 How do you calm down from a panic attack? It's one of the million dollar questions when it comes to dealing with recurring panic attacks, panic disorder, agoraphobia, or other chronic anxiety conditions. So today on The Anxious Truth, we're gonna dive into how to calm down from a panic attack. But there's a surprise twist, so let's get into it. What if I told you that you don't necessarily have to try so hard to calm down from a panic attack? What if calming down doesn't always require some sort of all out battle? What if in those moments embracing the panic might be the key to finding peace? Things that make you go, hmm, right? I'm Drew Linsolata, creator and host of The Anxious Truth, a therapist in training as of early 2024, specializing in anxiety and anxiety disorders, and an author, a podcaster, and an educator in the anxiety disorder community. Let's explore this somewhat unconventional approach to calming down from a panic attack, shall we? But before we get started, I just want to take a moment to thank long-term viewers and listeners for being so patient while I go back to basics in this series to help the newer members of our community. I appreciate you doing that, and I appreciate you all more than you're ever gonna know. Also, if you'd like more detailed information about panic attacks and related issues, consider checking out my recovery guidebook, which is also called The Anxious Truth, or my panic attacks explained, agoraphobia, explained workshops, and other goodies on my website. I'll include the links for everything in the podcast show notes or in the video description below. And of course, if you're enjoying these videos or this podcast, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel, maybe liking the video you're watching right now, or giving the podcast a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It all really helps, and I do appreciate all that support. So panic attacks are often met with a standard set of sort of calming techniques. We've all heard them take deep breaths, practice mindfulness, focus on grounding techniques, put your toes in the grass, count five blue things. These methods undoubtedly have their place, and for people that see panic attacks as occasional unpleasant and scary interruptions, and yes, there are such people, they certainly can be effective. But in the community of people that develop an intense fear of panic attacks, and then engage in excessive avoidance and retreat that has serious negative life impacts, standard advice like that can sometimes become counterproductive and actually make things worse. So what if we challenge the notion that calming down always has to involve intense effort, urgency, and special tips or tricks? Can we find a different path to the other side of a panic attack? Well, let's start by talking about acceptance, which is a word that you might be tired of hearing by now. Instead of resisting the panic and deciding that you must quickly and urgently calm down from it, what if we embraced it instead? It may sound counterintuitive or even ridiculous, but accepting the fear and discomfort of a panic attack can actually be a powerful tool. Picture acknowledging the panic, embracing it as part of, say, the human experience, if you will, and allowing it to pass through you, like a definitely powerful and certainly scary but passing storm. It's not about ignoring the panic, which some of you are going to think it is. I mean, you couldn't ignore it if I paid you a ton of money to ignore it, but it's really about accepting it as a temporary part of reality for you. This might seem completely impossible to you or even dangerous in some ways, but if you are watching this video or listening to this podcast episode, because you've been trying every possible trick and tip and hack to stop or prevent panic attacks or calm down from them, and none of it's working consistently, all I will ask of you is to at least consider the possibility that avoiding and managing of panic might not be the best way. Instantaneously calming down and finding ways to do that might not be the way to go, even if that seems like the obvious or common sense way. In the end, everyone gets to choose their own path here. So my job is not to convince you of this or to force you to face or accept your panic attacks. My only goal today is to maybe make you think that there might actually be a different, albeit scary and certainly difficult way to approach the calming down air quotes issue. Let's start by talking about the biology of panic attacks. Now, you might want to check out the other videos or podcast episodes in this Foundation's of Panic series for more on the mechanics and biology of panic, but we should recap a little bit because to understand this approach to calming down or not calming down, we need to look into the biology of panic a bit. Now our brains are marvelous and they are designed to interpret threats by triggering the well-known fight, fight or freeze response. Now, while this physical response to threat is certainly strong, it can feel really urgent and it will absolutely feel like something horrible is happening to you, the fight, flight and freeze response is also designed to end at some point. Our bodies simply cannot maintain that elevated level of arousal indefinitely. So please remember that all panic attacks have an ending biologically and chemically built into them. If you're watching this or listening to this, I can say with a very high level of confidence that every panic attack you have ever had has ended simply because it must always end. But here's where the biology of panic gets strange like a lot of things around here get strange. Paradoxically, the more we try to forcefully calm down, the more we signal to our brains that there is a threat which potentially intensifies the panic or even triggers prolonged or undulating panic which will come in waves. And we'll address that down the road in other episodes because that's an actual thing. So what if we approached it differently? What if we acknowledged panic as a natural response that's scary but not dangerous and allowed it to sort of ebb away on its own? Difficult though that might be to do. I always wanna acknowledge that. I kinda wanna look at the idea of calm through surrender. We're trying to answer the question, how do you calm down from a panic attack? But really what is calm? What comprises calm? What does it feel like? How do you get there? I'd like you to consider maybe a different kind of calmness. One that arises not from a battle fought in one or a dragon slayed, but from surrendering to the present moment. It's about letting go of the need to control every aspect of that panic attack and trusting that in time, it will in fact subside because they all have. This doesn't mean maybe abandoning all of your coping techniques. You can still use them, but it really involves complementing them with the willingness to let the panic naturally run its course without accidentally adding to it by resisting it. Your coping techniques, when we add this acceptance and surrender, morph into navigation skills, not eradication skills. And those of you who've been following along for a while have heard me say that before. If you've been following along for a while, you've also heard me use the phrase surrender and the phrase willful tolerance quite often. This is why surrendering to panic might seem like completely ridiculous calm down advice for someone like me to offer, but in that surrender, we actually can find a calm that's based on knowing that panic is scary and difficult but that we can actually handle it and find our way through to the other side. This is a different kind of calm. This calm goes beyond the usual definition and the calm that you're probably desperately trying to feel and find. This is a calm that's rooted in feelings of competence, capability, and over time, confidence. That's the kind of calm we're looking for when trying to overcome chronic anxiety problems, recurring panic attacks and related struggles like panic disorder or agoraphobia. One thing I learned in my own recovery is that not trying so hard to calm down during panic is actually quite liberating. And at this point, you might be shaking your head or you might be leaning in and feeling like we are onto something here. Either way, take a moment to acknowledge that this can really look at face value like the wrong air quotes way to approach panic attacks that can be so scary and can feel so urgent and so dangerous and so important. But then also take a moment to consider that the right air quotes way probably doesn't seem to be working for you consistently no matter how hard you've been trying and that you've actually made it through every panic attack you've ever had even when that's been really scary and you felt like you had to instantly find a special way to calm down. I mean, I can tell you from both personal experience, my own personal experience and from the experiences of many thousands of recovered anxious people over the years, that there is actually a unique liberation in realizing that you actually don't have to try so hard to calm down by taking a brave leaf of faith and treating panic not like it's making you a victim but as a capable observer of a natural physical and emotional experience that's just triggered at completely the wrong time. That's true. You actually may find a surprising sense of relief and freedom. I cannot tell you how many anxious people come rushing into the comment section in this community be it on Instagram or YouTube or maybe Facebook feeling incredibly excited and like pumped up at superhero levels the first time they managed to actually let go and calm down this way. Now, it's about loosening the grip of the need to control every aspect and allowing yourself to sort of flow through the panic and all the physical and mental and emotional experiences that are gonna naturally come with it and those are scary and they are disturbing but they are in fact natural and not harmful. You should check the other videos in the series if you need to. So now we get sort of to the billion dollar question which is how do you do this? At this point you might be asking yourself when I'm going to start to give you the steps on how to calm down from a panic attack but how is the next question everybody asks after they initially wrap their brain around the whole idea of what I'm talking about and here's the thing there really is no how in this situation there are no steps there are no special calming techniques. The how you're looking for here is really found in letting go of the frantic demand for steps and tips and instructions and techniques. In many ways the answer to how to calm down from a panic attack is paradoxically like so many other things here to not try to calm down from a panic attack. The steps here are steps not of doing but these are steps of not doing not trying to control not holding on not resisting not running not asking to be saved not treating panic like a monster or an invading army that is about to take you down. That's how we do this and for the record exactly none of that is easy. Sometimes not doing things is much harder than doing things because in this case not doing all the things requires a brave leap of courage and faith into what's going to feel like an incredibly risky or even dangerous territory for you. So how to calm down from a panic attack is about following a simple plan but one that's very hard to execute. It's not a set of tips I can give you in a YouTube video or a podcast episode. It's something that gets learned and practiced and approved over time. Learning the air quotes best way to calm down from a panic attack is really about learning how to overcome recurring panic attacks, panic disorder, agoraphobia and other related concerns in general. So you have to be patient and recognize that this is going to take some time and some practice and a willingness to do the opposite of what your frightened brain is begging you to do. Patience, self-compassion. If you want tips and steps try practicing those two things they're really going to be important. So before I end this episode and leave you thinking which was kind of part of my evil plan here let's acknowledge that your panic attacks do not exist in a vacuum no matter who you are. They are in fact part of your entire life and your entire lived experience. That means that if you have been unfortunately conditioned by your past experiences to see yourself as weak, less than unworthy or generally incapable then letting go and allowing panic without resistance not trying to calm down which seems so obvious can be even more challenging and feel even more impossible or ridiculous to you. Emotions like that are bound to come up when you embrace this approach to panic attacks make room for them, validate them understand where they might come from that's important but also keep in mind that feeling weak or incapable because you've been told that you are is not the same as being weak or incapable. Part of this calming down journey is going to involve learning some things about yourself challenging some old beliefs and building a new view of yourself and anxiety and panic and how it all fits together. That's okay. Everyone goes through this. So if it gets frustrating or confusing at times take a break. Remember you're not the only one that feels like that it's really okay. So then how do you calm down from a panic attack? Well try taking some time to reflect on what we've talked about today and consider trying to approach your next panic attack with just a little bit of curiosity and a lot of compassion for yourself. What if in that moment rather than obeying the command to resist and retreat and escape you took a chance and allowed yourself to be okay with not being okay as much as I hate that cliche. What would happen if you took a chance on yourself and allowed yourself to find the strength that is baked into surrendering to the experience rather than resisting it? I know this is a whole lot to think about and probably not what you were expecting when you clicked into this video or this podcast episode. And guess what? This doesn't happen overnight. Things don't change instantly. You're gonna get it wrong. You're gonna wanna give up along the way. That's really okay. If nothing else I would like you to consider after listening or watching today that the way to calm down from a panic attack is to accept the challenge of embracing a new way then practicing it while allowing for all the ups and downs that come along with doing difficult things and learning new skills and going against your anxious brain and all its urgent demands and instructions and pleas for safety and resistance and escape. Recognize that to calm down from a panic attack this way, a lasting way that leads to longer, bigger change you're going to need to be brave and recognize that this isn't easy. Be kind to yourself if you're going to try this new approach. Take some time to learn, read, listen, avail yourself of all the resources that I and other people like me have made available to you. And above all, start to open yourself up to these experiences as ways to learn rather than insisting that you must find ways to run or hide or instantly calm down from panic and the things that you fear. So that is this episode of The Anxious Truth in the books. You know it's over because you hear the music. I hope you found this helpful even if it was a bit confusing or disorienting in some way. We'll continue this Foundation to Panic series next time with a little chat about avoidance and how wildlife might seem like common sense. It often can make things worse in the form of things like developing panic disorder or agoraphobia. But until then, remember that any step that you can take toward recovery and away from fear and avoidance counts, it doesn't matter how small it might be. That step will count today and it will lead to another step and another step and another step and those will all add up over time. Thanks for watching, for listening and I will see you in the next episode.