by: Ralph Grenville
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Anyone who has experienced a panic attack knows that they can be extremely scary. Your heart pounds, your chest tightens, an overwhelming feeling that you must escape a danger overcomes you. Panic attacks seem to come out of nowhere. The good news is that overcoming panic attacks is possible.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the basis for treating panic attacks. Treatment is a two-pronged approach. The first prong is to change your false thinking. The second prong is exposure to what is feared.

First you need to change your thinking. Simply put your panic attack is like an alarm that has been accidentally triggered. What you need to realize is that the panic attack (alarm) can be turned off by you. That's what cognitive behavioral therapy is all about.

Had there been a real intruder and the alarm went off, all of the anxious feelings would make perfect sense. You would want your body on high alert so you could get away! But, there is not an intruder. Your body is responding to internal feelings - the exact feelings that would get you away from the intruder (if there was one). The anxiety and panic bounce off each other, increasing the strength of both until it is more than you can take. You need to stop the bouncing.

To address the cycle of panic and anxiety, I want you to do a little exercise. Find a blank sheet of paper. Make 3 columns and label the first column as "bodily sensations, " the next as "mistaken thoughts, " and the last as "another explanation."

Now what you want to do is list out the body sensations you have during a panic attack. One feeling goes on one line. Now in the next column write down the thoughts going through your head during the attack. What is the danger? Finally, write down a possible alternate explanation for what you are thinking the danger is. With practice you will be able to challenge the validity of your thoughts whenever a panic attack appears without having to write everything out.

The more you practice this, the better you will get at stopping the anxiety before it gets to the panic stage. You are taking false beliefs about the feelings and replacing them with accurate facts. You are learning that the feelings are nothing to fear.

Along with the cognitive behavioral therapy, you may want to learn how to meditate as a way to relax and refocus. Maybe a warm bath or a hot cup of tea would also be calming. Write down a list of six things you can do to comfort yourself as you are trying to get your anxiety under control. Put them where you can find them in a hurry.

You have just learned the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy. There is much more to it that a psychologist or other counselor can show you and help you learn to use it effectively. If you are struggling with overcoming panic attacks, investing some time learning CBT will definitely be beneficial to your long-term mental health.

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