How to Treat Panic Attacks

Video Transcript

MALU LUJAN: Panic attacks are fairly common when people are under a lot of stress and you know you're having a panic attack if you feel like you're going to die and usually you'll be hyperventilating, which helps the panic attack to be even worse. We will show you how to do some stomach massages that helps with relaxing someone if they're having a panic attack. There are other techniques that you can use as well. The main thing you want to do is to get your breathing slow and deep. So you wanted, just take a nice deep breath and exhale as you count to ten. Do that about 5 or 10 times just to slow your breathing down and get deeper breaths. That will relax your stomach. It will also affect your central nervous system in a positive way, so that your body will start to calm down. The other thing you can do is you can go outside and get some fresh air. You can breathe in to a paper bag and what that looks like is you just put the bag over your entire nose and mouth and you do that for 5 or 10 minutes. You just kind of do these things until you see that you starting to calm down. Another great tip for panic attacks is to take an antacid and over-the-counter medication that you can get at any drug store is called Zantac, and it's actually an antacid, but what happens is that that will relax your stomach muscles. As we will mention, the stomach sometimes presses up against the lungs, because it gets tight when you get panicked, and so if you can take an antacid to relax those stomach muscles and reduce your stomach acids, that will also help your breathing and your overall well being, and when you're done with having the panic attack, because they don't last that long, get some help. Get some therapy or some counseling. Take some time to do some meditation and reflection on why your life is so stressful that you're having a panic attack. So that you can take care of yourself and having the panic attacks.