Techniques for Panickers

When your thoughts are running at the speed of light, what can you do?

“A woman wearing a braid in her hair is leaning against a brick wall, praying” by Ben White on Unsplash

If you’ve never had a panic attack, believe me when I say this — you do not understand what it is like. That’s without offense or superiority. There is no feeling like it.

I will never understand what it feels like to be kicked in the balls. We have to be grateful sometimes for the things we can’t experience.

Your first attack might lead you to believe you are dying — maybe it’s a heart attack. If you’ve grown up with them you’ll know that your worry about dying disappears, only to be replaced by the unrelenting feeling that if you don’t break the cycle of panic you are experiencing, something far worse will happen to you — you’ll finally lose your mind.

I’m a long-time panic attack sufferer. I remember my first ones at 8, and they have followed me loyally throughout my life, occasionally taking a vacation before suddenly disrupting my ability to function.

Over the years, I have learned some great activities for delaying, stopping and even avoiding them.

All of these take practice before your brain will start to comply with them.

Call for the Train

When you need to break the cycle of thought.

If you need to put something out of your thoughts,

1. Imagine a train is pulling up in your mind.
2. Into one of the carriages, put the worrisome thought.
3. Watch as the train starts off in the other direction — taking your problem with it.
4. Don’t forget to wave.

This works best — When you have stressors that can’t be dealt with right now, and you need to focus on what’s in front of you for the day. You might need to repeat it a few times at first.

Postage Stamp (NLP)

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, is full of actually fun activities to train the brain — my favorite being the Postage Stamp.

If you’re reliving a bad conversation, an argument or an embarrassing or distressing moment

1. Play it through in your mind as vividly as possible (If this is too uncomfortable, stop this activity.)
2. Stop the event at a point. Freeze Frame.
3. As slowly as you like, start draining the color from the image.
4. Once in black and white, start shrinking the image.
5. Shrink the image down to the size of a postage stamp you can fit in one corner of your room.

This works best — When you’re not dealing with an extremely traumatic event. You really have to relive the situation and then make it insignificant, so anything that bugged you through the day should be given the postage treatment.

White Room

Thoughts are just thoughts. We have thousands, nay, millions of thoughts a day — are they all significant? No. But when you find your mind overcrowded with repetitive, negative thinking, try this.

1. Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes.
2. Imagine a big white room, with two doors — one for the thoughts to come in and one for them to leave.
3. Let the thoughts come in and leave without engaging. You can label them as judging / not-judging if you desire, but the key is to allow the thoughts to pass.
4. Any thoughts that stick around have an emotional depth — just be an observer until they leave, and they will leave.

This works best — When you’re on the verge of panic, in the middle of panic, at the end of panic. White Room really puts distance between thought and self, and can put you back in control.

The most important point is to practice whatever techniques you choose regularly — don’t be like me, the type who forgets what a panic attack is like until I’m in the depths, because I am an idiot.

There are countless ways to lessen, get through or get over panic attacks. These are what work for me so far. If you have any ideas, please let me know.