Panic Attacks

The start of the school year means new routines, classmates, and teachers. While returning to school brings anticipation and excitement, many students struggle with worries and fears beyond what’s considered the first-day jitters.
Health care professionals should take steps to manage their stress, to prevent it from adversely affecting work performance, emotional wellbeing, and health.
As parents we don’t like or want to see our children struggling. But worries, fears and anxieties are a natural part of life, and we have to understand that children go through these processes just like adults do. But as parents and caregivers, we should also be in tune with the degree, severity, frequency, and nature of our children’s fears and worries and know when a child might need some help.
Limit the depth of exposure to details. People can consume news in limited ways. In other words, learn what’s happening, then stop there. Avoid the urge for disaster voyeurism. If you have heard the story, you might not need to search for the images or the videos; if you have seen them, there is no need to revisit them over and over.
Panic isn’t what you think it is. It’s not an attack at all, and that’s a misleading name for it. It’s you having an internal reaction of fear – your heart rate changes, your muscles tense up, your stomach feels bad, you have scary thoughts of calamities, and so on.
A Q&A with ADAA Member Karen Cassiday, PhD, ACT answering community questions on overcoming agoraphobia.

This blog was originally posted on Ten Percent Happier on April 22, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission

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