How to Stop a Panic Attack (Or Better Yet, How to Stop Them Long-Term)
Whether you're here because you're currently struggling with panic attacks and seeking relief, or you're trying to prevent them and feel like your life is pretty restricted by trying, I'm really glad you're here. This episode of A Healthy Push podcast is packed with helpful insights that will give you some relief and actually help you to experience long-term healing.
So, let’s dive right into a question I get all the time: How do I stop a panic attack? Trust me, I get it. Panic attacks are awful, and if you’ve experienced one, you’ll do anything to avoid another. Nobody wants to panic!
Back when I was dealing with panic attacks, I tried everything to make them stop—breathing exercises, grounding practices, distraction techniques, you name it. I was having multiple panic attacks a day, and I would have done anything to make them go away.
So, if you’ve Googled “how to stop a panic attack,” you’ve probably seen a lot of advice: focus on your breathing, pour cold water on yourself, distract yourself, take medication, eat sour candy. But honestly, these tips are more about short-term relief and don’t help you build trust and confidence in yourself. They often make you rely on external solutions, which isn’t helpful in the long run.
Instead, I want to share a different approach. It’s not about stopping a panic attack while it’s happening, because you really can’t. It’s about allowing yourself to feel and supporting yourself in ways that prevent panic attacks from happening in the first place.
Here are some things that will actually help to relieve anxiety, panic attacks, AND stop these things from showing up in the first place...
01. Not trying to find or throw a solution or fix at each symptom or panic, and instead working to create a healthy response and relationship with anxiety. You know people will ask me all the time what they can do for a particular symptom or what they can do when they’re experiencing panic in a particular place or situation, and approaching anxiety this way will keep you stuck. I know because I tried to do this for years. I tried to tackle each symptom and fear rather than treat anxiety as a whole.
02. Better understanding the anxious response (aka the fight-or-flight response), why it’s happening, and how to respond to it in a healthy way. Education is an important piece of recovery, and although I don’t think there’s a huge need to get super sciency, I think it is important to have a better understanding of what’s physiologically happening in your body when you feel anxious so that you have an awareness and so that you can change your approach to it.
03. Understanding what actually causes the symptoms and panic attacks to pop up in the first place so that you can get ahead of it rather than just being reactive. It’s not all about your response! There’s so much you can do that will help to prevent the anxious thoughts, feelings, and panic from even popping up in the first place, and this is why it’s helpful to understand what’s actually causing the symptoms and panic to happen.
04. Listening to your body, slowing down, and supporting yourself in small, healthy ways. We often overlook the basic stuff but it’s in the basic stuff that you can help to relieve your nervous system and make sure you have the capacity to actually face the hard stuff.
05. Giving yourself permission to feel without trying to think and do your way out of feeling. This is a big one. We always want to figure out a way out of feeling but our feelings are meant to be felt, no figured out!
06. Getting away from safety behaviors and instead building the trust within yourself. Most people will tell me… I’m not performing any safety behaviors! But then when we dig in, they uncover that they are, which is okay and is really to be expected. Like, of course you’re trying to do anything you can to prevent the feelings from happening, or from getting worse. But you have to create an awareness of your actions and behaviors so that you can shift them to more healthy actions and behaviors. This work is a big part of how you put the trust and safety back within you and your body.
07. Getting away from intellectualizing. This is another big and helpful one. When you get away from always trying to figure things out, and finding the meaning, and analyzing, and trying to gather more information, it actually helps you to connect with yourself and build trust.
08. Changing the stories you’re telling yourself. Let’s face it, the stories we tell ourselves are a huge generator of uncomfortable feelings, so the better you get at recognizing the stories that are going on and working to change them, the easier it’ll make things and it’ll give you lots more peace in your mind.
09. Not continuing to avoid and instead taking small steps to face the things you value. Allowing yourself to do less avoiding and instead facing, but doing it in a meaningful way. Lots of people who come to me are just doing exposures to sort of check the box. And I don’t want anyone to do this. Not only does it not feel good, it isn’t super helpful.
These are all things I go into depth on and teach you in my 90-minute mini-course - Overcoming the Symptoms & Panic Attacks. This mini-course includes 10 lessons that teach you everything I wish I had known back when I was struggling with panic attacks. It’s the stuff that helped me to overcome panic disorder, and it’s helped hundreds of my students!
This class will help you to completely shift your thinking about anxiety, your approach, and it will help you to build so much trust and confidence within you so that you can start doing more of the things you want (and have to) while experiencing more peace, joy, and freedom.
I really hope this episode has given you a fresh perspective on dealing with panic attacks. I get it—you want them to stop. You never want to have another one again. But it’s not about stopping them. It’s about changing how you respond to anxiety and to yourself, which helps you build a healthier relationship with anxiety. That’s what truly brings the relief and freedom you deserve. You’ve got this! You will do this. And I’ll be here cheering you on every step of the way. You’re way more capable than you realize right now.
Until next time, keep taking healthy action!
Feeling like you've tried everything but you're still struggling with lots of anxious thoughts, symptoms, panic attacks, and fears? Take my FREE 60-minute masterclass today and learn 5 shifts that will actually help you to overcome anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. And I promise, you won't hear any of the usual stuff from me - like doing breathing exercises, grounding practices, cutting out caffeine, and doing more exposures. Let's get you the peace and freedom you deserve without it being so hard!
Check out my masterclasses here and start experiencing lots more peace, joy, & freedom!
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