How To Stop Panic Attacks And Obsessive Thoughts
Obsessive thoughts are the real cause of almost all your anxiety. Every single time you’ve had severe anxiety it started with an obsessive thought, and it spiralled out of control and eventually became the severe anxiety you felt or the panic attack you had.
Just in case you’re thinking that you’re the exception to this theory, let me encourage you to give this theory a chance by beginning to pay close attention to exactly what’s on your mind in the moments before your anxiety gets out of hand.
Most people are very surprised at the results when they study themselves in this way, and I think there’s a good chance you will be too. And there’s a good reason why I can predict this kind of outcome: because for many years (almost 20, in fact) I suffered with exactly the same problems you’re living with right now.
Unfortunately, when you have an anxiety disorder, it’s impossible to drop a thought automatically like most other people can. So the solution to this problem is finding ways to consciously drop a thought before it becomes harmful – before it becomes OBSESSIVE.
I’m about to give you a brief, three-step plan of attack which you can start using right now to stop the thoughts you have turning into the obsessive thoughts that cause all your problems. Okay, here we go:
Step One is to retrain your brain, ASAP. You need to get it to a place where it can spot a negative or potentially damaging thought the moment that it starts. This includes thoughts that start out very tiny and seem to be no problem at all. These small thoughts can grow into large ones that cause serious problems, so these need to be treated just as the obviously terrible thoughts are treated.
Step two is to learn a technique that will allow you to stop these unwanted thoughts, and the one I suggest is to simply use other thoughts to overpower the original one. This makes sense, because the only thing that can really stop one thought is another thought. The key here is to make this second thought a positive one. Play around with thoughts – use anything that works and overpowers that original and unwanted thought.
Step #3: Most harmful thoughts start when you’re daydreaming or when your mind is wandering. And these harmful thoughts are a HABIT. That’s why they happen so easily and sneak up on you, because you’ve trained your mind to slip into a negative autopilot. The only way to undo this is to retrain your mind, and you do that by thinking about nice things as often as you can, even if you have to use fantasies or old memories to do it. Think of it like creating a new default setting for your mind.
Use these 3 steps to quickly put a stop to your obsessive thoughts and your panic attacks.