Overcoming Anxiety Attack Symptoms

‘After my very first panic attack, I was really sensitive to every bodily sensation – especially discomfort in my chest. When I had the first attack, I was sure that the ache in my chest meant that I was having a heart attack. That fear stayed with me even though my doctor had helped me to recognize that I had a healthy heart and that we all suffer aches and pains from time to time. His words reassured me in the surgery, but as soon as I had the chest pains again, I began to panic.

Then he tried something else. He explained how we all breathe quickly when we are frightened and this can bring on chest pains, which in my case made me more frightened, and so I breathed even faster, and so on. I wasn’t convinced at first, but after he had shown me how, to breathe slowly and evenly, he asked me to start panting in the surgery.

Well, it was a real lesson to me. Within seconds of beginning to pant, I started to get the chest pain and the dizziness just like when I have the “heart attacks”. Next, he began to talk me through controlled breathing, and my dizziness went away and the chest pains eased. He asked me to do the exercise again, and again I seemed to be able to switch on and switch off the symptoms.

After that, I was more confident and I found that, whenever I got anxious, the controlled breathing would take the edge off my fear. The doctor told me to practice slow breathing during the day so that it would become a habit. So, every time I go to the bathroom, where it’s nice and peaceful, I spend two or three minutes doing my breathing exercises. I find it really relaxing and I get to practice half a dozen times a day. As time goes on, I am getting better and better at switching off the sensations and they bother me less and less, and my confidence in managing panic attacks is growing”