Oh yeah - those "what ifs" !!! How I remember those. I learned to turn those around to "SO what if..". Like I was a severe sufferer of diarrhea. I always said to myself "WHAT IF I have to go and not near a bathroom".......and I changed that to "SO what if.... I can mess my pants and wash them, or I can pull the car over and hit the bushes, etc etc etc. I think the most important lesson I learned about those danged "WHAT IF's" was that worrying about them caused me more anxiety, then more "What ifs", then more anxiety. I learned thru CBT that its our own "STINKIN THINKIN" that gets us in trouble. I wrote down my "what ifs" on 3x5 cards - with a counteracting "SO what if" and was soon able to eliminate most of the what ifs!

You are so right about staying busy ! I cross stitched til I could hardly see - but I realized while counting those stitches, my brain was not able to think about much else. I have my clients who are phobic about driving or riding (can be used with other things) to count backwards from 1000 by 7's ! Now there are not many people who can do that and think about much else. ANother trick is to sing some silly childhood song....like BINGO, and leave off the last word each round . Just trying to remember what word u left off the round before makes it hard to think of other things! There are so many coping skills that will work in many situations ( I LOVED it when I started speaking to large groups of shrinks about PAD and envision them naked!!!!!!)

Another thing that helped me (and others) was to just sit back and say "OK you wicked beast (anxiety or panic), "COME GET ME".......you see, if we are not afraid of the feelings, they won't come. They only want to get us all worked up, and if we are OPEN to the feelings coming - they wont. They dont like us when we want them !!!! (Believe me, I KNOW it is hard to think about wanting those horrible feelings , but it does honestly work !!!)

Another skill is using diaphragmatic breathing. If u have learned about the :"fight or flight syndrome" that goes with panic and or anxiety, we start breathing very shallow to prepare to run like heck away from the 'imagined' danger . If we kick the breathing back into the right gear, MANY MANY MANY of the other feelings that can come with an attack just wont happen. Hope some of the tips help. I have a ton of them (17 years of bad habits that are now all gone, and mainly because I used the skills I read about or was taught). Remember.....There IS life after Panic ! :-)