The leading cause of anxiety attacks is the fear of failure in the professional environment, leading to the loss of income. The second leading cause, is the fear of social rejection and embarrassment. It is easy to see that both of these can and often do, lead to a self fulfilling prophesy. Anxiety commonly builds on itself and worsens.
Ask yourself the question, what does an anxiety attack feel like, then determine if you do have a developing problem with anxiety attacks. When you feel the onslaught of one coming on, here are few separate exercises you can do to prevent an attack.
Exercise 1.
Lie on your stomach. Extend your arms forward at 10 and 2 o’clock. Point your toes strait back. Now arch your back, lift you head and stretch. Breath in deep when your head is lifted. Exhale and relax back down. Do this several times. If exercise 1 doesn’t work, proceed to exercise 2.
Exercise 2
Lie on your back, lift your knees and place your feet flat on the floor as you would for a normal sit-up. Rock your head side to side 2 times to loosen your neck. place your hands behind your neck and take one deep breath through your nose and exhale. take another deep breath and proceed to do a sit-up exhaling on the way up. For extreme cases, proceed to exercise 3.
Exercise 3
This exercise is only for people who are reasonably young and fit. Find a safe neighborhood, track or park where you can jog. You will only need approximately 150 yards to complete this. Walk the first 30 yards practicing slow deep nose breathing. Sprint the next 10 yards. Walk 40 yards and sprint the next 10 yards. Walk 50 yards and sprint the next 10 yards. This exercise allows the body to rob resources used by an anxiety attack. The heart now is responding to your physical needs, not irrational anxiety. Adrenaline becomes the dominant chemical in your body for a short time necessary to trump the effects of the anxiety attack.
It is always standard procedure to check with your doctor before attempting any of these exercises. If you have a heart condition, exercise 3 is out of the question.
Anxiety attacks occur so frequently in American society today, that people have accepted it as just something normal in life. Make no mistake about it, an anxiety attack is not normal and if left untreated, will cause both health and professional problems.
