Anxiety Relaxation Techniques For Panic Attacks

Anxiety relaxation techniques for when a panic attack hits. The body's immediate response is to fight the symptoms making the attack worse. Relaxation is what helps them go away.

A panic/anxiety attack occurs when your body is extremely stressed and can no longer manage the stress. Your heart races, you start hyperventilating, your vision dims, you get dizzy. At the first sign of panic/anxiety, the key is to relax. Here are the techniques that work:

1. Deep Breathing: Put one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. Take a deep breath in and make the hand on your stomach move and the hand on your chest remain still. Takes a bit of practice, but with practice it gets easier. Take a deep breath in and hold it for a count of three. Then breathe it out through your mouth and count to five before taking the next deep breath. This prevents you from hyperventilating during an attack. You need to practice this breathing daily for at least ten minutes so that it becomes an automatic response. Eventually, it comes secondary in nature.

2. Muscle relaxation: Starting with your toes tighten the muscles for thirty seconds to one minute until they start to ache. Then completely relax the muscle group letting it go limp like spaghetti and repeat the process until you know how to relax the muscle. Repeat this with all the muscle groups- fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, legs. Practice this relaxation daily. When a panic attack hits, you mentally check to see which muscles you have tensed up and then relax them.

3. Basic/Beginner Yoga- Yoga is a great form of breathing and relaxation. Through the technique you will learn to correctly breathe and get much needed exercise at the same time. Buy a beginner yoga video or enroll in a Yoga class. Practice it daily.

4. Music- Take some time out every day and listen to relaxing music. Recommended music choices are any soft piano, Windham Hill Artists, Nature Sounds, Jim Brickman, Jesse Cook, Jim Chappell, Steve Halpern, Alex Jones & Doug Cutler, Michael Jones, George Winston, Jonathan Lee.

5. Exercise- Exercise is the key to beating stress. Take 30 minutes a day and go for a walk outside, if it is raining take an umbrella. The fresh air and exercise are not only good for fighting panic, they are good for your health as well.

The Top 5 Stress "Sources"

Everyone knows - to live a long and healthy life, you need to eat healthy and to do physical activity. Unfortunately, far not all people follow these principles in life. In result - health problems.

To get rid of the stress, you need to know that a balanced diet is a very important factor to your health. It helps to reduce your strain.

Some food and beverage acts like strong stimulants to your body and can be a direct cause of stress. The first step that you should do to get rid of stress - to understand what products are the cause of your tension.

1. One of the main and "worse" source of stress is caffeine.
Caffeine is contained in coffee, Coca-Cola, tea. Even many kinds of sweets and chocolate contain caffeine. Caffeine causes the burst of adrenalin in the blood, strongly increasing the level of stress.

2. The next reason of stress is alcohol. You may also need to reduce alcohol consumption to a minimum as it negatively affects the kidneys and liver.

Very often, the alcohol is consumed to alleviate stress. Those who use alcohol often suffer with nervous tension, irritability and insomnia. Also, alcohol can increase the fatty deposits in the heart and impair the immune system if it is used in large quantities.

3. Smoking - the third cause of stress.

Strange, but many smokers use tobacco as the chief assistant in stress management. Yes, perhaps for a short time it might help, but actually - all of this is the illusion.

4. Sugar is another reason for stress.

When the blood contains a lot of sugar, the adrenal gland is working too hard.
Many forms of diabetes can be avoided if maintaining the sugar level low. Too much sugar means a large burden on the pancreas and increase in stress. The best way to get rid of stress - to keep blood sugar levels constant.

5. The fifth stress reason is the salt. Salt raises blood pressure, depleting the adrenal gland, and very often is the cause of emotional instability. Avoid products with a high content of salt: bacon, ham, sausage and pickled cucumbers.