'Tricks' to relieve a Panic Attack

[pallidin]

Say, as an acute anxiety sufferer I often run-out of my "emergency meds" before the end of each month. That med is Ativan (lorazepam)

Wondering your opinion/experience of novel ways to "snap-out" of a panic attack.

[Piney]

I realize that it is hard for somebody that hasn't been doing it for 30 years but sit down on the floor and just blank your mind is the only thing I can think of. If you can't blank your mind think about your breathing and heart rate and concentrate on trying to slow both down.

 

[darkmoonlady]

I've nearly got rid of my panic attacks by visualizing the steps of a panic attack. I was having full blown panic attacks in public, and while in college. I took a psych 101 course, very basic, and in our textbook it laid out step by step what happens in our bodies when a panic attack happens. Each time I had a panic attack after that I went through what was happening ok this my brain dumping adrenaline, ok my heart feels that adrenaline surge, my breathing is getting faster, etc..once I got good at (for lack of a better term) identifying the onset of the feelings, I'd tell someone. Usually a trusted person and say I am feeling a panic attack coming. Its to the point now where I can feel just slightly anxious and I can stop and say to myself ok I feel like a panic attack is coming. Just by acknowledging its coming it dissipates almost 100% of the time. In short I basically trained my brain and body to recognize the start and stop them. 

[pallidin]

Yeah, alcohol works for me as well.

But wondering if there are other alternatives.

[pallidin]

If I may say, dear friends, when panic hits me it can be mild or very bad.

Not too concerned with the mild events, but the bad events can land me into the emergency department... and often has.

Trying to get a grip on this bas*****d disorder before it completely ruins my life.

Edited August 28, 2018 by pallidin

[Duke Wellington]

2 hours ago, pallidin said:

Say, as an acute anxiety sufferer I often run-out of my "emergency meds" before the end of each month. That med is Ativan (lorazepam)

Wondering your opinion/experience of novel ways to "snap-out" of a panic attack.

Adopt the frame of mind where you stop caring about everything - if you are anxious then you are just going to be anxious and you are going to let it do whatever it wants to do.

If you die you die, if you have an emotional response then you have an emotional response, etc. Stop caring about everything.

[pallidin]

2 minutes ago, RabidMongoose said:

Adopt the frame of mind where you stop caring about everything - if you are anxious then you are just going to be anxious and you are going to let it do whatever it wants to do.

If you die you die, if you have an emotional response then you have an emotional response, etc. Stop caring about everything.

Funny you should mention that!

Recently I've been viewing YouTube vid's on "Stop caring about what OTHER people think about YOU"

Not the exact YT title.

[pallidin]

Wondering, though... I've tried methods such "ice on the face", "forceful coughing", "accupressure points", the "dive reflex".

Nothing seems to help abate a serious attack except for emergency meds or alcohol.

Either I am not doing those alternative methods correctly or, they don't work for me.

[Duke Wellington]

22 minutes ago, pallidin said:

Funny you should mention that!

Recently I've been viewing YouTube vid's on "Stop caring about what OTHER people think about YOU"

Not the exact YT title.

If at the core of your anxiety is a fear of what others think then yes this part of not caring about anything would be good for you.

But scale it up to be more than that - put yourself into the state of mind where you stop caring about literally everything (even over whether you live or die). Just adopt the `oh well` approach.

Edited August 28, 2018 by RabidMongoose

[Piney]

1 hour ago, darkmoonlady said:

I basically trained my brain and body to recognize the start and stop them. 

My grandfather and my stepsister's father taught me when I was in middle school. But it took some practice.

[Piney]

6 minutes ago, RabidMongoose said:

But scale it up to be more than that - put yourself into the state of mind where you stop caring about literally everything (even over whether you live or die). Just adopt the `oh well` approach.

"Daremo" -"Screw It".  I've been doing that since I was a teen. 

[darkmoonlady]

This may sound like a shot in the dark but if possible get a sleep study done. I have apnea and didn't know I had apnea, once I got a CPAP machine and started sleeping better I realized on nights I either forgot my mask or it was leaking (strap came unclipped) the next day I'd feel panicky. Turns out for apnea your body dumps adrenaline to get you to breathe and it stays with you. I'd be edgy and panicky all day from a mask leak. Next night I'd fix the issue and sleep fine, next day no panic feelings, worth checking out. 

[pallidin]

3 minutes ago, darkmoonlady said:

This may sound like a shot in the dark but if possible get a sleep study done. I have apnea and didn't know I had apnea, once I got a CPAP machine and started sleeping better I realized on nights I either forgot my mask or it was leaking (strap came unclipped) the next day I'd feel panicky. Turns out for apnea your body dumps adrenaline to get you to breathe and it stays with you. I'd be edgy and panicky all day from a mask leak. Next night I'd fix the issue and sleep fine, next day no panic feelings, worth checking out. 

You do bring-up an extremely good point...

Acute panic is ALWAYS preceded by a massive adrenaline dump. ALWAYS.

[pallidin]

Stop the event of the sudden adrenaline dump, and "panic" is impossible.

Good call.

[Duke Wellington]

For those that haven't realised yet the brain is good at solving problems and much of this is done in the subconscious.

The subconscious fixes problems using one of two solutions - fight (it makes you angry) or run away (it makes you feel anxious). You deal with your subconscious by stopping caring about your problems. For stuff you dont care about you subconscious doesnt get to work on finding a solution.

[Duke Wellington]

9 minutes ago, pallidin said:

You do bring-up an extremely good point...

Acute panic is ALWAYS preceded by a massive adrenaline dump. ALWAYS.

Your limbic system is what controls a panic attack.

You have your hippocampus which is responsible for learning, focus, memory, and is important in language. It is wired into your amygdala which is responsible for having emotions. And both these aspects of your limbic system are wired into your lungs, heart, and kidneys.

To begin with your hippocampus and amygdala share a see-saw relationship where the larger one becomes the smaller the other is. Problems with anxiety and panic are the result of a small hippocampus combined with a large amygdala. This most often arises as the result of experiencing adversity in life or trauma then spending your days obsessing about it.

The brain is an adaptive organ where the more you use one of its faculties the more it is strengthened. So your obsessing over what happened is what grew your amygdala and shrank your hippocampus. Treatment can take up to two years and involves:

1. Teaching you healthier thinking patterns (i.e. to stop obsessing)

2. Teaching you to control your emotions (i.e. stop having thoughts that triggers your emotions).

3. Teaching you to live healthy (getting plenty of sleep, drinking plenty of water, eating a well balanced diet, exercise, and breathing properly, all impact your anxiety levels).

When these are done together you grow your hippocampus and shrink your amygdala. After a couple of weeks your anxiety levels will be reduced and if you carry on it will take potentially up to two years (depending on the damage you have done to yourself) to get back to normal.

With the breathing I want you to try something - hold your breath until the panic sets in. That panic is the same panic in anxiety. It is caused by you holding your breath. Dont believe me? Next time you are highly anxiety just look at your breathing. There is none. Breath normally and keep doing so to dampen down that anxiety. It isn't immediate, you have to wait until the adrenaline has been cleared which can take a few minutes. Just keep breathing normally and wait.

[Winter Summer]

Sometimes stress at the panic attack level is caused by a magnesium deficiency.  Google "magnesium deficiency" and "magnesium oil" for tons of info. 

[pallidin]

Since the sudden, often unwarranted, adrenaline dump ALWAYS directly precedes acute panic, it seems reasonable to presume that if there is NO sudden, hard-core adrenaline dump, that my experiencing a panic attack simply is not biologically possible.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Prevent the adrenaline dump and the panic propensity is reduced to zero.

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by pallidin

[pallidin]

Of course, when referring to the "fight-or-flight" hormone "dump", we are talking about 3 key hormones...

Adrenaline, Cortisol, and Norepinenephrine.

[pallidin]

From what I'm gathering, somehow preventing or abating the "dump" itself will render impossible a panic attack.

I'm liking that line of thought, though I don't know if it's possible or, more correctly, to what safe extent.

 

[Winter Summer]

@pallidin

I've seen this work wonders.  The oil works best.  Cheap & cheerful.  Hope this info helps.

[darkmoonlady]

That's where I got to by the time I taught myself to tell people I might have a panic attack. That precursor feeling could start a lot of ways, hadn't eaten and felt shaky to start, CPAP issue as I mentioned before, heart palpitations was a big one for me. I have them regardless of anxiety its a physical thing with me (complicated, I have a clip on my Vena Cava to prevent clots from going to my heart and lungs and they still get through but small enough not to kill me, so every so often my heart does the funky chicken) and that set off the on no here it comes..teaching myself to recognize it and acknowledge it and not try to ignore it or push it down, just stop and say ok its coming. In the early days I'd try to go somewhere alone and just ride it out. Always made it worse. The breakthrough was having someone I could tell who didn't over react, they would say ok and calmly, I'm here what do you need. A few times of that coupled with sitting and sort of waiting for the panic to crest with an adrenaline dump, it just stopped over time. No crest, no further than that squicky precursor. Now I try to be proactive, good mask, eat often little meals and stay hydrated (for clots). Your needs might be and probably are totally different but self care really helps.

[XenoFish]

6 hours ago, RabidMongoose said:

Adopt the frame of mind where you stop caring about everything

I got told apathy was a bad thing. Now it's a good thing?

[Susanc241]

So many good points in all the responses that I can’t quote them all.  As a long time sufferer of 50 years, I am 70 now, I have tried just about everything but have never been able to rid myself of the underlying anxiety about whether I might have a panic attack, even now.  Mine all started around the birth of my first child plus other traumatic events around the same time.  I sought medical help in the late 1960s and was told not to be so silly, what’s scary about going out (of your home).  In other words, pull your socks up.  By the time I moved house and had a new (young) doctor who assured me he could help I had been suffering for four years.  By then my brain had been patterned to such an extent I have never been able to completely re route my neural pathways despite various treatments and drugs.

I will say that understanding the processes that are going on doesn’t necessarily mean you can easily alter things, as I have found.  The earlier treatment starts the better chance of success.  The key points I hang on to are these:  the adrenaline surge only lasts a short while (minutes usually).  The sensations this causes will pass, you just have to wait it out (easier said than done sometimes).  Focus on your breathing (as someone mentioned above).  Breath slowly and evenly, belly breathe deep breaths.  Breathing into a paper bag can help if you get as far as hyperventilating.  Slowing breathing will help slow down the heart rate.  Look at your body posture.  Shoulders hunched around your ears?  Drop them and relax, and extend that muscle relaxation to the rest of your body.  On foot?  Slow your walking pace to match your new relaxed state.  Try to avoid literally running away from the situation or place the panic attack occurs.*  Tell yourself you are completely safe (providing all this is not happening in a life threatening situation ).  Basically you are dealing with the 'fight or flight' response, the panic attack being the outward manifestation of this state in an inappropriate situation (life threatening situations aside).  If you were fleeing or fighting for your life the adrenaline would be being used up on muscle use and you wouldn’t even notice it the same way you notice it when it is flowing around your body not being used.*   This seems contradictory but here we are trying to re educate the brain not to flood the body with inappropriate adrenaline in the first place.

Everyone has different physical symptoms to the adrenaline rush in regard to panic attacks so no one fix suits all.  My fears were/are compounded by the urgent need to empty my bowels?  This does not help with the slowing down exercises as described above!  But I have learned to cope.  Other people feel they are going to die (never experienced that myself).  Others feel sick or wet themselves (in extreme cases).  Mainly it is the blind panic in your mind.    The onset of a panic attack can be so swift and frightening because the trigger mechanism for it in the brain is so fast, taking the patterned neural pathway of old before you even consciously realise the panic attack has started.

Are we the opposite of adrenaline junkies who thrive on the sensations it bring?  I know I am.  I am cautious about lots of aspects of life,  but was I always this way or made that way by my agoraphobia?  I will never know, I have had it too long now from too early an age.  I am always happy to share experiences and offer tips and advice or offer a shoulder to cry on to anyone who might want to PM me.  I have run a self help group in the past for fellow sufferers.

[preacherman76]

Cut out caffeine.