Welcome to the anxiety attic where I make self-help videos for anxiety disorders.
In today's video I'm going to talk about the panic attack cycle, what causes it how to reduce your
chances of it starting, how to get out of it and a tip that many videos on the panic attack
cycle do not cover. Firstly what is the panic attack cycle. Well it goes something like this.
The first thing you probably notice in the panic attack cycle is physical symptoms.
Maybe your heart beating stronger or faster or maybe you notice that you're getting warm.
Then you feel very anxious. You start to think it's the start of a panic attack so you try to
do something to stop it. Maybe you try to control your breathing or loosen your clothing but the
physical symptoms and anxiety just gets worse and now your thoughts start to become ever more
catastrophic. What if I faint. What if my heart fails. So you try even harder to stop it or maybe
at this point you try to be rescued by seeking help from someone and you end up in an ambulance.
How long this cycle lasts varies between people and between individual panic attacks.
Anything between 5 and 20 minutes is common but some might last an hour and there are even people
who report it lasting all day but it's more likely that they are experiencing multiple panic attacks.
Let me know in the comments below how long your panic attack lasts.
So what has caused this panic attack. Well here is the bit that a lot of videos on this subject miss.
The precursor to the panic attack cycle is the anxiety cycle. You may enter anxiety cycles many
times long before you actually enter the panic attack cycle but these anxiety cycles set you
up to enter the panic attack cycle. They make you very vulnerable to having panic attacks.
Let me give you an analogy. Suppose this bucket of water represents your anxiety. We all have
some level of anxiety in our life. I like to call this our background anxiety and it's represented
here by a small amount of water in our anxiety bucket. This background anxiety varies. If
you've had a bit of a stressful day then the amount in your anxiety bucket will increase.
As anyone who suffers panic attack knows there will be occasions where you have to do something
that you really don't want to do because you fear it will provoke a panic attack.
Let's say your child is performing in the school play and they want you to watch them.
As soon as you find out that they are in the play you feel anxious
and start getting negative thoughts. This means I'm going to have to sit in a packed hot hall
with hundreds of people. i'm bound to have a panic attack. This may give you some low-level physical
symptoms like butterflies in the stomach which makes you feel like you need to do something.
So you might discuss with your partner whether he or she can come with you.
You might start asking your child about the layout of the hall.
Maybe you can sit near an exit. You may ask about how hot it gets in the hall.
These actions tell your brain that there is a dangerous situation ahead.
These behaviors make your anxiety bucket a lot fuller. You're not having a panic attack at
this stage but you are in an anxiety cycle even though the feared event is actually months away.
As you get closer to the event you might get even more anxious and start talking about
avoiding it altogether or seek reassurance or spend time planning how you're going to avoid
having a panic attack or how you can escape if you do have a panic attack. These actions again
add to your anxiety bucket. You are priming your brain for danger.
On the day of the event you will probably be frantically seeking reassurance
and you may also pack your anxiety survival kit. If you're not sure
what I mean by an anxiety survival kit. I have linked my video on that subject above.
So by the time you get to the event your bucket is already pretty full.
Then you see the big busy hall. You notice how warm it is. The exit is further away than
you expected and BAM!. The panic attack starts. You're now in the full-blown panic attack cycle.
So how do you prevent this happening. Well you either have to reduce how much goes into your
anxiety bucket or make the bucket bigger. First let's look at what filled your anxiety bucket.
Background anxiety. Well there's very little you can do about that because you will inevitably
get bad days. Sure techniques like meditation and hypnosis can help take a little out of the bucket
but it was your behaviors way before the event that really filled the bucket.
So you need to resist these behaviors. So when something like an upcoming event makes
you fear a future panic attack instead of saying yourself I must do something to protect myself
or avoid this situation, say that sounds tough I need to increase the size of my bucket.
So how do you increase the size of your bucket.
The answer is you use systematic desensitization. I'll not cover systematic desensitization here
as I have covered it in my panic attack series which I will link at the end. But a few months
of systematic desensitization will significantly increase the capacity of your anxiety bucket
and if you resist the safety behaviors also, by the time you reach the event you will
have plenty of spare capacity so your anxiety bucket does not overflow into a panic attack.
Some of you may say but it's not just big events that trigger my panic attacks.
I get them all the time with no apparent trigger.
It's still the same problem though. Your bucket is too small
and your safety seeking behaviors are pouring a lot of anxiety into it.
But what about when you're in the midst of a panic attack? How do you break
that cycle? Again it comes down to behaviors. If you're trying to fight or stop the panic attack
you are just going to fuel the cycle. If you accept it for the harmless false alarm that it is
without trying to intervene it will pass much quicker and be less severe.
I cover this in a lot more detail in video 4 of my panic attack series.
So in summary watch out for the early anxiety cycles as these make you vulnerable to enter
in the panic attack cycle. Cut down on the behaviors that fill in your anxiety bucket
and improve your resilience to anxiety by doing systematic desensitization.
Here's a link to my 8 video series on how to stop or reduce panic attacks.
Video 4 covers how to neutralize a panic attack and video 7 systematic desensitization.