How to Stop a Panic Attack (Episode about Anxiety Attacks) - Teal Swan - Dan Harris' Panic Attack (and Discovery of Meditation)

How to Stop a Panic Attack (Episode about Anxiety Attacks) - Teal Swan




The subject for today is: Anxiety attacks
Any of you who have had an anxiety attack know
that it is one of the worst sensations you can have
out of any sensation on this planet
if you had a panic attack
you know it
it's a very surreal experience
and
it makes you feel like your life is
completely out of your control
So, what is a panic attack
and what can we do about it?
A panic attack is basically a sudden
intense episode of fear
fear which is coming in response to
a thought which you're thinking
usually a thought which is
subconscious rather than conscious
Whatever thought it is that you thought
caused your body
to react as if it was a life or death
situation
your body was then flooded with
chemicals which are associated with
fight or flight
now, in that kind of a circumstance
When fear is coming in response to a thought
which doesn't necessarily pertain
to the experience
or your circumstance that you're in,
your body is flooded
with chemicals like adrenaline
those chemicals would be normal if
you're running through the woods being
chased by a bear
or were in some other circumstance
that was a threat to your life
however, when you have an anxiety attack
most often those chemicals are being
flooded to your system
out of context
meaning, there is no immediate threat that you can perceive to your physical well-being
but your body is registering
that there is
The fact that these emotions
feel as if they are
out of context
makes you feel crazy and makes you feel
like you're losing control
and that right there is really the
hallmark of the panic attack because
the sensation becomes
what you start to fear
you start to fear that you're losing control
and you start to fear that you're
crazy (for lack of a better word)
and so
that fear on top of the previous fear that your body thinks
that is in a situation of life or death
causes a level of fear
to happen
which is
debilitating
a lot of times you will fear having
other panic attacks as well because
the experience is so intensely horrible
it becomes something
which inhibits you in life
you fear having another one
to the degree where
you may limit what you're doing
socially
you structure your life
in resistance to the idea of having
another anxiety attack
but that fear, in and of itself can cause
another one to come on
and then we develop things like anxiety
or panic disorders
to understand some of the symptoms which
might occur to you if you were having a panic attack
I'm going to give you some
of these symptoms now
If you're having a panic attack
you may experience:
A sense of impending doom or danger
The fear of loss of control or of death
You may begin to experience very rapid
heart rate
You may start to sweat or tremble
You may feel shortness of breath or
you may have a hyperventilation problem
You may get chills or hot flashes
You may feel nauseous
You might get abdominal cramping
chest pain
a headache
You may get dizzy
you may feel faint
You may feel like your throat is closing up on you,
like it's super tight and you have trouble swallowing
You may feel numbness in your
extremities
or you may have the feeling of
surreal reality
meaning, that you feel like you're
detached from yourself
I want to reiterate that your brain has no way of distinguishing between the thoughts you're thinking
and the reality which it perceives
This very principle, that your brain has no way of perceiving the difference between thought and reality
can work to your advantage
but in the case of an anxiety attack
it works to your disadvantage
because your brain can't really
distinguish
whether the thoughts that you are thinking
are real
or not real
everything is real to the brain
so if you're thinking a thought
which puts your body in panic mode
your brain at that moment doesn't stop
itself and say: andquot;this is not realityandquot;
it perceives itself
being in a life or death situation
so it's important for those of us who have
anxiety attacks to acknowledge the fact that
we're not going crazy
the body and the brain are responding in perfect
accordance to what our thoughts are.
I personally don't advocate
any anti-anxiety medications
that are available today
unless
a person believes
that that is the thing which will cure them
because belief
is the trump card for everything.
If you feel like anxiety medication is the only thing which can help you release resistance to anxiety
it's not wrong for you to go get them
but in my personal opinion
your emotions
are the compass which are leading you
through life, they're what's telling you if
the thought you hold
resonates with your higher self and that
what you truly are, or does not resonate
with who you are and what you really
should be doing
So, why take out the compass
that's what we're doing so often
nowadays in our medicinal
practices
is, we're basically making an enemy of the
very thing which is leading us
in the correct
or incorrect direction
and then we wonder why our lives have
become numb
and we wonder why our lives have become
less than satisfactory
In order to prevent anxiety attacks
you want to avoid alcohol and avoid
stimulants like coffee and like sugar.
Some of us have much more sensitive
systems than others
I think this is a good thing, to have a
very sensitive nervous system means
that you have a very very accurate compass
It's very hard for people who are
sensitive
to go on the opposite direction of what
is right for them
So it's not a good thing to make an enemy of a
sensitive system
but, it's best if you can gear
your choices in life
towards a diet and a lifestyle
which will pacify your nervous system
and nurture your nervous system
so, create any kind of grounding
environments for your nervous system to
flourish so you're not bombarding it
because your likelihood of having a kind of a
panic attack or chronic anxiety if
you're overloading it with stimulants
is super super high
Get regular exercise
I know we all harp on diet, exercise
and sleep
but exercise
is really really good for
your nervous system
joint impact
releases chemicals in your brain
which pacify your system
they actually have a calming effect
which is why a lot of people with
anxiety disorders
are addicted exercise
Get eight hours of sleep a day
When you are allowing yourself to go to
sleep you're releasing resistance
you're rejoining your Source Self perspective
and in the absence of resistance
well-being and health
is allowed to flourish
it will literally cascade naturally
through your body
so you're allowing yourself to reset
when you allow yourself to sleep enough
Find every way you can to reduce stress
in your life
Stress takes a toll on your body
It is basically, the heart every single
disorder and every single disease
If you maintain a life of stress or a focus
on situations which make you feel stress
your likelihood for an anxiety attack
increases exponentially
the reason is because your body
is set up
for the specific chemicals that are
released within it
What I mean is:
If you're a person who chronically
fuels stress
the brand new cells that are made within
your body
are made intact with receptor sites which
are
specifically designed
for the neuropeptides
in your body which are associated with
stress
and when those receptor sites
get denied of chemicals they start to go
into a crave
type of situation
where they release all kinds of
information about
them dying and needing
that same kind of chemical
so then you get into this
sort of locked in cycle where you almost need
to create stress because your cells are
craving the stress chemical
So, if you would like to live a
stress-free life
you need to start practicing
living a life of non-stress to such a degree that
the new cells within your body that are made
come into this existence with new
receptor sites which are predisposed
towards emotions
(the chemical version of the emotions)
like joy
rather than chemical emotions
like stress
In order to stop an anxiety attack
you've got to find a way to get your brain
to stop sending the message to your body
that it's in a life or death situation,
it has to stop sending the emergency message
Fear is your indication that your focus or
something you are paying attention to
is in the exact
opposite direction
of your desire and your well-being
and your higher self
Panic and fear is one of the lowest vibrations,
it's one of the most discordant vibrations in our universe
In other words, when you feel fear
your intention which is always
well-being
is colliding
with your current thought or action
which holds a different
resonance than that, entirely.
So, what do we do about it?
Number one
Never force yourself
through the action
if you're feeling a panic attack
and never try to avoid the sensation
trying to avoid
a panic attack
or trying to ignore a panic attack once
it has happened and force yourself
through the action the panic attack has occurred
because of
is the worst thing you can do
it will not work
So, What I want you to do if you're having a
panic attack is: close your eyes
and I want you to take five
very deep deep breaths
Breathe in to the extent where you're
filling your lungs entirely up to their
full capacity and then I want you to hold that
breath for eight to ten seconds
and then release the breath.
Remind yourself of what is going on
you can tell yourself:
I am having a panic attack
That will help pull your brain out of the
catastrophe thinking
into the reality which is current, which
is: I am having an anxiety attack
That's way better than thinking
I'm literally in life or death situation
Next I want you to do something very
counter-intuitive
I want you to turn your focus in towards
all of those sensations
Resisting the sensations
will make the sensations worse
because whatever we resist, persists.
That's the vibrational law within this universe.
So, we want you to embrace and
dive into the emotions and the sensations
of the experience of the panic attack.
It may be the very last thing you feel
like doing
but it will be your key to set in free
of that panic attack.
When you embrace and you welcome the
sensations of an anxiety attack
it changes your point of power
It's a conscious change
of your attitude towards the experience
which then changes the chemicals which
are released in your brain.
Those sensations are there for a reason
they are meant to be acknowledged
and they must be acknowledged
if the experience
is to be fully processed.
Begin naming what it feels like
for example you could say
Sensation
you feel heavy
and stinging
you feel like metal
you feel like you're trying to eat me
I want you to name whatever
sensations
you are feeling within your body
Then, I want you to take it one step further
I want you to invite the feeling
to become worse
ask it
to get more intense
ask it
to feel more
This step removes
all remaining resistance that you have
to the experience
When the fear
is no longer being fed by the mental
resistance
it will dissipate
What's better than that is, your
confidence will begin to kick in
it will tell you
guess what?!
you're in control of the experience rather than
the experience being in control of you
which is how panic attacks get you.
They convince you that you're
not in control of your own life
Then I want you to ask the sensation
what it needs you to know
what it's trying to tell you
Acknowledge
those feelings
and acknowledge the fact that you hear them
and you feel them and you understand them
also acknowledge that you have gratitude
for them
gratitude for the fact that your system
is giving you totally accurate feedback
to the thoughts that you're thinking
then I want you to look deeply
to try to identify what it was that you
were focused on before having this panic attack
Once you identify it
you want to look for evidence and proof that
undermines that thought that you were thinking
Then you want to begin looking
for thoughts which feel better to think
so for example
If I have a fear of going on an airplane and I'm
experiencing an anxiety attack as a result
of being on an airplane
I want to begin to come up with
as many thoughts which both undermine my
thoughts which are aligned
with the fear of being on an airplane
and support the idea that it's an
enjoyable experience
and a safe experience
For example, I could think thoughts like:
planes get safer and safer
every single year
or, pilots are trained specifically for any
kind of emergency situation
so I am actually in good hands
or, all you hear about on the news is the
one plane crashes and not the millions
and millions and millions each month
that takeoff with no problem
If you have problems with negative focus
chronically or you consider yourself a worrier
it's a really good idea to bring with you
something called andquot;The positive aspects journalandquot;
What a Positive aspects journal is
is basically a journal where
you write down a subject
so, if I have a fear of flying I could
write down
flying on an airplane
and then you write an entire list
of all the positives which you could think
about the situation andquot;flying on an airplaneandquot;
any thought which makes you feel better.
It's a really good idea if you have a
chronic worrying problem
and you know that you're headed towards
a situation like flying
and you've already made the decision that
you're gonna go through with it
to write down as many things like that
as you can possibly focus on
so that during the experience you
already have a list to look at so you can be
attuned in the get go, right out of the gate
with positive emotions
and positive sensations rather than running the
risk of spiraling downwards and getting
yourself into a situation where you're
experiencing a panic attack
It's impossible to have a panic attack
when you're focused positively
the reason is, is that your emotions
are your indication
of the exact thought which you are holding
So, if you hold a positive thought, negative
emotions can't occur within your system
The reason that panic attacks feel
like they're andquot;out of the blueandquot;
is because we move through life in a
first-person perspective
Seldom do we ever step back and really watch
the thoughts that we're thinking
So often, when we walk into a situation
like getting onto an airplane, we have so many negative thoughts that are rapid-firing and that we have no
conscious awareness of when we get hit
by the panic attack
we're going:
andquot;I don't know where that came from
it just came to me from nowhereandquot;
without acknowledging
the thoughts which we thought
leading up to that experience
Sometimes taking an action
like going someplace or meeting someone
is not in line with our well-being
That will come across as the intuitive feeling
of something not being right for you
The problem is, when you have that intuition
of something is not entirely right for you
often we start to pile
really negative thoughts on top of it
which spiral into fear and
spiral into panic attacks
So once you go through these steps
that I've outlined
and you pull yourself out of the
catastrophic thinking
you can find that place
which is your thought stasis
and once you're in that thought stasis you can
distinguish whether that action is correct for you
or whether the action is wrong for you.
Once you have pulled those thoughts of fear
away from the very root which is usually
an action that you're thinking about taking
you can ask yourself
Is this action right or is this action
wrong for me individually?
Is this action in line with
my highest good?
If the answer is yes
then you want to try
to pull your thoughts
into vibrational alignment with the
decision you've just made
if you make any decision, you want to start thinking
thoughts which lineup totally with that decision
so you don't experience any opposition
and any resistance
If the answer is: no, it's not right for me
then don't do it
you cannot expect yourself
to do something and just get used to it
it's not going to happen
You can't be living a happy life while simultaneously
going upstream all the time in your life
Fearful thoughts
can be like weeds
which grow around a flower
a flower which represents something
which is right for you to do, or think, or be in this life.
Sometimes
fearful thoughts can be like weeds which
grow around poisonous mushroom
the poisonous mushroom, of course,
representing things which are not good
for you to do, and be, and have
and all of that
in this lifetime
But the fearful thoughts which are the weeds
have to be cleared away first, for you to decide
whether that thing which
the fearful thoughts are obscuring
is right for you
or is wrong for you
you never want to take action
until you take the step
to clear those weeds,
clear the fearful thoughts off of whatever subject
you have been thinking about
You always know what's right or wrong for you
You always hold the power to focus positively
or focus on something which causes you
to feel negative emotion
I promise you,
as debilitating as panic attacks are
it is totally within your power to be able
to stop them when they occur
and they can bring very valuable insight
into your life
and get you in touch with
what is really right for you
Subtitles by the Amara.org community

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5PWwTv-FEM


Dan Harris' Panic Attack (and Discovery of Meditation)




About ten years ago in front of 5.019 million
people according to the Nielsen ratings I
had a panic attack on live television. I was
doing a job that I'd done many times before
which was filling in as the news reader on
Good Morning America. The job basically entails
coming on at the top of each hour and reading
a series of headlines to the audience, bringing
them up to date on the news of the day. And
I was happy and excited to be there. I had
no way to foresee what was about to happen.
As soon as the anchors tossed it over to me
I was in the middle of the first story and
I was overtaken by this irresistible bolt
of fear. My heart started racing, my palms
were sweating, my mouth dried up and my lungs
seized up. And I was simply unable to breathe.
You can see it and hear it on the tape. I'm
gasping for air. It would have gotten a lot
worse, it would have become something like
the famous clip from Broadcast News where
Albert Brooks breaks out in flop sweat except
for I did something halfway through my newscast
I'd never done before which is I quit. I gave
up. I punted. I sent it back to the main hosts
of the show. What I said was, andquot;Back to you
Robin and Charlie.andquot; But it was actually Diane
Sawyer and Charlie who were anchoring and
in my panic I was unable to remember that.
And you can see that actually in an absurd
little crescendo roll video of Harry Potter
which was the next story I was supposed to
read that the control room thought I was going
to read but I was unable to do so.
And in the moments afterwards I realized that
I'd had a panic attack. And I was deeply,
deeply embarrassed. It wasn't until later
that I learned what caused it. I went to see
a doctor who is an expert in panic and he
asked me a series of questions, one of which
was do you do drugs. And I sheepishly said,
yes, I do. And he leaned back in his chair
and said, andquot;Mystery solved.andquot; The backstory
is I got myself into trouble basically because
of a desire to do great at my job which is
something I think a lot of people can relate
to. You might call it ambition or just a drive
for excellence and being in love with my job.
I got to ABC News when I was 28 years old.
And if you look at the pictures I look like
I'm barely post pubescent. And I was working
with these giants like Diane Sawyer and Peter
Jennings and Charlie Gibson and Ted Koppel
and I was keenly aware of how green I was,
especially when compared to these famous people
I had been watching on television since I
was a kid.
And my way of coping with that was to become
a workaholic. And I threw myself into the
job and after 9/11 I volunteered and spent
many years overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan
and the Middle East. And when I came home
from that I developed a depression and I self-medicated
with recreational drugs which was a toweringly
stupid move on my part. And even though I
wasn't doing it when I was working and definitely
not when I was on the air, I learned from
my doctor in his office after my panic attack
that the drugs I was taking, cocaine and ecstasy
raised the level of adrenalin in your brain
and basically guaranteed that I had the panic
attack. So that moment in the doctor's office
when he explained to me what a moron I'd been,
I knew I had to make some changes in my life.
And that set me off on a strange little unplanned
journey that I talk about in my book, 10%
Happier.
Coincidentally at around the same time my
boss at the time, Peter Jennings, had assigned
me to cover religion for ABC News, a job I
didn't want because I had been raised in a
very secular environment. My parents were
both scientists. And I tried to tell him I
didn't want to do it and he told me, andquot;Shut
up kid, you're gonna do it.andquot; So I ended up
spending many years meeting people of faith
and it really changed my view of the world
and it showed me the value of having a view
of the world that is larger than your own
narrow self-interest.
I read a book by a self-help guru by the name
of Eckhart Tolle. He has sold millions of
books. I had never heard of him. A producer
recommended I read the book because she thought
maybe it would be a good story. So I read
the book and at first I thought it was irredeemable
garbage, nonsense. There's a lot of grandiose
language in there and pseudoscience and over
promising about how this book is gonna change
your life. But then I stumbled upon this diagnosis
of the human condition that I'd never heard
before. Eckhart Tolle says we all have a voice
in our head. He's not talking about hearing
voices in the schizophrenic sense. He's talking
about our inner narrator, the thing that wakes
us up in the morning and yammers at us all
day long. It's an unpleasant stew of negative,
repetitive, ceaselessly self-referential thoughts
constantly judging, wanting, not wanting,
comparing ourselves to other people, casting
forward into an imagined future, remembering
an idealized past as opposed to being where
you are right now.
And I thought yeah, that describes me. In
fact, that voice pretty much is responsible
for all the things that I'm most ashamed of
in my life including that panic attack in
front of millions of people. And so I was
completely captivated by this description
of the human condition and I went and met
Eckhart Tolle and I found him to be almost
exactly the same in person as he is on the
page which is he's half incredibly interesting
and incisive and half deeply, deeply confusing.
So unsatisfied by that encounter I then went
off and met a bunch of other self-help gurus
who also left me confused. Many of them left
me mildly infuriated because they were full
of a word that starts with S and ends with
T. And my wife at some point after hearing
me yammer on about Eckhart Tolle and the like
for many, many weeks gave me a gift. She gave
me a book by a guy named Dr. Mark Epstein
who's a psychiatrist in New York City who
writes about the overlap between psychiatry
and Buddhism.
And I realized when I read this book that
all of the smartest stuff in Eckhart Tolle's
book was actually taken pretty much from the
Buddha. And unlike Eckhart Tolle the Buddhists
have some actionable advice for dealing with
the voice in your head. The problem was I
didn't want to do it. Their advice is to meditate
which I always thought was uniquely ridiculous
and only for people who live in yurts and
are really into aromatherapy and collect crystals,
et cetera, et cetera, and wear little cymbals
on their hands. But, in fact, as I learned
there's an enormous amount of science that
says that meditation is a simple brain exercise
that can have an extraordinary impact on your
brain and your body. It can lower your blood
pressure, boost your immune system and literally
rewire key parts of your brain that have to
do with self-awareness, compassion and stress.
So when I heard that I decided to give it
a shot.
So now I find myself in this funny position.
I always thought that meditation was uniquely
ridiculous. Now I'm a daily meditator and,
even worse, I'm a public evangelist for meditation.
What I like to say though is it's not gonna
solve all of your problems. All those self-help
gurus who tell you that you can magically
cure everything in your life through the power
of positive thinking -- that's baloney. It's
not gonna happen. It's demonstrably untrue
and possibly even a damaging message to send.
However, meditation is a scientifically tested
simple thing you can do every day that will
make you significantly happier. I called the
book 10% Happier for a couple of reasons.
One, I wanted to counter-program against the
over-promising of the self-help gurus. But
also it's -- I think we're ready for a more
mature, realistic dialogue about happiness.
And nothing's gonna solve all of your problems
but meditation can change the relationship
between you and that voice in your head which
is responsible for most of the things you're
probably most embarrassed about in your life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywp4vaFJASE