5 Quick Ways to Stop a Panic Attack

Written by Ernest J. Geeting

It’s happening again… You begin to feel another panic attack coming on.  You need to stop it now before it becomes full blown.  What can you do to stop a panic attack quickly?

If you suffer from panic attacks you know how fast they can pop up.  One moment you may feel perfectly fine but the next you are plunged into an agonizing cascade of emotion and physical reactions .

When that happens you want nothing more than for it to stop, and stop fast.

Here are five simple ideas that might help:

1)  Counting and Lettering.  Count something, anything.   It could be the tiles in the ceiling or the lines in the tiles on the floor.   Assign each item a number and a letter.  The more complex the better.  A variation on this would be silently saying the alphabet backwards or by every other letter.  Etc.

2) Silently Recite a Poem or Song.  Do so while lightly pinching the skin on the underside of your wrist or backside of your knee with each syllable.

3) Chewing Gum.  I don’t know what it is but some people find the simple act of unwrapping and chewing on a piece of gum, carmel or taffy can be enough to short-circuit an attack.

4) Burn it Off.  Physical activity can go a long way to circumvent an attack.  Rapid or strenuous activity can be very helpful.  For you it might be as simple as a brisk walk outside, running in place or a few quick stretching exercises.

5) EFT or Accupressure.  EFT is a finger tapping technique applied to the body’s energy points.  Acupressure is the act of applying pressure to those points.  Between the recitation of energy points and the tapping or pressure itself both your mind and body are engaged.

Engaging the mind (and body too when possible) with something other than the anxiety you feel can be a powerfully effective way to shut down an attack.  Put these 5 techniques into action to stop a panic attack cold.