Panic or anxiety may restrict your life at present if it has already got a hold on you, but it will not harm you despite everything your body symptoms are telling you.

Panic originates in several ways.

The most common way, but not the most obvious way, is through your thought processes. If you are a negative or over dramatizing thinker then eventually your central nervous system will respond in kind.

Almost everyone feels anxious at some time in their lives; it is common to become anxious in situations such as a job interview, an examination or a public speaking engagement and mild anxiety of this type is so common it is not usually a cause for concern.  For some people, however, anxiety symptoms are so severe and persistent that they can become disabling; people with such intense anxiety are often suffering from an anxiety disorder.  In some cases, people can develop episodes of sudden and overwhelming anxiety, known as panic attacks, with physical symptoms so severe that the sufferer may feel they are having a heart attack or losing their mind.  When a person experiences repeated panic attacks, or when the fear of panic attacks becomes an extreme preoccupation, they are suffering from panic disorder.

Here’s a five step process you can use to guide your responses during a panic attack. The regular use of this approach will go a long way towards your goal of overcoming panic attacks. I have adapted this, with some modifications of my own, from Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective, an excellent professional text by Beck, Greenberg, and Emery.

The Five Steps of AWARE

The five steps to overcoming panic attacks are:

Acknowledge & Accept

Wait & Watch (and maybe, Work)

Actions (to make myself more comfortable)

Repeat

End