How to calm yourself down during an anxiety attack

Anxiety is worse than anything. If depression is slow suicide, then anxiety is quickly descending into panic and madness. In depression, your mind and body can take a halt slowly as each symptom increases day by day. Anxiety is jumping on all these symptoms at once with flight or fight response. You could die on the spot with an excessive rush of stress to your heart. This is why controlling anxiety is crucial. Anxiety is a natural response to perceived threat or danger. This is our body’s evolutionary way of survival. A good amount of cautiousness is helpful, but when it gets triggered by even a minute gesture or signal and exceeds to way uncontrollable amount, then you need to do something about it. Everything you see would be perceived as a threat and would lead you to paranoia. The worst thing about this is that you would also perceive people who are trying to help you as predators. And frequent episodes of it can trigger other mental health disorders such as schizophrenia, insomnia, etc. 

We will get a little deep about the symptoms before we can suggest you the ways to calm yourself down. The brain is rather easy to be controlled when you understand how it works. When you understand your weakness, you can counter it with action that will either prevent or control the situation. Sometimes it is not easy to do it on your own and we would really appreciate a hand to guide us through the internal mayhem. IMBT has the best Anxiety Therapist In London who will help you with your situation.

Here are the things you need to know:

 

Defining anxiety and its symptoms

Our body activates stress response when we believe we are in danger. And it was necessary for our survival when we were evolving. As soon as our body or our senses feel that we are out of danger, our muscles relax and there is clarity in thoughts. But in anxiety, our body has a sensitive trigger system, which gives copious amount of stress response to our body. Perceived threat could be real, physical, imaginary, psychological, etc. The level of stress response is directly proportional to the perceived level of threat. One of the major things that cause anxiety is feeling loss of control over things. Let us look at the major symptoms of anxiety attacks:

* Depersonalisation and derealisation (losing touch with self, emotions and reality)
* Dizziness, light headedness, and uneasiness
* Outburst of emotions which manifests to panicking ( feeling of vomiting, crying out loud, knot in the stomach and heavy breathing)
* Shortness of breath, sweating, numbness, and trembling
* Wanting to escape the place or situation but also feel physically weak to respond
* Unable to think or speak clearly because of being stricken by fear

Now we will look into things we can do to deal with anxiety:

 1. Breathe in and out

When we are anxious, we see everything as threat and as if the world is going to collapse right before your eyes. But the main fear is unable to do anything about it or escape it. In such symptoms, making yourself calm is difficult. So the first thing you need to do is focus on your breathing pattern and count down from ten, sometimes from twenty. This will make your brain focus on something calming, that is, your breathing. And as the storm clears a little, you can use your wisdom to clearly see things and respond to the situation rather than react to the fear.

2. Understand why you are feeling this anxiety

In the moments of calming yourself down, ask yourself why are you afraid? Is it because you would embarrass yourself in front of people? Is it because you think your life is in danger? Is it because you think the outcome will not be in your favour? When you understand what stems this attack, you would be better able to handle it. First, you need to understand what are the triggers that cause you to be anxious. Is it psychological? Is it physical? Is it a perceived threat or a real one?

3. Prepare a pre-anxiety list of reasons why you shouldn’t be anxious

 Rather than facing the situation and being anxious over there, you can perceive what causes anxiety in you. Perceive the problem from a third person’s view and tell yourself why shouldn’t you feel afraid and how can you make things under your control. If this is hard to perceive and thinking about it makes you feel overwhelmed, then talk to your friend or anxiety therapist. You can contact the best anxiety therapist in London at IMBT.

4. Read out the list to yourself minutes before you do anything stressful

It could be your job, it could be performing in front of people, or it could be dealing with people whom you are scared of. You need to know that there are solutions to everything if you are under control. You need to control your brain rather than have your brain control you. Do not become a primitive man of desires and fear, rather become a civil and balanced man of accomplishment.

5. Remember that you are stronger than your anxiety and problems

If you let this emotion override self, you will gain nothing. And this fear of gaining nothing causes more anxiety. You know that once you assert control over your situation and your response, you can control the outcome. So having a deeper and meaningful relationship with self and understanding your emotions and responses will go a long way.
We all need a guide when people around us cannot help us deal with it. Sometimes we alone can’t make things happen. IMBT has anxiety therapist in London to come to your aid.

Visit www.imbt.co.uk to book your appointment.