When looking for Panic Attack Treatments it’s a common mistake to think of the problem as a mental health issue.
The good news is that treating panic attacks successfully is about calming down an overactive mind and not about mental health. Panic attacks can be cured in a matter of hours and certainly don’t require months of therapy.
To get a better understanding of why this is let s look at what panic attacks are. That way the treatment will make more sense.
Two important realizations:
I’d like to share with you a couple of things that helped me on the road to curing my own panic attacks.
The first was realizing that I wasn’t alone that in fact many people suffer panic attacks.
The second was realizing that having panic attacks did not mean that I was going crazy (even though sometimes that’s just what it felt like).
One of the most awful things about panic attacks is feeling out of control. I often felt very dizzy and worried I might faint. And my breathing would get tight and my heart would race, which made me fear I’d have a heart attack – of course this made things worse.
Not being able to control the attacks made them all the more worrying. When would the next one come? Where would I be? Would I be able to cope? These worries helped make the next attack a self fulfilling prophecy.
I began to feel that there must really be something wrong with me. Everyone else could get on with their lives, but not me. Perhaps I really was a bit crazy?
1 in 20:
The reality is that around 1 person in 20 suffers panic attacks (National Institute of Mental Health figures). This may even be an underestimate, because lots of people either don’t get properly diagnosed or don’t seek treatment.
It helped just to know that I wasn’t alone, but that was only a first step to treating my panic.
Not a “mental health” issue:
The next was to understand that, while it’s hard to believe, panic attacks are a natural response to events in our lives and I wasn’t going mad.
Panic attacks are the result of the body’s “fight or flight” mechanism being triggered. Usually a person’s first panic attack is caused by something particularly stressful or during a particularly stressful period in their life.
The problem is that the sub conscious mind has overreacted to a perceived threat. It triggers the “fight or flight” mechanism to protect us. In the past this might have helped us escape from a saber toothed tiger.
Unfortunately, our minds aren’t good at telling the difference between a build up of day to day stress in our lives and a life or death situation.
Once a person has had one panic attack another is more likely, as the mind may react to “triggers” that remind them of the original attack.
For example, your first attack might have happened while driving. It wasn’t necessarily the driving that was the real cause – more likely the stress had been building for some time. But your mind remembers that you were driving when the attack happened and links the two.
Now driving has become a “trigger” for the next attack.
Panic attack treatments:
Being aware of this certainly helped, but what really turned things around for me was discovering a treatment that broke this cycle of attacks.
The amazing thing is that the treatment is so simple. It interrupts the “fight or flight” hijacking of your brain while it is actually happening, which immediately puts you back in control.
Within a few days I was able to use the technique to stop panic attacks before they even began.
The treatment is called the “One Move” and was pioneered by Joe Barry. For more information on the One Move visit my blog at www.OvercomingPanicAttacks.org.uk
Author Resource:
Mary Susan Johnson is a former panic attack sufferer. In her blog she writes about panic attack treatments and tells her story of how she finally overcame her own panic attacks. Visit her blog at http://www.OvercomingPanicAttacks.org.uk
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