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10 Ways to Manage Your Panic Attacks

“In my experience, the words “now just calm down” almost inevitably have the opposite effect on the person you are speaking to.” – Elyn Saks

A panic attack is a sudden and intense feeling of fear or anxiety that can be overwhelming and debilitating. It is often accompanied by physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, dizziness, sweating, trembling, and a feeling of impending doom. Some people may also experience chest pain, nausea, and a fear of losing control or going crazy.

During a panic attack, the body’s fight or flight response is activated, even though there is no real danger. This response causes the physical symptoms of a panic attack and a heightened state of alertness and arousal.

Many things trigger panic attacks, social events, public speaking, conflict with family or coworkers, and situations reminiscent of past traumas. Sometimes, an accumulation of stress builds up over time and then pops up unexpectedly in a panic. 

Most people believe they have a heart attack when experiencing a panic attack. They often go to the emergency room or their doctor for a checkup. When the doctor cannot find anything physically wrong with them, they suggest that the individual might have had a panic attack and recommend talking to a mental health professional. 

Family and friends feel helpless around individuals who struggle with panic attacks. They can suggest useless advice or tell them to “calm down,” which never works. 

Mental health professionals might offer several strategies to cope with a panic attack:

  1. Focus on your breathing: Take slow, deep breaths through your nose and out through your mouth. This can help to calm your body and mind.
  2. Use positive self-talk: Remind yourself that you are safe and that the panic attack will pass.
  3. Find a peaceful place to relax: Find a quiet place where you can sit or lie down and relax.
  4. Use relaxation techniques: Try progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, or mindfulness meditation to help you relax.
  5. Find a focus object: Redirect your attention to something in clear sight and consciously notice all the details about that object, engaging all of your senses if possible.
  6. Picture a safe place, face, or space: Visualizing a place or location that holds a positive memory can be helpful to calm the nervous system. Additionally, you can picture someone safe or an activity that gives you joy. 
  7. Engage in light exercise: Taking a walk, stretching, or playing an outdoor game with someone can alleviate the stressful energy in your body.
  8. Use a mantra or affirmation: A positive statement, verse, song, or quote can redirect fear or worry about your condition and reset negative thoughts. 
  9. Change your life situation: If panic results from stress, consider distancing yourself from people, changing jobs, setting boundaries, or reorganizing living situations for your future health.
  10. Reach out to someone: Talk to a friend or loved one, or consider seeking support from a mental health professional.

The best time to deal with a panic attack is before you have a panic attack. Trying to deal with one in the middle is highly challenging to control. A daily practice of calming, affirming prayer and meditation, healthier living, and new perspectives can strengthen the body’s defenses, so the panic never comes up again. 

Panic attacks can be very distressing and may interfere with daily activities. It is essential to seek help from a mental health professional if you are experiencing panic attacks, as they can be treated effectively with therapy and medication. Consult Ron Huxley today if you are struggling with panic attacks and want help. 

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Breaking out of Negative Thoughts and Rumination

Do you ever feel like your mind is racing or your thoughts are stuck in a loop? You might be experiencing what’s called negative thinking or rumination. People who engage in this tend to overthink things, strive for perfection, look at the downside of events and miss the good stuff that happened to them.

Coping with negative thoughts and rumination can be a challenge. But it’s not impossible to overcome, and it’s not something you have to live with forever.

The good news is that you can learn ways to cope with negative thinking and rumination without using medications. Here are some things that might help:

1) Practice mindfulness meditation. This involves focusing on the present moment without judgment, especially when you have negative or repetitive thoughts. You can try this by focusing on your breath, listening to music or nature sounds (like rain or waves), or simply sitting quietly in silence and noticing what’s happening around you (or inside yourself).

2) If you are spiritual, pray! Prayer is a powerful weapon against depression and anxiety. It can be hard to pray when you are overwhelmed by negative thoughts, but if you commit yourself to prayer as a daily routine, it will help keep your mind focused on what matters most.

3) Get some exercise. Exercise releases endorphins into the brain, making us feel better about ourselves and more optimistic about our lives. So if you’ve been feeling down lately, try getting out for a run instead of staying cooped up inside all day!

4) Eat healthy foods! Eating well helps regulate hormones in our bodies that are responsible for mood swings (like serotonin). So if you’re feeling down, try eating something like strawberries or almonds—they contain nutrients that promote happiness and contentment. Ever heard the expression: “Your mental health is at the end of your fork”? It’s true.

5) Try writing down your feelings instead of keeping them bottled up inside where no one else can see them except for yourself (and even then, only if you want to share them with others. Grammer and punctuation aren’t necessary. The point is to let that negative go.

6) Identify the areas where you were hurt or traumatized. Destructive thought patterns can result from betrayal, abandonment, unfair actions, and traumatic events. We can internalize external actions and believe we are the problem or too broken, leaving us in a vicious loop of negative thoughts and feelings.

7) Work with a professional therapist specializing in trauma-informed practices and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Together, you can get to the unhealthy core beliefs causing so much pain and suffering and find alternative perspectives on your life.

Negative thinking and rumination are exhausting. It ruins your sleep, and it interferes with your day. If you want help finding a way out of this destructive pattern, contact Ron Huxley and set up an appointment to start feeling good immediately! Click here now…

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Trouble with Anxious Thoughts?

Do you have racing thoughts and anxiety attacks? It’s hard to focus on anything else when anxiety takes control of your mind. It can ruin sleep, relationships, and your health. All you want to do is calm down and rest. 

Fortunately, there are ways to control anxious thoughts. And it just takes practice to master the techniques. 

Try these tips to control your anxiety: 

  • Distance yourself from the worrisome thoughts. Learn to look at your anxious thoughts differently.
  • The key is to reshape how you think about things.
  • When you get an anxious thought, immediately identify it as a sign of your worry and not reality. 
  • Labeling your thoughts raises self-awareness and makes it easier to control them. It also gives you something else to focus on instead of a constant worry.
  • Ask yourself questions. When you get an anxious thought, stop and ask yourself these questions:
  • What is the real reason for this anxious thought? What am I terrified about?
  • Is there a real danger, or is my mind merely playing games with me?
  • Is the negative outcome I imagine likely to happen?
  • How can I stop or change these negative thoughts into something positive? 
  • View your thoughts as data. Sometimes it’s helpful to view your thoughtss as data and your mind as a data processing center. 
  • You’ll get a lot of data coming in throughout the day. Some of this data can be incorrect and confusing. This is an example of anxious thoughts. 
  • You may also misunderstand the data. This means you allow the anxious thoughts to take over and control you. You let them grow and fester. 
  • As the data processing center, you get to decide how to handle all the information. Remember, you’re in control. This means you can choose to toss out or ignore the incorrect data. 
  • Also, keep in mind that the brain is designed to detect danger and is hypersensitive to it. You may pick up on things that aren’t even real. 
  • Focus on the present. Many anxious thoughts are focused on either the future or the past. You can break free by focusing on the present.
  • Avoid overthinking about the past or future by interrupting these thoughts. Notice when you’re thinking about the past or future and guide your thoughts back to the present moment. 
  • Sometimes thoughts from the past can make you afraid of the future. Remember that the past doesn’t have to repeat itself. You have the power to change how your future will look. 
  • Take action. Anxious thoughts often prevent you from taking action. They keep you stuck in fear and worry. Learn to take action even when you’re afraid.
  • Find one thing you can influence positively at that moment and take action.
  • Action can decrease the number of anxious thoughts you have daily. It can show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of, that you’re powerful, and that you can make a positive difference.
  • Get rid of unhelpful thoughts. Some thoughts may be real, but they aren’t helpful. 
  • Learn to tell helpful and unhelpful thoughts apart. 
  • Then, start to filter out the unhelpful ones. For example, if you know that the odds of making a perfect presentation at work are low, but you still have to do it, this is an unhelpful thought. It doesn’t encourage you to do your best. 

Anxious thoughts don’t have to control your life. You can use these tricks to effectively take control of your mind when you find yourself worrying. If these tips aren’t enough, consider talking to a therapist for additional help.

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Reflections for Resiliency: I Am Not Perfect and That Is Ok

In order to develop a more resilient sense of self, Ron Huxley has created a new series called “Reflections for Resiliency”. The reflections are free to use for your inner development and self-care. This is a sample of what you will get in a new course on resilience at FamilyHealer.tv, coming Fall 2020. 

In this latest blog on personal reflections, Ron Huxley provides direction on how to deal with perfectionism. Use the affirmations to find balance in the process and not the outcome. Visualize a different mindset about your expectations for yourself and others.

Use a journal along side each reflection to write our thought own thoughts and feelings. Answer the Self-Reflection Questions at the end to help you apply them to your life.

Find the complete PDF by Clicking Here!

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What is Anxiety and How to Manage Pandemic Uncertainty

In this first video of five total video series on Building Family Resiliency we talk about how to manage anxiety in a time of uncertainty. Learn powerful tools that will help you and your children find freedom from anxious thoughts. Discover bodily-based strategies that don’t require lecture, rationalization, or complex ideas to bring peace to your life.

Get more free tools at FamilyHealer.tv or schedule a time to talk to Ron today!

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Gathering an Audience of Appreciation

Gathering an audience of appreciation

Have you been faced with a stressful situation where it is crucial how you perform, only to choke just when you need to be at your best? We all have! An article, by Scientific American journal, studied this experience and found some interesting insights.

The researchers found that negatively stereotyped social groups are some are at the greatest risk of choking under pressure. For example, if women are told that they are not as good as men at math, right before a math test, then they tend to do poorer on that test then if they were not told this statement.

One reason for the may be that the women are having to fight off the negative thoughts as they are trying to also person a complex task like solve math problems. This is what the researchers called “Increased Cognitive Load”. Others studies suggest that a negative stereotype increases feelings of anxiety and stress which affect performance.

As an artist, I feel the pressure of creating a painting when someone asks me to do one or wants to commission a specific image or scene. I can do great art, when I follow my muse and don’t worry about the outcome. That is because I am not worrying about whether someone will like it or question myself about my artistic abilities.

There is also the element of our identity. How we “see” ourselves or thing that others see us can affect our performances. Another researcher studied how positive stereotypes affect complex activities and found that this actually boosts ability to perform. Why don’t positive intrusive thoughts cause people to choke like negative ones? Because positive thoughts don’t focus on our feelings of worth as a member of a particular social group. As an artist, positive thoughts about my artistic skills increase my worth in this group of people.

Is the answer than to just pump ourselves up before a difficult task or pay others to tell us nice things about we are? Probaly not! As a psychotherapist, I tell my clients to explore their audiences of appreciation. Who values them? Who will be able to notice their efforts to change and will accept them unconditionally? A lot of emotional sufferers just don’t have enough awareness of their audiences of appreciation. Maybe my role as a psychotherapist is to be one of those audience members.

So instead of finding people to be “accountable to” in your efforts to set up a new New Years Resolution, try gathering together an audience of appreciation. Now wouldn’t that feel nice for a change? S

Ready to overcome anxiety, fear, and panic? Take a free ecourse at FamilyHealer.tv today and find “Freedom From Anxiety”.

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3 Ways to Manage Anxiety Before It Manages YOU

Anxiety is the #1 mental health problem in American society. A startling one in eight people describe experiences, every week, that would qualify as a clinical diagnosis of anxiety or panic. Fortunately, it is also one of the easiest to manage if you know how!

Anxiety is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences at times. Many people feel anxious, or nervous when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test or making an important decision. Anxiety disorders, however, are different. They can cause such distress that it interferes with a person’s ability to lead a normal life. An anxiety disorder is a serious mental illness. For people with anxiety disorders, worry and fear are constant and overwhelming and can be crippling.

Here are three powerful tools, taken from Ron Huxley’s “Freedom From Anxiety” course, that you can use to manage anxiety instead of it managing you:

  1. Pause and Breathe. Take several occasions throughout your day to “pause and breathe.” Set your alarm for every couple of hours to take a couple of minutes to put everything down and take 10 good inhale and exhale breaths. Notice what is happening inside of you and around you but don’t have any judgments about it or need to take any actions. Simply notice and take another breathe. It’s OK if your awareness shifts frequently. Just go back to your slow, deep breathing.
  2.  Detect and Redirect. Play detective by cluing into what you are thinking or saying to yourself when you feel anxious. Again, don’t judge it as good or bad but take note (literally write it down) of what preceded your anxious feelings. Begin to be aware of triggers in the form of situations and socialization that make you feel anxious. Redirect yourself physically to disconnect that trigger from your life. Learn to move to another room or avoid negative conversations or take another course of action that might not lead you into an anxious state. Have a “hot list” of the 5 most anxious producing situations or thoughts to avoid. Challenge these anxious thoughts by asking how much of it is really true? One hundred percent of the time true or 50% or 10% or 1%. Even if it is true 90% of the time, what is different about the 10% that isn’t?
  3. Positive Declarations. Once you have a “hot list” of anxious thoughts, start doing or thinking the opposite. Make a list of positive declarations that start with: I am… I will… I can… Today, I have… I choose… I live… My life is… I know… I take back… It can be hard, at first, to come up with a list of positive statements so enlist the help of others. They will be much more objective. Say them out loud even it if feels awkward as your own voice can be self-empowering. The more you say them the more believable they will become and the more present in your life. Use these declarations whenever the anxious thoughts start up in your head. Yell them if necessary!

Are you ready to be free of anxiety, fear, worry, and panic? Take Ron Huxley’s FREE online course: Freedom From Anxiety. Just click here now!

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TriUnity Model of “Freedom From Anxiety”

The TriUnity Model of my online course “Freedom From Anxiety” refers to the three domains of our nature: Body, Mind, and Spirit. This faith-based approach to dealing with fear, worry, panic, and anxiety operate by focusing on our identity and destiny.

In the Bible, a favorite verse is Psalms 139 that declares, at the moment of conception, we were wonderfully and fearfully made. This original design struggles to present itself in a world full of brokenness and pain. Restoring this divine order is the central aim of the “Freedom From Anxiety” course.

To achieve this, the course addresses anxiety in the body by creating safety, turning off the false alarms, building NeuroResilience* to repair the limbic system and balance in the autonomic nervous system. It focuses on anxiety in the mind by capturing negative thoughts that lead to anxious feelings and behaviors. And finally, it concentrates on the spirit that rediscovers our true self and integrates disconnected aspects of the body and mind.

Another favorite verse is “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJB). This sound mind refers to the capacity to bounce back from traumatic events that are the root of much of our anxiety and fears. Having the correct alignment between body, mind, and spirit, allow us to build this capacity to have self-control and positive self-judgments in the face of anxious moments. 

A positive, God-centered identity allows us to have “ease” in life, living confidently and courageously. When we do not have “ease” we have “dis-ease” that affects every area of our nature. Having a higher perspective of yourself, in the world, brings a greater sense of peace. Viewing things from our bodily reactions and our mental experiences give rise to fear and terror. The world can be a scary place. Life can be overwhelming. One definition of trauma is when stressors overwhelm our capacity to manage them. Building spiritual capacity is key to our new freedom.

Learn more about how you can find “Freedom From Anxiety” by taking our free course at http://FamilyHealerSchool.com now.

*NeuroResilience is copyrighted by Ron Huxley, LMFT 2018

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Helping Children With Anxiety

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We have created a new course for parents on “Helping Children With Anxiety”. You can view it now in our Online Courses page (click here). This course will include:

  • What is Anxiety?
  • Developing Your Child’s Emotional IQ
  • How NOT To Pass Anxiety On To Your Children
  • 8 Helpful Things (Strategies) To Say To An Anxious Child
  • Children’s Fears: Create a S.A.F.E.R. H.O.M.E.
  • Teach Your Child To Be A Worry Warrior and a Fear Fighter
  • A Healthy Gut is a Happy Gut!

SPECIAL OFFER: Our Freedom From Anxiety program is now available as a monthly membership program. Get new tools for the body/mind/spirit and overcome anxiety for only $29.95 per month. Don’t miss this unique offer…click here for more info!

 

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