How to Use Mindfulness to Combat Panic Attacks

Mindfulness is the practice of turning your attention inwards to your emotions and your feelings.

This can help you to become more present and to stop being a slave to what might be destructive thoughts or emotions.

Meditation gives you space to let thoughts run past, without taking them onboard, to quieten your mind, letting things go.

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Mindfulness can also be used to deal with particular emotions in the moment and those who train in this practice often find that they’re more effective at overcoming feelings of stress, anger or sadness.

Never is this more useful though than when trying to overcome panic attacks.

What Are Panic Attacks?

Panic attacks are essentially scenarios where the ‘fight or flight response’ goes out of control, leaving a person with elevated heartrate, rapid breathing, dizziness, feelings of extreme anxiety and discomfort. Many sufferers describe it as feeling similar to a heart attack and often experience an intense feeling of dread – often believing they’re going to die.

Panic attacks can be brought on by phobic reactions – particularly by social phobias and agoraphobia – but they can also come on seemingly at random while trying to fall asleep.

How to Stop Panic Attacks With Mindfulness

The irony of a panic attack is that they actual cause panic and this then exacerbates the situation. What begins as stress and an elevated heart rate can then turn into concern for one’s own health, or fear that a panic attack is imminent. This then results in the victim trying to ‘fight’ the panic attack by forcing themselves to calm down. This actually then makes them more stressed and makes their heart beat harder and faster. This results in more fear and the result is a full-blown panic attack often ending with that person fainting.

Mindfulness though teaches us to turn towards our emotions and to simply accept them for what they are. In the case of a panic attack, that means knowing that you’re having a panic attack and that you’re very stressed but also recognizing that this is a natural and normal condition. It also means reminding yourself that panic attacks aren’t dangerous and that they pass with time.

From there, the best way to continue dealing with panic attacks is to simply let them run their course. You can even engage in your normal activities – such as tidying the house or watching TV.

By accepting the emotions that cause panic attacks, you are able to rob them of their power. Once you’re no longer afraid of your panic attack symptoms, you’ll eventually start having them less and less.

 

 

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