Originally posted by GypsK
The basic questions of this thread are:
How do you avoid panic in an emergency situation?
What can you do to urge yourself to calm down and think rationally?
Some seem to have the natural ability to stay calm under every situation, others (like myself) tend to jump up and down, panic and are not capable of
thinking. Even if you have a plan, getting into a panic can set you back in a moment when you need to make crucial decisions.
So what's your "trick"?
breath. focus on your breathing.
When I was in court facing a trumped up charge a year ago which carried a penalty of jail time I was #ting myself. The breathing thing didn't dispel
the reality of the situation I was facing, but it took the edge of my nerves and allowed me to hold myself together. And it kept me breathing, as in
tense situations I can often wind up holding my breath. Even now long after I was completely cleared of the charge & have gotten my life back together
I still # myself over much smaller things then that, for e.g when I went to the dentist last week I did the breathing thing but developed it a bit,
and for the smaller things like the dentist it works a treat.
take big deep breaths through your mouth (or nose if at dentist), concentrate with your body on doing this task smoothly while you concentrate with
your mind on counting each breath.
There is a physiological effect that happens when you breath like that which interrupts your thoughts making it near impossible to feel anxious,
because if you think something that causes anxiety - as soon as you start to feel anxious your breathing changes. when that happens you can end up
panicked about the fact that you're panicking, but here's what you do, don't try to stop thinking anxious thoughts, just start thinking about getting
your breathing smooth and big deep long breaths again, as soon as you get your breathing right the anxious thoughts will fade again.
now you may ask how do I keep my breathing like that? well for the first 5 or 6 dentist appointments (i had really really bad teeth) I was able to
just count to 10 over and over again for the whole half hour appointment, one number for every inhale+exhale, it helps also if you don't look around a
lot & instead look at one spot as much as possible, something that doesn't move or change or demand attention in any way. Try to ignore your
surroundings as much as possible. In the dentist chair I could do this & still respond to the dentists comments.
With the longer appointments I got bored of counting & instead I set a category 'animals' and a question 'how many?' then tried to imagine seeing
different animals going about doing whatever they do. so I'd take a breath & think '5 monkeys in a tree' then another breath, '400 buffalo in a field'
etc.
It probably sounds stupid but it worked.
looking back on all that now I would suggest that this breathing technique might not work for the panic caused by an end of the world situation, but
it can help a great deal with thought regulation & overcoming anxiety.
Hope my answer makes sense to you & that it may be helpful.
peace,
-Bob
P.S) IF you are doing the breathing trick through your mouth make sure you use your gut to inhale instead of your chest for the simple reason that you
get more oxygen that way & that's the way that this trick is designed to work - with the gut breathing, not the chest.
how do you know if you're gut breathing? instead of 'sucking' in the air as you normally would, try extending your stomach, push it out in front of
you so its all bloated and you may notice you can do this without inhaling air. Try doing it again but allow air into your lungs, pulled in by the
pushing out of your gut. you'll know when you are because your shoulders don't lift up simultaneously with your chest expanding, instead your gut
expands the most your chest expands a little at the end of the inhale & your shoulders either don't lift or only lift a little at the end.
does that make sense? I may not be explaining this well. there are videos on singing techniques on youtube that can teach you to breath with your gut
& you can see people doing it. anyway best of luck with all this, its a great tech' for relaxing in general & I recommend it to everyone
edit on 3/6/11 by B.Morrison because: (no reason given)