If you're right in the middle panic or anxiety attack, the last thing you will think of is laughter. However, picturing yourself experiencing out of control laughter can help you to ease your anxiety attack and should also help you to prevent them. This drug-free coping strategy allows you to manage your panic and anxiety attacks without prescriptions.
Visualization, the process of imaging yourself in a certain circumstance, is an superlative method for managing the thought process. World-class athletes utilize it to train themselves to make improvements in sports. By mentally stepping through the steps involved in their respective event, their skills make measurable improvements.
Studies have proven that areas of the brain cannot distinguish the difference between real and imagined events. If you imagine yourself having a great time, you will start having a good time. If you see yourself having an horrible panic attack, you are much more likely to do just that.
Many visualization strategies involve calm imagery to relax the mind and regain command of panic, but picturing amusement can be more effective because of its greater intensity. Uncontrolled laughter takes over the whole nervous system, encouraging a state of calm,pleasure and peace.
Laughter has abundant healthful benefits for the mind and body. It may help replace panicky and fearful emotions with peaceful thoughts and relaxation. Laughter eases tension and eases the stress you experience when panic starts to set in.
Visualization has been shown to prevent anxiety and panic attacks, causing them to be less powerful and regular. If you can imagine yourself in a state of hysterical laughter, you distract your thoughts and break up the pattern of negative emotions feeding the anxiety or panic attack. The pictured laughter reduces the cortisol levels in the brain the in a similar way that real laughing or even giggling does. This strategy works even if you do not feel blissful. Just the mental picture alone will simulate the beneficial effects of real laughter.
Just in case you are not able to bring up with an picture of you laughing uncontrollably, think back to a memory of when you did. Recall what happened that caused you to laugh. Give yourself permission to mentally to go back to that place and laugh uncontrollably once again.
You can obtain a dose of highly beneficial laughter from television and DVDs. There are many internet based radio stations with comedy programs or you can visit a comedian’s web page and listen to clips. Just visit YouTube and search for humorous videos.
Often you just need to fake it. Making yourself to laugh when you begin to sense fear may lead to genuine laughter just because it is so incongruous. You may find yourself laughing because you are laughing during a panic or anxiety attack, one of life's least funny events that will ever occur during your entire life. Your ability to learn how to laugh will help you ease your anxiety and significantly lessen the frequency and intensity of the anxiety or panic attacks.
