How effective is meditation for an anxiety attack? Meditation blends breathing and mindfulness techniques to connect deeply with the present moment, helping soothe panic triggers. Therefore, meditation is more than just a relaxation technique. It’s a form of mental exercise that conditions the mind to shift focus away from distressing thoughts.
When you’re in the middle of a panic attack, your nervous system goes into overdrive. Through regular meditation, you can train your brain to regulate these heightened stress responses, giving you better control when panic strikes. Research indicates that consistent meditation can reduce the amygdala’s activity—the brain’s alarm center. When this part of the brain becomes less reactive, it reduces the likelihood of a full-blown panic attack.
Studies have shown how beneficial meditation can be when managing stress and anxiety. These are the main drivers of panic attacks. Consequently, this was true even after only one meditation session. Meditation has also been shown to reduce the frequency and severity of panic attacks.
“I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all.” — Simone Biles
Meditation for Panic Attacks Emergency Anxiety Relief
“One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.” ― John F. Kennedy
Guided Meditation for Panic Attack
One key coping skill to better manage panic attacks is the use of guided meditation. Hence, meditation for anxiety attacks is a self-regulation technique that affords one the ability to approach your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations from a nonjudgmental place. Meditation practices may intercept panic attack triggers as they offer mind-body self-soothing when practiced consistently.
As a panic attack occurs, the body and mind become dysregulated. When the person experiencing a panic attack uses meditation to ground themselves, their practice starts to counteract the “alert” messages in their brain. Subsequently, this will result in their heart rate slowing, their chest relaxing, and they will be more able to process their surroundings.
Meditation does not single handily stop a panic attack in its tracks. However, it can help to reduce the impact and length of the panic attacks while improving one’s ability to cope with the physical symptoms.
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life — and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
Sleep Meditation for Panic Attacks
As a matter of fact, anxiety always seems to be worse at night.
I can be dead tired, and yet the moment the lights go out, my brain will shift gears instantly. Basically, a simple noise down the hall or stray thought about something that happened in my day can send my mind reeling down a relentless rabbit hole of intrusive thoughts. Altogether, I’ll start beating myself up for choices I’ve made or I’ll agonize over decisions I have to make tomorrow. I’ll replay events in my head and start asking “what if” over and over again.
What if.. What if…
It’s relentless and exhausting.
Sometimes, I’ll be up for hours, paralyzed with fears, and completely unable to talk myself down from imagining the very worst things happening. While other times, my anxious thoughts will turn into a full-blown panic attack. All of a sudden, I’ll feel dizzy, my heart will pound, and my chest will hurt. “It’s like the amygdala is stuck on ‘on,’” Hahn says. So, you get easily triggered by an event, person, memory, seemingly random thought, feeling, or body sensation. The body is flooding with a sense that it needs to do something, even though there is no stressor.”
Also, anxiety can be worse at night in part because we have no distractions from our anxious thoughts like we might have during the day. Subsequently, Julie Rich Hilton, a licensed clinical social worker based in Atlanta, also recommends a mind exercise she calls “File It.”
“As you lay in bed with eyes closed, visualize a table in front of you with lots of file folders spread out,” she says. “Be specific about that table — our minds connect with a picture.”
“As a result, each file has written on it a thing that is racing through your mind,” she continues. “One for work tomorrow. One for the argument you had with your partner today. One with grief from a loss, regardless how long ago. Therefore, everything that pops up gets a file. Then, one at a time gently pick the file up, acknowledge how important it is (we are not throwing it away because it has importance if it is coming up), and File It for tonight into the cabinet next to you.
“As you file everything that could possibly be on your mind, you are slowly giving your brain the indication that nothing is wrong, everything has been examined and deemed not a threat,” she adds.
“When you have gone through everything, it will feel like there is nothing left to be ‘prepped,’ for and the mind can relax,” she says.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” — Maya Angelou
Mindfulness and Panic Attacks
Meditation for an anxiety attack is useful, but combined with mindfulness, is even better. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
Correspondingly, leading expert Jon Kabat-Zinn describes it as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” adding: “in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”
When you become aware of the present moment, you gain access to resources you may not have realized were with you all along—a stillness at your core. Therefore, an awareness of what you need and don’t need in your life that’s with you all the time. Emphatically, you may not be able to change your situation, but mindfulness practice offers the space to change your response to your situation.
How Mindfulness Calms Anxious Feelings
Mindfulness helps you learn to stay with difficult feelings without analyzing, suppressing, or encouraging them. When you allow yourself to feel and acknowledge your worries, irritations, painful memories, and other difficult thoughts and emotions, this often helps them dissipate.
Mindfulness allows you to safely explore the underlying causes of your stress and worry. By going with what’s happening rather than expending energy fighting or turning away from it, you create the opportunity to gain insight into what’s driving your concerns.
Mindfulness and meditation for an anxiety attack helps you create space around your worries so they don’t consume you. When you begin to understand the underlying causes of your apprehension, freedom and a sense of spaciousness naturally emerge.
Calm Anxiety in Three Steps:
Open your attention to the present moment. The invitation is to bring attention to our experience in a wider and more open manner. It isn’t really involved with selecting or choosing or evaluating, but simply holding. Therefore, it becomes a container for thoughts, feelings or sensations in the body that are present and seeing if we can watch them from one moment to the next.
Focus on the breath. Let go of that widescreen and bring a focus that’s much more concentrated and centered on breathing in one region of your body. The breath of the belly, or the chest, or the nostrils, or anywhere that the breath makes itself known, and keep that more concentrated focus.
Bring your attention to your body. Become aware of sensations in the body as a whole, sitting with the whole body, the whole breath. Once again we move back to a wider and spacious container of attention for our experience.
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Unknown
Conclusion
Beginning a meditative practice can feel intimidating. At any rate, please start with a few minutes at a time, setting a timer for yourself as you embark on your journey. Therefore, beginning with one minute even and progressing from there is a helpful way to ease yourself into this practice.
Panic attacks are one of the most painful mental health conditions to endure. Consequently, in my experience, regular meditation practice as a preventive measure to panic attacks is incredibly helpful. Professional support is highly recommended, and I also feel it is important that you take care in finding the support that you feel is best for you.
There is never a guarantee that panic attacks will ever fully “go away,” However, with support, dedication to oneself, and an open mind, panic attacks can and often will improve. Therefore, I always encourage you to have an open mind with the healthcare provider, as therapy is a journey, and it can be that much “easier” to experience when we let ourselves experience it fully.
Articles
-Emergency Meditation For Panic Attacks
https://insighttimer.com/stephanpende/guided-meditations/emergency-meditation-for-panic-attack
-How can you stop a panic attack?
-How to Manage Panic Attacks With Meditation
https://www.verywellmind.com/using-meditation-to-cope-with-panic-attacks-5208889
Have a Good One,
Cindee Murphy, One Voice – Unstoppable
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” ― Dale Carnegie
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The Fear Of The Panic Attack(Opens in a new browser tab)
The Trials of Anxious ADD(Opens in a new browser tab)
References
https://www.calm.com/blog/panic-attack-meditation
https://www.verywellmind.com/using-meditation-to-cope-with-panic-attacks-5208889
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