Hi. My name is Terry Kyle and I used to suffer from terrible panic attacks and anxiety that was emotionally crippling.
Before I get into the tips that I used to stop my panic attacks that could work for you, let me give you a little background on my journey because I think that you and I may have some things in common.
Early on in my twenties (I’m in my thirties now), I worked in some really high-pressure sales jobs (real estate, office supplies). These jobs often involved cold calling, meeting unrealistic targets and constantly feeling trapped between disinterested prospects and unsympathetic managers. This pressure often resulted in crippling anxiety, even though on the surface I seemed pretty confident and extroverted.
For instance, I would be approaching a prospect’s office and the grip of anxiety in my upper chest would become excruciating and all I wanted to do was go back to the company car and hide. In fact, quite often that’s exactly what I did and it wasn’t exactly my finest professional hour.
But the weird thing was, I thought it was just normal for me, that it couldn’t be changed, was simply my natural personality and that was all there was to it. When a boss witnessed one of these attacks first-hand while accompanying me on a sales cold-call, I was fired and I had really bottomed out to a point of desperation.
On paper, I had all the qualities to be living a great life and nobody I talked to about it (which wasn’t many because I was pretty ashamed of my anxiety attacks) really understood. Basically, their ‘helpful’ advice was to “get over it”.
But I couldn’t. Not on my own anyway.
So now that I was unemployed and had some time on my hands, I decided to actually do some research on panic disorders and how to deal with panic attacks. I quickly realised that I needed two things to manage my panic – I didn’t think I could be cured so I just wanted to manage my problem – short-term tactics and a long-term strategy.
Anyway, through trial and error, I found the tips that worked for relieving my panic episodes in the short term revolved distraction. Major distraction. I see Cesar Millan using distraction with amazing success on troublesome dogs and back then distraction worked great for me too (though nobody was there to yank on my leash, sadly).
If I started to feel a panic attack coming on, I would do one or more of a combination of these things: in my car, sing along as loud as I could to my favourite song back then (despite being tone deaf!), Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on fire”, sit down and write my 10 favorite movie scenes in order from 1 (best) to tenth, do a handstand (if there was space), recite a speech from “Henry V” I’d learned at school for a play or try to solve a Rubik’s cube; which I never did.
These distractions refocused my mind away from the cause of my anxiety and worked great. I recommend that you find your best distractions (keep changing them) and keep doing them whenever anxiety is starting to take hold – you know the physical symptoms by now.
This short-term success gave me the momentum to look around for a longer term goal: to be totally cured of panic attacks. At least as much as I could. I tried pills but hated the different side effects. I tried different books and did often pick up a useful short term trick but nothing lasted.
The one that I eventually had the most success with (though I still don’t feel completely cured but I am getting there) was Joe Barry’s “Panic Away” which really gets into your inner issues. It’s not perfect by any means but until the ultimate system for curing panic attacks comes along, Joe’s is pretty good and might be able to help you.
Just remember to use those distraction techniques I mentioned above. Life without panic and anxiety issues is worth working towards. Hope that helps you.
【by Terry Kyle. Terry Kyle is an (almost) recovered victim of panic attacks.】
