Define and dial it down PANIC
Why do we find ourselves feeling totally overwhelmed, seemingly out of the blue, and how can we return to equilibrium?
Certain situations stress us out, bring us to tears, or make our blood boil with rage. Usually, it’s perfectly clear why we’ve reacted that way. But what about those occasions where some of us experience such an utterly overwhelming sense of panic that it genuinely feels like we might die? That, according to Joshua Fletcher, psychotherapist and author of Anxiety: Panicking About Panic (CreateSpace, £8.99), is all down to our nervous system. ‘There are two sides to our nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system, which makes us feel on edge and stressed, and engages our ight-or-light stress response; and the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms the sympathetic system,’ he explains. ‘The parasympathetic nervous system is activated when you rest, do something that you enjoy, eat well, or meditate.’ In short, when you panic, the sympathetic takes over.