Panic attacks are no joke, if you suffer a severe attack, they can feel like having a heart attack, with symptoms including:
- Sweating
- Shortness of breath
- Sickness
- Dizzyness
It can feel like you are going to die (not our words) and although they are not dangerous (physically), no one wants to feel like the symptoms above.
So what can you do if you’re suffering severe attacks?
Keep Physical Contact With Something
If you are experiencing a severe attack, everything can seem very far away and this can only increase your levels of anxiety.
Physical contact with objects or another person, can help you feel grounded and bring you back to a neutral.
Change Your Point of Focus
Changing your focus away from the symptoms of an attack can be one of the best ways to deal with an attack.
How do you do that?
One of the best ways is to do something mechanical and methodical like a puzzle or playing a game.
Recently, we tried Tetris 99 for this specific reason and we have to say it worked a treat. Focusing on where to place the blocks and feeling the process of pressing the buttons really helped shifted the focus away from the attack symptoms and brought the suffer back to neutral.
What you should try to avoid though is taking yourself completely out of the place where the attack is occurring. This is because whatever underlying factors that caused the attack might be tied to that place, so you don’t want to avoid being in that place if you can help it.
Be Vocal
Again with most attacks, the overwhelming mental feeling is isolation and the thought that you are so very far away. It can be tempting to keep quiet and just ride out the symptoms, but what can sometimes help is to be vocal and connect to world.
For more information and advice – see – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/coping-with-panic-attacks/
