What is a Panic Attack?
Symptoms may include:
- Crushing Weight on Your Chest
- Shortness of Breathing (Hard to Breathe)
- Heart Pounding (Racing Pulse)
- Hands Sweating
- Confusion
- A Fear of Craziness or Imminent Death
- Numbness or Tingling in Various Parts of Your Body
- Lightheadedness or Dizziness
- Nausea
- Abdominal Distress (IBS or Gas)
All, or some, of these symptoms can hit you out of the blue.
In a matter of minutes, you may find yourself in a full blown Panic Attack!
Panic attacks are terrifying!
I remember waking in the middle of the night with my first attack.
Not having a clue what was happening to me, I woke my husband in terror.
I thought I was dying.
A Perfect Recipe for Panic Attacks
The previous 6 months, I had been spending at least 20 hours a week studying. Additionally, I had a part time job, and 3 children – the youngest being 4 years old. My husband was working full time, so I felt somehow responsible for doing most of the house work as well. Exhausted and stressed, I had no time. I wanted that more than anything, more time.
“If I had more time, I could actually get everything done that had to get done.”
“If only I didn’t need to sleep to survive.”
“I need to win the lottery so I can quit my job.”
Even the school work was challenging. It brought the promise of a career I desired, but I downright hated the pressure of deadlines. Writing paper after paper and reading dry text books was not my idea of fun.
The perfect recipe for anxiety and panic attacks:
- Lack of sleep
- Unfulfilling work
- No ‘down time’ or activities that filled my soul
- Failure to Delegate Housework to other members of my family.
Thinking I had to ‘do it all myself’.
I also didn’t have any tools or knowledge about self care and stress reduction!
If you’re like I was…
In a state of constant anxiety and stress and experiencing panic attacks.
I’m here to understand and help.
First Aid for Panic Attacks
Here are 3 simple yet effective ways to calm oncoming panic attacks that I teach my clients. These tools do not take great mental effort to use, and can help bring you down from an a looming panic attack. They will also help to ease the fear of having another one. As you learn your own warning signals of an attack, ideally you can use these to help with anxiety before it becomes panic.* If you are in a full blown panic attack, it may be that you have to ride it out until your body can clear the adrenaline from your system, and I highly suggest trying EFT Tapping first.
1. EFT Tapping
Tapping is one of the most effective tools I know for calming a distressed nervous system. It is basically acupuncture with your finger tips. There are 8 tapping points on the upper body. All you need to do is tap through these 8 points until your nervous system calms down. It is most important to tap on the correct spots!
Here is a set of instructions that you can download or print off:
If you’re not familiar with EFT Tapping, there are plenty of guided tapping sessions on youtube. Here is an excellent one to try:
2. Breathe
Place one hand on your chest and one hand over the belly button. Take long, deep and even belly breaths trying to lift the bottom hand. Count to 5 as you breath in, pause, and then breath out to a count of 5.
When you are in the midst of an attack, it can be hard to force yourself to breath at this rate. I suggest you start with EFT Tapping, and then add breathing as you continue tapping, once your system begins to calm down. Begin breathing at whatever rate you can manage, and lengthen each breath as you embrace calm. Continue this pattern until your whole body relaxes. That could take anywhere from 1-10 minutes. Give yourself time.
When we get stressed or afraid, our natural response is to breathe quicker and more shallow. The result is a lack of Oxygen in our system and a build up of Carbon Dioxide. Thus creating lightheadedness or dizziness; a major symptom of panic attacks.
Breathing is also an easy way to send signals to our brain, via our heart, that everything is okay and we are safe. This deep and steady breathing puts a halt to the panic cycle and regulates our heart rate, bringing it back to normal. When used on a daily basis, this type of breathing can bring down our tendency toward anxiety and panic.
This is the basis of the HeartMath stress reduction and breathing techniques I teach.
*Note: some people cannot use breath work to calm anxiety – it can actually activate anxiety! If you are one of these people, please honour your body and find other solutions that work for you.
3. Rescue Remedy
I always keep a bottle of Rescue Remedy (or a tin of pastilles – small candies) on hand wherever I go.
You can use either of these methods:
- sucking on a pastille
- or putting 4-6 drops of the Rescue Remedy in a glass of water (or water bottle) and sipping it every minute until the attack stops.
Rescue Remedy is a mixture of 5 Bach Flower essences.
Together they can provide relief for the major symptoms of panic attacks:
-
fear of going crazy or losing control (Cherry Plum)
-
feeling faint or detached from oneself or reality (Clematis)
-
great mental stress and tension, with the need to run or escape (Impatiens)
-
feelings of terror and panic (Rock Rose)
-
for the after effects of shock and trauma (Star of Bethlehem)
If you are prone to panic attacks, buy some Rescue Remedy and keep it with you to take at the first sign of an attack.**
The Bach Flower Essences are an amazing set of healing remedies. I use them in my practice, along with EFT Tapping and HeartMath, to help relieve symptoms of Anxiety or Panic Attacks. With a little practice and experimenting to see what works for you, I know you can find relief too.
**To learn more about this powerful self-help system. Read A Guide to Bach Flower Remedies by Julian Barnard.
