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Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are periods of intense apprehension and fear that come on suddenly. The average panic attack commonly lasts about 30 minutes, but they can be as short as a matter of seconds or come in cycles lasting hours. Panic attacks can cause many symptoms including cold sweats, faintness, nausea, trembling, palpitations, chest pain, light-headedness and a shortness of breath. Sufferers often report feelings of "going crazy", "having a heart attack" or "being about to die."

I may never have become a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist if it were not for my own experiences of anxiety and panic attacks – an area in which I now specialise. It was on a business trip, the first day of a conference in Canada, that I had a full-blown panic attack. I was enjoying some free time in a gym when suddenly a wave of anxiety overwhelmed me. I will never forget being rushed to Vancouver Hospital, having convinced the ambulance crew and myself that I'd suffered a heart attack.

To my embarrassment – and relief – a pleasant doctor informed me that my heart was in perfect working order and that it had been a panic attack I had experienced. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry – I ended up doing both.

The worries about anxiety or suffering another panic attack built up and soon began a destructive spiral of behaviour that led to me becoming reclusive and introspective and after a while I even stopped working. I was in a mess.

A chance meeting with an old friend proved to be the catalyst for getting my life back on track. She suggested I needed an interest – something that would bring a sense of balance to my life and help me build my confidence again. She reminded me of my teenage interest in hypnosis and said that during her training as a practitioner in the NHS she had seen the results of hypnotherapy curing a patient's needle phobia which had reminded her of the time I had attempted to hypnotise her in her youth.

As a result of that brief conversation I enroled on a clinical hypnotherapy course and since that day I have never looked back. If only I'd considered hypnotherapy earlier – I could have avoided a lot of wasted time and hurting. The value of my own experience is as important as all the years of training I have undertaken – it's the reason I feel so passionately about helping others and getting their lives back on track too.

Panic attacks can be brought on by a number of triggers and are distinguished from other forms of anxiety by their sudden, erratic occurrence. Conditions or instances in which a panic attack might occur include:
• Exposure to a something that induces a phobic response
• Suffering from post traumatic stress disorder or an obsessive compulsive disorder
• Suffering from a medical condition such as hyperthyroidism or hypoglycemia
• Traumatic life experiences such as loss or bereavement, moving house or divorce
• A family history of anxiety or panic attacks
• Certain types of medication
• Withdrawal from drug or alcohol addiction

How can hypnotherapy help?
Understanding what a panic attack is and why it takes place is a great help in the treatment of people who suffer with panic attacks. Discussing the aspects of your panic attacks may help understand what is happening in your mind and discover the triggers that set them off. Through hypnotherapy these triggers are addressed and your thought patterns changed. By direct suggestion and behavioural training, hypnotherapy alleviates anxiety, disassociating you from the particular anxieties that bring on panic attacks. As your confidence improves your panic attacks will become a thing of the past and you will be able to move forward with your life.