Panic First Aid

A panic attack is your body's alarm system firing at full volume with no fire: pounding heart, tight chest, shaky hands, a wave of dread, sometimes a conviction that you are dying or losing your mind. Here is what the alarm does not tell you: a panic attack peaks and passes, typically within minutes, and it cannot hurt you. The surge feels like an emergency because it borrows the machinery of one, but the machinery is running a drill.

One plain-spoken exception, and this matters: if this is your first-ever episode of chest pain and racing heart, do not self-diagnose it as panic. A first event like that warrants medical evaluation to rule out anything physical. This article is general education for people who know panic attacks are what they experience, not a diagnostic tool.

Now the counterintuitive part, borrowed from decades of exposure research in the treatment of panic: the fastest way through a panic wave is not to flee it but to ride it. Escaping the supermarket or the meeting brings instant relief, and that relief quietly teaches your brain the place was dangerous, making the next alarm more likely.

Riding the wave means staying put if you safely can, naming what is happening ('this is a panic wave, it peaks and passes'), and letting the sensations be there without adding a second layer of fear about them. You are not making the wave bigger by allowing it; you are teaching your alarm system that the drill can end on its own.

Keep this page somewhere you can find it fast; panic is easier to ride with a script in hand. And if attacks are recurring, or you have started avoiding places because of them, please do not white-knuckle it: panic responds remarkably well to treatment. Bring it to your therapist, or start the conversation with Milo today.