Tips to Prevent Panic Attacks

This page describes some tips to prevent panic attacks that I've used in my own life, and continue to use on a daily basis.

I learned most of these tips to prevent panic attacks through a great deal of personal experience with panic attacks, through treatment from my doctor, and also through counseling.

In my own life, I would say that lifestyle is very important, as is knowing what triggered my panic attacks, and finally knowing how to deal with them effectively.

A bit of a paradox...

The first thing to mention that was most helpful in helping with overcoming panic attacks, was and still is little bit of a paradox in regards to panic attacks.

What I found most helpful in preventing them in my own life was to simply not care if I had one, thus not try and prevent panic attacks at all.

How it works for me in my own life is this:

Preventing Panic Attacks = Being confident you know how to deal with panic attacks if they occur, and that you have no need to prevent them.

Therein lies the paradox for me. But when I think it through logically, it makes a lot of sense.

When I tried to focus on making panic attacks stop, I was telling myself that panic attacks are something to be afraid of. That fear and worry about having a future panic attack created a sense of anticipatory anxiety, and the anticipatory anxiety could then escalate into a full blown panic attack.

Once I knew how to cope with a panic attack as it occurred, I was then better able to calm physical symptoms. As I learned to calm physical symptoms, I learned to welcome panic attacks completely.

The more I learned to cope with panic attacks, the less I feared them in general. The less I feared them, the less I had them. That's what the process for me was in a nutshell.

Here are some things that I found to be incredibly important: