Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on changing your thoughts and behaviours. It deals primarily with solving problems in the here and now. Unlike some types of therapy, you don’t have to analyze every little event from your childhood or spend many hours in the psychologist’s office. People who have a great deal of anxiety usually think and behave in ways that are counterproductive. In therapy, you will learn ways to change your thoughts and actions so that you feel better and are less prone to anxiety and panic.

People may not realize how deeply their thoughts influence their emotions. Those with high levels of anxiety often suffer from “wrong” thinking. While some individuals take an optimistic view of life, anxious people may interpret events in the worst possible light. They distort and exaggerate events in their mind to make them seem more catastrophic than they truly are. They may fret about problems that don’t really exist or aren’t important. Negative and unrealistic thoughts like these contribute unnecessarily to anxiety, panic, and depression. The therapist can gently steer you away from unproductive thoughts, put things into perspective, and teach you more helpful and realistic ways to think.

Using cognitive-behavioral therapy, you can learn how to stop a panic attack before it develops. For example, there is a cycle you may get caught up in. It goes like this. You feel a little anxious. You become hypersensitive to the internal bodily sensations you associate with a panic attack. You start worrying that a panic episode is imminent, which adds another level of anxiety. Thinking and worrying can escalate those mildly anxious feelings into a full-blown panic attack. However, if you can interrupt this cycle, you can prevent an attack from occurring.

One CBT technique that can give you relief from panic attack symptoms is proper breathing. Breathing patterns can affect how you feel and how much anxiety you experience. If you tend to hyperventilate (breathe rapidly and shallowly), you will increase your anxiety. Instead, you want to learn how to breathe deeply and slowly. Practice is essential, so that it becomes second nature even when you’re feeling panicky. Your therapist can also teach you other ways to reduce anxiety, such as relaxation exercises or biofeedback.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can produce very good results for panic attack sufferers. It will teach you more constructive and rational ways to think about situations and events, reducing your anxiety and worry. Instead of being held hostage by panic, you become empowered and capable of changing how you feel.

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As mentioned previously, most panic attack sufferers will develop certain level of irrational fear and avoidance. For example, they may have a panic attack when they are in a crowded area and they start to develop a phobia toward social gatherings. Even if you do not develop these phobias, panic attack sufferers will display a common symptom – the persistent fear of having another panic attack.

This fear of having another panic attacks is the main culprit and source of all your problems. Thus, the best treatments for panic attacks should be targeted at eliminating this fear and it can be done with cognitive and behavioral therapies.

For example, sufferers may have this nagging worry that their panic attacks cause them to “go crazy” or worse, induce a heart attack. The “cognitive” aspect would come into play here as it can help sufferers to replace those thoughts will a more positive and realistic way of viewing panic attacks.

The “behavioral” aspect would focus more on exposure to the physical sensations of a panic attack and learning the appropriate coping method. With each exposure, sufferers become less afraid of these internal bodily sensations and feel a greater sense of control over their panic reaction.

Fortunately, this type of treatment is largely informational and you can even do them on your own.

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