Want to stop your panic attacks? try this...

scoobyuk · Newbie User Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 1

Suffer from Panic Attacks? Fed up? Want to do something about it?

Follow this advice and it should help:-

A- Alcohol – reduce your alcohol intake, try stopping drinking alcohol in the week completely and only drink moderate amounts at weekends. Excess alcohol consumption may cause depression and vitamin deficiencies, which can worsen your panic symptoms.

B- Behavioural - Panic attacks are due to an inappropriate normal physiological response to stress known as the fight or flight response, if you are being chased by a large dog then this response will enable you to either fight it or run away and it is therefore necessary for your survival. In panic attacks, you suffer an inappropriate fight or flight response, i.e. it occurs at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, therefore you need to ‘unlearn’ this inappropriate behaviour pattern – this is fundamental to the success of you self-treating your panic attacks. One way of doing this is as follows:- Make sure you are in a quiet room, relaxed, by yourself and with no disturbances. Then close you eyes and think of a ‘positive’ memory, this can be something from your past that makes you feel happy, something that brings a smile to your face e.g. a time when you were on holiday, a great day out, the time when one of your children was born, the feeling you get after doing a bungee jump, it must be something positive that brings back good memories. Build up a picture of this image in your head and keep concentrating on it until you feel happy, keep concentrating on this image for a minute or so. Repeat this procedure several times on several occasions. Now, the next time you are in a situation where you feel a panic attack coming on (your heart will be racing, you may feel lightheaded etc.), you need to immediately think to yourself, ‘I’m Going To Stop This’ and quickly focus your mind and switch to thinking of the ‘positive’ memory. Keep concentrating on this ‘positive memory’ until your feelings of panic settle, Do Not concentrate on your panic symptoms, instead keep your mind focussed on the ‘positive’ memory. This is a difficult thing to do, but you need to do this every time you get your panic symptoms. The more you do it, the easier it will become until it becomes second nature. You will then be ‘unlearning’ your inappropriately activated fight/flight response and replacing it with a healthier more normal response. Eventually over time and with practice, when faced with a panic attack provoking situation, your body will no longer automatically have a fear response and you will instead have a calmer more relaxed response.

B- Bananas - These contain a source of serotonin, which may act as a sort of natural antidepressant, which can help with panic attacks as well as other conditions such as depression and generalised anxiety disorder. As well as making you feel good, bananas also release energy slowly over several hours, which will make it easier for you to reduce your caffeine intake, and they will also make it easier for you to stop smoking. Try eating 3 bananas per day – 1 for breakfast, 1 mid-morning and 1 mid afternoon – if you can’t eat the fruit, then try banana milkshakes. The positive effects of bananas should become evident within as little as a week.

C- Caffeine – Reduce your caffeine intake, try drinking tea/coffee/coke only when you get in from work, or each time you have normally have a full cup, try just having a half cup. Decaf is ok, but still contains small amounts of caffeine – so check the label. If you suffer side effects when you don’t have caffeine then it is because you are addicted to it – you didn’t have caffeine withdrawal headaches when you were a child before you started drinking caffeine did you? Caffeine gives an energy boost, but this is followed by a drop in energy levels which will make you want to drink more. A gradual reduction in your caffeine intake will mean there are less caffeine molecules circulating around your body – excess numbers of these molecules can contribute to and worsen your panic attacks.

C- Cigarettes - Stop smoking, there is no better incentive to stop smoking than the fact it will reduce the frequency and severity of your panic attacks. Try nicotine lozenges, these give a relatively smooth dose of nicotine, the nicotine gum, if chewed quickly may give a large ‘hit’ of nicotine which may in itself cause you to feel panicky. Therefore avoid the gum and stick to the lozenges. Stopping smoking is one thing that can have a huge impact on reducing your panic attacks. The more recent nicotine lozenges are much more effective than the gum of recent years – if you tried the gum in the past then it may have put you off trying to quit, but try again, the new products really are much better and stopping smoking will be easier than you think. Stopping smoking has a huge effect on reducing panic attack severity and frequency. People often smoke because they feel stressed, however the feelings of stress are often actually the effects of nicotine craving and not stress. Non-smokers are widely known to be less stressed than smokers. I was never as stressed as I was after I started smoking. So stopping smoking is essential. If you don’t stop then your feelings of ‘stress – actually most likely to be nicotine craving’ are unlikely to go away.

D- Do everything in this list of advice, only tackling one or two things on their own will not be that effective. I would suggest tackling everything first except the section on Behaviour, once everything else has been tackled, the Behaviour section will then be much easier to achieve. The most important thing is to change your inappropriate behaviour (fight-flight) response – this is the key to getting your life back to normal.

D- Don’t let your panic attacks rule your life, if you dwell on them, then they will never go away, it’s easy to think you have no control over your life, but you need to take control, and hopefully after reading this information that is exactly what you will do. Think back to before your first panic attack – you probably didn’t even know what a panic attack was did you? Panic attacks didn’t rule your life then, so there is no reason that they should have to now. If you find yourself constantly thinking about your panic attacks, then use the techniques in the Behaviour section above to change your thoughts to something positive. If panic attacks don’t constantly occupy your mind then they are less likely to occupy your life.

D- Don’t avoid situations where you get panic attack symptoms otherwise you will be reinforcing your inappropriate fight/flight behaviour response, you need to confront your fears and take control. This will be easier when you have reduced your caffeine and cigarette intake.

D- Drugs – Medications may be useful for short-term levels of extreme stress, but they are not the solution. They may treat the symptoms but they will not treat the cause. Often people will get rebound anxiety symptoms when they stop medications or the problem will persist once the medication has been stopped. Side effects of certain medications may indeed be the same as the symptoms of the condition itself. There is also the risk of becoming dependent on the medications. Use only very sparingly if at all, you are far better off trying the methods listed here. Remember, medications are not the answer, your panic attacks will only stop if you can unlearn your inappropriate fight/flight response.

E- Exercise – Exercise regularly, it will make you feel better and also make stopping smoking easier, it will also help to motivate you to conquer your panic attacks. The adrenaline in your body needs some way of being released, if it is not released through exercise, then it will build up and channel itself into stress, eventually releasing itself as a panic attack instead.

F- Foods – Reduce you intake of chocolate/foods/drinks high in sugar – chocolate contains a chemical similar to caffeine and high doses of sugar may cause rebound low blood sugar levels known as hypoglycaemia, the symptoms of this may resemble the symptoms of panic attacks. Also, if your sugar levels are low then in order to get more energy, you may be tempted to drink caffeine or smoke a cigarette, which you need to avoid as they may make your panic attacks worse.

G- GP – Go to see your GP for further help and advice, you don’t need to cope with this alone – however be wary of accepting medications as a ‘quick fix’ as they are not the solution.

H- Help yourself – There is no ‘magic wand’ or medicine that will cure your panic attacks, you need to make the effort to change your behaviour and to regain control. Panic attacks may make you feel angry, upset or down, do something positive with these negative feelings, use them to motivate yourself into doing something about it.

I- Internet – This is really useful, particularly the forums where you can discuss your condition with others. Remember you are not alone, you may think you are, but many others out there suffer from panic attacks. Share your experiences with others and learn from them, in turn allowing them to learn from you. However, try not to spend excessive time dwelling on your condition, spending hours each day on the internet thinking about your condition may not be the best thing you can do. Panic attacks may be part of your life but they shouldn’t take over your life.

I can’t promise that my advice will cure your symptoms, but if you follow my advice then I do promise that the frequency and severity of your panic attacks will decrease. After several courses of medications over several years, it became clear to me that medication was not the answer, I then went on a mission to help myself. My advice is from personal experience and I hope it is useful to you. It is aimed primarily at people suffering from panic attacks, but I believe the advice should be equally as effective for people suffering from conditions such as generalise anxiety disorder and social phobia.

Please let me know how you get on, any feedback would be appreciated.

Best of luck.

Scooby, UK

bluenow · Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:29 am Post subject:

Thanks Scooby for the great advice. I'm going to bed and will start working on the behavioral tip. Logically it sounds like it should work. Will stock up on bananas tomorrow and post in a week or so to give a report on any progress. Goodnight y'all.

_________________
You do not have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. — Martin Luther King Jr.

renegade · Advanced User Joined: Oct 26, 2005 Posts: 338

lawyerguy · Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 5:58 am Post subject:

Hi,

I used to have panic attacks all the time. It was quite embarassing. I used to have episodes where I thought I was having a heart attack. I remember I caused the whole office to worry about me. It turned out to be nothing.

The panic attacks lasted for about two months. Then they went away . I'm alaways paranoid that they'll come back.

G22 · Newbie User Joined: Oct 19, 2005 Posts: 8

That part about the bananas is definitely true. A friend of mine told me about how certain foods/fruits/etc. can help with depression and anxiety conditions. Since I've always loved bananas as a kid, I figured I'd try eating them on a more regular basis, along with a bunch of other fresh fruits.

Whenever I have a mean craving for candy, chips or other junk foods, I try to get into the habit of grabbing something more healthy to munch on instead... a banana, an apple, grapes, carrots, etc. This simple little switch in foods alone has kinda helped keep my depression and severe moments of anxiety at bay. You REALLY DO notice a nice difference in the way you feel after a few weeks of fresh fruits and veggies! Another plus is that it's a heck of a lot cheaper than medications that sometime only screw you up even more. I was never a big fan of medications anyway... so I'm really happy with the results that fresh fruit and veggies have given me.

bleedingheart · Newbie User Joined: Jan 04, 2006 Posts: 3

hi, thanks for this it helped me out a bit. i have had panice attacks over fear, but not very often as much

Panic_Blogger · Newbie User Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 7

This is great advice. There is so much more to expand on with diets, and natural cures. I have been panic free 1 year now. I call myself a panic survivor! I have been through h--- and back. I would never wish this on ANY person! Take a look at my blogs, I will be updating them regularly with ALL my diaries, notes, etc. from my journals that I was experiencing during the stages of my attacks. I will be hitting the specific subject of diets as this was key. I just started the blogs but give me a while and keep checking back, there will be a lot of info.

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http://panic---attack.blogspot.com http://stop-panic-attack.blogspot.com http://panic-attack-medication.blogspot.com http://panic-attack-treatment.blogspot.com http://anxiety-panic-attack.blogspot.com http://panic-attack-symptoms.blogspot.com

cammo · Newbie User Joined: Apr 14, 2006 Posts: 13

Great advice - sticky worthy!

bird · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 8:15 pm Post subject:

Cheers for the advice scooby, you gotta give anything a go!! Only thing is with me is that my panic attacks happen when i see someone i know and they start a conversation with me?how can i try n think of a happy memory whilst trying to keep a conversation going without them seeing me dying inside whist my brains telling me to run!!! Definetly trying the banana diet & water, also going to get a bike as i cant bear the gym...
keep you posted.... if anyone has simlar experiences let me know..

MrsP · Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:21 pm Post subject:

What brill advice Scooby! Thanks so much...I've not actually had any atacks since Christmas time so fingers crossed but must admit I am much better at dealing with them now than when I first had them...the one thing that lets me down form your list though is I live on fully blown cafeine coke, ha ha and I hate bananas, ha ha!
Seriously, whenever I feel clos eot an attack now I usually get out and just walk and though I always feel like the attack is coming back on when I get near home again, I do go to a quiet room and do some relaxation stuff my councellor taught me and think about good things...it really works!!!