Accepting Panic Attacks

Learning to accept your panic attacks can sound like an oxymoron. You might say, "If I accept them then I'll have more." This is true if you follow the traditional way of panic attack treatment that says you must focus all your energy on combating unhealthy thoughts and emotions. I'd like to suggest to you a unique panic attack treatment.

To this day, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been one of the central panic attack treatments. It teaches that changing your thinking will decrease unhealthy emotions. The underlying assumption of CBT is that negative and irrational thinking leads to negative feelings, such as panic and anxiety. For instance, if you think you're stupid then you'll feel depressed. CBT is a fairly simple concept that's been shown to be an effective panic attack treatment.

In the middle 1990's, a new type of CBT was developed called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This therapy differs from CBT in that instead of challenging irrational thinking by coming up with rational responses, in ACT, you accept the thought as a thought (e.g. "I am thinking that this plane is going to crash"). You then defuse your thought by three main techniques: mindfulness, acceptance, and commitment. Sure enough, this has been shown to be a very effective panic attack treatment.

Mindfulness means paying attention to something in a specific way. You want to pay attention to the purpose of the experience. You also want be fully in the moment. Most importantly, you need to be non-judgmental. Mindfulness works very well as a panic attack treatment because you end up becoming more attuned to thoughts, emotions, sensations, sights, sounds and smells. Our society can be so fast paced that we end up neglecting everyday experiences. You've certainly experienced the drive to work where you cannot remember anything about the commute once you arrive at your workplace. This is because your head was too busy thinking about the past or future. An easy way to begin practicing mindfulness for panic attack treatment is to pay attention to your experience as you walk outside. Pay specific attention to what you see, smell and hear. Also pay attention to your strides and breathing.

Acceptance means you allow yourself to experience unpleasant thoughts, feelings and sensations while watching them come and go without struggling against them. You take what is offered and free yourself from the unhealthy rule that you must act against what you value. One basic acceptance strategy in panic attack treatment is to use metaphors. For example, a person sinks in quick sand if they fight and put all their weight on one part of their body (e.g. foot). Rather, one should spread the weight of their body and be with the quick sand. Fighting only makes things worse.

Commitment refers to choosing actions based on your personal values. Values are the leading principles that guide the decisions you make. If traveling is important to you, you'll travel. If learning is important to you, you'll read. Determining your values is very important because you need to do what really matters even in difficult circumstances. Value-based decision making is critical to an effective panic attack treatment. A simple way to introduce this concept into your life is to make a list of what is important to you and rank their priority.

Kelly Tappenbeck is an experienced mental health therapist who successfully educates those who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks via his website at http://www.freeofpanic.com/. He also has a well-established blog at http://www.blog.freeofpanic.com/.

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