I am Scott Abbott, licensed mental health counselor here at Abbott mental health counseling and we're going to do a little series of questions that I answer pertaining to mental health.

One question I get asked a lot is what to do with a panic attack. The thing about a panic attack is that it makes you feel out of control, like you're going to die. And, no rational thinking seems to be able to confront this in the moment, which is because the rational part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex, has actually gone offline when you've been triggered into a state of panic. There's no shame there. You just you physiologically can't. So what do you do?

Well, do things that try to get that part of your brain back online. How?

The body. Get into your body. Start as basic as need be.Breathing, the thing we take for granted, what we're always doing. Just slow down. The best timing for this tends to be about 5 1/2 seconds in though the nose and about 5 1/2 seconds out through your mouth. Start with the breath.From there we build up to noticing and naming anything in your body. Do a scan head to toe as if a scanner was slowly going from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet, without analyzing, just notice the name. Any sensation, emotion, feeling. Say it. Write it down. Just name it.

Then in your surroundings use your 5 senses to notice and name colors, what you see, smells, tastes, what you physically can feel. If possible, you want to ground yourself in reality. You may engage someone. If you're at the airport, there's no one around, you’re traveling alone. Just ask someone “Excuse me? What time is it?” Or a basic question that allows you to just bring your whole brain back online, reorient your body to the here and now of what is actually true. In a panic attack, your brain and your body are caught in a feedback loop picking up on some things that are actually happening in the body or in your brain, and then just spiraling to the point of “Oh no, this is a life or death situation.”

So by breathing, notice and name in your body, using your 5 senses and your surroundings, to ground yourself in the here and now. Then you can use a little bit more of that that part of your brain that can think and tell the truth and say “OK I'm noticing I'm having panic attack right now” and you can talk yourself down from that hyper-vigilant state just by narrating what's going on. You give your brain your body a sense of understanding, I have some control. I can't control everything, but at least being able to name what's happening is a sense of grounding.

From there your body will regulate. You'll be able to metabolize the neurotransmitters of epinephrine and adrenaline cortisol that are coming through your body. Once those things get get reabsorbed into your bloodstream, the panic dissipates and you get back to normal.