Anxiety attack or panic attack can be very shocking it happened the first time if you’ve never experienced before. It can be eye-opening and impact you for the days to come.
This article is about what to expect, do, and possible causes so you can be better prepared or prevent an attack.
I gratefully only had one panic attack that did not become a norm reaction. So I share what I did. I’m a Vata where we have natural anxious tendencies.
When you spend your day worrying about the next time anxiety can take over your time and day, that’s not helping you. That’s not how you want your life to go. You want to get the life you want and a slower paced life.
You didn’t sign up for or schedule the setback anxiety interruption in your day.
Where now you can be dealing with any number of physical symptoms. And you may even think you’re being a hypochondriac.
If that’s the case you want to rule out all the possible health reasons that caused your anxiety attack.
Dizziness and fuzzy brain could have come from nasal or head congestion and allergies, as your nose is connected to your inner ear that controls balance. And your frontal lobe near your forehead is where you do most of your cognitive, rational reasoning.
So if you can’t think clearly and it shows up around the same time every day, you could have developed seasonal allergies.
Hay fever fall symptoms may be worse in the afternoon than spring or summer morning allergies.
If you don’t eliminate common allergies as a potential cause, then that can lead you to create additional anxiety and worry that’s not helping.
Here Comes the Anxiety Attack
An anxiety attack can leave you dazed and unpleasantly change the course of your day.
You may feel you need to take the rest of the day off, suddenly rearranging your calendar.
An anxiety attack can also leave you feeling defeated because you’re working to manage your feelings and thoughts that can spew out into your body like uncontrollable bursts, showing up as heart palpitations, sweaty palms, dizziness, etc.
Similar to an anxiety attack, a panic attack can also come on suddenly. Usually, it’s more serious and from a buildup of stressors in your life.
This can shock you. You are no longer the same person you were just a few minutes ago where you were fine.
In a panic attack, the automatic functions in your body are still running but usually are frozen or hindered from taking action physically or cognitively.
When you come out on the other side, you are confronted with your life and have the opportunity to make a change so you don’t have another panic attack (or worse warning symptoms).
For me, that was in my 20’s from a series of life problems and roadblocks.
Post-trauma I never dealt with and ran away from in my mind by letting the past stay in the past. The problem with that strategy is that your brain doesn’t work like that.
Your brain’s subconscious can hold onto your thoughts forever. Sometimes when reminded or a trigger occurs, then you’re put back into reliving those memories. And can start feeling panic or anxious again.
You can be brought back to your past as though it were yesterday.
Until you can heal and cut out the parts that were broken or scarred, you don’t function in the best that you could. Your perceptions of life can get distorted. You can hide or avoid certain situations.
Your insecurity guard can rise.
You can make wrong assumptions that provide a safe haven for your mind to temporarily settle in, but that can lead to problems down the road.
What to Do First After You Have an Anxiety or Panic Attack?
These are 3 important steps:
- You may feel shaken or light-headed. Sit up and just breathe. Then focus on your breath for a few moments. If there’s not a chair in the room, sit on the floor.
- Drink at least half a glass of water.
- Calm, relax and take the rest of the day off if you can (or at least a few personal moments to yourself).
Shut your door for privacy, and turn off your phone. Disconnect for as long as you can for the day.
Take time to re-orient and relax.
Think as though: if you have ever gone in for an in-and-out surgical procedure, you take it easy for the rest of the day so you can recuperate. You don’t push yourself as that can exacerbate your healing time.
If it’s your first anxiety attack, you may still be shell-shocked.
I know I was when I had a deeper panic attack where I sat frozen and the color on my face left and I was pale as a ghost.
I could feel my heart beating fast but nothing cognitive was registering and thoughts weren’t entering.
I wasn’t thinking.
I was just sitting in a chair, and I could feel my feet and hands numb and wet. Time stood still and I felt helpless.
When I came to, I re-oriented myself to my immediate office space.
A friendly co-worker entered my space and I told her what happened, and avoided anything unpeaceful.
Fast forward over 20 years later, and I remember this episode like it was yesterday.
You may be alone away from people, so that is why it’s always good to have water next to you, as you never know when it can come in handy.
If your anxiety attack happens at nighttime that is common. First thing when you wake up, reflect for a few minutes on what you went through before you go about your routine.
If it happens in the morning, ease into the rest of the day.
The Same Week of the Attack
Journal and reflect on what stress buildup created the episode.
What have you been worrying about in your life that could have led up to your anxiety attack?
Find an easy, simple, and fun activity to lower your stress.
Easy is you don’t have to think long and hard to find the materials or start doing. Knitting for me is a ball of yarn and a pair of knitting needles that take up little space.
Using your hands gives you a sense of usefulness.
Just the act of picking up your favorite tools or instruments can be satisfying and lower your blood pressure.
Remember the stress ball? By the way, I love my special pens and baking whisk.
You could even create something simple that helps you feel accomplished. A simple bake or your creative hobby can bring you in a better mood.
The idea is to keep it simple as you want to stay in awareness that this week was different because you had an anxiety attack. That’s the theme for your week.
You don’t want to forget so easily as you want to come up with solutions for now and the future.
Because otherwise you could later on the question whether you really did have an anxiety attack and then this could become a regular occurrence and way of life that you now have to manage.
Starting now, anxiety attack prevention is a better way.
To get you calm and reflecting deeper, you can do a little yoga or stretching that can be done anywhere. Using your legs can make you feel grounded and good.
Take the time and opportunity on the floor or yoga mat to self-discover more about what’s going on inside you.
Sometimes you can’t come up with the specific reasons to, “what could have caused the anxiety attack?”
So, What Else Could Have Caused your Anxiety Attack?
These are 3 possible causes:
Reason # 1: Your need to be in control.
Are you the type of person that wants to plan everything to feel comfortable? If yes, you’re not alone.
That was me too.
In my first career, I worked with Brides, who as you know want “the perfect day” to happen. Even the nicest one of them can feel the pressure.
When you’re event planning, you learn to be flexible and let go. This allows you to be present with clients and focus on their needs.
In that catering world, the norm is that changes are made every day (sometimes all day) and decisions can be made “on the fly.”
That way of being loosened me up to learn to surrender that which I could not change or control in my professional and personal life.
So in the same way in your life, you can ask yourself, “what changes can I make so that I can let go of the need to plan and know everything?”
Unknown and uncertainty can be the reason for your anxiety attack.
Consider, if you knew everything now about your life, you’d live a completely different experience.
You could have even less control than living in uncertainty because everything was planned out without you.
So if you find joy in the surprises and unknowing journey process of life, then you enjoy the now and your future.
Reason #2: Your ego.
Maintaining a healthy ego is important to prevent anxiety attacks.
Because the unhealthy ego will interject ugliness into your mind to prevent you from taking good action.
If left untreated by you, the ego can spiral out of control taking over your mind and life, affecting your relationships.
You can end up living selfishly, in delusion, or as two personalities.
I’m sure you’ve heard of people like this.
They appear bipolar or split-minded, that’s actually very common. They do not see this quality in themselves, and therein lies the problems.
The ego lies to the person.
We have the ability to change our ego lives in our own awareness.
Ego can cleverly ruin your life by tricking you so naturally.
Here’s a simple example.
I can suggest you pull out a mirror, and tell yourself loving and positive self-affirmations.
And you may not choose to do it because something (an impostor) in your brain is resisting.
Such a simple action (pulling out a handheld mirror) that doesn’t necessarily require you to even get up from where you are.
And you can find the task hard to do because more deeply you don’t want to allow yourself to feel good about yourself.
To remedy this, you could in awareness act like a witness to this behavior (or non-behavior) for your own self-love and personal growth.
Toddlers and animals don’t have these hangups.
All they know is love and assume self-love without giving thought to any other way, as they’re missing that gear.
We can learn a thing or two from them.
Reason #3: Your worry.
You were expecting a job, a career to pan out, or a relationship, and got disappointed or frustrated.
As time went on, reality sunk in and the truth about your situation became clear.
You have worry, panic, and anxiety that comes from these situations in the mind-body connection.
Your body gets out of balance and you can have an anxiety attack. Your thoughts can turn into inflammation or a stress pimple or gray hair.
You can decide to change your thoughts.
If you can flip your perspective and outlook of situations, this can change your life outcomes.
You can start with little stuff.
You spill a drink.
You could look at that as an inconvenience to have to wipe up. Or you can look at it as an opportunity to clean your space and feel good afterward.
Similarly, if someone takes your parking spot, you could use that to demonstrate your self-control, patience, and kindness.
The more you practice, the better you get.
Be encouraged that the best blessings are in the waiting and in the unknown. You will grow. Stay hopeful and remember to believe that. 🧡