Will I Always Have Panic Attacks?

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We just received this question in our inbox: I have always suffered with anxiety but recently had my first full blown anxiety attack. I couldn’t breathe properly and felt sure I would end up in the hospital. I had another attack last week and I’m so scared it’s going to happen again. Once anxiety attacks start do you always get them, or can they stop?

Points covered in this podcast:

The big problem with anxiety attacks is that this very natural fear of them happening again is enough to trigger another one.

Here's why: when you have an anxiety attack it is a huge and very frightening episode. Naturally, it's not something you ever want to experience again. But when you are scared of something happening to you it increases your overall stress and anxiety and that increased stress, anxiety, and related adrenalin production is enough to trigger another attack.

The fear of a repeat attack affects your nervous system (which is already taxed by the last anxiety attack) and your mind starts to fear if, where, or when another one might occur and the difficult thing about anxiety attacks is that this very real concern is at the root of the problem.

“Fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thinking that there is something to be avoided manifests something to avoid.” ― Vironika Tugaleva

The trick for overcoming anxiety attacks

The trick for overcoming anxiety attacks is to reduce the fear of them happening again. I know it sounds hard but it's important to understand that this very natural concern "will I always have anxiety attacks" is a big part of the problem.

To overcome anxiety attacks you need to overcome the fear of anxiety attacks.

The more you can diffuse the fear of an anxiety attack the less likely you are to have one.

There is every possibility you can learn to manage your anxiety attacks and that you can go for years without having one, but there is always a chance that you may have one again.

Knowing how to stop anxiety attacks is the key to coping. Having effective tools and knowing how to stop the fear means that you are in a much more relaxed and confident place where you know exactly how to deal with an anxiety attack if you think you are going to have one - and that knowledge and confidence greatly reduces the chance of you having to suffer another episode.

EFT Tapping is very powerful for reducing the fear of anxiety attacks. You can learn how to use EFT in our Introduction to EFT Tapping teleclass or our EFT for Anxiety Relief download.

For more detail please listen to the full podcast here: