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PANIC AND WAYS OF CALMING IT
How Panic Attacks Start
Panic attacks are caused by a combination of physical and mental things. When the brain sends out fear signals, it sends a rush of adrenaline into the system to help the body get ready to run or fight. It can't distinguish between situations where you need to do that and ones that make you anxious but where you don't. So the same chemical is released either way.
If you don't run or fight, the sensations caused when adrenaline's released can feel so worrying that fear increases, which in turn makes the brain sense more danger and send signals to the body to do even more to prepare to run or fight, and that causes sensations that seem more worrying still, and the fear and scary sensations make things spiral into panic.
Knowing what the body's doing can calm it to some extent:
What Causes Unpleasant Physical Sensations When Panic Starts
When the brain releases adrenaline into the system because the fear emotion makes it think you need to fight or run away, the tubes of the lungs enlarge so you can breathe faster and take in more oxygen, because oxygen gives the body energy; the blood carries it around to the muscles and brain and it makes the brain more alert and the muscles stronger for a while.
The trouble is that people's breathing can become too fast, and then they can breathe out too much carbon dioxide at once. When too much is breathed out quickly, people can feel dizzy and disorientated. Also it can cause a tingling sensation and cramps in the hands and feet.
The heart beats faster to pump more oxygen-carrying blood to the muscles to give them more energy. The heart beating so fast can scare people if they don't know why it's happening, but all it's trying to do is help the body get more energy to run away or fight.
At the same time oxygen is being pumped around to the muscles to make them bigger and stronger for a while, oxygen is taken from places the body thinks won't need so much, so it can send it to the muscles instead. It carries it away from the skin in the blood, which is why people can go pale - there's not so much blood there; and it takes it from the digestive system. The muscles there get smaller to push it out so it can be used for arm and leg muscles that might be needed for fighting or running away; and the sensation of it being pushed out from the stomach is what gives people butterflies or stomach cramps during panic.
Getting Rid of the Physical Symptoms of Panic
Just knowing what the cause of the physical sensations is can help, because otherwise they can feel scary and the fear makes the panic worse. If you know what's causing them, then, for example, when your heart starts beating fast and powerfully, instead of being scared you're about to have a heart attack, you might remember to just think, "Oh, my heart's pumping more blood with oxygen in it around my body to make fuel for my muscles because it thinks I'm going to have to fight someone or run away." That reassurance in itself can calm you a bit.
Also, because some of the physical symptoms of panic are caused by breathing too fast, making a deliberate effort to breathe much more slowly and steadily can calm them.
Breathing through the nose can help, since then not so much air will be taken in in one go, though breathing through partly-closed lips is as good. Remember to breathe slowly, as breathing quickly can cause feelings of light-headedness.
Also, making an effort to concentrate on breathing more slowly means the mind is on something other than panicky thoughts, so that in itself will help slow and reverse the panic.
It is much easier to focus on breathing slowly and steadily before the panic really gets going, since then it'll be difficult to think of doing it.
But when you calm one physical symptom down, the body will be calmer so the other physical symptoms will calm down on their own.
Calming panicky feelings or a mind so stressed it's impossible to think straight
Sometimes, breathing slowly can be easier if it's done while saying something in rhythm. Doing that will also help take the mind off racing panicky thoughts, simply because it's impossible to have two thoughts in the mind at once. Certainly thoughts can race so fast a person can have several within seconds; but it's simply impossible to have a panicky thought at the exact same time as having a thought about something else. Though it'll be difficult to think of complicated things when very stressed, having very simple thoughts streaming through the mind can help block out panicky ones. And when not so many panicky thoughts are flooding the mind, the mind will automatically calm down a bit.
Even trying to concentrate on just counting to yourself as you breathe in and out can be good enough thinking; it's occupying the mind with something other than stressful thoughts. It also helps keep the breathing slow if the counting's slow, perhaps up to six as you breathe in steadily and nine as you breathe out.
Panicky thoughts won't go from the mind immediately but will still try to intrude a lot. Though it will be difficult to concentrate on anything much, the more intensely you can try to concentrate on the simple act of counting, the more effective the technique will be.
But it might be more effective and you might feel more like doing it if you're repeating something simple to yourself instead of counting, something you find interesting that comes to mind easily.
For instance, if you can rattle off a list of football teams, then instead of counting to six, you could say three as you breathe in, and then four as you breathe out. If you repeat the same three and four over and over again for a few minutes, your stress will likely start diminishing, simply because it's impossible to have stressful thoughts while your mind is elsewhere.
You do have to say something simple though, because the mind can let stressful thoughts in again if you hesitate wondering what to say.
What you say could be anything that'll come easy to you; perhaps a list of train stations if you know some by heart and they come quickly to mind, or anything like that.
Remember to breathe slowly though so as not to start feeling light-headed.
You might feel so terrified and have such a sense of urgency to do something that you don't think you'd have time to do anything like that. But if you can manage to persuade yourself that nothing disastrous is likely to happen in the next five or ten minutes, then you can persuade yourself it's worth taking that little amount of time out to try and de-stress a bit. If you manage it, it'll be well worthwhile, because you'll be able to think more clearly, so you'll be able to plan better for what to do.
Calming Panic Without Controlling the Breathing
It can be just as effective to focus on saying simple things to yourself without thinking about your breathing too, since if your mind's occupied with simple things so panicky thoughts begin to be crowded out, then the body will slow the breathing automatically, and the unpleasant physical symptoms caused by breathing too fast will fade on their own.
There are several kinds of simple things you could say to yourself. Some people find it helpful to look around the room, naming things fairly quickly one after the other, such as "Table, chair, window, chest of drawers", and so on.
Or you could look through a food cupboard naming things one by one.
You might feel silly standing there saying to yourself something like, "Coffee, tea, pasta, chicken, sardines, yellow mug, blue mug, green mug, red mug", and so on. But you might realise the benefits if you start to calm down because the panicky thoughts simply can't flood the mind at the same time you're saying all that so they begin to subside.
If you're outside when you feel so stressed it's difficult to tolerate, you could try doing the same thing, perhaps looking in a shop window and naming to yourself everything there, starting again if there aren't many things, or looking at the road and naming the colours of the cars that pass.
You might think of similar things yourself that suit you better.
There are variations on the technique you might prefer, one that can be good in busy places, where you at first count five things you can see around you, then move straight on to counting five things you can hear, such as people talking, cars passing, footsteps and so on, then five things you can feel, such as the texture of a chair you're sitting on, the sensation of your feet against your shoes, the sensation you feel as you sit on a seat, the sensation of your hand on a table, the texture of the table, and so on. That can also help ground you in reality rather than you feeling as if you're lost somewhere.
When you've counted five things you can see, hear and feel, you start again counting four of each, either a different four or some the same. Then three, then two, then one.
RELAXATION TECHNIQUES TO CALM THE MIND
There's a technique called mindfulness meditation. It can't be done while in a panic, but it can work when you're fairly anxious. It works partly by crowding out worrying thoughts from the mind like the others, but also by making people take more notice of when anxious thoughts are just beginning to flood the mind, before they take hold and it becomes impossible to think clearly.
The Reasons Why Clear Thinking Becomes Impossible When Strong Emotion Floods the Mind
When stressful, depressed or angry thoughts begin to take over the mind, it becomes much harder to think clearly, because emotions swamp the brain so it can't think straight. So people can't plan well; they can't think of solutions to problems well, or think of anything that makes life seem any brighter than it seems right then.
It's normal for people to start thinking in extremes then, only able to imagine the worst things that might happen, feeling sure everything's hopeless, simply because they've temporarily lost the ability to think of possible ways out of their situation. People can be absolutely convinced everything will go catastrophically wrong, not realising they feel so sure of it because emotions are swamping the brain's ability to think so much that in reality, it's just impossible to think of solutions at the time. It's just a usual thing for emotion to flood the brain so clear thinking is impossible under times of extreme stress; and thinking ability will come back again when the mind becomes calmer.
But feeling sure everything's hopeless and bound to be disastrous can lead quickly to the desire to commit suicide. It can seem the only way out, just because it's impossible to think of others at the time. The urge to commit suicide is caused partly by the body's fight or flight instincts, the same ones that make them want to run away when panicking. 'Flight' in this case would be flight away from the emotional torment, and flight away from life can seem the only way to get away from that.
And just as people don't think about whether running's really a good idea when they're panicking but just run without thinking first, people can just want to act on the suicidal urge as soon as possible, almost incapable of thinking through whether it's a good idea and what they could do instead. It's just a normal reaction to strong emotional torment.
If people can bring themselves down from that level of emotional torment by calming themselves, thoughts of suicide will diminish as clearer thinking becomes more possible again.
A Technique to Stop Anxious Thoughts Flooding the Brain Till It's Impossible to Think Clearly
In the mindfulness meditation technique, people start off by trying to focus their attention on one particular object or saying. That's for the same reason as before: People can't have two thoughts at the same time, so if they're trying to concentrate as hard as they can on one simple thing, such as looking at a stain on the carpet or a plant on the windowsill, or repeating a little phrase to themselves over and over again like, "I'm trying to relax", then while they're managing to concentrate on that, they can't have panicky thoughts at the exact same time, so the thoughts won't be sparking off strong emotions right then, so the body and mind will automatically calm down a bit.
Of course, it's actually impossible to concentrate intensely on something for more than a very very short time when already anxious. The idea of the relaxation exercise is to try, as hard as possible for several minutes.
So you try your best to concentrate, but seconds later, you'll probably find you can't anymore and an anxious thought is bothering you. The idea is that you don't let it lead on to 100 other anxious thoughts that make you more and more scared like you usually might; you do your best to notice yourself having it, and while it is still only one thought or a few thoughts, you try to detach from it, thinking, "There goes a thought about ..." whatever it is; and then you try to pull your concentration gently right back to what you're supposed to be focusing your attention on.
As you do, imagine the anxious thought is in a car or train carriage or something, zooming away into the distance. Or you could imagine it flowing out of your brain as you breathe out, and floating up into the sky or out the window and away.
It's bound to be very difficult to dismiss powerful thoughts of dread just like that. But if you know you probably do have at least several minutes free because nothing catastrophic is likely to happen that minute, you won't need to feel such a sense of urgency to solve your problems that you don't think you can afford to take the time to calm down.
So you try to gently pull your attention back to the peaceful thing you've decided to focus on. But seconds later, another scary thought might come into your mind. It's unlikely it'll have to be dealt with right then; after all, the same thoughts go round and round in the head so often that it'll probably be back soon enough, or it's probably been there lots of times before and didn't lead to anything good. So you can feel free to take your mind off it.
First tell yourself what it is, as if you're an outside observer, saying something like, "Oh, there's a thought about ..." whatever it's about. Then imagine it zooming off into the distance just like the other one did, and try to gently pull your concentration back to what you have chosen to focus your attention on.
Try that for several minutes regularly, and see if it makes you feel calmer and better able to plan for the future because your brain isn't so cluttered with scary racing thoughts and strong emotion.
- Calming panic.
- Becoming less stressed and anxious.
PANIC AND WAYS OF CALMING IT
How Panic Attacks Start
Panic attacks are caused by a combination of physical and mental things. When the brain sends out fear signals, it sends a rush of adrenaline into the system to help the body get ready to run or fight. It can't distinguish between situations where you need to do that and ones that make you anxious but where you don't. So the same chemical is released either way.
If you don't run or fight, the sensations caused when adrenaline's released can feel so worrying that fear increases, which in turn makes the brain sense more danger and send signals to the body to do even more to prepare to run or fight, and that causes sensations that seem more worrying still, and the fear and scary sensations make things spiral into panic.
Knowing what the body's doing can calm it to some extent:
What Causes Unpleasant Physical Sensations When Panic Starts
When the brain releases adrenaline into the system because the fear emotion makes it think you need to fight or run away, the tubes of the lungs enlarge so you can breathe faster and take in more oxygen, because oxygen gives the body energy; the blood carries it around to the muscles and brain and it makes the brain more alert and the muscles stronger for a while.
The trouble is that people's breathing can become too fast, and then they can breathe out too much carbon dioxide at once. When too much is breathed out quickly, people can feel dizzy and disorientated. Also it can cause a tingling sensation and cramps in the hands and feet.
The heart beats faster to pump more oxygen-carrying blood to the muscles to give them more energy. The heart beating so fast can scare people if they don't know why it's happening, but all it's trying to do is help the body get more energy to run away or fight.
At the same time oxygen is being pumped around to the muscles to make them bigger and stronger for a while, oxygen is taken from places the body thinks won't need so much, so it can send it to the muscles instead. It carries it away from the skin in the blood, which is why people can go pale - there's not so much blood there; and it takes it from the digestive system. The muscles there get smaller to push it out so it can be used for arm and leg muscles that might be needed for fighting or running away; and the sensation of it being pushed out from the stomach is what gives people butterflies or stomach cramps during panic.
Getting Rid of the Physical Symptoms of Panic
Just knowing what the cause of the physical sensations is can help, because otherwise they can feel scary and the fear makes the panic worse. If you know what's causing them, then, for example, when your heart starts beating fast and powerfully, instead of being scared you're about to have a heart attack, you might remember to just think, "Oh, my heart's pumping more blood with oxygen in it around my body to make fuel for my muscles because it thinks I'm going to have to fight someone or run away." That reassurance in itself can calm you a bit.
Also, because some of the physical symptoms of panic are caused by breathing too fast, making a deliberate effort to breathe much more slowly and steadily can calm them.
Breathing through the nose can help, since then not so much air will be taken in in one go, though breathing through partly-closed lips is as good. Remember to breathe slowly, as breathing quickly can cause feelings of light-headedness.
Also, making an effort to concentrate on breathing more slowly means the mind is on something other than panicky thoughts, so that in itself will help slow and reverse the panic.
It is much easier to focus on breathing slowly and steadily before the panic really gets going, since then it'll be difficult to think of doing it.
But when you calm one physical symptom down, the body will be calmer so the other physical symptoms will calm down on their own.
Calming panicky feelings or a mind so stressed it's impossible to think straight
Sometimes, breathing slowly can be easier if it's done while saying something in rhythm. Doing that will also help take the mind off racing panicky thoughts, simply because it's impossible to have two thoughts in the mind at once. Certainly thoughts can race so fast a person can have several within seconds; but it's simply impossible to have a panicky thought at the exact same time as having a thought about something else. Though it'll be difficult to think of complicated things when very stressed, having very simple thoughts streaming through the mind can help block out panicky ones. And when not so many panicky thoughts are flooding the mind, the mind will automatically calm down a bit.
Even trying to concentrate on just counting to yourself as you breathe in and out can be good enough thinking; it's occupying the mind with something other than stressful thoughts. It also helps keep the breathing slow if the counting's slow, perhaps up to six as you breathe in steadily and nine as you breathe out.
Panicky thoughts won't go from the mind immediately but will still try to intrude a lot. Though it will be difficult to concentrate on anything much, the more intensely you can try to concentrate on the simple act of counting, the more effective the technique will be.
But it might be more effective and you might feel more like doing it if you're repeating something simple to yourself instead of counting, something you find interesting that comes to mind easily.
For instance, if you can rattle off a list of football teams, then instead of counting to six, you could say three as you breathe in, and then four as you breathe out. If you repeat the same three and four over and over again for a few minutes, your stress will likely start diminishing, simply because it's impossible to have stressful thoughts while your mind is elsewhere.
You do have to say something simple though, because the mind can let stressful thoughts in again if you hesitate wondering what to say.
What you say could be anything that'll come easy to you; perhaps a list of train stations if you know some by heart and they come quickly to mind, or anything like that.
Remember to breathe slowly though so as not to start feeling light-headed.
You might feel so terrified and have such a sense of urgency to do something that you don't think you'd have time to do anything like that. But if you can manage to persuade yourself that nothing disastrous is likely to happen in the next five or ten minutes, then you can persuade yourself it's worth taking that little amount of time out to try and de-stress a bit. If you manage it, it'll be well worthwhile, because you'll be able to think more clearly, so you'll be able to plan better for what to do.
Calming Panic Without Controlling the Breathing
It can be just as effective to focus on saying simple things to yourself without thinking about your breathing too, since if your mind's occupied with simple things so panicky thoughts begin to be crowded out, then the body will slow the breathing automatically, and the unpleasant physical symptoms caused by breathing too fast will fade on their own.
There are several kinds of simple things you could say to yourself. Some people find it helpful to look around the room, naming things fairly quickly one after the other, such as "Table, chair, window, chest of drawers", and so on.
Or you could look through a food cupboard naming things one by one.
You might feel silly standing there saying to yourself something like, "Coffee, tea, pasta, chicken, sardines, yellow mug, blue mug, green mug, red mug", and so on. But you might realise the benefits if you start to calm down because the panicky thoughts simply can't flood the mind at the same time you're saying all that so they begin to subside.
If you're outside when you feel so stressed it's difficult to tolerate, you could try doing the same thing, perhaps looking in a shop window and naming to yourself everything there, starting again if there aren't many things, or looking at the road and naming the colours of the cars that pass.
You might think of similar things yourself that suit you better.
There are variations on the technique you might prefer, one that can be good in busy places, where you at first count five things you can see around you, then move straight on to counting five things you can hear, such as people talking, cars passing, footsteps and so on, then five things you can feel, such as the texture of a chair you're sitting on, the sensation of your feet against your shoes, the sensation you feel as you sit on a seat, the sensation of your hand on a table, the texture of the table, and so on. That can also help ground you in reality rather than you feeling as if you're lost somewhere.
When you've counted five things you can see, hear and feel, you start again counting four of each, either a different four or some the same. Then three, then two, then one.
RELAXATION TECHNIQUES TO CALM THE MIND
There's a technique called mindfulness meditation. It can't be done while in a panic, but it can work when you're fairly anxious. It works partly by crowding out worrying thoughts from the mind like the others, but also by making people take more notice of when anxious thoughts are just beginning to flood the mind, before they take hold and it becomes impossible to think clearly.
The Reasons Why Clear Thinking Becomes Impossible When Strong Emotion Floods the Mind
When stressful, depressed or angry thoughts begin to take over the mind, it becomes much harder to think clearly, because emotions swamp the brain so it can't think straight. So people can't plan well; they can't think of solutions to problems well, or think of anything that makes life seem any brighter than it seems right then.
It's normal for people to start thinking in extremes then, only able to imagine the worst things that might happen, feeling sure everything's hopeless, simply because they've temporarily lost the ability to think of possible ways out of their situation. People can be absolutely convinced everything will go catastrophically wrong, not realising they feel so sure of it because emotions are swamping the brain's ability to think so much that in reality, it's just impossible to think of solutions at the time. It's just a usual thing for emotion to flood the brain so clear thinking is impossible under times of extreme stress; and thinking ability will come back again when the mind becomes calmer.
But feeling sure everything's hopeless and bound to be disastrous can lead quickly to the desire to commit suicide. It can seem the only way out, just because it's impossible to think of others at the time. The urge to commit suicide is caused partly by the body's fight or flight instincts, the same ones that make them want to run away when panicking. 'Flight' in this case would be flight away from the emotional torment, and flight away from life can seem the only way to get away from that.
And just as people don't think about whether running's really a good idea when they're panicking but just run without thinking first, people can just want to act on the suicidal urge as soon as possible, almost incapable of thinking through whether it's a good idea and what they could do instead. It's just a normal reaction to strong emotional torment.
If people can bring themselves down from that level of emotional torment by calming themselves, thoughts of suicide will diminish as clearer thinking becomes more possible again.
A Technique to Stop Anxious Thoughts Flooding the Brain Till It's Impossible to Think Clearly
In the mindfulness meditation technique, people start off by trying to focus their attention on one particular object or saying. That's for the same reason as before: People can't have two thoughts at the same time, so if they're trying to concentrate as hard as they can on one simple thing, such as looking at a stain on the carpet or a plant on the windowsill, or repeating a little phrase to themselves over and over again like, "I'm trying to relax", then while they're managing to concentrate on that, they can't have panicky thoughts at the exact same time, so the thoughts won't be sparking off strong emotions right then, so the body and mind will automatically calm down a bit.
Of course, it's actually impossible to concentrate intensely on something for more than a very very short time when already anxious. The idea of the relaxation exercise is to try, as hard as possible for several minutes.
So you try your best to concentrate, but seconds later, you'll probably find you can't anymore and an anxious thought is bothering you. The idea is that you don't let it lead on to 100 other anxious thoughts that make you more and more scared like you usually might; you do your best to notice yourself having it, and while it is still only one thought or a few thoughts, you try to detach from it, thinking, "There goes a thought about ..." whatever it is; and then you try to pull your concentration gently right back to what you're supposed to be focusing your attention on.
As you do, imagine the anxious thought is in a car or train carriage or something, zooming away into the distance. Or you could imagine it flowing out of your brain as you breathe out, and floating up into the sky or out the window and away.
It's bound to be very difficult to dismiss powerful thoughts of dread just like that. But if you know you probably do have at least several minutes free because nothing catastrophic is likely to happen that minute, you won't need to feel such a sense of urgency to solve your problems that you don't think you can afford to take the time to calm down.
So you try to gently pull your attention back to the peaceful thing you've decided to focus on. But seconds later, another scary thought might come into your mind. It's unlikely it'll have to be dealt with right then; after all, the same thoughts go round and round in the head so often that it'll probably be back soon enough, or it's probably been there lots of times before and didn't lead to anything good. So you can feel free to take your mind off it.
First tell yourself what it is, as if you're an outside observer, saying something like, "Oh, there's a thought about ..." whatever it's about. Then imagine it zooming off into the distance just like the other one did, and try to gently pull your concentration back to what you have chosen to focus your attention on.
Try that for several minutes regularly, and see if it makes you feel calmer and better able to plan for the future because your brain isn't so cluttered with scary racing thoughts and strong emotion.