An Anxiety and Panic Attack Strategy To Try
When you’re looking for an effective way to combat anxiety and panic attack related problems, you will often not know where to turn, or what to try next. And that’s why I’d like to share an idea with you that I used myself a couple of years back.
This idea helped me to kick-start my recovery by allowing me to always have a clear, sharp mind, leaving me able to spot the early signs of anxiety, which put me in a much better position to fight off attacks before they got out of control.
It’s all about clearing off your desk, mentally!
Imagine you work at a desk, and your desk is a mess. You won’t function well. You won’t be able to find anything. Your stress levels will increase. You’ll get nothing done.
Well, it’s the same with your mind. If your head is filled with “mental clutter,” you won’t function right. Your thoughts won’t be sharp or clear, your stress levels will increase, and your anxiety and panic levels will skyrocket. Mental clutter can single-handedly cause all kinds of anxiety and panic attack problems.
So, how exactly do you de-clutter your “mental desk”?
You clean it off, just like you would a real desk. Except with your mind, you do it by venting what’s in your head. So each day, write what’s on your mind. Write it on a blog, in a journal, or even on scraps of paper. Just get it out.
And what you’ll find is that the longer you do this, the less random, meaningless, and harmful thoughts you’ll experience. Soon, what you write each day will only be half of what it was when you started out.
Getting your thoughts out, especially your negative thoughts, is an excellent way to stop those negative thoughts occurring in the first place, and when you’re desperately looking for an anxiety and panic attack approach that works, this can literally be a life-saver.
Stop Anxiety Attack In Three Steps
If you’re living with severe panic and anxiety, and you’d like to know exactly what you can do the next time you need to stop an anxiety attack, I’ve put together a quick 3 step plan that you can use.
These ideas are basic, and yet they are sadly overlooked by many people who are experiencing panic and anxiety attacks. The ideas that follow really do work, so I hope you’ll give them a shot when and if you need them.
1. When you feel an anxiety attack approaching, do something physical if your situation permits it. Take the trash out, vacuum the carpet, or even walk up and down the stairs a couple of times.
Getting active like this achieves two things - first, it distracts you from the way you’re feeling, and two, it gets your heart, lungs, muscles and your mind working slightly harder -all of which can decrease anxiety and prevent a full-blown attack.
2. If your anxiety attack happens, despite your best efforts, make use of all sensory distractions. The worst attacks are so bad because your mind becomes transfixed on the sensations and the thoughts linked to the attack. Sensory distractions deprive the attack of its fuel and will make it go away much faster.
Great sensory distractions are turning on the TV with the volume higher than normal, turning on some music (often, unfamiliar music is effective), and believe it or not, even eating something very bitter. Anything that requires your senses to process some information will help ease an attack.
3. When you have an attack, do something immediately afterwards. Anything. The important thing is, once it’s over and you’re free to do something else, do something else.
The longer you leave it to get back on your feet, the longer it will take for the effects of the attack to disappear. I’ve also found that some attacks can cause further attacks, almost like earthquake aftershocks. The chances of these happening are greatly reduced if you get busy with something else as soon as you can.
These 3 tips are powerful. They will help you stop an anxiety attack from happening, or they will make it stop much faster if it happens, and they will reduce the chances of further “aftershock” attacks occurring. Start using these tips today, anytime you need them.
Treat Anxiety Attacks - 5 Quick Tips
If you’re trying to find better ways to treat anxiety attacks then you’re in the right place. So often people with anxiety ask me for new things they can try to decrease their anxiety and increase their calmness. I’ve put together a list of 5 super-quick things you can start doing right now to overcome your problems with panic and anxiety.
The more of these you can use and make into habits, the better your results will be:
1. Sleep: Get as much of it as you can. Go to bed at the same time each night, and get up at the same time each morning. A steady routine promotes healthier more restful sleep.
2. Exercise: Get as much of it as you can. Walk instead of driving. Take steps instead of elevators. Get active every chance you get, even if it’s just for a few seconds. Exercise decreases anxiety and depression, and increases positive moods. And exercise will always be one of the best ways to treat anxiety attacks.
3. Emotions: Avoid anything that causes negative emotions. Fear, anger, frustration, and sadness increase anxiety and can be hard to shake off if they get out of control.
4. Goals: Set lots of them, and don’t be afraid to make them big. Your chances of achieving anything multiply dramatically when you set specific goals. Ask yourself where you want to be, set some goals, and then go after them.
5. Imagination: Use it. Your imagination is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. Nothing happens in your life unless it’s been imagined first. Start imagining your dream life every chance you get.
If you start using these 5 tips, and you stick with them, I guarantee you’ll not be looking for any other way to treat anxiety attacks in the near future. These tips alone can make a huge difference.
Anxiety Attacks Treatment - Good News and Bad News
If you’re currently looking for great anxiety attacks treatment, then you’re in luck. I’m about to give you a great one. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that it’s going to require a bit of work from you.
Because it’s all to do with exercise. Yes, that dreaded thing we all try to avoid like the plague - exercise!
We all know that exercise is good for us, and it’s no different when it comes to helping stop anxiety and panic. Exercise works, it’s as simple as that. It causes the release of endorphins, which lift mood and makes it easier for us to experience happiness, it distracts us from thoughts that are negative and damaging, and it gets our hearts and lungs pumping, which has too many benefits to list.
So exercise is one of the great anxiety attacks treatment options, but that doesn’t make it any more fun to do. And that’s why I’ve got 3 super quick tips on how to get all the benefit of exercise, but without all the effort.
1. Walk extra distance every chance you get. Park your car farther from the supermarket doors, park farther from where you work, park farther every chance you get.
2. Take every set of steps you can. Unless it’s impossible to do otherwise, never take another elevator.
3. Use any “waiting time” to exert yourself in some way. Waiting in line for something? You can do a stomach contraction every 10 seconds - this is like an upright sit-up. Waiting for your dog to pee in your yard at midnight? Do a couple of half-squats while you wait.
Use your imagination. And use your “waiting time” to activate your body in some way, however small. All these little activities add up and make a difference.
Learning to find quick, simple, and ingenious ways to stay active throughout the day is one of the best anxiety attacks treatment options you’ll come across, and one that I hope you’ll try.
Stop Anxiety Attacks With A Simple Morning Trick
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
The question I get asked more than any other is this: How do I stop anxiety attacks? And it’s a question I used to ask a lot myself until a couple of years ago, when I successfully overcame my 17 year battle with panic and anxiety.
So in response to this question, I’d like to share one of the best ideas I stumbled across, which you can start using right away, and which I believe has the power to stop anxiety attacks, if you stick with it.
It’s all to do with how you get up in the morning.
I firmly believe that your first few minutes after you wake up set the tone for your entire day. If you start the day right you can have a far better day than if you start the day wrong.
The number one rule I set for myself a few years ago, when I started looking for ways to “start my day right,” was to get up the moment I woke up.
No lying in bed worrying, dreading the day ahead, reliving yesterday’s mistakes. I made a rule that within 60 seconds of waking up or my alarm clock ringing, I had to be up out of bed.
So that was rule #1.
Rule #2 was this: I would always have something that needed my attention, or something that I needed to do, within the first few minutes of getting up. This could be something as simple as not ironing the clothes I would be wearing that day. In that example, I would immediately get up when my alarm rang, and I would immediately go and iron my clothes.
The important thing was, I gave myself something to do right after I got up. This is like an extension to the “not lying in bed” rule. It starts your day off right by not allowing your mind time to wander anywhere bad.
So give yourself something to do: maybe you need to take the trash out, so stop doing it the night before and let it be what you do as soon as you get up. Maybe you have a pet you have to let out, and you normally make it wait until you’ve been up long enough for your head to clear.
Well, from now on, make letting your pet out a priority that you do the moment you’ve got some clothes on. It can be anything - just make it something that you really have to do as soon as you get up.
These 2 rules are a fantastic way to get your mind functioning healthily from the moment you wake up, and it’s a great way to stop anxiety attacks that might have struck you later in the day.
Stop Panic Attacks Starting Right Now
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Random Thoughts
After living with anxiety and panic for 17 years, I know what it’s like when you desperately want to stop panic attacks. And I’d like to share a quick idea with you that I discovered a couple of years back. It’s something I used as part of my efforts to get over my severe anxiety, and if it worked for me, perhaps it can work for you too.
It’s all about focusing your attention on other people who have the same goal - to stop panic attacks.
I found great inspiration to see other people winning their own battles with these kinds of problems, and I’m sure it played a part in my eventual recovery.
One of the best ways I found for doing this was to find videos on the various video sharing sites. Quite a few people who suffer with panic attacks and severe anxiety seem to like to make little video diaries, or video blogs, where they talk about their own experiences, the progress they’re making, and the approaches they’ve taken that have worked.
Another great thing about these video sharing sites is that you can leave comments under the video, or in some cases even contact the creator of the video directly. I met a couple of people this way who turned into good friends, and we all learned a lot from each other about our various panic disorders.
So if this is something you haven’t tried, why not visit a couple of video sharing sites, take a look around, watch some videos, and see what it inspires in you? If it proves to be even half as effective as it was for me, you might just find that it plays a big part in helping to stop panic attacks completely.
Treat Panic Disorder By Creating Your Very Own Masterplan
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
Back when I was trying to treat panic disorder I was a little lost. I didn’t know where to turn, or what to try. Some things I gave a shot, and I made a little progress. Other things I tried and made none. But my biggest problem was that I had no real plan of attack. I didn’t know what I was trying to achieve.
So when I realised this I started developing something that I’d like to share with you today, and I think if you make use of this idea you’ll have a great new way to treat panic disorder.
I called it my “masterplan.”
It was a combination of short-term goals, and long-term goals, and a way to track them.
I think it’s vital to have a long-term goal that you’d like to achieve (your ultimate goal), and many short-term goals (little baby steps you’d like to achieve along the way.). And just as important as those goals is an effective way to track them.
So first of all, decide on your long-term goal and write it down. Then plot out all the baby step goals that will take you from where you are now to your ultimate goal. When you see an entire plan laid out like this ic can be very inspiring, because it makes your long-term goal suddenly seem so easy to reach.
When you’ve got all your goals written down, start monitoring your progress towards them in a daily journal. You can either do this in a little diary, or maybe even an online blog. Nothing fancy - just a quick note of the progress you made that day, and if you’ve achieved or got nearer to any of your short-term, or baby step, goals.
Having a masterplan like this can produce incredible results, and I think if you stick with it you will have a great new weapon in your arsenal to treat panic disorder.
Panic Disorder Help -Are You Using Mindfulness Meditation?
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
When you’re looking for panic disorder help it can be hard to know where to turn. So many of the traditional approaches fail to work for the majority of people, so you can end up feeling as if there’s no hope.
This is kind of where I was a few years ago. I’d tried the normal things - doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, medication, cognitive behavioural therapy. None of them had helped me at all. In fact, apart from the cognitive behavioural therapy, I’d say the other approaches had actually left me worse off than before I’d tried them.
Because all these methods had failed me so miserably, I started trying less obvious things in an effort to help myself. One of them I’d like to recommend to you today, because it played a big part in my eventual recovery.
It’s mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness meditation is a form of meditation that requires you to become hyper-aware of yourself, your body, your breathing, and your thoughts. By doing this, you form an incredible link between your mind and your body, and for me this turned out to be some of the best panic disorder help I found.
There are lots of great free resources on the subject online, so take a moment to look through the websites and free videos out there. This will let you sample mindfulness mediation first-hand before you invest in any audio CDs or DVDs.
So if, like I was a few years ago, you’re really struggling to find some effective, simple panic disorder help, take a closer look at mindfulness meditation and see what it can do for you.
End Panic Attacks By Striking At Their Biggest Weakness: The Fact That They Don’t Exist
The single biggest breakthrough I had when I was trying to end panic attacks was my realisation that my panic and anxiety were imaginary.
That might sound a bit weird to you - my anxiety and panic were imaginary?
Don’t worry, I’ll explain.
I read this book, The Gift of Fear (written by Gavin De Becker), and in it he talked a lot about what fear was, what causes it, and how to control it. It turns out that fear is really just a defence mechanism that has been with us (humans) for tens of thousands of years.
The book also said that despite the fact that most of us think of intense fear as paralysing, it’s actually energising. It doesn’t make us freeze, it makes us act. Genuine fear is there for one reason - to make us aware of something that’s dangerous to us, and to make us act to avoid or escape whatever that danger is.
When I read this in the book I made a big breakthrough.
I suddenly realised that if genuine fear was short-lived like this (and there only to make us act), then the constant, relentless fear I was feeling all day every day as part of my anxiety obviously could not be genuine fear at all.
It was imaginary.
This was my biggest leap forward in my efforts to end panic attacks, and it lead to many more breakthroughs and my eventual full recovery.
I’ve done my best to explain (in my limited time with you) this concept of anxiety-based fear being imaginary, but I really think you’ll benefit a lot from reading The Gift of Fear. So go and get a copy as soon as possible, read it, and experience the same breakthrough I did when I read it.
Like me, it could help you end panic attacks sooner than you think.
Treating Panic Attacks The Easy Way
I lived with severe panic and anxiety for over seventeen years, and during that time I discovered that treating panic attacks is far easier if you can develop a basic understanding of how the mind works.
For me, this was the big breakthrough.
I’m not talking about studying psychology day and night here. I’m talking about learning a few of the basics about how you think, what causes you to feel and act certain ways, and what you can do to change your behaviour and your thoughts.
So that’s how I beat my panic disorder.
But if you’re anything like I was, then you won’t really know where to begin when you set out to learn about all this stuff. And that’s what I’m writing about today. I’m going to make a single book recommendation that I believe can teach you all you need to know about your mind, how it works, and how to get control of it.
The book is called “50 Psychology Classics,” and it’s written by a man called Tom Butler-Bowden.
What’s great about this book is that the author has done all the hard work for you. He’s read hundreds of books on psychology and the human mind, and he’s selected the 50 most important ones. And he’s written one chapter for each of those 50 books, summarising what the book teaches.
So by the time you’ve read this book, you’ll have the knowledge of someone who’s read all 50 of the books it covers. This is great for two reasons. One, you’ll instantly know enough to make treating panic attacks simple. And two, you’ll come across a couple of books that seem very interesting to you and suit your own situation, and you’ll be able to follow up by reading those all the way through.
Learning to understand my mind and how it works was a huge factor in my full recovery, and a large part of it was down to what I learned in this book I’m recommending you read. So go and get yourself a copy today and start benefiting from it the same way I did. When you’re treating panic attacks, I believe this will be your number one resource.
