Panic attacks are at the very least uncomfortable and at the most, downright scary. Symptoms can range from having difficulty breathing normally, increased heart rate, shaking, butterflies in stomach and so on. Sometimes it comes with a fear of dying or a dread that something bad is happening. It is very unpleasant!
Why do we get panic attacks?
It is our bodies' way of warning us to a threat in the vacinity
It is telling us that we need to get out of the situation fast, that we need to get to a safe place. Our body is doing what it's meant to do, to protect us from threat. We have evolved a danger detection system that is so good that it is able to detect danger before our conscious minds can think to react. The problem is .... just like with any complex systems... it can be faulty!
Imagine this scenario; John who is normally a pretty anxious guy, has been additionally stressed with a recent relationship breakdown and unstable job situation due to COVID. One day when he was in the chocolate aisle (my favourite aisle, by the way!) of Coles at Broadway shopping centre, he suddenly felt some of the above symptoms. It was so uncomfortable and scary that he just had to leave the place. Immediately! So he did. He dropped everything and ran to his car and drove home. The symptoms reduced.
A few weeks later, perhaps when this incident was almost forgotten, as he was driving into the underground carpark at Broadway shops, the panic symptoms came again! So he immediately turned around and drove home where he felt safe. John became worried about the symptoms now, and he constantly checked his body for signs of them. Another few weeks later, as he happened to be driving past Broadway, he started feeling the now familiar uncomfortable feelings so he made a vouch that from now on he will be avoiding the area all together.
If the above situation is left unchecked, John may end up being stuck at home, too afraid to leave the house because everything out there has become a threat. In fact, the house is probably a threat too, he just couldn't run away from it! So what has happened to John?
John has fallen victim to his faulty alarm system! Because he heeded the body's warning by "escaping" from the danger zone, the body took this as a confirmation that the particular area (or situation) REALLY is dangerous! So the next time John got close to the area, the body gave out the warning signs again. Everytime John heeded the warning (the panic attack symptoms) by walking away, he actually agreed with the body that there really was a threat!
What John really needs to do is the opposite. John needs to tell the body that "hey, you are wrong! There is no threat here!". How does he do that? He does this by first finding a place to sit comfortably. Then he needs to .... sit there, exposing himself to the gamut of uncomfortable feelings and physical symptoms. These feelings will invariably lessen after about ten minutes. This is John's way of saying to the body "see, you warned me to leave, but I stayed and I'm still OK." The more often John does this when he gets the panic attacks, the more the body will realise that there is no threat there. The symptoms will be less scary and uncomfortable and soon disappear all together. Then, John can get his favourite chocholate in peace!
The small green circle in the diagram above is called our Comfort Zone. This is the place where we feel safe and comfortable. Outside this zone, there is a lot of unknowns and can be scary. What a lot of us don't know is that
our comfort zone is dynamic, not static!
In other words, if we aren't constantly working to grow it, it actually shrinks!
In John's case above, his comfort zone was already under attack from the extreme stress of the relationship breakdown and the job uncertainty, to the point that going to his local supermarket which would normally be an OK thing to do for him, was treated as a threat by body. The more John ran away from this perceived threat, the more the comfort zone shrinks. When John started to challenge the panic attack symptoms by sitting with it, he was working on growing that comfort zone again.
If you feel that you need help with your anxiety, panic attacks or that your comfort zone has shrinked to the point of debilitating your life, contact me so that I can help you manage your situation.
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