Anxiety and Panic Attacks - Can You Sleep Them Away?
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help
Have your anxiety and panic attacks ever left you unable to sleep at night? Maybe they stop you from ever getting to sleep. Maybe they wake you up during the night. However your anxiety and panic attacks are affecting your sleep, you can be sure it’s doing you no favours at all.
This is all very familiar to me. I suffered with severe panic and anxiety for years, and it used to play havoc with my sleep. I would have entire weeks where I didn’t sleep. And even when things were going well I would find myself awake for half the night, lying in the dark with my heart racing, feeling as if I might never be able to sleep again.
My sleep situation got so bad that I actually started researching sleep. I thought if I understood it better that I might be able to get the high quality sleep I knew I desperately needed.
A lot of the books I read were no help at all - many of them were like reading books on science and biology, and I just couldn’t understand them. But there was one good book that I really enjoyed, which I got a lot from, and I’d like to recommend that one to you now if you’re having the same kind of sleeping problems I had for so many years.
It’s called “The Insomnia Solution,” and it’s written by Michael Krugman. He offers a basic overview of sleep, and some basic, quick tips on how to get more quality sleep. But he also explains his “mini-moves” concept - a unique and subtle method for lulling yourself to sleep.
I think this approach and this book could really help you, so if your anxiety and panic attacks are messing with your sleep, give it a try and see if it works as well for you.
Panic Attack Causes - How to Uncover Them
I spent years and years searching for my number one panic attack cause. Actually, it was 17 years that I suffered with panic attacks, and a whole host of panic disorders too. And during that time, the one thing I wanted to know, more than anything else, was what was causing my attacks, and how to stop them.
For a long time, I found nothing concrete. I looked at emotions, and fear, and diet, and exercise. Pretty much everything. I certainly discovered some useful things on my search, and I’m sure a lot of those discoveries played a part in my recovery, but one of my biggest breakthroughs came when I read a book called “Blink.”
It’s written by a man called Malcolm Gladwell.
This book is all about the subconscious mind, and the role it plays in our day-to-day lives. It takes a long and interesting look at the way we think (even those thoughts we are never aware we are having), the way these thoughts affect us, and perhaps most importantly, how we can learn to control them.
I also learned a lot from the author’s look at our snap judgements, out first impressions, and our responses to negative things such as depression, anxiety, violence, worry, and so on. He goes into detail about how our minds work when we react to things in those first 2 or 3 seconds. I realised a lot of my panic attacks started with these 2 and 3 second snap judgements/first impressions.
I may even go as far as saying these initial reactions I was having turned out to be my number one panic attack cause, so this really is an area that is worth your time. So check out the book “Blink” when you get a chance. I think it’ll help.
How To Deal With Panic Attacks
If you’d like to know how to deal with panic attacks, then I’d highly recommend you start focusing on your emotions. This was an area I overlooked when I was trying to solve my own panic and anxiety related problems for more than 17 years.
I did what most people do: I saw my doctor (more times than I could count), I saw psychiatrists and psychologists, I took anxiety medications. And I even spent time learning about my mind and how it works (learning how your mind works is definitely worth your time. It helped me a lot). But when it came to the specific subject of emotions, I was completely ignorant.
It wasn’t even something I realised you could learn about. I always thought of emotions as these uncontrollable things that just happened to you.
But then I was lucky enough to stumble across a book called Emotional Intelligence, written by Daniel Goleman. It’s a really interesting book, and I’d recommend it to you if you’re trying to find out how to deal with panic attacks.
In the book, Daniel Goleman explains why he thinks emotional intelligence is much more important than what we traditionally think of as “intelligence.” He goes on to talk about how improving your emotional intelligence can lead to greater happiness and joy in life, and decreased depression and anxiety, amongst other benefits.
The great thing is, this is a book written for “normal” people like you and me, not some psychology student who wants to understand the complex inner-workings of the brain.
I think we all neglect our emotions to some degree, and most of us (myself included until a year or two ago) aren’t aware that we can learn to take control and manipulate them.
So start paying more attention to your emotions, and maybe pick up a copy of Emotional Intelligence. It will definitely help you when you need to know how to deal with panic attacks.
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.
Overcoming Panic Disorder With The 3 Steps I Used
Overcoming panic disorder is impossible to achieve, in my opinion, without 3 things. Those things are hope, optimism, and modelling. Without these 3 things, I would never have overcome my own problems with panic disorder.
In fact, for many years I tried everything I could think of to help myself, and absolutely nothing I tried worked. It was only when I focused all of my efforts and attention on hope, optimism, and modelling that I finally started to make good progress.
The great thing is, you can learn from my years of mistakes, because through all my efforts I stumbled across an approach that I passionately believe can work for you too.
And the approach I’d like to share with you is based solely on the third vital aspect I mentioned a moment ago - modelling.
Modelling, in case the idea is one you’ve never come across before, is essentially choosing someone who has achieved something you would like to achieve, and “modelling” your life and your behaviour on them. If you do this well enough, and for long enough, then you should achieve the same goals they’ve achieved.
So this comes down to focusing all your effort and attention on people who’ve had some form of panic disorder and overcome it. Find a handful of these people, find out what they did, and copy it.
The best way I know to do this is to find books written by people who once had problems with anxiety and panic disorders. There are lots of these books around, and a few minutes spent searching online will turn up more than you could ever need.
Simply by going through these books, and being exposed to people who’ve beaten anxiety and panic, you’ll rediscover your hope and optimism (the first two things I said you’ll need if overcoming panic disorders is your goal). And the third thing you’ll need (the modelling) will come from focusing your attention on one or two of the authors of these books, finding out what they did to stop their anxiety and panic, and doing the same things in your own life.
This three-pronged approach to overcoming panic disorders is one I really believe in, and if you give it a try and stick with it, I think it could really help you.
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.
Your Anxiety Cure Could Be 1 Step Away
If you’re currently looking for an anxiety cure, then I’ve got one word for you: sleep.
I lived with severe anxiety for over 17 years, and one of the big things that I focused on that lead to my recovery was sleep. And if you have any kind of anxiety or panic disorder then it won’t be a surprise to you that sleep plays such a big role in how we feel and how severe our anxiety is on any given day.
When my anxiety was at its worst my sleep was almost non-existent. I would sometimes go an entire week on a total of less than an hour of sleep. And that made my anxiety 10 times worse than it would have otherwise been.
And this can easily develop into a vicious circle that’s close to impossible to break out of.
You have anxiety, you can’t sleep, you have more anxiety that you can’t sleep, you sleep even less, and so on, and so on. It can quickly become a nightmare.
But there’s good news.
If you follow a few simple “sleep rules,” you can quickly and dramatically increase the amount of sleep you have, and also increase the quality of the sleep you have. So try sticking to these 3 rules from now on, and I’m sure it’ll help you a lot. Who knows, it may even turn out to be the first step towards finding your very own anxiety cure.
1. Go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning. To get truly healthy, restful sleep your body needs to develop a routine. This step is vital.
2. Avoid anything stimulating for an hour before you go to bed. Again, for truly restful, relaxing sleep your body needs to be in a calm state as you drift off. So no exercise, caffeine, or stimulating TV for an hour before bed.
3. Don’t use your bed for anything other than sleep and sex. You want your bed to be a place your mind subconsciously links with relaxation and almost zero activity. So no reading, eating, watching TV, or talking on the phone in bed.
Follow these 3 rules as best you can and you’ll be one huge step closer to finding your anxiety cure.
