Panic Disorder – Yes, It’s Real

It’s a beautiful sunny day and all is right with your world when without warning you’re hit with a panic attack while driving to work. There’s no monster under your seat, no earthquake opening the road to swallow your car and no instant terminal illness. Yet you feel wrapped in total terror and unable to shake it.

You can literally feel your heart crashing against your rib cage. Your hands are sweaty and your grip is weak. Feeling like your head is spinning, you have to pull over to the side of the road because you’re certain that you’re going to pass out.

Chances are you may fear and emergency and dial 911 and the drone you’ll hear will be the ambulance coming to pick you up.  At the emergency room, you’re instantly surrounded by heart monitors and the defibrillator is on stand-by.

Even to medical personnel, you look like a heart attack about to happen or in progress.  Only after all the tests are in do they realize that what’s really happened is a panic attack. The entire incident may have lasted only an hour or two, but to you it feels like an eternity. You leave the hospital exhausted and embarrassed.

Panic disorder usually begins in young adulthood, around ages 18-25.  It may begin after a traumatic event like an auto accident, getting stuck in an elevator or losing a job. Yet for many of the 6 million people who have panic disorder, there’s no clear reason why it started. One thing is common – every one of them feels helpless to stop it.

First you need to know that panic disorder is a real mental health problem, not something that you made up or use when you want attention. Those are things other people say to you, but that’s not medically accurate.

Talk to your doctor about what’s happening to you. You may want to learn how to control situations like this using a form of hypnotherapy, counseling, or psychiatric medications.

Share what’s happening to you with your significant other, a trusted friend and your boss, if you feel the confidence will be respected. Panic attacks are so unpredictable that you need support from family and friends who can help you reinforce what you learn during treatment.

You’ll learn how to use relaxation, visualization, breathing exercises and redirected self-talk to stand your ground against a panic attack. In time, you will find it easy to manage panic and get back to doing things without fear of interruption.

You may also want to check out the “Fear of Driving” treatment program.

Stop Panic Attacks in their Tracks.

Do you know fear is a defense mechanism? Fear helps you act against potential danger and not do dangerous things.

Fear of driving, in its innate and sublime form, is there to protect you. But when it turns into driving anxiety and panic attacks while driving, it hampers your performance rather than help you in any way.

Here we present you with solid tips and techniques to cure your panic and anxiety attacks while driving. When you apply these techniques you will see your panic attacks disappear, and what will remain is awareness to spot signs of fear and take appropriate action to protect yourself.

So don’t worry about fear, let it come to you whenever it is useful. And it is definitely not useful when you pull it towards you and multiply it a hundred times to create panic for yourself.

How to Prevent Fear Turning Into Panic or Anxiety While Driving

Most of us have a slight fear of driving. A frightful incident while driving creates an impression in our mind that plays to itself the next time we drive.

While most people manage to douse the fear, some tend to kindle it and inflame it with every passing incident. They make fuss over physical symptoms of fear like sweaty palms, trembling or dizziness, which makes them even more scared of driving, eventually ballooning into driving anxiety and panic attacks while driving.

The trick is to catch the moment of fear before it soars to uncontrollable heights. Just keep yourself occupied in the present moment and you’ll be just fine. This article is all about remaining in the present. Anxiety is nothing but anticipation of fear.

The fear may or may not be real, but the anticipation of fear is definitely real, detrimental, and hard to bear.

Just look at the present moment. Look at the cars ahead of you. Enjoy the experience of operating a marvelous machine on wheels. Keep your breath flowing and don’t let it lock up. Be aware. There is even a Calming CD that you can listen to while driving.

Trick to Quickly Dissolve Panic Attack While Driving

Here is a fantastic technique to avoid an impending panic attack while driving. It may look insane upfront, but it works every time to douse your driving anxiety. Here is how you do it.

Consider you are driving on a freeway or a long bridge, places most of you would tend to panic. Suddenly you start feeling the heat and you get squirmy with fear. Your hands start trembling and your palms start sweating.

Now what you need to do is observe your feelings (identify them), accept them and worsen them. Yes you heard right. Worsen the feelings and symptoms yourself.

Once you have identified and accepted your feelings, make them worse on your own. If your hands are trembling, you make them tremble more by putting in a conscious effort.

If you are feeling jittery, consciously take control of your body and make it jitter more. If you feel like shrieking, gather yourself and consciously shout out something.

What happens is you gain control over your feelings. You realize that you cannot really make them worse. You remain firmly in the present and avoid spiraling into anxiety and panic. This technique will help you relax and avoid panic attacks while driving.

Periodically as you drive, you can perform a relaxation procedure to keep yourself nice and composed. Here is one relaxation technique to help you relax from time to time as you drive, especially if you feel anxiety building up in your system.

Relaxation Technique While Driving

1. Relax your forehead, eyes and jaws. You’ll be surprised how much tension you had unnecessarily built up around that region. Tell yourself it’s fine to relax the muscles of your face.

Relax your jaws and slightly part your teeth. A relaxed face is not going to drop your stance; it is going to equip you with more awareness and alertness.

2. Slightly roll your head both ways. Roll your shoulders clockwise and anticlockwise. Bend your shoulders blades backwards and press them against each other. Hold for a few seconds and relax.

This will soothe your nerves. The best time to perform this exercise is when you stop at traffic signals.

3. Squeeze the wheel tightly with both your hands and relax. Repeat a couple of times. This will make sure you are not holding the wheel with more effort than needed.

4. Squeeze your buttocks together and relax. Repeat twice more. If you have been clenching your buttocks too much while driving, this exercise will relax them and your nerves.

Practice this relaxation technique periodically to get rid of any anxiety while driving. You can practice it on freeways, traffic signals, or before entering a bridge.

There’s nothing really to be scared of while driving if you know how to drive. Unless your driving capabilities are not up to the mark, the only thing stopping you from driving confidently is your mind.

If you engage it in the present moment, anxiety and panic are never going to haunt you. Panic and anxiety attacks while driving are only due to the mind running into the future or harking back to the past.

Use the techniques given above to good effect and keep your mind in the present.

Driving is easy. Just look at those that text as they drive, eat and drink as they drive. This is not to scare you away from the roads but you have you realize that driving is a piece of cake!

Final Words

Practice. Practice your way up and resist the temptation to test yourself directly over bridges spanning water or speeding on the freeway. Each time you drive, increase the duration of your drive.

Remember, your aim is to get better. Don’t try to achieve perfection; it will only lead to more anxiety attacks while driving and make you more scared of driving.

Having said that, it is better for you to go and drive rather than sit at home thinking of fear, anxiety and panic. If you have decided to follow the techniques given here, it is your best chance ever to get rid of driving anxiety and panic attacks while driving. Good luck!

Check out the Driving Fear Program in which you can find ample tips and tricks and proven methods to eliminate fear, anxiety and panic attacks while driving.

The program is a well thought out guide that comes from the actual experiences of the author as he learned how to drive fearlessly from being a nervous driver.

Does Stress Make You a Nervous Wreck? Don’t let it cause an accident.

Stress, Anxiety, Fear of Driving, do you need Panic Attack Help?

This article has some tips you may find helpful.

You can Stop Panic Attacks in there Tracks.

Not everyone gets angry and filled with rage when they’re feeling stressed.  Some people wind up feeling an intense amount of worry in the pit of their stomach when they’re driving or stuck in traffic.  They can’t stop fidgeting and feeling nervous about what the outcome will be, some even fear a loss of control and panic.

Do you bite your nails when stress is seeping into your life?  Do you get a bad case of insomnia whenever you’re mired down in stress, unable to sleep because the situation keeps replaying itself in your mind?  Does it manifest into anxiety about driving?
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Put a little Kia and Zen in your life.

Get in Life’s Slow Lane, Let Stress Pass You By!

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Sometimes, you just have to pull over and slow down to get out of a stress mess caused by your anxiety.  Yes, everything will back up behind you – someone might honk at you to “get a move on,” but when it comes down to it – you have to look out for the vehicle that gets you places in life – your mind and body.

Go ahead and make the decision that you’re not going to be bullied around by deadlines, other stressful people, and ridiculous restrictions anymore.  Once you accept the fact that slowing life down to a manageable state is going to cause other people to get more stressed, you’ll be better able to focus on your problems, and not theirs.
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Do you experience Anxiety or Panic Attacks because of a Fear of driving a vehicle?

Fear – When You Can’t “Just Get Over It”

Have you ever tried to explain to a friend or family member your fear of driving?  Sometimes the reaction you’ll get won’t be the one you’re looking for.  Instead of a sympathetic shoulder, you often get rolled eyes and a response like, “Just forget about it,” or “You have to get over it.”  It isn’t always as easy as turning off your fears like you would a faucet.  Fears are embedded in our conscious and subconscious mind.  They become ingrained as a formal belief system that we hold.

Getting past a fear like driving doesn’t necessarily mean it will ever be completely erased from your mind, but you can find ways of relieving the panic and anxiety you feel when confronted by your fears.  Facing fears is often the most difficult thing we can do.  It’s our instinct to avoid those things that worry us or that we fear will do us harm in some way, whether it’s physical or emotional turmoil.  Fortunately, there are a variety of methods to help one overcome their fears and panic attacks.

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