Your job is not to explain to the person what they are feeling is not real or rational. This is actively unhelpful. The experience is very very very real to the person undergoing it.
Remember that your body is chemicals. There are chemical systems that exist to tell you that you are in immediate, life threatening danger. These chemicals are able to override everything else - it is clearly evolutionary favorable to be able to just be on high alert sometimes.
These chemicals override your ability to reason. In the moment, some sort of physiological, primal reminder of safety. Food is good. Lying down. Touch and kind words from someone you feel safe around. Something that tells your body crisis is over and it is time to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Breathing exercises can be good, but if you do them like a drill sergeant that can make things much worse.
I’m fortunate at this point I think that I’ve burned out my body out with caffeine and high danger activities, along with experiencing something like Christian hell in a bad weed trip. I don’t think I react properly to danger anymore, but I don’t experience panic attacks annymoe either.
Actual advice:
Your job is not to explain to the person what they are feeling is not real or rational. This is actively unhelpful. The experience is very very very real to the person undergoing it.
Remember that your body is chemicals. There are chemical systems that exist to tell you that you are in immediate, life threatening danger. These chemicals are able to override everything else - it is clearly evolutionary favorable to be able to just be on high alert sometimes.
These chemicals override your ability to reason. In the moment, some sort of physiological, primal reminder of safety. Food is good. Lying down. Touch and kind words from someone you feel safe around. Something that tells your body crisis is over and it is time to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Breathing exercises can be good, but if you do them like a drill sergeant that can make things much worse.
I’m fortunate at this point I think that I’ve burned out my body out with caffeine and high danger activities, along with experiencing something like Christian hell in a bad weed trip. I don’t think I react properly to danger anymore, but I don’t experience panic attacks annymoe either.