AnxietyClinics.com

One of the most common and least understood problems people present to mental health professionals is the occurrence of anxiety attacks or panic attacks.

A person who has anxiety attacks may experience one or a combination of physical events, or symptoms. These events may include: heart palpitations (racing); air hunger or shortness of breath; perspiration or cold sweats; dizziness or lightheadedness; butterflies in the stomach; a sense that I am about to pass out, go crazy, or die; increased muscular tension, particularly in the head, neck, chest, and shoulders, (often precipitating headaches); thoughts racing out of control; a feeling of being closed in or trapped; a sense of falling apart or losing control of yourself; and/or pressure in the chest. An anxiety attack is very uncomfortable, sometimes debilitating. It can be very frightening, making the anxiety even more intense.

If you are a person suffering from panic attacks, here are some facts you might find useful.

First, know that as uncomfortable as the experience is, it is not particularly dangerous. If you believe your anxiety to be dangerous in any way, you tend to become afraid of being anxious. Then you increase the intensity of the discomfort. To prevent this secondary anxiety from developing on top of the initial symptoms, realize that your initial symptoms are not dangerous. They are at worst, harmless, and at best useful. They will diminish shortly. Secondly, use the energy created by the anxiety attack to move your body in some way. Anxiety attack is one of the natural ways your body energizes you, or prepares you, to meet a real danger or threat. If a charging elephant confronted you, you would want all the anxiety your body could provide. The anxiety would allow you to run faster, fight harder, freeze longer, or become stronger than ever

before.

Saving your life is exactly what your capacity for having anxiety is all about in the first place. So, when you have an attack of anxiety, immediately use the energy created to move your body in a strenuous manner. Yell, pound a soft object with your arms, and jump up and down or run. Cheer, clap your hands, stomp your feet. Release that anxiety-produced energy in a harmless manner, or in a way that is

useful to you.

Third fact: When you feel light headed, either hold your breath after an exhale and move your body in some way, or if you have a paper bag handy, breathe into it. Lightheadedness or that sense of impending faint is due to an insufficiency of carbon dioxide in your blood. It is not a lack of oxygen. To build up the supply of carbon dioxide in your body, you need to move the muscles and not breathe out any carbon dioxide. Breathing into a paper bag allows you to inhale the carbon dioxide you exhaled with your previous breath. You thereby increase the amount of carbon dioxide in your blood and the dizziness subsides.

Fourth suggestion: Learn to breathe with your abdomen (tummy) and not your chest, shoulders, neck, or any other set of muscles never designed for breathing. Your diaphragm is a muscle located just under your rib cage. This muscle moves up and down, creating the necessary vacuum in your lungs for air to fill them.

In order for the diaphragm to move downward, you need to expand your stomach muscles to make room for it. If you push your tummy out, the diaphragm freely moves down and you fill the bottom of your lungs first and more completely. If you are in the habit of breathing any other way, you are creating bodily tension or stress with every breath you take. When your body is under sufficient tension, it sends signals to your brain calling for anxiety to help manage the stress. Your brain complies and you begin to have an anxiety attack for no apparent reason. Yes, the tension you create by an unnatural breathing pattern can cause sufficient stress to precipitate and

anxiety attack.

Fifth bit of knowledge: Anxiety attacks are not caused by external events. There are no triggers outside your own body. Anxiety is caused by your interpretation of external events, but the attack is always precipitated by internal, psychological events...usually reactions to perceived threat. You can teach your body to respond with relaxation to the same perceived events. When you do, you re-train your body to react with the relaxation response to the

perceived threats to which you formerly responded with panic attacks.

I teach my clients the technique of guided imagery as a simple to control generalized stress, anxiety, and best of all anxiety attacks. Anyone of any age can learn a quick and easy tool.