hi it's Barry Neale, here in this next installment of the anxiety Buster videos or look at panic attacks now panic attacks are probably one of the worst things that you can ever experience they can be absolutely awful it can be absolutely terrifying if you ever had one you don't need me to tell you how bad they can be because it feels like you're gonna die your heart rate increases you get nausea you get sickness you you you you get dizziness and even the strongest of us can end up on the floor in a quivering wreck
thinking we're gonna die and the first time it happens we might even end up in accident and emergency have all sorts of tests on us because we think we're having a heart attack but the reality is all that's happening is that we're having an anxiety attack or a panic attack so we can do then is is if you don't try to stop it then it quickly subsides but most people don't do that most people try to fight it they either run away from wherever they are if they may try breathing exercises they might try to
do all sorts of things to try and calm themselves down and what happens is the more you try to do that the worst it actually gets and it can then take hours and hours for you to come back out of this and so the more you try to fight it the worse it gets and then if you go to your doctor about it quite often what happen is that you'll get labeled as having a panic disorder then typically is a short while after that you only have another one and because they seem to come out
nowhere what then happens for most people is that they don't develop a fear of having a panic attack or a fear of fears and so then everything becomes an anxious anxiety then is there all the time that so they're anxious all the time and because you don't know where they're going to come from you could be a going you can be fine for a couple of weeks or even a couple of months and then suddenly another paleo sack and then you're back to square one and so people get into this cycle of having them and
they have a fear of fear about them and then what happens is they limit themselves they stop going places they stop doing things because they think well you know the last time I went to the supermarket had a panic attack therefore and look under the supermarket well the last time I went on a girls night out had a panic attack and everyone was looking at me I'm not going to do that anymore and so it's one of these things that can really limit our lives but paradoxically it's one of the easiest things to treat when
you treat it properly so let's look what really happens when you have a panic attack because the downside is a lot of people if you've been you've had a panic attack in going to your doctors or you go to accident emergency they'll tell you well you know you weren't dying it wasn't your heart it was just a wing your head and you come back from that feeling pretty bad because you know something happened and you felt in your body it was physical and the reality is it's not just all in your head it is a
physical thing so let's have a lot of wounds you have to excuse my artwork I never passed my exams so here's here's a rough idea of the body we haven't got a brain up here and in the brain here we've got this little area here called the amygdala and the amygdala is a very ancient part of the brain and it's like the lookout it's the part of the mind that looks out for danger and it looks out the danger without thinking about things it doesn't analyze always what if this happens or what if that is
it okay this okay no he just looks out for danger and when it sees danger it immediately sends a signal down to your adrenal glands which are sitting down here in their tummy on top of your kidneys okay and what then happens is the adrenal glands release huge amounts of adrenaline into your system and you get this adrenaline rush and I've driven in rush it's kind of like rocket fuel it feels like everything is going overtime so your heart rate increases you get nausea and dizziness because it's part of the fight or flight system you're
we start a design in this ancient part of the brain which is send this signal down to the adrenal glands which releases the adrenaline is really for you to start the fight-or-flight process you either go one or you've got a fight and so this is what happens it dumps this a huge amount of adrenaline into your system and then you feel this terrible fear but the reality is you won't really under threat but because this part of mind does that it sends this signal now the interesting thing is is if you try to stop it
then what happens is the adrenal gland goes slowly the amygdala goes well they must be something really to hit because you're trying to stop this and what happens it is if it keeps doing this cycle it keeps sending a signal down to the adrenaline to the adrenal glands which releases more adrenaline and it keeps going and going and going but the reality is if you were to do nothing then what would happen is you break that cycle so let's have a look so what they've happens is the amygdala senses danger and it sings this signal
to the adrenal glands the adrenal glands release adrenaline into your system and this is when your heart rate starts to beat faster and you start feeling nausea so you feel awful they can get these physical symptoms and the house wasting your fear your brain changes you start churning cetera now at this point you've got two choices you either do something I mean what happens is if you do something if you try to stop it if you try to fight it if you try to run what you're doing is you're reinforcing the signal to the amygdala
that there's something going on so let me use this as an example imagine this is your amygdala okay normal circumstances your amygdala is nice and calm and relaxed and everything's fine then for whatever reason the amygdala senses danger and something happens is this and it sends the signal down to the adrenal glands and then adrenaline is dumped into your system now if you do nothing if the danger passes what happens is the amygdala goes back down to its normal state and you're absolutely fine but what happens is if you have not happened a panicked attack
the the immediately fires up like this sends the signal down to your adrenal glands dumps a load of adrenaline if you then start to run the amygdala is then gonna go is something else to fear you're running why are you running if you start doing breathing exercises to try and solve the panic Benni the amygdala goes again and what happens is every time it goes up if you do anything to try and stop it all you're doing is keeping it open and so the key then is to do nothing because what will happen is once
it's dumped that general in the system it will go down because there's nothing to fear the amygdala oh hang on there well there's nothing here nothing to fear really and it goes about its normal business so if you do something what you're doing is increasing the fear cycle and what happens is you go through these steps 1 2 3 over and over again and that can last for hours because the more you keep doing it thinking you know I'm a bit of a panic attack and it starts to go down a little bit you know
how am I gonna could have died oh my god about do breathing exercises now interestingly enough if you do breathing exercises one of the reasons why they don't work well probably the worst thing you can do is if you're having a panic attack is doing deep breathing exercising now I know that sounds counterintuitive to what you're probably in town but modern research is shown without a shadow of a doubt that if you do breathe deep breathing exercises what can happen is it can imbalance the blood gases in your body you get you get a too
much oxygen in your system not enough carbon dioxide in your system and that in and of itself causes the symptoms of a panic attack so don't do deep breathing exercises and know everyone tries to tell you to do this maybe you check the research out the research is in if you do deep breathing exercises what can happen is particularly if you're panicking anyway is you'll start to hyperventilate and that will cause the panic attacks to last longer so don't do that so what I do is to allow that they mean to have to go back
to normal so what you do is you do nothing I know so here's what I would tell my clients is what you need to do is when you're like this when you middle like this to imagine that you are stuck wherever you are then you're not allowed to run you're not allowed to get up you know about to do deep breathing so if you're sitting down your face who's Daniel to stay standing you have to do is to allow those feelings allow the adrenaline to wash over you too literally flood over you know this term
is called flooding and it was originally coined by a woman doctor called dr. Claire weeks many many years ago and it's a really really effective way to deal with any type of anxiety disorder and that's to just let it take its course because what will happen is after about five or ten minutes the adrenaline starts to drain the up through your body and the amygdala goes down and then what will happen if you do this every time you have a panic attack then what will happen is you have a panic attack and then you're allowed
to wash over you and it goes down then the next time you're in the situation where in the past you start a panic attack then you have a panic attack but then if you do nothing in washes over you much much quicker and after a couple of times of doing this the amygdala because it's got a good memory for danger will suddenly realize there is no danger in this situation and it won't even reacted at all so you'll be able to go through those situations where in the past you are mentally used to go like
this in now whoa so the key is to do nothing and you need to do this consistently and if you do this for three or four times when you have a panic attack then what happen is your amygdala will realize there is nothing to fear and each one will react anymore and when I work with my private glance this is one of the things that I challenge them to do so I'll teach them this and then send them out into the situations where in the past they used to feel or have the panic attacks so
for example if they used to have a panic attack in a crowded space I would then explain them to all this and then I say go I want you to do is I want you to go out into that crowd in space and try to have attack and of course the more they tried to have a panic attack the less it's while you had happened and they did they just allow that finger tool to flood over them ten minutes they're back to normal let me give you an example many years ago I was out walking
in the country and I walked across this field my own stupidity didn't read the sign next thing I know I could see a bull in the distance and it wasn't happy that I was in this field suddenly my my amygdala has come one like this and dumped a load of adrenaline into my system and I run like hell and I've got out of that field jump the game and got to the other side just as this ball came Haring up white in my face and for a few minutes after that I can tell you my
heart was racing I was absolutely nausea I feel terrible but because I was out of danger that gentleman just washed over me and ten minutes later I was being talking to other people and laughing about it because I was out of the danger and this is what people we need to understand is that when you have this panic attack if you just allow it to take its natural course just to wash over you then fire ten minutes later you're absolutely fine and you can't back down if you try to fight it you're gonna be there
for hours so here's the message if you have a panic attack it's just a panic attack it's just anxiety it's maybe uncomfortable but it's not dangerous it may be uncomfortable but it's not dangerous so do you understand there's no danger there it's just uncomfortable and it will pass this part of the brain the amygdala it's sole job is to protect us it's not trying to kill you it's just this job is to protect you and so when the body sees danger it reacts in this way and it's uncomfortable but it's not dangerous and so once
you've learned how to do this stop taking yourself back into those places wearing the past you used to have those panic attacks and try hard in vain together because you won't be on to get them because you will have taught your amygdala that this situation is safe and the more you do that the more you start taking back control of your life so there you go quick easy way to take back control of your life and to take back control of panic attacks I know it sounds simple and simplistic I know probably you think hang
on I mean it can't be that simple I must have to have therapy or I must have to have my heart checked and things like that well of course you know if you are concerned how your heart go we'll go and have it checked but the reality is is almost serving just a panic attack and because one of the other things that come up from having with people with this situation is that when they go into the if a have a panic attack and then go to the only and they get all these tests on
them then they say to the person you know there's nothing wrong with you nothing wrong with your heart you're wasting our time you're just having a panic attack what can often happen is that person will come away from that thing well that can't be why there must be something wrong with me I couldn't have felt that bad ever there was nothing wrong with me and what often happens is that they end up with health anxiety so the key to all of this in health anxiety as well is to just realize it's just a normal function
that the the amygdala is is just watching out for whatever it's trying to protect you and it seen something or heard something I felt something that we thought was potentially dangerous it's dumped a load of adrenaline in your system if you do nothing it will go so there it's bearing you hear from him noticing if I could be of any help for you you've got any other types of questions or if you do feel that you need some form of therapy by all means get in contact with me on the website or my facebook page
we even here on YouTube but until then I wish you good health
