Stop An Anxiety Attack With Belly Breathing
Feeling short of breath is a hallmark symptom of an anxiety attack. But you can make the feeling worse by taking short, shallow breaths. Try belly breathing instead to stop the anxiety attack.
Carbonell compares the type of breathing youll need with the breathing of infants, whose bellies rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. When an anxiety attack starts, exhale deeply, loosen your shoulders, and focus on some longer, deeper inhales and exhales that let your belly rise and fall. Place one hand on your belly if you need to feel this happening.
Try Some Aerobic Activity
During periods of anxiety, your body is filled with adrenaline. Putting that adrenaline toward aerobic activity can be a great way to improve your anxiety. Exercise has numerous advantages for controlling your anxiety symptoms:
- Exercise burns away stress hormones that create anxiety symptoms.
- Exercise tires your muscles, reducing excess energy and tension.
- Exercise releases endorphins in your brain which can improve overall mood.
- Exercise is linked to healthier breathing.
- Exercise is a healthy distraction.
Aerobic activity, like light jogging or even fast walking, can be extremely effective at reducing the severity of your anxiety symptoms, as well as the anxiety itself.
How To Calm Yourself Down From An Anxiety Attack
Panic attacks can be debilitating. You may feel like you’re having a heart attack or even dying. Calming yourself during a panic attack can seem impossible. If you experience feelings of anxiety frequently, it can help to have an anxiety relief game plan in place.
- Notice what’s happening
The faster you can identify the stress response as a panic attack, the faster you can regain control and manage your symptoms.
- Label your thoughts
The act of labeling and describing our thoughts in detail pulls us out of the emotion center of the brain and into the prefrontal cortex. This will help make it easier to reframe your emotions so theyre not so overwhelming.
- Get to a safe place
If youre expending a lot of emotional energy trying to appear okay, leave for a place where you feel safe. Whether that’s the bathroom, an office, your bedroom, or just outside, you’ll feel better if you’re trying if you’re not trying to look fine.
- Reduce stimuli
Particularly for highly sensitive people, excess stimulation can result in panic attacks. Take steps to reduce the input in your environment. Turn off the radio and the ringer on your cell phone. Put your fan on silent, close the window, and turn off the lights. Take a few moments to bring your attention to your body and a few deep breaths.
- Let someone else tell you what to do for a bit
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Aromatherapy And Essential Oils
Essential oils, the extract from plants, have been used for thousands of years to treat a number of conditions, including anxiety. Essential oils activate certain areas of your brain and release feel-good chemicals such as serotonin. They have been found to ease symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression, improve mood, and improve sleep.
Recommended use includes diffusing, inhalation, or topical treatment which can aid with anxiety symptoms. When diffusing an essential oil or essential oil blend you will need an essential oil diffuser to fill your space with the desired scent. Inhalation is used by deeply smelling the essential oil straight from the bottle or by applying a drop or two of the oil on something such as a diffuser pad or lava bead that is connected to a bracelet, necklace, or even keychain. You can also place a drop or two of essential oil into your hands, rub them together, then cup your hands and take a few deep inhalations to get the desired effect.
You should be sure that the essential oils you use are pure oils and not mixed with chemicals. Some good brands to use include: Mountain Rose Herbs, Plant Therapy, Young Living, Doterra. You can do your own research to find a brand that will best work for you and your budget. Remember that a bottle of essential oil will last a long time since you typically use only a few drops at a time.
Essential oils that are great for treating anxiety include:
- Lavender
- Vetiver
Tips To Calm Down After An Anxiety Attack
12 September, 2020
Anxiety attacks can be very difficult and distressing for those who experience them. A significant part of the population has suffered from or will suffer an anxiety attack at some point in their lives, which includes intense fear, tachycardia, dizziness, and the feeling of an imminent threat.
These attacks can be due to a high alert system in which the mind mobilizes the organism and creates a strong psychological and physiological reaction, causing the person to lose control over themselves.
Managing these situations isnt easy. If youre already suffered panic or anxiety attacks, its best to seek professional help.
Therefore, in this article, well give you 7 tips to help you calm down and naturally relax at the first symptoms of an anxiety attack.
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Heal Yourself With Music
Make a playlist of music that can make you relax and happy, and then listen to this music every time you have an anxiety attack, so that you can feel reborn.
It is best to wear headphones that can block noise and let yourself focus on each note.
When listening to music, pay careful attention to every part of the song, every sound, and every lyric. This way you are one step away from anxiety.
Here I want to recommend an app calledShutEye, which includes wide variety of healing music and relaxing music to help you wind down after a long, stress-filled day. Relax and create a comfortable sleep space with our sounds and ambient noise.
What Is Progressive Muscle Relaxation
PMR was created by American physician Edmund Jacobson in the 1920s. It was based on the theory that physical relaxation can promote mental relaxation.
Jacobson found that you can relax a muscle by tensing and then releasing it. He also discovered that doing so can relax the mind.
PMR provides a framework for achieving this state of relaxation. It requires you to work on one muscle group at a time. This allows you to notice the tension in that specific area.
Its also essential to tense each muscle group before relaxing. This action emphasizes the sense of relaxation in the area.
Theres plenty of evidence behind the health benefits of PMR. Lets take a closer look at what research has discovered about the benefits of this technique.
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Breathing Exercise For Panic Attacks
If youre breathing quickly during a panic attack, doing a breathing exercise can ease your other symptoms. Try this:
- breathe in as slowly, deeply and gently as you can, through your nose
- breathe out slowly, deeply and gently through your mouth
- some people find it helpful to count steadily from one to five on each in-breath and each out-breath
- close your eyes and focus on your breathing
You should start to feel better in a few minutes. You may feel tired afterwards.
Visit the No Panic website for another breathing exercise to calm panic.
Effective Ways To Deal With An Anxiety Attack
When anxiety strikes, knowing how to calm down is vital for your health and functioning in social situations. One way to battle an anxiety attack is to hone in on your senses. Deliberately thinking about items around you that you can smell or hear will help distract you from the anxiety itself so you can calm yourself. Removing yourself from the public eye when you are having an anxiety attack can be beneficial. When people stare at you because you are having an attack, symptoms may worsen. Let a few trusted people know if you regularly suffer from anxiety and alert them about what would make you feel better if you do have an attack. They may be able to talk you through the situation or get you to a safe location so that you can calm down.
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Ask Yourself Some Questions
Similar, you can push back against negative thoughts by asking yourself a few Qs, John Hamilton, LMFT, LADC, a licensed marriage and family therapist at Mountainside Treatment Center, tells Bustle.
“Next time you are feeling anxious ask yourself: Is there a reason why I am feeling anxious? Am I exaggerating the problem?” Mull over these questions and you’ll slowly start to calm down, he says, especially if you answer “yes.”
Validating your feelings is always a good thing, he says. But asking these questions can also kill time, while your panic attack naturally winds down on its own.
If you’re prone to panic attacks, or are having one for the first time, you can always sit down and wait for it to pass. But these tips ma.y help speed the process along.
Of course, if you’re experiencing ongoing anxiety that’s holding you back in life, you’ll also want to seek out the help of a therapist, as soon as possible. In doing so, you can get to the root of your anxiety and eventually overcome your panic attacks, no matter how bad they might seem.
Experts:
How To Deal With Panic Attacks
A panic attack is a feeling of sudden and intense anxiety.
Panic attacks can also have physical symptoms, including shaking, feeling disorientated, nausea, rapid, irregular heartbeats, dry mouth, breathlessness, sweating and dizziness.
The symptoms of a panic attack are not dangerous, but can be very frightening.
They can make you feel as though you are having a heart attack, or that you are going to collapse or even die.
Most panic attacks last somewhere from five minutes to half an hour.
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Signs And Symptoms Of Panic Disorder
While many people experience just one or two panic attacks without further episodes or complicationsand theres little reason to worry if thats yousome people go on to develop panic disorder. Panic disorder is characterized by repeated panic attacks, combined with major changes in behavior or persistent anxiety over having further attacks.
You may be suffering from panic disorder if you:
- Experience frequent, unexpected panic attacks that arent tied to a specific situation
- Worry a lot about having another panic attack
- Are behaving differently because of the panic attacks, such as avoiding places where youve previously panicked
While a single panic attack may only last a few minutes, the effects of the experience can leave a lasting imprint. If you have panic disorder, the recurrent panic attacks take an emotional toll. The memory of the intense fear and terror that you felt during the attacks can negatively impact your self-confidence and cause serious disruption to your everyday life. Eventually, this leads to the following panic disorder symptoms:
Anticipatory anxiety Instead of feeling relaxed and like your normal self in between panic attacks, you feel anxious and tense. This anxiety stems from a fear of having future panic attacks. This fear of fear is present most of the time, and can be extremely disabling.
Panic Attacks I Turned My Mental Health Crisis Into A Mental Health Triumph
Although it’s taken me a long time I have learned I am a strong person who has the potential to help others.
You might find that you become scared of going out alone or to public places because you’re worried about having another panic attack. If this fear becomes very intense, it may be called agoraphobia. See our pages on types of phobia for more information.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I just wanted to get out, to go somewhere else, but I couldn’t because I was on a train.
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Calming Step : Have A Script Ready
A panic attack can fill your head with racing, negative thoughts, which can keep the panic going and make you feel worse. But you can wield a powerful weapon against them: A script of positive thoughts.
Write down encouraging words you can read to yourself during a panic attack, Dr. Josell says. Your script should answer the negative thoughts. So if you feel like youre going to pass out, tell yourself you wont. If you feel like youre dying, tell yourself you wont die from a panic attack. The words you hear are powerful, and over time, they become your truth.
Ideally, write your script when youre feeling calm. Tuck it in your pocket or purse or type it into your smartphone notes so its easy to access.
If youre in the middle of a panic attack and dont have your script, you can fight negative thoughts on the fly. Try repeating in your mind or out loud phrases like, Im strong, and I can handle this, or This is only temporary, and it will pass.
Your script helps you deal with an attack that arises, but its a preventive measure, too. It can calm your fear of having another panic attack because you know youre in control. The more confident you are that you can manage a panic attack, the less likely you are to have future attacks.
Try A Grounding Technique
If your mind is spinning, you’ll want to bring it back to reality with a few grounding techniques.
“I begin by focusing on anything and everything concrete,”, a mental health expert, tells Bustle. “I notice exactly whatâs in my view, taking note of the spectrum around me. I then choose one or two things to zone in on. I might notice a picture on the wall or an outfit that someone is wearing. I shift focus to what I see in order to move away from my thoughts.”
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Dunk Your Face In Cold Water
While it may sound strange, dunking your face into a bowl or sink full of cold water can help stop a panic attack in its tracks.
“Research in physiology suggests that the human heart rate slows down 10 to 25 percent when our face comes into contact with ice cold water,” Forshee says. “This is affective during a panic attack because when we are experiencing panic our body physiologically becomes aroused .”
It may be tricky to come across a bowl of ice water while out in public, but this may be a good one to try at home.
Cold Water On Your Eyelids
A simple trick to prevent an anxiety attack involves applying a stream of cold water over your closed eyes. If you want, you can use it on the rest of your face as well. Cold hydrotherapy is also a really simple natural way to relax the body and prevent an attack.
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