The One Thing to NEVER Do When You’re Having an Anxiety Attack!
by Charles Beeson
You have probably heard this or read about it. It sounds nuts or crazy… so, you refuse to do it.
You might believe it… but, like most folks… are NOT ABLE to easily perform the technique.
There are dozens of internet scammers, trying to exploit the technique. They re-package this well known, fact as their own secret… “magical one-step”, or “One-move” method, for only $50 to $100. But, I will give it to you right now… so save your money!
“The harder you try and stop anxiety or panic attacks… the worse they get… So, you do the opposite!”
Dichotomy of Panic
You should never try and stop a severe anxiety or panic attack. Resistance usually causes the anxiety to spiral out-of-control. Almost, every technique that can quickly end such an episode… uses some form of re-direction of thought. By simply releasing our resistance and accepting the anxious, fearful feeling, it will quickly fade away.
The mental energy of your thoughts to “fight” the feeling will keep sending threat alert warnings to the brain. This will continue to cause more brain chemicals to pour into the blood stream and escalate your breathing and heart rate. As a result… all of the fearful feelings increase.
There are many methods that have proven to be effective in quickly stopping this terrifying experience. They all cause a shift in your thought process, quiet the panic feeling and begin the process to re-engage the relaxation response through the parasympathetic nervous system. Once the severity of the attack is gone, the subject may benefit by listening to a relaxation recording, such as, “Deep Calmness“, or using the InstaCalm Relaxation Technique. The most common techniques to begin this process include:
• Focus on your breathing. By performing the 5:7 Breathing Technique, you can end your mind’s screaming of, “stop”. You will, also, slow down your heart and breathing rate.
• Mentally, welcome & accept the “feeling”, and even tell it, or… dare it, to become worse. This is sometimes called the “Bring It On Baby!” technique.
• Become “mindful” of your immediate surroundings. Focus on the details of what’s in the room around you.
The Difficult Challenge
It’s only normal to want to fight and resist when you’re under attack. In order to be successful in calming a serious anxiety attack, it requires that you defy logic by doing the opposite and NOT try to stop it. Your mind must (some-how) think differently to turn-off this instinctive inner fighter. But, such attempts are often dismissed or blocked by the analytical & critical functioning of the mind. This is because it’s a complete contradiction in logic.
The process of learning is sometimes referred to by psychologists as cognitive restructuring. The only evidence-based treatment for anxiety and panic disorders (other than medication) is cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is a treatment model for a form of “talk therapy” used today by most licensed therapists and psychologists to treat anxiety.
The basic problem with CBT is the length of treatment. It is typical for a patient/client to have 12 to 24 sessions to alleviate their anxiety problem. The conflict with the critical-analytical mind can interfere with this restructuring or re-learning process, slowing down the speed of recovery.
So, what can you do?
One answer is to learn anxiety relief techniques without the interference of the analytical-critical mind. This can often be accomplished by engaging the imagination through guided imagery, usually facilitated by the therapist or listening to audio recordings.
When you use your imagination, your brain activity switches from the left side of the brain, where critical thought functions… over to the right side of the brain. Your critical factor is then bypassed. By combining guided imagery with relaxation… your mind can enter a naturally occurring state of mind called hypnosis.
Practically everyone enters this state of mind numerous times throughout the day. But, because of movies and TV, many people still have misconceptions regarding hypnosis. Thousands of men and women have used hypnosis to overcome bad habits, such as smoking and overeating.
Using hypnosis to change behavior or overcome an emotional problem is called, hypnotherapy. Research, through meta studies, has shown that when Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is combined with hypnotherapy, there can be up to a 70% improvement in effectiveness.
This therapeutic method is now called, Cognitive Behavioral Hypnotherapy. CBH shows great promise as being one of the fastest ways to cure anxiety disorders.
Even though Generalized Anxiety Disorder often has a genetic component, my personal experience has been, that CBH can help control its’ symptoms in as little as 3 to 6 weeks. This is about 50% of the treatment timeline of the talk therapy, CBT approach.
Three Absolute Ingredients for Anxiety Freedom
The bottom line is that whichever method works for an individual… is the best and most effective treatment for that individual. But, it is clear that there are three necessary components that must be combined and achieved to rid oneself of unwanted worry, fear and anxious thoughts. These 3 ingredients are:
1. Calm the nervous system.
2. Change the minds perception.
3. Effort to apply and practice the techniques learned.
