Panic & Anxiety Attacks

In this podcast, I share my thoughts and my experiences of having panic and anxiety attacks; why they happen; things and situations which can trigger them; how to deal with them; ways to help during them. Please share any tips you have which help you overcome panic or anxiety attacks.... your comment may help someone. Thank you for your kind messages and continued support... I truly appreciate each one.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Jacqueline and welcome to Tranquil Spirits podcast.

Today I want to talk to you about panic attacks and anxiety attacks.

But before I begin I just want to say I am not a doctor.

I speak about things from my own experiences and I share ways of dealing with things from my own trials and errors.

I'm not telling you to do these things and will always recommend you visit your doctor if necessary.

So I've combined panic attacks and anxiety attacks and although they sound similar to those that have never experienced them,

They are different in their own ways.

But again I'm talking from my experiences.

So with panic attacks it's the feeling,

The overwhelming feeling of all of a sudden I'm in a panic and I don't know what to do,

I don't know where to go,

I just feel I've got to get out of wherever I am and this overwhelming panic to run comes over me.

Whereas an anxiety attack I feel I'm more anxious,

I'm more out of control,

I don't feel that whatever the situation is around me that you know I'm in control of but I don't feel as if I want to run away,

I just feel extremely anxious.

So I hope that kind of makes sense to you if you get one or the other.

But I'm combining the two together here because I do feel that the same ways of dealing with them can apply.

So they each create a panic within you and you know your body goes into this fight or flight mode.

I was described it by the doctor that when you feel that you're in a panic or having these really bad anxieties your body feels as if something dangerous or horrid is going to happen,

That's how you feel.

And so it gets ready to run and it's because I kind of can get tingly in certain areas of my body and the way that he described it is that the necessary blood or oxygen goes from certain parts of your body to the parts that's needed to protect you.

So where you want to run,

Where your heart beats so fast because it's trying to get you out of a situation and so that's why we kind of feel a bit like that.

But why do we get them?

So it's normally because anxiety or panic attacks are normally because we are focusing on something that hasn't happened.

So where we worry about it creating a negative scenario in our head.

So from my experience,

I will talk from my experience,

When I get these panic attacks I'm always thinking about something ahead and I'm worrying about it.

So for example,

You know I could be worrying that oh my goodness I'm not going to be able to get out of that small doctor's room that he's going to want to see me in.

So you know lots of doctor surgeries are very tiny with no windows and so you know I can't get out.

How am I going to get out of it?

So I'm worried about it before I'm even in there.

When I get there I can easily say to the doctor you know I don't want the door closed,

I don't like feeling as if I'm claustrophobic and so the situation's okay.

I don't need to have that panic in that moment.

But it could be that you worry about anything but it's normally when the anxiety or the panic comes on and this is I think more with a panic attack that you're focusing on something that hasn't happened.

Whereas the anxiety attack in my experience is happening in the moment on something that's happening you know.

But again you're worrying about how you're going to deal with it,

How you're going to move away from it and things like that.

So when we realise that we can bring ourselves back to the present,

So that's the thing with panic attacks and anxiety attacks,

We've got to realise and once we kind of get a better understanding of what's going on with us we can do this easier if you like.

Although it's not always easy.

I can remember being on a safari and this is so when I think about this now it's the craziest thing.

I was going through a tough time and normally these panic attacks and anxieties will start when you've got some troubles going on in your life.

You know when things aren't great or I think back then I was going through a relationship that had just broken up and these panic attacks had started.

And I remember being on safari with my dad and a very good friend of mine and for those of you that have never done safari you're in like a Land Rover but it's got no roof,

No sides,

It's just got these roll bars around you.

So you're out in the open and the weather was absolutely beautiful and we parked up to see some elephants that were quite a way away from us and there was a stream in between us.

I mean they must have been probably a quarter of a mile away we could still see them.

Anyway these elephants move so silently but cover a lot of ground.

So although they're very huge animals their paces and the way they move and is quite quick really for an animal of that size.

And all of a sudden they were upon us not literally but they were coming up close and I had this massive panic attack and my dad luckily could tell what was going on he knew that I was having these and he automatically turned to me and said Jacqueline just breathe,

Just breathe you're going to be okay everything's all right you're going to be okay.

And it really is about taking your mind from what you see as danger.

So being able to bring your mind back to the present.

So then in my thinking this elephant was going to come and trample over us because they are so huge that in reality that wasn't going to happen.

But with him just talking to me and bringing me back to the present moment I could deal with the situation and deep breathing did help with that.

So when we're on our own and we're trying to control these that when we can feel this because it's an overwhelming feeling I'm kind of thinking that most people that are going to be listening to this experience either panic attacks or anxiety attacks so you can understand what I'm saying but for those of you that don't understand you get this overwhelming sense of heat come over you and your heart just beats so quickly of its own accord.

So you kind of know when it's coming upon you and if you can in that moment focus on something else then you can normally bring it you know kind of ease it and allow it to pass.

It's not always easy to do that I'm going to share some tips with you to help you with that but when we realize that what is going on and we can bring ourselves back to the present by focusing on things such as gratitude you know I'm okay everything's all right I'm thankful I'm you know those kind of things then we can only talk ourselves down.

But it's not always an easy thing to do especially when the attack seems to have completely taken over us completely absorbed us it's not always an easy thing to do.

But knowing your triggers you know sometimes we know what's going to bring on a panic attack sometimes we don't and if you're going through a stressful time in your life it's not always easy to know when an attack is going to happen.

But sometimes we know so like I know that if I go into a small room that I'm going to have a panic.

So I know certain things that's going to do that any enclosed space can cause me to have a panic.

Being in the dark I do not like the pitch dark never used to bother me at all but now I do not like the pitch dark and I know that can cause me to have a panic and people that don't experience these kind of things will say things like but when you close your eyes it's dark so what's the problem of having the room dark well when you close your eyes it's not completely dark and it's very difficult to sometimes try and explain yourself to people that haven't experienced what's going on with you.

So what I try to do is have either a night light or some little light leave the door slightly ajar or whatever is going on there.

But see going to stay in a hotel or something that I've never been to before can cause a panic attack to start for me because I immediately take myself there and immediately think it's going to be so dark the rooms going to be so tiny and so I bring on a panic attack I'm taking myself to somewhere and in my head I've assumed all these things that I know I don't like instead of waiting till I get to the room the hotel room and then working out what I need to be able to stay calm.

So again like I said before it's a panic or an anxiety attack you go ahead of yourself you think about things that you don't really know you create this scenario within you and you cause the panic to happen.

But what if a panic attack comes on whilst you're driving I've had a few people asking me this question well the easiest thing that I can say to people is talk to yourself out loud.

So when somebody talks to us so this is if you're in the car on your own and I understand their concern but talking having someone talk to you can help bring you down from a from an attack but when you're on your own by talking to yourself out loud it's almost as if there's a person with you and you can in some cases bring yourself back from that attack.

Now why I say to do it out loud and not in your head is when we talk in our head we can take ourselves still to a negative place it really doesn't help us because we're already in that negative state or starting to get there and for some reason just having your own conversation in your head doesn't always bring you back to where you need to be but when we actually voice it out loud we've got a better chance of bringing ourselves back.

So talk to yourself out loud if it's happening while you're driving or you can sense one coming on and also look around at the things that you're driving now we're meant to be very observant of what's going on around us when we drive.

So just talk about what you can see oh there's a great big tree there look at that tree it's an amazing tree look at the blossoms coming on the tree you know look at that person walking their dog whatever's going on around you oh look at that car it's just overtaken me I've not seen an orange car before you know whatever it is but just have that conversation out loud doing it out loud really helps you much better than in your mind so just try that next time you know I'm very good at having a conversation with myself in the car out loud and you know you're not distracting from your driving because you're meant to be noticing these things anyway but you're just verbally talking about them out loud and again what we're trying to do here is to take our mind off of the panic and to keep ourselves focused on what we're doing bringing ourselves back to the moment.

Now if a panic attack comes on in the middle of the night and which it's done with me very often and I'll be fast asleep and all of a sudden I'll wake up and you know this enormous panic attack get up and walk around and breathe is my tip for you so get up and walk around and breathe so you're you're taking yourself away from where the panic was happening so you're taking yourself out of breath out of bed and as you breathe count in your head or count out loud it depends this is a difficult one because if you live with some other people then it's very hard to be openly verbal because you don't want to wake anyone else up but just count in your head as you walk around have a drink of water concentrate on that water so everything that you're doing now out of bed is you're concentrating on what's going on hopefully you can go you know sometimes we don't always want to put the light on because that's going to wake us up completely but if necessary do that but that's why sometimes it's good to have a night light in the hallway or somewhere so that you can go and you know if you do panic for the dark at least you've got something there when you go back to bed if you feel that you still can't sleep then do a meditation there's lots that you can listen to lots of different meditations do a meditation or do a body scan so starting at your feet or your head whichever way works for you but just concentrating on different parts of your body and you can do this in a number of ways you can either just focus on sending the breath to different parts of your body so take a breath in and focus sending it to your feet and then breathe out you know that kind of thing so your feet and work your way up or you can tense the muscles in that particular area as you're working your way up your body but it's just simple things to do like that which keeps you in the moment but also doing something like that can send you back to sleep now if a panic comes on when you're in company and it's not possible for you to leave the room this is the thing here i had that with somebody that came to tell me some things and a panic attack i could feel was coming on but i wasn't in a situation where i could say to this person i need to move away from here because i'm having a panic attack it wasn't appropriate in that moment so ideally if you feel a panic attack coming on when you're in company is to excuse yourself and be able to leave the room to go somewhere else taking yourself away from where it's happening now if you're in a group of people then that's easy enough to do but if you're in a company where it's not possible to do that then the easiest way is to look around and find something to focus on now in this instance i try to find something to focus on that's got things that i can count so for example a piece of furniture you know count it might be a certain pattern on it or whatever but count different pieces of furniture the legs of the furniture as you scan the room with your eyes or picking out different colors you know different shapes whatever it is but something that either that you can count or you know look for everything that's red around you know in your mind's eye something to distract you it moves your attention away from your feelings so these situations normally come up in company if you're not talking if you're listening to somebody it's easy enough and i do find that if somebody's talking about you know um negative things that that can cause me to have a panic attack for whatever reason um like i say i'm not a doctor i'm not anything so i'm talking to you from my own experiences and um you know so this is how i deal with these situations myself so apart from those situations then how can we help ourselves now i'm a big believer in having a toolbox um it's alike and you know um an electrician a plumber anybody will have a physical toolbox where they have all the necessary tools you know all the different screwdrivers and the different things like that and i think it's always good for us to have a mental toolbox so things that we keep in our toolbox to help us for different situations if you've listened to any of my other podcast you will know i often talk about this um but to have the um you know these tools that i'm going to talk to you now to have them ready because what may work for you one day may not work for you another day and it's like you know having the different screwdrivers you know you might use one particular screwdriver all the time but then it comes to one particular day and that one's not going to work and it's a bit like this having the different tools in your toolbox to help you with these panic or anxiety attacks so be aware of the different things that i'm saying and experiment with them but just knowing that you've got them there and see whether or not they will help you in when one of the attacks happen so breathing techniques is a great one to have and when i say breathe in because i people say to me well i breathe all the time i'm talking about intentional breathing so where you focus on your breath so you really breathe in hold at the top and then you release and breathe it out and by doing that a number of times until you feel the panic subsiding that helps enormously so breathing techniques nostril breathing is very good as well so just closing one nostril breathing in from in one side and then covering the other breathing out the other side what you're doing is taking the your attention away from the attack and putting it somewhere else and by doing this with the nostril breathing it it makes you think about what you have to do and so that's a great one to do but any breathing techniques will help now another thing is to find things to look at and focus on around you so a bit like what i was saying earlier on about looking for different shapes looking for different colors sometimes if you're somewhere where there's tiles on the wall you can count the tiles anything that will distract you so and make you concentrate on it so somebody that you're sitting with could have a stripy top on so you could count the stripes you know anything at all that will distract you from from the attack if you're having a panic attack or an anxiety attack and if you've got nobody at home to talk to or nobody that understands what's going on in the moment be ready with a friend or a friend's phone numbers and make sure that these friends are people that are going to help you not hinder you and what i mean by that is we've all got those friends who just talk about negative things it doesn't matter what it is they are just very negative about things now they're not the kind of people that you really could do with talking to when you're feeling an attack coming on because you want something to bring you down to make you feel happy to make you feel relaxed so i'm not talking about those friends i'm talking about the friends that understand what you're going through your friends that will just talk to you about really nice things about the fun things that they've done you know the the wonderful day that's going on they would just talk to you about things like that so those kind of friends have their number to hand and let them know as well that you know what what can go on with you at times i think that's another big thing as well is actually tell people what's going on because people can't help you if they don't understand now of late i've been having panic attacks when i've got onto airplanes and i always tell the people that i'm sitting beside just explaining to them that i suffer with panic and anxiety attacks and if one should occur would they mind talking to me and never once have i ever had anybody saying to me well no that's just silly that's just a nothing everyone has been very understanding and in the moment of me having an attack they have been very very helpful so it does help to explain to people around you and to those friends that you're going to call up just you know let them know what goes on within you and sometimes just sharing what can happen to you can make one not happen at all i remember once getting onto an airplane and i'd had terrible panic attacks even before i'd got onto this airplane and i remember saying to this man you know i just want to let you know that i do suffer with panic and anxiety attacks if you know one should happen mid-flight anyway one didn't happen it was a very comfortable flight it was an eight hour flight very comfortable and when we landed this man said to me well done and i sort of looked at him a bit puzzled and he said well done you had a really great flight there and you know you've done really well and i'll never forget that i do not know who this person was and this is probably 20 years ago now but that always stays with me and so if anybody shares with me that they suffer or experience i shouldn't say suffer should i really but experience panic or anxiety attacks although i have experienced them and i do understand i'm there for them as well i do do get that so any other form of anxiety or anything you know be understanding with the person you know it is a real thing this is a real thing another way is to write things down so i have a notebook where if i'm going through a series of days of having these attacks that i just take the notebook and i just write down the thoughts in my head so it's another way of getting rid and bringing you back to the now if you like so instead of doing it verbally because sometimes verbally doesn't help you but just to write things down no it's not something that you're going to read back you don't need to do that nothing you need to look over but just how you're feeling so how are you feeling and just writing whatever comes to mind down because don't forget we when we have one of these attacks it's it's the fear of the unknown that is causing these to happen so just get it out of your head and write write write and so keeping that notebook tanned i find that an extremely useful technique another technique is tapping or eft emotional freedom technique where you tap your face and you tap there's different um points um or around on your face and on your body um google that and and see about that because i find that very effective because i'm talking to you here it's very hard for me to describe it in this moment but um the points are um you know all all around the face and coming down onto the upper body but i find that extremely helpful another one that i found is kygon i find that absolutely amazing that is stretching um and breathing i find that extremely rewarding especially if i do that in the morning so again google that there's lots of those on youtube so i find that very very good um running water is another one as well so this is not something i use all the time but it can be helpful so cold water i find helps so just by putting my hands into underneath the tap as it's running it takes your focus away and that noise of the running water i do feel soothing in its own way so that's another one to have up your sleeve there visualize yourself in a calm place just taking yourself somewhere maybe that you've been before somewhere that makes you feel good somewhere that you know you had a lot of fun just visualizing that visualization is extremely good for panic and anxiety attacks the other one is move yourself away from where you are so by going into a different room or going outside just taking yourself away from wherever the attack is happening in that moment um that's another really good one i find focus on your body um tense and relax from your feet up or vice versa you can do that you know that's a good one to do at night but also in the daytime as well just focusing on your body just looking at your hands as you open and clench them open and clench them you know that kind of thing it's just taking your mind away um re-watch old movies or shows now this may seem a bit strange to some of you but when you know those shows and those movies that make us feel good that made us laugh you know whenever it is whatever it was um when you watch those they will make you feel good because you know what's going to happen so they don't require so much mental energy especially when you're feeling very anxious um they can just bring you back because it's almost like eating comfort food if you like you know what's going to happen you know it's going to be okay you know sometimes i put on a new show and all of a sudden it's things that i don't want to see um i'm very aware of the night time before i go to bed not to watch the news not to watch anything gory or anything like that and sometimes some of these new shows that i tend to watch they can be showing images like that and it's not what i want to see so when i feel really anxious really worried about something watching an old show that i know it's going to be okay and make me feel good that's that that kind of takes me to a good place so they bring back the happy memories of when you first watched them um say positive things to yourself things like i am safe i am well this will pass and repeat it i am safe i am well this will pass over and over another really good one and lots of people find this really good is mirror work talk to yourself in the mirror so it's almost like having someone else in the room with you you know talk to yourself in the mirror what can i do to help you what can we do to help you you know you are safe you are well this will pass so having that conversation in the mirror is really good and the last one for now is this useful trick which often works um and you've normally come out of the panic the attack before you get to the end of it and so this is find five things that you can see so just stay sitting where you are you can do this with me now so just look around five things that you can see can be anything four things that you can touch so literally stay sitting in your chair so one of them could be the chair one of them could be your hair one of them could be you know the lamp sitting on the table beside you whatever it is so find the things that you can touch then three things that you can hear so you just stop for a moment what can i hear it may just be your heart beating it may be a car outside it may be an animal that you have in the room it may be that squeakiness in the chair anything at all two things that you can smell so what can i smell you know um it could be you know a smelly shoe it could be an animal that's there could be some fresh flowers in a vase it could be the cup of coffee that you've got beside you two things you can smell and one thing that you can taste and you may think well there's nothing here that i can taste well just taste your own tongue your own mouth you know whatever you've got going on there and if that hasn't brought you out of your attack or your your your anxiety panicked attack then just run through those again however that works for you and finally know that this is not a permanent feeling it will pass and the more you can work with different techniques to help alleviate the attacks the quicker you recognize when one is about to happen and the easier you will be able to come out of them and also hopefully they will start to become less frequent and not ruin the fun times in your life so that's what i wanted to share with you today um i'd like you to share with me any techniques you have so if some of the things that i've said to you are new to you and i hope that you will give them a try and like i say have that mental toolbox they're ready because when we're prepared we're better able to help ourselves but also let me know your techniques and things that work for you or if you've tried any of my techniques then let me know whether or not they've worked for you so thank you ever so much for listening and i hope you have a great day wherever you are so anyway sending big hugs out to you all have a wonderful day and come back soon to listen to tranquil spirits podcast bye for now

Reviews

A big THANK YOU 🙏- your explanation & experience provided additional techniques for my tool box - Panic Attacks are frightening - thanks for the clarity & understanding - 🙏🙏

Thank you so much Jacqueline for all the tools to put in my toolbox!
Sometimes I wake up with a terrible panic attack where the room is literally spinning around me so very fast, that it makes me feel so panicked.
What helps me is trying to prevent it, by calming down enough before I go to sleep. Watching feel good movies or series that I have watched before is really helpful in that regard. Just being aware more during the day how I'm feeling and calming myself down. A lot of tools you mentioned I will definitely try out! And focusing on breathing out longer than in also helps me.
Grateful for all your insights Jacqueline and sending you so much love! 👍🤗💕💫

So many great tools. My problem is that that I have severe air hunger during my attacks so focusing on deep breathing makes it worse. Scary stuff. Thanks for this.

Thank you so much, I was drawn to this because of a panic attack I’d had today morning. Some of the tactics you mentioned like doing a meditation, and EFT tapping really help me, along with deep breathing. Mirror work is difficult for me anyways, so doing it during an attack doesn’t work at all for me. It’s beautiful to ask for support when you need it, that’s a piece of vulnerability we all need to cultivate. I definitely agree and I love how you covered all types of situations including ones you can’t excuse yourself from, for example at work! Thank you for sharing this gift 🥰

You helped me get through my second panic attack in my life that just happened in the night. First one was about 22years ago. I wasn’t sure what was happening. Very scary but you helped me. Thank you.

so wonderful. thank you!

Great thanks! Very helpful will listen again 😊