Panic Attack! This is a terrible feeling of sudden and intense anxiety. These attacks can also have physical symptoms, including shaking, feeling disorientated, nausea, rapid, irregular heartbeats, dry mouth, breathlessness, sweating and dizziness.
Whilst a panic attack can feel as though something terrible will happen to you, they are not dangerous, but can be very frightening.
The exact cause of panic disorder is not fully understood but it's thought to be linked to a combination of things, including a traumatic or very stressful life experience. The subconscious mind then becomes more sensitive to events which are not actually going to be stressful.
Panic is designed to be a response reserved purely for situations that require immediate life-saving action. It is the rush of adrenaline designed to get us moving. But, for most of us, situations where we actually need to panic are very rare.
So, the problem occurs when a person panics for no (or insufficient) reason.
It’s basically the subconscious mind telling us something that isn’t actually true – an illogical thought.
The good news is, hypnosis can enable you to stop the subconscious from creating a panic response for no reason. It is a matter of contacting your subconscious and letting it know that this panic response is not a good strategy – in fact it is causing you even more distress and pain. Once the subconscious is made aware of this then we can ask it to change to a new, more beneficial strategy for your greater happiness.
The subconscious learns these unhelpful responses through events that have happened through your life. And, as these behaviours are learnt, so too can you learn new, more helpful behaviours. And you can do this safely through hypnotherapy.
Next time, I’ll talk about hypnotherapy for pain. Until then, remember: You CAN change!
David Lornie is owner and principal hypnotherapist at Frontier Hypnotherapy in Mackay. Dave is also the only qualified Australian practitioner of the Control System. He can be contacted on 0401 223 780 or help@frontierhypnotheray.com.au. W: www.frontierhypnotherapy.com.au