If you want to learn how to control anxiety so that it doesn’t control you, you might have considered visiting a physician. This is a fantastic idea, as a doctor can diagnose you with mild panic attacks or panic attack disorder. He or she can also help you learn more about treatment, which can give you back the control you feel you’ve lost. Below, we’ll discuss one of the methods doctors use to treat anxiety; behavior therapy or learning to face your fears.
This kind of behavior therapy has a goal of desensitizing you to the triggers or situations that increase your anxiety. So, if you commonly feel a panic attack coming on when you’re in line at the grocery store or before you attend classes, a lot of focus will be spent on those situations. The following scenarios might be some ways in which a doctor teaches you how to control anxiety through behavior therapy.
First, you might be told to write down the situations in which you experience the most panic. Then, the doctor might slowly subject you to those situations, such as having you go into the grocery store and slowly walk around; gauging how you feel at the time. As you do this successfully, he or she might have you move into the checkout line where you experience the most anxiety. If you start to feel overwhelmed, the doctor will encourage you to remove yourself from the situation and allow you to get yourself under control. Some people with panic attack disorder use methods like deep breathing, chanting mantras, and other methods to restore calm.
Then, once you’ve calmed down, the doctor may have to return to the same situation in which your anxiety spiked. You may do this several times until you’re able to get through that checkout line more than once. By exposing yourself to the problem, you will learn how to control anxiety arising from that particular situation.