08:22):
is so strong that it prevents all rational and logical
thinking and it causes us to only really focus on
that one thing in our environment or in our mind
that we see as dangerous or threatening. So in this way,
panic is the result of our fight or flight response.
This response is very evolutionary. It also now includes freeze,
(08:46):
and it's essentially the automatic urge. We have to address
danger and ensure our survival by either fighting back against
this force, whatever it may be, running away, or in
some cases becoming paralyzed and being unable to really do anything.
This is triggered by something that we see as dangerous.
(09:08):
I think most people know this obviously. This automatic response
is for our survival. It came it has developed for
many many many generations, and in the past, the purpose
that it served for our ancestors was that if there
was a very real physical threat like a big hungry lion,
or an upcoming flood, or a sinister neighboring tribe approaching
(09:31):
us with weapons, we needed this panic to basically indicate
to us to get away or to do something about it.
Those were the threats that we've faced when this automatic
function and process first evolved and came about. Nowadays, these
same triggers are still kind of present. Maybe not a lion,
(09:51):
I don't know where you're living, though, But more commonly,
these triggers can be anything that we perceive as dangerous, stressful,
or acute events, but also a number of internal triggers phobias,
really bad dark thoughts, certain stimulants like caffeine, ongoing stress,
many other things. Anything that evokes fear will as a
(10:15):
result activate our fight or flight response. Because the part
of us that is activating that response is not very intelligent,
It is not rational, does not really have critical thinking skills.
It is just meant to be there, almost like an
instantaneous alarm system. It is meant to be responding rapidly,
(10:36):
and when something responds rapidly, as in this system, it
doesn't have the time to really process what this thing
that's scaring us really means, whether it actually is truly dangerous.
So when this automatic response is activated, a particular part
of our nervous system, known as our sympathetic nervous system,
(10:57):
goes to work switching on all the bodily functions we
will need the most for immediate survival, and switching off
all of those that we don't need. So things like
our digestive system, our sexual organs as a way to
divert energy away from one thing, from one part of
our body and put all of that energy to the
systems that are going to help us with the threat
(11:19):
in front of us. It floods us with neuropinephrine, with adrenaline,
cortisol to get the body ready to fight, flee, or freeze,
and this subsequently triggers the symptoms that we associate with
a panic attack, all of those bodily reactions, erasing heart, sweating, dizziness, trembling,
(11:40):
hot flushes, maybe that tingling in your arm, that tightness
in your chest, a sense of imminent danger, spiraling thoughts.
These sensations are caused by our body. They're caused by
our involuntary response to danger. For example, that tingling sensation
we were just talking about, that's actually caused by blood
vessels constricting and increasing blood to the heart so that
(12:03):
we can run faster, fight harder, But it also leaves
less blood flow to the rest of the body, causing
that strange feeling in our limbs. Those hot flushes that
we often experience, that's just caused by an increase in
body temperature because of the effect of those crucial stress hormones.
All of those sensations that we fear, that we associate
(12:25):
with a panic attack are nothing more than our body
doing what it evolved to do best, which is to
help us survive. But sometimes we actually misinterpret those sensations
and we begin to think it means something more. It
means something in our body has gone wrong, and that
just causes our panic and our fear to accelerate. The
(12:46):
biggest one for me is when my heart starts racing
and I think for sure I'm going to have a
heart attack, I'm going to die. I can't slay my
heart rate down. This big, essential life giving organ is
going to burst in my chest. And what I know
now is that that is the beginning of fearing the fear.
Because I'm fearing the sensations, I'm not actually fearing the
(13:07):
thing that cause those sensations in the first place. We
get more worried about that than the actual danger, about
our perception of danger. If you are someone who has
a panic disorder, meaning you experience more frequent panic attacks
of an increased severity. You also begin to fear having
an attack at the wrong time, maybe during a lecture
(13:29):
at work, during a date, and this begins to become
quite debilitating because you kind of have to fight back
against that very instinctual, natural, normal urge to avoid those
situations where you're going to feel exposed. You don't want
to be in a public place or in front of
other people and having this sense of fear, and that
(13:53):
can actually lead to anticipatory anxiety, and that is that
kind of constant panic that you will have a panic attack,
that you will experience a panic attack when it's inconvenient,
when you are unprepared. And the thing about panic attacks,
specifically those caused by a panic disorder or even a phobia,
(14:13):
is that they are often directed towards things that don't
pose an immediate threat, that are not going to kill us.
But that natural and instinctive alarm system has become broken
so that it starts firing off warning signs and getting
the body prepared for survival in response to a whole
(14:35):
array of triggers. Everybody has an internal alarm system that
warns them of when they are in danger. You need that,
it's important. But with anxiety or a panic disorder, our
alarm system has kind of become a bit miscalibrated, a
bit faulty, way too sensitive, meaning that our threshold for
(14:57):
what we should panic about is much lower than other people's.
The analogy I think we talk about a lot is
having a faulty car alarm. For example, you know, the
normal car alarm should really only go off when someone
is like out the side of your window with a
baseball bat trying to steal your sad's like it should
be triggered by things that are actually going to, like
(15:19):
cause the car to break down or be broken into.
But in the brain of someone with anxiety or a
panic disorder, that alarm is a lot more sensitive. So
using that car analogy, it could be triggered by a
leaf falling on the roof and that is enough to
set everything off to get everything going. I think knowing
that that is what causes some people to panic more
(15:42):
than others was really comforting to me. And there are
a number of reasons that might cause this lowered threshold
for emotional and physiological arousal. These include things like a
family history of panic attacks. We know that genetics and
DNA plays such a huge role in a lot of
(16:02):
mental health conditions, but also a past traumatic event that
has caused you to become hyper vigilant to your surroundings
and to your own internal state as almost a survival
skill to avoid that event happening again, to avoid future trauma.
Another example is really major life changes or shifts that
(16:27):
are taking so much energy from you already that there
are very few mental resources leftover to cope with small things.
That's why we often see someone who has maybe going
through like a big breakup, they've left their job, they've moved,
and then suddenly they're having a panic attack about something
that everyone else would think is super super minor, like
(16:48):
not being able to find their car keys or some
small comment that someone has said to them, because they
don't have the sufficient mental resources to deal with this
added stress. Remember, in those moments, though, all this alarm
system is trying to do is help you, not harm you.
It's just your job in that moment to consciously interpret it,
(17:12):
whether the system is getting it wrong, and correct that perception.
The important thing I want to remind you is that
panic attacks just cannot last forever. It is not physically possible.
We will reach a point of exhaustion. Right it's taking
so much out of you. Most therapists or psychologists will
(17:34):
tell you that a panic attack is probably going to
peak around ten minutes. It will most likely most certainly
subside within an hour, and within half an hour most
of the time. Sometimes, obviously, we can have multiple panic
attacks in a row, so there'll be a small period
where you're not panicking. Sometimes we can misinterpret that and
(17:58):
feel like we've had a panic attack for like a
whole day. But people will tell you this is not
one long continuous panic attacks, but when long sorry, continuous
panic attack, but multiple smaller panic attacks. Panic just takes
so much out of you. Though we genuinely do not
have the resources to sustain such a feeling. This system
(18:21):
that alarms you and sets you off and creates all
of these changes in your body, it is meant for small,
concentrated bursts of energy, so over time all that it
takes so much of your energy that you're going to
run out. And I actually think that that's really nice
to know you will get through this. You have to
reach an exhaustion point or a breaking point. Now, the
(18:44):
reason you might be experiencing a greater number of repetitive
panic attacks, it might have to do with something in
your environment or within your internal state that is causing
you to feel unsafe. It doesn't necessarily need to be
some big crazy it's eccentric, you know, very obvious threat
in your environment. For example, there was a time maybe
(19:08):
two or three years ago, where my panic attacks were terrible.
They were awful. They were so so frustrating. They happened
all the time, without control, and also without seemingly a trigger.
You know, I would be in bed and I would
be panicking. What I began to realize was that actually
the last few months when I looked back at them,
(19:29):
had been really really rough, really really hard. I don't
know if I want to go into it. And this
was in the past, so maybe I will give you
some datail. Like, there had been a lot of conflict
going on in my life with friends. I was moving
to a new city, I was graduating from university, I
was saying goodbye to people, I was going through a breakup.
(19:50):
There was I was just slowly being worn down. I
was taking a lot of my friends' problems on as well,
And I realized when I started, actually at the tail
end of this period, that this had been coming up
for a while, like this had been in the works,
this had been slowly brewing. But I kept suppressing it
because I just was like, I don't have time to
(20:13):
deal with this right now. I don't have time for
a panic attack. I don't have time. And the longer
I held back that wave, the stronger it eventually was
when it bursts through. The thing though about panic and
fear is that although they definitely are villainized because they
are uncomfortable, sometimes you actually just have to feel it
to get through it. Putting it off is going to
(20:36):
make it worse in the long run. It's almost like
playing whack a mole, right Like, every time you see
like the nose of the panic attack popping out, you
try and hit it down and hit it down. But
if you just let them pop up, they'll eventually go
away and you'll exert less energy trying to control everything
in your environment to ensure that you don't feel fear
when fear is actually a really natural response. Anxiety and
(21:00):
panic actually serves a purpose. It might indicate that something
is wrong and that you're unable to reach a state
or a balance of homeostasis. It might show you that
there is an ongoing stressor that you need to deal with.
And when we see people who don't have that fear
of response at all, I always think about Alex Hannell,
the very famous free selling rock climber. He's one of them.
(21:22):
These individuals obviously have like a smaller Amich Dealer, smaller
fear center of the brain, and they can't always identify danger.
They often do risky things. They can't always as well
identify other people's emotions. It's often the people who are
most anxious that are also the most empathetic, and in
some ways, maybe this is a very big claim, but
also the most intelligent, because they are the ones who
(21:44):
are sitting there thinking everything through, thinking how everyone else
is feeling, thinking how everything can go wrong, all of
that catastrophizing. That's a lot of big brain exercises right there.
Regardless though of how quote unquote functional panic and anxiety
might be might be to us as humans from a
scientific point of view, I'm sure that if you are
(22:05):
someone who has panic attacks, you have had a few
moments where you would have given anything to live a
life without them. They're scary, theility, it's so debilitating, they're inconvenient.
We don't like feeling disrupted by an emotion that we
can't control. And I get that, I really really get that,
(22:26):
and I want to talk about how we can bring
that fear back into the realm of what is conscious,
what is actionable, something that we can do something about.
How can we manage our panic attacks so they don't
feel like this separate entity that is going to storm
in and ruin everything for us. I want to provide
(22:46):
you with some of my tride and tested tips for
bringing you back down to earth and into your rational
thinking self during these times. Maybe you are in a
period of panic right now, in the depths of a
panic attack. Maybe you can save this for related time. Regardless,
we're going to talk through five of my best evidence
based tips for managing panic attacks after this shortbreak. Often
(23:13):
when we are having a panic attack, our first instinct
is to fight back, because that is our natural reaction
to fear is to fight back or to avoid to
distract ourselves. I always find that I immediately as soon
as I feel that like wave of panic coming on,
I immediately feel this weird judtery, urge to move about,
(23:35):
to get up from where I'm sitting, to move to
a new space, to run around, escape telling myself to
stop stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop
thinking about it. But when you're telling yourself to stop
thinking about it, to stop thinking about anything, normally, that
just puts more of a spotlight on that thing because
it still remains the subject. Right, stop thinking about this. This,
(24:01):
whether that's anxiety, whatever it is, is still the main
attraction of that thought. It just makes us a lot
more aware of the feeling that we are trying to escape,
and over time, trying to flee our fear, trying to
fight back against it, trying to escape it becomes really ineffective.
(24:22):
Panic attacks are a lot like quicksand the more you struggle,
the further entrenched and in trouble you become. So you
have to kind of force yourself to do the opposite
of what your body is telling you to do, to
do what is highly counterintuitive in these circumstances and relax
into it. It is just a feeling, it is just
(24:45):
a sensation. It's just fear, and fear does not have
a physical form. It is not going to break through
your door and grab you. It is not going to
come into your body and shut your heart down and
rip your limbs off, like it's simply a messenger for
something that is going wrong or something that you need
to address in your environment. I always like to give
(25:07):
my anxiety thirty seconds to do whatever it wants to do.
When I'm about to have a panic attack, thirty seconds
to ruin my life, to scream out loud, to cause
my heart to stop. But when that's done, I'm going
to move on. I'm giving my anxiety. I'm giving my
panic attack the reins. I'm giving it full control. I'm
(25:30):
not trying to hide from it. I'm not trying to
give it more power than it deserves. I'm saying, you
can do your worst, you can try your hardest, whatever
you have, throw it at me. And I often find
that in those moments, it never lives up to what
I thought it was going to do. It is like
a small, little yuppy dog. It has a bark that
(25:51):
is bigger than its bite because it is just an emotion,
and emotions cannot hurt you. The other thing I like
to do is to notice the fear and then visualize
it moving away visualize the feeling slowly dissolving, whether that's
being washed away by a tide or the other. One
(26:12):
I like to think of is I'm holding my anxiety.
I'm holding this trigger. I'm holding my fear in my hand.
It's a ball, it's a big baseball, it's a cricket ball.
And I'm going to throw that ball as far away
as I can, and then I'm going to walk off,
and all my fear is left with that object. All
my fear is no longer mine to hold. It is
(26:35):
in this tangible thing that is left that's left my body.
When you notice the feeling and you give it a
physical form that is not threatening, it's easy to see
how it's in your control. I also find that focusing
on those sensations that are very much aligned with a
panic attack, very indicative of a panic attack, and choosing
(26:57):
to just address one to begin with, is really helpful
because it takes it actually lets me focus on one
thing rather than feeling like there are a million things
I need to do in order to calm down. When
I just focus on one, Firstly, once that's under control,
the others will probably follow. And secondly, it almost distracts
me from what I'm worrying about because I'm focusing on
(27:19):
just fixing this one thing. Whether that is you're breathing
and you need to do a really quick breathing exercise,
a four in four hold four out, five in five,
hold five out, whatever it is, whether it is addressing
that tingling sensation that desired to run that is basically
just pent up energy coming from those stress hormones and
(27:42):
from restricted blood flow that is in your body. You
can find like a somatic and a physical outlet, give
all of that nervous energy a place to go, whether
that is going for a run, going boxing, doing twenty
star jumps right now, ten push ups. I can't do
ten push ups, but there you go. At least you
can try it. It just also shows your body that
(28:04):
like you're like, yeah, okay, you want me to do
something about this. You're telling me that I'm in danger.
I'll do something about it. I will move around, I
would be physical. I will make sure that all of
those extra hormones and all those stress hormones or neurotransmitters
that you've got flooding through my body, they are serving
a purpose. I'm going to do something about this trigger
and it tricks the brain into calming you down. I
(28:27):
also like to adopt the five five five rule. There
are different iterations of this. Sometimes it's the five four
three to one rule, the four four four rule. But
I always like to do the breathing acxis of breathing
for five, hold for five, breathe out for five. Identify
five things that you can say that are a particular color,
and five things that you can touch and feel exactly
(28:49):
how that fabric of that thing, that texture of that
thing feels on your finger, feels on your body. Focus
on something that is outside of you rather than the
chaos and the hurricane of emotions that is within you.
What this does is move you away from focusing on
the fear and panic sensation, a feeling that is automatic
(29:12):
and involuntary, and it gets you to focus on a
sensation that you can control, something that you can bring
into your orbit and do something about. It's also why
things like ice on your wrists or immediately putting something
sour in your mouth. I always have wart heads with me.
Is really useful because your brain is like, wait a second,
(29:33):
what is this weird feeling that is suddenly happening, Like
we need to focus on that because it's so shocking
and out of the blue, like that intense cold or
that intense sour taste. Really like your brain cannot juggle
too many stimulus or stimuli in the environment, too much
information at once, or it needs to choose what to
focus on. It it's going to focus on the thing that
(29:53):
just feels most immediate, and that might not be your
panic if there is something else more pressing in your environment,
like a really intense sensation, that is going to drag
you away from focusing on your fear. I also find
that grounding exercises are incredibly useful, particularly ones that allow
(30:16):
you to feel connected with nature. So going outside, taking
your shoes off and putting your feet on the dirt,
putting your feet in the grass, feeling how squishy it feels,
how kind of dirty it feels, the tingling, the tickling
sensation of the grass, feeling connected with nature. And we've
seen study after study that has indicated that this naturally
(30:38):
calms down our brain. Whether it's because of the wide
open spaces give us a sense of like a place
to escape to, whether the fresh air does something to
bring us back to a state of like homeostasis into
a feeling a place of calm. One particular study that
focuses on this says that the reason nature is an
(31:00):
important tool for integrative health but also for anxiety is
that grounding and earthing in particular utilizes the electric charge
from the earth and utilizes our nerve cells on the
surfaces of our body to bring us into contact with
the natural material. And this, as a result, stabilizes a
(31:20):
lot of that stress. It improves blood flow, It generates
just the greatest sense of calm because we're focusing on
what these things feel like for us, and it's bringing
all that blood black back into the nerves that are
on our extremities, rather than all concentrating on the heart
and the lungs and the brain that's creating all that panic,
(31:41):
that hot flush sensation, that tingling. I feel like this
goes without saying, but if you are someone who is
having a lot of panic attacks, I don't know what
you're doing drinking caffeine or drinking alcohol excessively. Maybe that
is all I need to say. But like caffeine is
a natural stimulant, and we don't often think about this.
Alcohol as well has an anxious effect. The morning after.
(32:06):
Alcohol is a depressant. It does slow everything down. It
might make you feel calm when you're drinking it, but
the next morning you're going to experience this huge spike
in hormones and neurotransmitters that want to bring you back
to that stable level in the moment when you're drinking.
It slows everything down, It releases these neurotransmitters and these
(32:28):
hormones that really bring like almost a sense of calm. Really,
it's just ethanol being processed by the body. The next morning,
the next day, your body needs to bring back a
sense of alertness. But because the sense of calm has
been so intense, it kind of swings too far in
the opposite direction, creating anxiety, contributing to panic attacks. Now,
(32:51):
not everything is going to be entirely effective for you
in managing this. Don't keep forcing habits or practices on
yourself that don't work, because you're just going to feel
more frustrated and less in control because you're trying and
not succeeding. I have a checklist in my phone of
everything that I know works for me, and there are about,
(33:14):
I think at this stage, over thirty things that I
know I can do that are going to calm me down.
So if the first one doesn't work, all the second
one probably will. And if that one doesn't work, I've
got the third fifth, all the way to thirty of
options for me. And even the understanding and even like
the fact that I know I have that list makes
me feel so much better because I know that I
(33:35):
have resources and options available that I'm not going to
be stuck in that panicked moment because I've done that before.
The biggest ones for me are meditations. I love going
through my photo albums as a distraction, cleaning out all
my photos, and I have my affirmations, my little reminders
that I have survived this before, I will survive this now.
(33:58):
I am safe. I'm going to hell the good thoughts,
exhale the bad ones, and I'm just gonna sit with
that feeling for a little bit and give it, give
it a chance to hurt me, And after a while
I realized that it won't. It won't hurt me. The
final thing that really helps me, that I return to
again and again in my own life are these short
(34:21):
five minute visualization exercises that I can put on listen
to and I find it really calms me down. I
even imagine them when I don't have immediate access to
that audio, like on a plane or somewhere without Wi
Fi or an internet. So I want you to pause
with me for a second, and we're gonna go through
one together right now. I know that right now it
(34:49):
feels like your panic is taking over. That's okay. Remember
it is just a feeling, no different to feeling joyful
or frustrated, or happy or angry. These emotions exist only
within you, and your panic is not going to hurt you.
It is not physical. It has come from you, and
(35:12):
therefore you can control it. I am here with you
now in this moment, and you and I like partners.
I'm going to watch out for you whilst you take
some time to realign all of your senses, make sense
of this feeling, and in only a few minutes you're
going to be able to return to whatever it is
(35:34):
you're just doing. Don't worry about what's going on around you.
I can do that for you. All I need you
to focus on right now is your body and what
you're feeling. I want you to focus on your breathing
with me. We're going to breathe in for five seconds.
Now five four three two one. Now hold for five
(36:03):
four three two one and breathe out for five seconds.
Good job. I knew that wouldn't be too hard. I
want you to pause for a second and repeat that
three more times. I'm sure you're feeling better now. I
(36:23):
can see that. Good job. I'm proud of you. Now,
I want you to focus on your heartbeat for a
few seconds and you take a few more deep breaths.
Just notice how it begins to slow down. You're doing
that because you're in control. Your anxiety doesn't have as
(36:43):
much control as it would like. You are the one
in charge. You're a bit like a scientist in this moment.
I want you to think of this panic you're feeling
as an interesting specimen you want to understand better. It's
sitting right in front of you behind a nice reinforced
pane of glass. It can't hurt you, it can't touch you,
(37:07):
but you can observe it and notice what it's responding to.
As you relax, it will too. And if you can't,
that is okay. You can always walk out of the
room and leave your anxiety behind. It is not going
to escape, it's not going to hurt you because you
are in control. You have the key and you alone.
(37:31):
To test this. I want you to give your anxiety
thirty seconds to break free, thirty seconds to try and escape,
to take over, to do its worst. You're being really
generous with your anxiety. You don't have to do this
for it, but you are deciding to be kind today.
(37:52):
You're going to look at your anxiety right now and say, Okay,
it's your turn. Do whatever you would like, just draw
the room, jump around, whatever you want to do. But
after thirty seconds, you have had your chance, and now
it's my turn. So let's count down together, okay. Thirty
(38:15):
twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven, twenty six, twenty five,
twenty four. You might feel like your anxiety is fighting
very hard right now to get out of that room,
but it's still trapped behind that glass while you're sitting
(38:35):
calmly in that nice, comfortable chair, watching each of its moves,
not needing to react. Twenty three, twenty two, twenty one,
twenty nineteen eighteen. Your anxiety is getting tired now. You
(38:57):
can see it losing its steam, knows it's not going
to win this time or the next. It's slowly losing
its energy seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven ten.
(39:25):
Your anxiety has run out of energy. It's not screaming
or yelling anymore. It is slowing down. Its eyes are
closing nine eight seven six five. There's your anxiety sitting
(39:48):
calmly in the corner. Four three two one. Now it's
your time. Focus on your breath again for me. Breathe
in again for five four three two one. Now we're
(40:13):
going to hold and finally breathe out with me five
four three two one. If you need to, you can
do that a few more times. It's always going to
be up to you. As you continue to breathe deeply.
(40:33):
I want to remind you that you are safe and
supported in this moment. Panic attacks can be overwhelming, but
you have the strength within you to overcome them, like
you just did. Remember to be gentle with yourself and
to acknowledge those feelings. You are so capable and brave
(40:56):
and strong, and I am so proud of you. I
want you to talk to your panic. Now, talk to
your anxiety. You can see really that it's just this
weak little creature sitting in the corner of the room.
You feel slightly sorry for it, and you're going to
speak to it with compassion. I know you're scared, anxiety,
(41:19):
and that's okay. I'm going to be gentle with you.
You can be at peace here. Nothing is wrong. We
are alive, we are breathing, we are loved, and you
are welcome here. I know that you have been misunderstood
in the past. I know I've been scared of you,
(41:40):
but it can see that under that scary exterior, you
are just an emotion trying to be seen. I see you,
I acknowledge you. You can stay here for a while,
but in exchange, you don't get to be in control.
I'm in control, So feel free to get comfort, to rest,
(42:02):
let me know. If you need anything, we can talk again,
but for now, I'm going to leave this room and
get on with my day. I'm going to leave in
three two one. Goodbye, anxiety. Are you feeling better? I
really hope so, And if not, please feel free to
(42:24):
listen again. When we visualize our anxiety is something that
is harmless, something that we can see, we can hold,
that we can approach. We release a lot of that
additional additional fear we have around what it can do.
To us the harm it can cause, because at the
end of the day, something that we forget is that
it is just another emotion, and you are the house,
(42:46):
the home of all of these emotions. They are you.
You have the final say. I really hope that this
episode helped you, just giving you more information about what
panic attacks actually are, guiding you through what to do
about some of my tactics, and my tips, providing you
with that psycho education. I hope you're just feeling better.
I hope that if you need to return to this
(43:08):
episode that you do, it will always be here. Feel
free to come back. I will still be here eternally
in this little voice in this little episode clip. But
if there is someone you know who might need to
hear this, please feel free to share it with them.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
to leave a five star review wherever you're listening right now.
(43:30):
If you liked this episode, I know it's a bit
different to what I usually do, Please let me know
if it was of any help. If you would like
me to do more episodes like this, you can DM
me over on Instagram at that psychology podcast. I would
love to hear from you. I'm sending you love, I'm
sending you strength, I'm proud of you. Good job you
got through it, and we will be back next week
(43:52):
with another episode.
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