4 Tips on Dealing With Panic Attacks at College

According to the 2020 statistics, more than 30% of young people have to deal with anxiety. If not treated timely, it leads to panic attacks. A panic attack is a reaction to the danger that is not there, in fact. When one faces a panic attack, their body works according to the fight or flight mode. Yet, this mode used to be relevant for our ancestors who lived in wild areas and had to hunt and survive under severe weather and other kinds of conditions. 

Today, people are used to office warmth, the comfort of their home, and caring what others think about them. In other words, they are civilised creatures that no longer have to survive but to build their careers, think about their future, become more and more educated, and invent new stuff. These things are rather abstract and associated with a more comfortable existence, not survival. Yet, the risk of losing them is perceived by our brains as equally important to physical safety. 

During a panic attack, the heartbeat accelerates to send more blood to the muscles; breathing becomes faster, vision limited, and so on. The same happens when one needs, for instance, to run away from a bear or fight it to stay alive. The flow of adrenaline leads to all these changes, and the vision limited only to the sector in front of them is needed to focus while running away or fighting the enemy. 

However, one doesn’t need all of that stuff when hurrying to a lecture or worrying about their grade or student loan, right? Although we cannot offer you a panacea for this problem, we do have some tips for the students who suffer from it.

Get Rid of as Many Stress Factors as You Can

Panic attacks are a signal from your body that there is too much going on, whether in your head or around. In both cases, you need time and energy to sort all of that out, and one can’t magically handle all problems without getting help and learning to prioritise.

So, remove everything you can from your schedule. Address the experts writing essays for money to complete a bunch of papers you have been assigned. Put on hold the activities that are not important for your well-being right now. This ‘cleansing’ is needed for you to be able to concentrate on the main issue that drains you and does not let you live your life and enjoy it. 

Talk to a Counsellor

Learning institutions usually have counsellors, so anyone can use this resource to improve their state of mind. In case you doubt their level of expertise, look for another specialist, but do not neglect professional help at all. There are many coping mechanisms you might discover and practice during the sessions. Moreover, you will hear a precise and adequate explanation of how panic attacks operate. This will give you the upper hand, while looking for the solution in Google might confuse you even more.

Consult With Senior Students

First-year students often overestimate the importance of some subjects, issues, or teachers’ complaints. In contrast, senior students know how much effort one really needs to make to pass an exam or complete a paper. 

For some subjects, they will simply recommend going through NoCramming.com reviews to find the most suitable writing service and delegate the assignments you will barely benefit from. In other cases, you might get precious advice on what material and modules to pay attention to, what classes you must never miss, and how to get a pass from the strictest professors. All of this will give you a clear picture of what is really worth your attention and what is not.

Learn and Practise Calming Techniques

The first thing to practise is a proper breathing technique. If you pay attention to the way you breathe during the panic attacks or right before them, you will probably see that you either make shallow inhales as if you were trying to hide from someone or breathe by moving only your chest. The point is to expand your belly as well while breathing. 

Another technique is to count from 1 to 5 every time you breathe in and out. This is an actual recommendation from the NHS. As a result, you concentrate on your breathing so much that it becomes easy to get distracted from what triggered the attack.

One more way to calm down is to stand firmly on the ground and feel the floor with your soles, keeping your legs shoulder-width apart. Look straight ahead and slowly let your eyes stray to the left and right. Repeat this exercise 10 times for each side, and then do the same while moving your head. Look closely at what you see around yourself since that is your safe way back to reality from the nightmares in your head.

Takeaway

Finally, do remind yourself that you are not going crazy and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Panic attacks result from the ancient reaction of the human brain toward danger. The problem is that we are not similar to wild animals anymore, but that small part of our brains still thinks we are. 

All the symptoms are natural and identical to those you might deal with when faced with real physical danger. The main task of yours or the person who can help you is to check with reality:

• say out loud what your name is
• tell yourself where you are exactly
• look around you and describe what is going on

It is also important to comment on the points above out loud. That way, it is easier to go back to normal.