Treating Panic Attacks
Panic Disorder Symptoms – Treating Panic Attacks With Meditation
If you suffer from anxiety or experience panic in your day to day life there will be times that you know you just want to slap yourself silly for thinking the way you do. This is not the way you should be treating anxiety by yourself, and no, you do not make yourself more anxious than you already are. This solves nothing. The most common point or fact about treating anxiety is to know that most of your anxieties will never ever happen, and it is the same with fears. This is a proven fact that ninety nine percent of your worries and anxieties never happen. So why worry? Be happy, even if it is for a short while.
A State Of Calm
During all your uncertain times in coping with panic attacks, one thing emerged as absolute truth. It is impossible for your body to have panic symptoms while you are calm. Panic cannot coexist with calmness. Panic cannot compete with calmness. Once calmness enters the arena, there is no other option for the panic but to retreat. The goal then, simply put, is to strive to remain calm under all circumstances, thereby abating any panic symptoms that might arise. To accomplish that, you need to become so knowledgeable about the experience of feeling calm that we are able to return to that state at will if we have left it. You need to intimately know what calmness feels like.
What is a calm?
A relaxed body? Specifically, what are the elements of being calm? The main elements of a calm body are slow, evenly-paced breathing, a steady, slow heart rate, good blood pressure and relaxed muscles throughout the body. By consciously slowing your breathing, your heart rate and blood pressure will lower as a result. This can be applied at all times, regardless of panic attacks.
Conquering Panic Not Always A Quick And Simple Process
Treating panic is not just a quick and simple process, countless time have to be attended to get to the state of calm.
In most cases treating panic means learning to be calm and not passing your panic or anxiousness onto others, especially children. Some people don’t take lightly to others having panic attacks or anxiety attacks, as it is difficult for them to see what all the fuss is about. While these other people see what the immediate problem is, they get in and sort it out as if they were a bomb squad force, they don’t have time to worry about what doesn’t need attention, only the immediate, and then step back. Focus is what it is all about.
Unless you are in the midst of an attack you may think you are fairly relaxed, but this is usually a bad assumption. How large a role might relaxation play in your recovery? How does one really relax – is there something you are missing? You may be a very patient person, but do not confuse patience with being relaxed?
In what way is meditation related to relaxation? Your preconceived notion about meditation may be a picture of someone sitting in lotus position, counting breaths or chanting a mantra – not appealing to many. Although some people do count breaths or recite mantras, there are also those who choose more active ways to meditate, visualizing various scenarios or exploring different topics. There are as many ways to meditate as there are people who meditate. When I learned that a prominent psychiatrist who specializes in using meditation with people who experience panic attacks.
Meditation Can Lead To A Quick Recovery From Panic Attacks
Often someone experiencing a panic attack will first notice their breathing is fast and shallow only while in the midst of the attack. Unaware that their breathing had become uneven long before the attack actually happened.
Sometimes we discover that what needs to be healed is not necessarily what we originally set out to heal. Instead of the quality of my life returning to what it was before the panic symptoms could no longer be ignored, its quality surpassed all my expectations, and through meditation, doors opened I did not know existed. I will carry forever the skills I learned, and with these, a peacefulness and a trust in myself I never thought possible. Altered breathing contributes to an attack, accelerating it, sending the body into a response mode to compensate.
Using Meditation Tapes
While listening to meditation tapes you will learn the importance of first slowing your breathing, then mentally scanning your body, searching to locate any muscles that have tension in them. I can now find muscles that previously I was unaware of and release the tightness with or without using the tapes now.
The Key
The key is to practice breathing slowly and evenly, with awareness, throughout the day, not just when we are experiencing panicky feelings. To practice primarily when we are not feeling anxious, becoming so mindful of our breathing that we instantly notice when something within the body begins to change, even slightly. It is only through awareness of our breathing that its tempo can be controlled.
Relaxing the body, however, is only part of calmness. The mind needs to be calm as well. A quiet, uncluttered, focused mind plays an enormous role in calmness. The body reflects what is in the mind and it is the mind which continually feeds the body its tension. To stop the cycle we need to pay attention to both. Learning breath control can be the tool to stop the mind from racing. As we focus on our breath, the mind will slow down just as the heart rate and blood pressure do. With a quiet mind, you can begin to actually hear your thoughts. When your thoughts are slow enough for us to follow, you can hear your voice, your unique individuality. Through this voice important information can be heard.
Mastering calmness takes time and practice. It requires mastering breath control and although breath control is the key to bringing calmness to the body and mind, calmness also requires being mindful – really aware. To be mindful is to be totally conscious of what you are doing, saying, thinking and feeling. It means facing and examining fears as well as painful memories. To be mindful is to recognize both the strengths and weaknesses on which you can build confidence, trust in yourself. It also means learning not to judge yourself or others, but learning instead to observe. Once you know how to calm both your body and mind through breath control, when a panic disorder symptom is felt, it will serve as a reminder to bring calmness back into your mindset.
For others to learn this method would be quite difficult if they are continually treating panic attacks by themselves, as they have learned over the years how to have an panic attack by literally seeing it happening, therefore proper guidance is advised.
Calm And Self Control
Staying calm and having self control is the first basic step, for treating panic attacks, breathe and focus on things that need to be done, not what could happen. If you are feeling anxious it is only you who is allowing the anxiety to get the better of you.
