what is the best way to calm down from a panic attack?
Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at
3:21 am
im sure nothing is wrong with me, but i have this fear of dying and everytime i think about it my heart starts beating fast. then i feel like my heart is going to stop or i might have a heart attack. after that starts, i freak out and have a panic attack. what should i do?
Filed under: Panic Attacks
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Sit down when you start to feel that, even if it is in the middle of somewhere, sit down on the floor. It’s hard to be panicky when you are sitting on a floor, trust me, personal experience.
You are actually causing these attacks by your thinking process, and the only thing you can do is redirect your thoughts away from where they were. It is a matter of what you focus on becomes your reality, so as long as you are thinking about dying, you will be afraid. If you do something like start looking at everybody’s shoes and see what colors of shoes they are wearing, or looking at the pattern on the floor, or look around you and count backwards from 100, or just about any other train of thought will take your mind to a different place and help relieve your panic.
Trust me, I’ve lived this and studied it. Following my divorce, I had what I now refer to affectionately as ‘sit-down disease.’ Whenever I’d get overwhelmed, I’d need to sit down. I sat down on sidewalks, in the middle of Sears between clothing racks, in a mall; whenever I needed to, I sat down – and then things would calm down. I’ve suffered my whole life with anxiety, and the one thing that I know that helps is doing something that feels normal – picking up clothes, doing chores, going for a walk, getting in a car and going for a drive, writing letters, cutting pictures out of newspapers. These things are normal and doing them causes a switch to occur in the thought process that essentially changes tracks and your mind starts to relax. You have the power to end this simply by changing how you think – where the mind goes, the body will follow – you just have to be the one to lead the way. And, you can do this. If I can, anyone can.
Focus on your breathing, deep long breaths will slow your heart race down. keep reminding yourself that you are ok. and there is nothing actully wrong with your body. and that the feeling your going through WILL go away. Its good you know what is happening to your body when you have a panic attack it make it easier to go through, because you know it will end and you are not in any real danger. people who do not know what is happeing slip into an even greater panic attack because they do not know what is happeing to there body and become more scared. so take deep breaths and remind your self you are fine. it will go away quicker
consult a cardiologist and psychiatrist