Okay, I hate my life, my job sucks, the kids are fighting, I have no money, I can’t breathe, my chest hurts, Oh my God I think I will die, I can’t breathe ….
Does that sound familiar? It sure does to me.
I could work myself up into quit a tizzy on a moment’s notice and didn’t realize that I had the control to stop the anxiety attack. Granted taking medicine for a short time helped but the trick to stopping the attacks completely was to learn what to do before one came a knocking.
Talk yourself out of the attack before the attack takes you out!
Just Breath.
Sounds like a simple solution but when you are having an attack you forget to breath. Once you begin to cut off your breath the attack goes full force and knocks you to your knees.
Take long deep breathes.
Even as the anxiety attack is taking hold, if you keep taking the deep breaths you will begin to take life from the attack and put the control back with you. Your body isn’t causing the attacks, your MIND is. You are thinking something that causes your body to react.
Silly but try to think of the anxiety attack as a physical being that is trying to steal from you. Don’t let it, stand firm and fight for your life.
The best tool I had was one friend that knew about the severity of the attacks. I could call her anytime of day. The poor thing would answer and I would be gasping for breath, telling her I can’t take anymore. She would coach me through the attack and back to sanity.
She would tell me to breath.
Then she would ask what was really wrong.
I would tell her and she would always say, okay, is your son safe, are you safe, is anyone in danger, is this issue going to end the world, will you die because of this and so on, helping me to realize that what ever was causing my attack wasn’t the end of the world.
I swear just being asked those questions usually helped me to calm down. Eventually as I learned to ask myself those same questions I didn’t need to call my friend each time.
Sometimes, no matter how hard I tried I just needed to break something. I don’t know what it was, anything would work. It was usually a poor coffee cup thrown in the sink. Hated when it was a coffee cup I really liked. Eventually I learned to throw rocks at trees in the back yard. My son would often laugh at his silly mother and that would be enough to bring me out of it.
Find something, anything to bring you out of the anxiety attack. Take a nap, make coffee, take a bath if you can, put in a movie for the kids and sit on the back porch. If you are better prepared for the attacks they won’t last as long.
Love & Peace,
Rebecca J. Burns
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