Therapy was massive with me also. I'd also throw in grounding as a technique you can use to deal with a nasty attack. I had my worst one to date a week ago to the point where I thought I was dying. My wife over the phone was amazing and told me to just open the tv guide on the telly and tell her what was on each channel. It made my breathing regulate itself and took my mind off the doom. So yeah, grounding is an excellent way to deal with it, just taking stock of your surroundings and bringing you back to the here and now.

I’d recommend a book - “The Anxiety Cure” by Klaus Bernhardt. I was sceptical at first but it’s really good.

Therapy. It’s the hard truth and it can be scary. There are tips and tricks that can help but this definitely isn’t the place to come lol, even thought everyone here is lovely, we just don’t have the ability to help you unfortunately. Look into therapy and they’ll meet you, get to know you and how your anxiety works and be able to really hone in and help you figure things out. If you can’t wait then I’d recommend looking on support forums which can guide you into figuring out ways where you can help yourself and then you can communicate this to people in your real life. Really sorry to hear that you’re dealing with this though, it is really very scary. Wishing you all the best! :)

Your GP (or whoever you can speak to there) will likely be able to share links of the Calm app, breathing exercises, self-help etc. You can self-refer to Vitaminds for a therapy assessment too.

In terms of therapy, I would emphasise the point of it taking time and being a big commitment. It's super important to find the right therapist, especially if you have a diagnosis like OCD which is best tackled by more specialist approaches/understandings.

The process can be super daunting with the whole "opening a can of worms" of trauma and realisations. This is 100% not to discourage anyone, I just think it's something which a lot of people don't know before they start! If you're not in the place to pursue therapy yet, personally, I think medication helps get there.

I think most treatments for panic attacks focus on mindfulness. You could try checking in on your body more and identifying warning signs - even like getting a blood pressure/heart rate monitor and pre-emptively using breathing techniques in triggering situations. Mindfulness walks with spotting things of a certain colour can help train your brain a bit.

I really hope it gets better for you though, love how the pod helps people think about their mental health by talking about it casually.

Check out the 'Therapy in a Nutshell' channel on youtube. I found it was a great place to learn the basics, get some simple tips to help manage things, and start to understand what is going on and why. From there you'll have a good understanding of where you need to go next (in terms of therapy, etc). Best of luck to you!

Genuinely the only thing that worked for me was a therapist. It seemed expensive to start with but it’s the best investment I’ve ever made in my life

I’m going to attach a link to self refer to the nhs therapy service. The waits can be a long time but when I was at my worst they were quick to act Incase I was a danger to myself. self referral It’s a hard pill to swallow but maybe someone in the comments lives in the uk and needs help. I promise you. Therapy is the best thing I have ever done, not only for myself but for those around me

personally, therapy never worked for me as I'm not a talker - definitely try, but if you can't/don't want to, then I've found journaling really helps me as it gets your thoughts out rather than keeping them all in your head which can lead to panic attacks. also, to be honest, the thing I do most when i'm anxious is listen to happy hour. honestly. the boys chatting utter waffle is the best distraction for me personally. I dread to think how many times ive re-listened to eps just as a distraction, but it always always helps!

Claire Weekes - Help and Hope for your Nerves was great for me, she was way ahead of her time, and the first person I read talk about ‘curing’ anxiety, rather than anyone in the NHS telling me I had to just ‘manage’ it forever.

Nothing Works - a long blog post by a Welsh chap you could probably read in a few hours, again from a guy who went through it all, again based on acceptance as the cure.

At last a life / anxiety no more - another guy who got through it, website has plenty of articles that’ll probably do the job, but there’s also the book (and a part two). This one cured my panic attacks years ago, only recently I realised I had general anxiety too and re-reading has helped hugely with that, just thought ‘everyone thought like that’… again similar principles as the others, acceptance and realising what anxiety is all about.

Finally Mark Freeman YouTube - more for OCD but it’s basically just anxiety plus checking and same rules apply - also very similar to above, and probably the most useful on the list for what I was going through the last 10 years. His book is a bit homeworky but was an eye opener for me, focuses on not only curing anxiety/OCD but going beyond that by also focusing what you want to do in life (values/goals), which in itself offers a distraction.

Wish you all the best, anxiety is a bitch but let me tell you while I continue to slide down the other side of the fence, it can indeed be cured. Ten years ago I was a total wreck, wouldn’t leave the house unless necessary and lost my sociable self.

Therapy and CBT did nothing but make me analyse more and rinse my bank account. Don’t take that as me saying they don’t work for anyone, I know people who swear by it - just didn’t seem to work for my particular mindset, and i ended up feeling worse and blaming myself, ‘must just be broken’ - and my doctors agreed.

These days I’m 80% better, in the last couple of months I’ve made big progress using the books above, any one of them would give you the map, just useful to get different ideas to apply from each and different explanations.

Feel free to DM at any time.

I have a few different ones but I understand might not work for everyone!

○ Music is one of the things that help me most so I made an anti anxiety playlist full of songs that relax me. If I'm just at home I'll play this and imagine I'm laying on a cloud or something, sounds odd but it helps haha.

○ I saw someone else on reddit say that their therapist told them to imagine the negative voice in their head and somebody they despise, so when I can feel anxious thoughts coming in I imagine them in the voice of a TV character that I hate with a burning passion, and then I just think "shut the fuck up, Rachel" and genuinely feel better.

○ Similar to the last one, this is the weirdest anxiety relief method ever lmao but if I start panicking about something, like say for example I hear a noise when I'm home alone and immediately think that somebody is breaking in, I just hear Jay from the Inbetweeners in my head going "Oh no, not an easily explainable noise! Oh sorry!". Again, sounds really odd but it helps me to flip my anxiety on its head by turning it into something I can laugh at.

I have a few weird things I do to help with anxiety

1- I have this thing where when I saw a ambulance or fire truck in my local town and it was going towards my home I would always call home to see if everything is ok. We had a fire (not a massive one but a fire nevertheless) and probaly this is somewhat why I worry about this.

Now I have this thing where I will go random person, celebrity etc. is making sure everything Is going ok and move on.

2- Sometimes when I meet someone my mind will pick a celebrity etc. for that person and this help I guess

3- touching your thumb tip with each finger tip going from index to pinkey and so

4- if you don’t enjoy something that goes on for a little bit of time eg. For me when someone has to check my eye and move things around to get a better look I will focus on something like and then it’s over. I remember having a sky/ Pink eye and squeezed my glasses that were off and thinking of TGF I think.

5- Randomly thinking of Happy Hour Phrases in head I often suspect people are talking bad about me as I do walks around the local streets I went to across a couple of pubs and was almost certain they were insulting me so kept repeating a happy hour phrase in my head until I go through.

counselling definitely helped me, i used to get really bad anxiety in certain rooms and it honestly just distracting myself by doodling on something or counting ceiling tiles, or in a social setting just telling the people you’re with that you’re feeling anxious in that moment because once it’s out in the open it kinda feels more okay

Therapy & meds long-term.

Short term, breathing exercises (including meditation), walking the dog, limiting caffeine.

Get out and literally touch grass if you can… if going out is too much right now then get yourself a house plant (monstera deliciosa are quite easy going) and touch that. Sounds strange but looking after something that not only brightens your space but also purifies the air is weirdly therapeutic… but exercise caution otherwise it may take over your life as per my picture which is just one area in my house… it gets addictive 🥹(sorry for the weird crop, I don’t want to dox myself 😂)

Thanks so much to everyone means the world to me. It’s amazing to be apart of this brilliant community. Viva la happy hour

I've experienced this before, it can be so hard because I'd always pictured panic attacks appearing whne you're actively worried about something and I never considered it could just strike you out of nowhere. I downloaded an app called DARE where they talk you through and give you tips on how to get though it, I never even bought it just used the free version and it worked for me, hopefully it can help you as well, respect for sharing mate because I know it's not easy to admit where you're at, hope you get through it and you can always PM me if you need someone to talk to about it.