Panic attacks are no joke: They involve overwhelming feelings of fear or anxiety that are often coupled with physical symptoms like chest pains, nausea, sweating, chills, and difficulty breathing. They can come on suddenly, and be terrifyingly debilitating.
So what do we do if we feel panic taking over? And how can we end these events as quickly as possible?
That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — asked Charles Schaeffer, a psychologist, adjunct professor at New York University, and author of “When Panic Happens,” when he recently visited our studio.
Press play to hear the full episode:
“[With panic], a part of your nervous system misfires and sends out an emergency signal, and it just flails out to the rest of your system,” Schaeffer told us. “In the book, I talk about [panic] being like a blue shell. No matter what you’re doing in ‘Mario Kart,’ when you see that blue shell, what’s about to happen? No matter where you are in the race, what’s gonna happen? You’re going to be taken out. And so panic often does the same thing to your nervous system.”
In order to prevent panic from shutting us down, Schaeffer recommends finding ways to distract or even reboot our systems, which he says are ultimately primal and relatively simplistic.
“We think we’re sophisticated machinery — we aren’t,” he said. “We’re very chatty apes. That’s basically it. But a lot of that software underneath is just like mammals, and that’s pretty old. That’s not even talky — that’s just sensory stuff. That’s feeling fight or flight.”
If we can divert our minds and bodies away from the panic to some other perceived threat, we can defuse the fear bomb going off inside us. And there’s one simple item you probably have in your kitchen right now that can provide quick relief.
“If you use ice exposure, for example — you can trick your hand if you squeeze an ice cube into thinking, ‘This is the threat I’ve got to pay attention to,’” Schaeffer said. “You’re getting this really uncomfortable sensation of freezing. By doing that, it’s pulling your attention and your nervous system into your hand.”
When you do this, Schaeffer explained, you’re directing your body’s focus away from the other physical areas and internal systems that the panic is affecting.
“It actually opens up all these lanes [in our bodies] again,” he said. “Now I can breathe deeply again, my heart rate slows down, because my nervous system ― it automatically slows down my heart if it thinks I’m freezing, because its job is to make me alive, not talky, right?”
Taking a cold shower or splashing cold water on your face can also be effective.
“Any cold exposure that is jolting, invigorating, will make it really hard for your nervous system to not pay attention to that, because feeling like you’re going to freeze will always supersede everything else,” Schaeffer said. “Ice in my hand will always beat out, ‘Am I going to be late to this interview?’”
Another possible way to reroute our nervous systems away from panic? Sour candy.
“That could work,” Schaeffer said. “I think if you overwhelm [your system] in any way, where it beats out whatever you’re thinking of.”
Of course, if you’re dealing with regular panic attacks, seeing a medical professional is a wise move, since they can help create a long-term care plan. But in that white-hot moment when panic materializes, these tricks can help ease it immediately.
A special thanks to our friends at Spotify for featuring the show! You can listen to the podcast on Spotify here.
Need some help with something you might be doing wrong? Email us at [email protected], and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.
