By Charlie Frankel
Having a panic attack is a terrifying experience. It usually starts with a sudden, inexplicable sense of fear, and then escalate, adding other symptoms along the way, such as feelings of choking or suffocation, chest pain, dizziness, lightheadedness, losing control, or that you're going crazy or having a heart attack. Prescription drug therapies are often used in treating anxiety disorders (anxiety attacks and panic attacks are the same thing), but many of them can be addictive, and symptoms, return when medication is withdrawn.
There are, however, several natural anxiety disorder treatments that psychiatrists and psychologists use, sometimes in conjunction with drug therapy, sometimes not, that actually can successfully treat anxiety disorders.
The most commonly known and widely used methods for controlling panic attack symptoms are: switching to a healthier diet, including eliminating caffeine, and deep breathing exercises. Caffeine is a stimulant that can make you edgy, irritable and anxious. Removing it from your diet, and eating more nutritious foods can make you feel better and give you more restful sleep.
Breathing exercises are calming and help you avoid hyperventilation during panic attacks. These are good tools for controlling panic attacks, but treat the symptoms and not the disorder.
Energy Psychology, also called "Tapping," involves applying pressure to acupressure points by tapping them in a certain order to release the negative energy created by certain thoughts. Some therapists who use this natural method say it works more quickly and effectively than other natural treatments.
Since 1958, the American Medical Association has recognized hypnosis as a valid form of natural therapy. Although it doesn't cure anxiety disorders, it can significantly ease panic attacks.
A rather amusing form of natural treatment for panic attacks is laughter. Humor displaces the negative emotions associated with panic attacks by reducing stress hormone levels. Humor visualization techniques have the patient remember and visualize themselves at a time when they were laughing uncontrollably. When they feel the onset of panic attack, they visualize this memory again, and if they can laugh, it makes the treatment more effective.
Desensitization is used to make panic disorder victims "immune" to things and situations they fear and that can trigger a panic attack. It's a gradual process, but can be effective, as it treats the disorder, as well as the symptoms. The patient is placed in a situation or place that they fear, or commonly triggers panic attacks, for just a few minutes, usually with someone they trust with them.
Usually the support person goes with the patient only the first time. Each time the patient repeats the experience, the length of time increases, until eventually they can cope on their own, without having a panic attack. Desensitization has successfully treated phobias and other fear related conditions as well.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is by far the most widely known and successfully used natural therapy for treating anxiety disorders and panic attacks. CBT therapy uses to techniques, cognitive restructuring and in vivo methods, to treat and sometimes cure anxiety disorders with panic attacks. Cognitive restructuring teaches how to change thinking about reactions to panic symptoms.
In vivo, or "in real life," is exposure to the things and places that trigger fear response, teaches people to face their fears, and is similar to desensitization. Together, cognitive restructuring and in vivo can help those with panic attacks change the way they think and behave in panic situations. Professionals admit CBT doesn't work for everyone, but many people have found at least some relief from panic attacks, using CBT.
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