Nervous, terrified, suffocating... Shawn Yue experienced a "panic attack" on the plane

Suddenly I felt "extremely frightened and nervous, then my hands and feet went numb, and I had difficulty breathing. At that moment I felt like I was about to suffocate, so I asked the flight attendant for help"... On the evening of May 27, actor Shawn Yue shared his terrifying experience on the plane on his Weibo.

Figure丨Screenshot from Weibo

With the help of the tranquilizer provided by the doctor on the same plane, Shawn Yue escaped unharmed. After the doctor's diagnosis, Shawn Yue's panic this time had an answer: panic attack. However, this was not the last time. Two years later, Shawn Yue had the same symptoms again and became afraid of it - will panic attacks haunt people?

Panic attacks are just symptoms

There are different causes behind

This sudden feeling of panic and difficulty breathing is a typical manifestation of a panic attack. As Shawn Yue described, a panic attack is a symptom, not necessarily a separate disease.

When panic attacks occur repeatedly, are not limited to specific situations and affect daily life, it is called panic disorder. This is an acute anxiety attack. About 1 in 200 people in my country experience panic disorder at some stage in their life.

The cause of panic disorder is still unclear, but it is known to be related to multiple factors such as genetics and psychology. It often occurs after stressful events, like "running notices day and night."

During an attack, in addition to sudden panic, fear and a sense of impending death, one will also experience physical discomfort, including palpitations, difficulty breathing, chest pain, trembling, dizziness, numbness in the hands and feet, and nausea. Therefore, many people often think that they have had a cardiovascular or cerebrovascular accident and rush to the emergency room. However, a series of tests show no obvious abnormalities and the condition improves naturally after a few minutes to dozens of minutes.

After the first attack, many people will still be anxious because they are afraid that the symptoms will recur, and they are worried that they will have another attack when they encounter a similar situation. In fact, this anxiety is not limited to any specific situation or a certain type of environment, so the attack is unpredictable.

It is important to note that in addition to panic disorder, there are many other mental disorders, physical illnesses, chemicals and medications that can cause panic attacks, so if you feel unwell, you need to get checked out to rule out these problems first.

When you have other anxiety disorders such as agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, depression or schizophrenia, panic attacks are just one of the symptoms of other diseases. In addition, hyperthyroidism, hypoglycemia, bronchial asthma, caffeine, alcohol, and barbiturates can also cause panic attacks. When these diseases are controlled, panic attacks may also improve.

Shawn Yue's symptoms disappeared after he saw a doctor and took medicine regularly, but two years later, the symptoms recurred. This is because panic disorder is a chronic disease that is prone to recurrence, and sometimes requires the help of medication and psychotherapy. In addition, it is also very important to properly deal with the stress brought by work and life to prevent recurrence.

Panic attacks are a type of anxiety disorder, and anxiety itself is not wrong. It is just an emotion formed by humans in the process of evolution. Moderate anxiety has a self-protective effect. There is no need to completely eliminate anxiety, just some ways to accept it.

Anxiety is not wrong

Three tips to dispel pain

Meeting deadlines, socializing with strangers, fear of failure... There are always many moments in life that make people feel "stressed". Occasional stress may make you handle things more efficiently, but recurring anxiety can really bring people unbearable pain.

When anxiety strikes, it is normal to want to avoid it. Behind this is our inner insecurity and fear of the outside world. However, in the face of too much "inescapable" anxiety in daily life, we can use some methods to retain our motivation and dispel the pain.

Experience and accept, anxiety is not wrong

Instead of forcibly avoiding it, we can treat anxiety with a more gentle attitude. For example, when you receive a task, you can first carefully feel your experience in the present moment: "Well, I am very uneasy and a little scared now, which makes me uncomfortable, but I can still work normally." It is important that any emotion at this time is acceptable, and there is no need to feel ashamed or blame yourself for the anxiety, and the experience itself is neither right nor wrong.

After being aware of your emotions, a certain degree of acceptance is a more compassionate and caring attitude. First, accept your anxiety, because this emotion also has benefits. It can mobilize various body functions to integrate resources and complete reports, and completing tasks will also bring a sense of accomplishment. It may feel difficult at first, you can try meditation practice.

Meditation to improve attention - direct and maintain your attention on a certain object, such as your breathing, and then observe whether you are distracted or disturbed by the outside world. It is normal to be disturbed, just shift your attention back to your breathing and don't be upset about it.

Open monitoring meditation - without focusing on anything specific, just be aware of your current thoughts, emotions, and interpretations.

Believe that you can do it well

When facing doubts about "can I do it well", being more confident can make people feel much more comfortable. At this time, "self-efficacy" comes in handy: when facing endless self-doubt and falling into anxiety, you can put aside the current task, think more about the satisfactory reports you have completed, ask for experience from people who write well, tell yourself that it is a normal reaction to feel a little uneasy and flustered, and you can also ask the opinions of people around you (of course, it is best to get an answer that you are sure you can write well, otherwise you will be more anxious).

Improving self-efficacy can help you find solutions and strengthen your desire to write well and look forward to writing well. However, the higher the self-efficacy, the better, because the accompanying complacency will reduce the quality of the report. Moreover, if you set too high a goal for yourself, such as a salary increase of 3 times through this report, then no matter how confident you are, it will be difficult to complete the task.

Don't avoid it, face it little by little

Finally, we need to break the avoidance and actually start to complete the task. When we are very anxious, it is not realistic to force ourselves to sit down and start working immediately. Facing the pressure when we are not prepared is easy to collapse. We can slowly and tentatively face the anxiety and start to act.

Facing anxiety does not necessarily start with actual work. You can first imagine yourself sitting in front of a computer, conceiving a framework for writing, and slowly filling in the content. Then, start with collecting information and expose yourself to reality. Control the anxiety in the process little by little. As the degree of exposure increases step by step, anxiety can gradually decrease.

Next, the key to starting action is to break down the big goal into small goals. For example, break down "completing the report" into 6 days to achieve a small goal. On the first day, you only need to read 5 excellent reports and summarize them. This sounds less stressful.

During the process, you can also give yourself a small reward when each small goal is completed, and from time to time imagine the relaxed mood after completing the report to make the whole process of completing the task more enjoyable.

In addition to work, many similar situations in daily life can be solved through these psychological skills. For example, when we are uneasy because our weight is beyond the healthy range, we can also start by experiencing our own emotions, accepting anxiety and current weight, recalling the experience of successfully completing other tasks, and asking professionals for advice. We can start by drinking less milk tea and exercising more once a week, slowly forming habits, and escaping the vicious cycle of using food to relieve anxiety.

Of course, if anxiety has seriously affected daily life and caused great pain for a long time, it is pathological anxiety. In this case, you need the help of professionals and receive systematic psychological and drug treatment.

A conscious life is bound to have anxiety. What we need to do is not to eliminate anxiety, but to deal with anxiety constructively.

As Shawn Yue said on Weibo, if you pay attention to your body and maintain a positive attitude and mood towards anxiety, the pain caused by anxiety can be alleviated and avoided.

Author: Jing Mengjun, Yang Jing

Editor: Dai Tianyi, Owl