Can You Treat Your Own Panic Attacks Without Medication?
A panic attack is a miserable experience. Having them regularly is even worse. They can interfere with your entire life when you suffer from them.
Medication is a popular way to control them, certainly something your doctor is likely to suggest, but is it the best way? Medication means dealing with side effects. These can be hard on you physically.
That depends. Do you want to rely on medication or do you want to do your best to control your panic attacks on your own, no medication required?
The most basic techniques involve deep breathing, and picturing things that help you to calm down. For some people this works. For others, more help is needed.
The key here is to figure out what causes your panic attacks. Most have some sort of a trigger. It can be a particular situation, for example. If you know when you are likely to have a panic attack you can either avoid the situation or prepare yourself mentally.
As you work through this, you can regain some of the things you had to give up due to anxiety. While not so for every sufferer, panic attacks can be severe enough to limit your lifestyle, whether it makes you avoid social situations you’d like to enjoy or it keeps you from making presentation at work that help you to advance your career.
It’s important to understand that you are not alone in suffering from panic attacks. Many people do. You can decide how to take control, whether it’s by taking medication or by learning how to no longer fear panic attacks when they happen. Learn to break the cycle of anxiety, and you make panic attacks much less of a problem.
My own feeling is that if you can control your anxiety on your own, it’s going to be a superior experience to relying on medication. Maybe that’s not true for everyone, but I believe it’s always worth a try. I’m always a fan of taking aim at the root cause of a problem, rather than just treating the symptoms. If that doesn’t work for you, the medications will still be there.
My own theory for handling my anxieties is to prepare myself mentally and handle them head on. It’s not the easy solution, but it’s a lot more fun than just allowing the suffering to take over my life. It’s particularly fun when I get out of my comfort zone and do something that I would have once considered to be nearly impossible.
Stephanie Foster runs http://tiredofpanicattacks.com/ for people who want to take control of their anxiety or panic attacks.
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