Helpful Hints on what to do during a panic attack

From Sweetpea, at Mood Garden. I have this list to be extremely helpful and valuable, so I am passing on this list should it help someone as it has done me.



as far as symptoms of anxiety, they do vary, and what you describe could be anxiety, but it sounds like i feel when I am mixed.

finding the trigger is very important, and you did great finding that and a coping skill!!

Here are some of the things I experience during full blown anxiety:

1. First and foremost, I almost always feel totally overwhelmed by it, paralyzed almost
2. looping, worrying thoughts
3. often includes an unfounded and unreasonable fear that something is wrong or that I have done something wrong
4. ringing ears, racing thoughts, jumping out my skin feeling, restless, but too overwhelmed by it to actually pace or anything sometimes, but sometimes I do pace or walk......if I am in a full blown panic activity can make it worse for me....maybe from adrenaline?
5. feeling like I cant breathe or I am gonna die

those are the top for me, although i could list many more ( i plan on doing this in my blog later this week, like i did for depression for today)

what I do to help it:

1. try to identify the trigger
2. call someone, PM someone, post here either in my blog or on the forums, IM someone, talk to Mickey
3. a breathing exercise that has really helped me is as follows :
inhale slow to the count of 4, hold to the count of 4, exhale to count of 4, hold
again to the count of 4......repeat until you feel some better....remember to do it
slow, you dont wanna hyperventilate....if you think you are hyperventilating, do
exercise while breathing into a paper bag
4. I immediately get rid of any noise....which noise is often my trigger....I put on a
meditation CD, or calming music
5. If you think exercise will help, walking is often good. Depending on my mood,
sometimes I put on music and kinda dance around to it, working some exercises
mostly stretches, since my muscles get really intense
6. hot bath, and dont forget all the good smelly stuff which really helps......actually
focusing on touch, smell, etc helps.....rubbing on lotion, I love bath and body
works
7. journaling, hand written......fast and furious, not worrying about punctuation,
grammar etc
8. did I mention aromatherapy? lol.........especially lavendar, peppermint, or
eucalyptus
9. I forgot to mention anti anxiety meds
10. I also have a great herbal tea mixture that really is calming....I take one bag of
chamomille, one bag of valerian, one bag of sleepy time, one bag of tension
tamer, and one bag of apple/cinnamon (the last three I get at wal mart, the
others at GNC) I steep all of these in a huge coffee mug of hot water for about 5
min. and add a tbs. of honey.....just drinking something warm helps, but the
herbal teas do calm my nerves. It sounds like a lot but I dont think you can od
herbal teas lol