Page 41 - Advance Copy: Todd Kaufman, Author

HOW TO MANAGE ANXIETY & END PANIC ATTACKS
It is critically important to make this distinction. To end your panic attacks and manage your anxiety, you need to be clear on where to target the tools you are about to learn. In other words, when your objective is to lower these two hormones as opposed to trying to fight off a panic attack, you will see success.
Remember: Your amygdala is on constant alert for any sign that it should respond with fight or flight. The moment you even think about ‘fighting’ off the symptoms of a panic attack (as opposed to thinking about regulating your hormones) all the amygdala hears and notices is your intention to “fight” – and quicker than you can blink, it ups the level of cortisol, in return giving you more and big- ger symptoms.
In practice, you may have figured this out because the harder you fight, the worse the panic attack seems to get. So instead of fighting panic attacks, which you may have tried to do all your life, you need to stop the fight and learn to redirect your thinking to the job of regulating your hormones.
Here then is the next key learning in ending your panic attacks:
Never flight a panic attack!
Okay: That is easier said than done! I get it. And, I promise you, by the time you finish reading this book, you will be both prepared and practiced at thinking about regulating your hormones, and not thinking about fighting off a panic attack!
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