How to Handle a Panic Attack

7 ways to cope without medication.

5–4–3–2–1

I’m sure that we all have heard of this technique before and that’s because it really does work. 5 things you see, 4 things you feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you taste. In my personal experiences, it’s not so much that the naming things off helps me. I can’t ever remember which sense goes with which number. I’m good for the first one, after that though, it’s a toss up. So realistically it doesn’t matter if you correctly, just that you’re going through the motions.

Extreme Temperature Change

Story Time: My worst panic attack that I have ever had caused me to hallucinate. I was laying in my bed trying to calm myself down and it wasn’t working. I looked over to the door because I was going to get up out of bed to grab a glass of water, and I saw a little girl with long dark hair. All of her was dark, almost shadowy, and boy howdy did I nope myself back under the covers and I cried harder. I felt like a failure because I couldn’t calm myself down.

So I called my sister.

She answered quickly and immediately knew what was happening. When she told me to get up I told her about the little girl. She helped me get up and out of my room by having me close my eyes and feel my way to the bathroom sink. Once I got there, I was to put my face into cold water. I tried so hard to do it. I just had to throw some water on my face. It was too hard. I couldn’t do it. I physically could not splash water on my face.

“Stick your hands and arms in the water instead.”

Oh. We have options? There are alternatives? Awesome. I put my hands in the water. My body gasped at how cold it was. Thanks to that gasp, I was able to get my breathing under control. Once I got my breathing under control, I was able to drink water and go through all of my self care steps to get through the rest of my day.

Caution: Those of you that try this, DO NOT USE HOT WATER. It will burn you and it will hurt for longer than just a couple seconds. Use cold things to temperature shock your body.

Take Away All Stimulation

Turn off everything. Anything that makes noise, turn it off. Maybe not the fish tank. But everything else, turn it off. This helps your brain focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes it happens to me unexpectedly, and I get super irritated with anyone around me or anyone talking to me. I’m not sure what is going on, and then I wonder why it’s so loud in here? I start turning off the loudest things first. There was a day that I had to go into my bedroom because even after turning everything off, my fish tank was too loud for me but it’s not good on the guys in the tank to do that unless absolutely necessary.

Remove Restrictions

Back in 2016 I started having panic attacks to the point that I felt like I was being suffocated. I couldn’t even go to the ER because once I got in my truck, I felt like my clothes were restricting me and I had to get them off right that second. My boyfriend at the time was familiar with panic attacks and didn’t say anything when I ran out of the truck and back into my bedroom. I immediately took off my shirt and my bra. It didn’t help when the boyfriend came back in and I realized how stupid I looked. He started rubbing my back and it was too much. I had to move away from his hand because I couldn’t talk yet, I was still out of breath.

One thing that I want to stress is that, whenever you’re having a panic attack, you should be your top priority. Do not think about manners, politeness, or anything of the sort. If someone is touching you and it’s making it worse, move away from them or remove their hand. If you can speak during your panic attacks, tell them to stop touching you.

Deep Breathing

Find a spot to be by yourself. If you hyperventilate, what I do to start controlling it is take a deep breath. Fill up your lungs entirely and then hold your breath. Hold it for 5 seconds or until you have calmed down enough to control the release of your breath. Slowly let out your breath. Do it again. Once you can breathe normally without forcing yourself to slow down, you should be good to start meditating.

When I say meditating, I don’t necessarily mean sitting cross legged on the floor saying “om” as you find your inner peace. All I’m asking you do to is when you breathe in, think of the word ‘in’ and when you breathe out, think ‘out’. Clear your mind of everything else but those two words. It will help get you out of the situation that you’re currently in and get your thoughts under control.

Distractions

Ah, distractions. They can be used for good and bad. When you are using distractions for stopping a panic attack, my opinion is that you’re using it for good reasons. When you use it to get out of taking care of yourself like showers and eating is when I see it as a bad thing. I use distractions when I’m still on the brink of a full blown panic attack.

Story Time: Mother’s Day I was put in a situation that I didn’t want to be in. I was trying so hard to control my breathing and not cry in front of anyone. My dad saw that I was struggling and asked me if I wanted to tend to the fire outside. I have never hopped out of my chair so fast. I have never been so appreciative of someone in my entire life. He came out there with me and he pointed out that my eyes were red and watery. I blamed it on my allergies, he accepted the answer and started talking about something else. My dad is not stupid, he knew that I was upset. What he doesn’t know though is how much that meant to me.

Drink Water

This activity is on every article, blog post, and health poster in history. Drinking water and being hydrated does so much for your body that one couldn’t possibly write down all of the benefits. One benefit leads to another and pretty soon you’ll be able to say that drinking water causes people to become smarter. When we are talking strictly mental health, it’s beneficial in many ways and they all overlap just a little bit too.

Dehydration is often overlooked for many ailments however, it is found to be at least a contributing factor, if not the main cause for them. Water has calming properties, whether you’re drinking it or putting your body in it. It is in my ‘push through the panic’ routine for a reason. Water is also a natural energy booster. This is because all of your vital organs strive off of water, and when they are all taken care of, your body can focus on putting its energy elsewhere.

I will say that one of the main things that I use to prevent a panic attack is drinking water. Drinking water and my deep breathing are the ones that I use the most because most of the time I’m in public when it’s starting and I really don’t like other people seeing me cry. Not because I want to seem all big and bad, but because then they feel the need to ask what’s wrong. 9 times out of 10 I don’t fucking know and trying to explain that to a stranger 12 different times doesn’t sound like a great time. Plus for me, I normally have a hard time speaking during these times as well.

Find what suits you best and roll with it. Just be sure to look out for yourself. Nobody’s got you, like you got you.