Spirituality and Self Help » techniques

7 Creative Ways to Stop Panic Attacks

shimon — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:54:22 +0000

This is a guest post by Ryan Rivera. Thanks to modern and creative techniques of treating anxiety and panic disorders, Ryan Rivera is finally anxiety-free. Learn more about his anxiety struggles and survival techniques at www.calmclinic.com.

Did you know that 25 percent of the emergency room patients who complain of chest pain are actually experiencing panic?

Yes, panic attacks are common. In fact, about 20% of the adult population suffer from it.

Take the case of Anne. She was having second thoughts on whether or not to take the flight to Chicago. She always fears flying, even the thought of it.

She can’t seem to dismiss some crazy thought that something bad will happen the minute the plane takes off. She took it anyway.

As the plane was gearing to take off, Anne suddenly turned frantic, was out of breath, and dizzy. She was clearly overwrought. She was having a panic attack. But for Anne, the rest of the passengers and the airline crew, it would seem a heart attack. To make the story short, Anne was escorted off the plane and brought to the hospital.

Like Anne, panic attack sufferers fear the unknown. Their baseless reactions often cause them a pounding heart, nervousness, shortness of breath, discomfort, abdominal stress, dizziness etc. Classic symptoms of a heart attack…only it isn’t. It’s a case of a panic attack.

Yes, people have the right to worry. More so with all the bad and sad news we hear every day, but this goes beyond normal if it happens ever so often. In the case of Anne, it has been happening quite a lot. The airplane incident was just one of many.

Panic attack sufferers usually need professional help. Emotional support from their family and friends also helps. The psychologist will have to assess the underlying cause of the fear so that appropriate treatment may be given. The support system will provide the assurance that the patient is not alone and has support and understanding from the people who matter.

People who suffer from panic attacks should also know that the condition is highly treatable and preventable. In fact, there are creative ways to prevent it from occurring. Here are seven of them:

1Watch funny videos online. At the first sign of attack, turn on your computer and search for funny videos online. Watch a series. You’ll enjoy watching them and therefore lose focus on the negative thoughts. You will realize that laughter is really the best cure. Scientifically speaking, laughing helps decrease your blood pressure, slow down your heart rate and relax your muscles.

2Listen to your favorite tunes. Lie down on your couch and listen to your favorite songs playing on the background. Think about the beautiful lyrics that accompany them. Think of happy thoughts. Let the music take you to a place or time where you felt you were at your most peaceful and happiest.

3Leave your home. If you are home alone and suddenly feel alarmed for no reason at all, go out to change the atmosphere. Gardening is among the most recommended activities for relaxation. It takes your mind off the thing that agitates you.

Why not invite a neighbor over? Share a light snack and engage in small talk. You can also walk, jog, go to the mall and do some window shopping, go to a museum or an art gallery. These activities will help you forget your feelings of fear and worry.

4Write. As soon as you feel bad and negative thoughts are meddling with your mind, brush them off by writing. Either write about your feelings or scribble things that make you happy. Write about your goals and dreams in life. Writing therapy helps you express your feelings and thoughts in a gradual manner. This gradual process helps deal with or eases the pain caused by panic attacks.

5Perform a breathing exercise. Find a space where you can do a breathing exercise. Make sure it’s quiet. If darkening the room can help you focus more, do it. Close your eyes and keep your attention to your breathing. Inhale as if you are accepting all the things that are running through your mind. Exhale as if you are blowing them all away. Do it at least 5 times or until you feel relaxed.

6Do a general cleaning. Find an area in your home that you seldom clean, like the attic or the garage. Remove all the dust and throw away what you no longer need. Sweep and wipe the walls and floors with a wet cloth. You may find yourself dirty and sweating all over but it doesn’t matter. You’ve forgotten about the thing that threatened you earlier.

7Participate in charity works. Sometimes one needs to see the suffer of others to realize how lucky he is. Check within your community if you can participate in charity works. Later on, you will realize that you are not only helping others, You are also helping yourself. Your focus is redirected to things that are far more important and actually exist.

Fear is a natural human instinct. There are situations that can really trigger panic, But to constantly fear the unknown is detrimental to your growth. Always take control of the situation. Be in command. Don’t submit yourself to fears. Submission means you’re depriving yourself with the chance to live a normal and happy life.

If however, you’re already suffering from panic attacks, seek help. The earlier, the better. You can then use these creative ways as supplements to whatever your therapist recommends.

Radical Acceptance

shimon — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:31:22 +0000

This is a guest post by Lisa Shoreland. Lisa is currently a resident blogger at Go College, where recently she’s been researching nursing grants as well as Stafford loans. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing, practicing martial arts, and taking weekend trips.
Individuals who have undergone radical acceptance describe the experience as being liberating, as if seeing clearly after drowning in a thick fog.

The term refers to a skill taught within dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), originally developed by Marsha M. Linehan to treat individuals with borderline personality disorder.

today it’s used to help sexual abuse survivors, disordered eaters, and individuals suffering from mood disorders, self-injury, chemical dependencies, and other ailments. DBT combines cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation with Buddhism-derived concepts such as tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness.

Radically Accepting Yourself

So, what does radical acceptance really mean to you?
Everyone has problems. Everyone has undergone some manner of suffering. No matter the incident, what is small to one may be life-changing for another, and everyone’s suffering is valid. This point alone may cause stumbling, but radical acceptance goes a step further.

By definition, radical acceptance means to let go of fighting reality and to accept one’s situation as it is. This situation can range from being overweight to having cancer, from having fought with one’s significant other or being abandoned by a parent. It takes into consideration the suffering we cause ourselves. Most of us fumble day after day in what-ifs and I-wishes, trying to dip our toes in waters that are real nowhere but in our heads and hearts. “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes,” Mark Twain said, “most of which never happened.”

Radical acceptance is not about washing away our cares and suffering by saying they don’t matter. There is no judgment, only that it is. Radical acceptance is saying, “Even though I have this problem, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
This is no easy feat, but try it yourself.

The Steps to Radical Acceptance

Combine radical acceptance with a piece of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) involving nothing more than your hands. EFT is a form of alternative psychotherapy that, whether through energy manipulation as proponents claim or the placebo effect as skeptics dismiss, can bring you closer to radical acceptance.

1 Either aloud or silently to yourself, say the affirmation:
Even though I ____, I deeply and completely accept myself.
Fill the blank with a problem you are currently facing, such as a fear, a craving, anger, etc.

2 Say the affirmation three times while tapping the fleshy part of the outside of your dominant hand between your wrist and the base of the little finger. Use the tips of the index and middle fingers of your non-dominant hand to tap the point on your dominant hand. The action will bring your focus to what is current and real, taking you farther away from your perceived problems.

Follow these steps every day at least once, perhaps when you get out of bed or before you fall asleep, or each time you begin to feel a what-if or I-wish coming on.

How To Integrate New & Joyful Beliefs into Your Life

shimon — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:35:40 +0000

This is a guest post by Michelle Mettler. Michelle is a spiritual writer, teacher and guide. Through her teachings she helps people align with their true selves or who-they-really-are. You can read more of Michelle’s teachings and receive guidance on a variety of topics at Leading by Light.com. Your joy is calling. Will you listen?

You all have certain ideas or beliefs which serve you well on the planet, and others where the idea you hold inhibits expression of who-you-really-are or your true, joyful self.

Of course, you all wish to come into alignment with who-you-really-are in order to experience life as good.

The greater alignment with your true self you allow, the more aligned you are with goodness in all its forms including the experience of love, joy, peace, and oneness. Allow love, joy, peace and oneness into your life experience and, at the same time, all-that-is-good enters your physical environment.

There will be greater physical, material goodness as a reflection of the goodness felt within. Therefore, there is no need to fear that in focusing upon your inner selves that the outer is somehow neglected.

If we were in your physical shoes, we would allow ourselves to focus on the integration of helpful, positive thoughts, ideas and beliefs rather than the elimination of the negative. The existence of either a negative or positive belief relies solely upon your choice of focus.

Choose to focus on the negative idea or thought or belief then that belief exists. Choose to remove your focus from it, then it no longer exists.

There are a couple of ways to go about directing your focus which can help you achieve the integration of a new beliefs so that they feel natural to you. The ways we wish to share with you today give you the option of going about this integration smoothly and slowly over a period of time, or more quickly in a shorter period of time.

Neither method is recommended above the other. It is simply a matter of preference. They are both valid and helpful ways of getting from where you are to where you want to be.

The integration of a new thought or belief as natural to you requires first that you know what you want. Once you know what you want, you can allow yourself to go ahead in choosing a method in order to allow the integration of that experience into your life.

Two Methods for integrating new beliefs

1The gradual integration of a new belief over a period of time occurs when you realize that there are already aspects of your current life situation that are representative of the belief, thought or idea that you wish to integrate. When you choose to see aspects of your current environment that represent the good feeling nature of the belief you wish to integrate – regardless of how small of a space they currently occupy in your life – your mind will begin the adjustment process.

Slowly choosing to see aspects of your current life situation which are conducive to and in alignment with your new belief will allow you to start gathering further evidence in that area.

The power of your focus will allow the reality around you to shift in such a way that you will start to gather evidence. You will start to understand in small increments that the new belief could have some truth to it, that there is truth to the new belief.

The evidence will grow in time with the power of your focus. It will not bring abrupt change into your life or discomfort in any way. You will simply and gradually adjust your focus thereby simply and gradually aligning yourself with a new life experience.

In time your life experience will be representative of the new belief, however, it will no longer seem like a new belief. You have been focusing for such a long period of time that things have shifted beautifully and elegantly in the direction that you have desired for your life.

There are always examples of what you want to be experiencing around you. If there were not, you would not have come into the consciousness of that option being available to you. All you really need for this method to work, is look for representations of what you want in ever increasing amounts.

That is all. And soon your whole life experience will be filled with evidence confirming and supporting your new desired thought, idea or belief.

2 There is one very good method we like to use with some humans who are ready to move at a somewhat quicker pace. The fact of the matter is you must be extremely open to experiencing something else in a very short period of time. If you are not very open to change, you will not be able to go ahead with this method.

Once you have identified the good feeling thought or belief, then we would outwardly choose to sit down and allow ourselves to feel right now the whole of what our reality would be if we adopted that new belief. We would imagine every aspect of our reality now as if we were living, experiencing and believing that new thought about ourselves or our world.

We would allow our imagination to take us in the direction we want to go. Allow yourself to experience fully what the integration of your new idea or belief would mean for your life. Feel. See. Hear. Taste. Relax into it. Allow the emotion of it. Enjoy the sensation of it.

Feeling-visualization is the most powerful technique for drawing toward you anything you wish to experience, whether that be a material possession, a new life experience or a belief. Allowing what you want to fill your senses will fully and quickly invite what it is you are looking for into your current situation.

The previous technique – if applied consistently – can draw a beautiful integration within several months. This technique, if done well, can instigate almost instant integration of a new belief and consistent physical manifestations in accordance with that new belief within a month.

In choosing to fill your senses with what it is you want to experience, your reality shifts before your very eyes. It will accommodate how you feel regardless of the current reality of the situation around you.

Neither method we have described today is superior or inferior. You have all come to the planet to align further with your true selves. There are many ways of going about that on the surface. Underneath the goal is the same. Enjoy the process, whatever you choose.

Using Words For The Health Of It

shimon — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:23:28 +0000

This is a guest post by Diana M. Raab. Diana is the author of Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey (Loving Healing Press, 2010). You can visit her blog or website. Diana is participating in the WOW! Women On Writing Blog Tour.

When life takes an unexpected turn, writing can be a beneficial form of release from stress, due to either emotional or physical factors.

Many published authors, including myself, have used writing as a catalyst for their survival during difficult times.

Some of them include: Anaïs Nin, Joan Didion, Reeve Lindbergh, Tobias Wolff, D.H. Lawrence, Isabel Allende, Vivian Gornick, Kathryn Harrison, Sue William Silverman, and May Sarton.

For us, writing has provided purpose and meaning to our lives. It gives one a reason to wake up in the morning and continue on with the day.

D.H. Lawrence, for example, sat at his mother’s bedside and while she was dying, wrote poems about her. He also began composing an early draft of Sons and Lovers, his novel which explored their complicated, loving, painful and close relationship.

Marcel Proust wrote Remembrance of Things Past while sick in bed with asthma. Flannery O’Connor wrote some of her best stories while dying from lupus. I wrote my first book, Getting Pregnant and Staying Pregnant back in 1983 while on bed rest with my eldest daughter.

The book began as a journal typed on my Smith Corona that was mounted on a specially-designed bed table my husband built for me. After my daughter was born, I condensed the journal into a prologue and added research to create a self-help reference book for women having similar experiences.

Now, more than twenty years later, the book is still in print and has helped many women cope with problem pregnancies.
My most recent book Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey also began as a journal and was recently published as a self-help memoir to help others battling cancer.

My background as a writer allows me to help and teach others while helping myself navigate through difficult times.

May Sarton and Anais Nin also used journaling to pull them through difficult times. In her book, Recovering, May Sarton chronicled her battle with depression and cancer. Anaïs Nin used her journals to write to her deranged father who left the family when she was young.

In Nin’s case, her journal entries became a springboard for a four-volume collection of published diaries. As one can see, journaling can be a cathartic way to express feelings. My attitude is: “Direct the rage to the page.”

I have a writing colleague who says, “If it hurts, write harder,” and for years those words were posted above my computer, until they simply became a part of me.

At an Associated Writing Conference a few years ago, Dr. James Pennebaker, author of Writing to Heal said, “Writing dissolves some of the barriers between you and others. If you write, it’s easier to communicate with others.” He does have one rule that he calls, “the flip out rule,” which proclaims that if you get too upset when writing, then simply stop.

Pennebaker believes that there’s a certain type of writing which erupts when we’re faced with loss, death, abuse, depression and trauma.

Whether affected by change, loss or pain, finding the time to write is critical to your healing process. Some people prefer to journal about their experience, while others may lean towards the fictional or poetic modalities to help them escape their own realities. Whatever your choice, once you try it, you’ll see that writing, in any form, can be healthy and empowering.

Reasons to journal

To discover yourself
To vent frustrations and cherish joys
To record and remember events
To fine one’s purpose
To plan for the future
To tap into your intuition
To become empowered
To build self-confidence
To allow self-expression
To uncover secrets, sometimes unknown to us
To improve communication skills
To improve mental health

Journaling tips

Date entries
Don’t worry about grammar
Be honestly and write deeply
Write quickly
Don’t erase
Write for yourself

Journaling prompts

Make a list of things which make you happy.
Make a list of what makes you angry.
Make a list of your accomplishments.
Write about your morning. Waking up, breakfast, the newspaper, the thoughts. Visualize a place you love and write about it. Give details.
What is your first memory?
Describe your childhood room.
Who are the people you love?
Describe a grandparent.
Write about books which have changed your life and why.

Spirituality and Self Help » techniques

7 Creative Ways to Stop Panic Attacks

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