In other articles I discussed what a panic attack is, e.g. what the physical and psychological symptoms are as well as the reason for and against choosing to take panic pills. In this article I would like to tell you about the role of avoidance and how you should stop this to help you solve panic attacks.

It is the most natural thing isn't it, to avoid the places or situations where you experienced these horrible panic attacks. Perhaps they are crowded places, or small areas from which it was hard to escape. Perhaps it was only with certain people, or perhaps it was just a thought that kept popping into your head that was so upsetting that it produced anxiety or panic.

What you probably already know, but I will say again, is that panic attacks are totally harmless. The ideas I gave in earlier articles to help you deal with physical and psychological symptoms can make coping with panic easier. But if you constantly avoid the situations you associate with panic, you will probably never feel comfortable there, and perhaps always be adding more and more places to your panic list.

You start making a connection between places, situations, people or even certain thoughts or images, with the panic itself. This connection, however, is false and unhelpful. It is not the places or people or thoughts which produce panic, it is the meaning you give to them that produces or worsens your panic. Therefore, getting rid of panic attacks will not happen unless you are willing to go back to those very places you felt anxious as much as you can. If you want to know how to solve panic attacks, then you need to overcome this avoidance.

I aim to delve deeper into more subtle forms of avoidance in a later article, but you can certainly try and start with a gradual approach to overcoming avoidance of places or situations. Try this 4-step plan:

1. Write a list of places or situations you avoid because of your fear of panic.

2. Give them a rating from 1 to 10, where 1 means "I feel hardly any anxiety there" and 10 means "I feel total panic there".

3. Put all the items on your list in order of severity, the lowest at the top and the highest at the bottom of your new list.

4. Make a big effort to go to the first place (with the lowest anxiety score) on your list. You might experience some anxiety, but perhaps not panic. In any case, it is crucial to stay there until the anxiety subsides, perhaps using coping skills. If you leave beforehand, you will not learn that things are actually safe and okay there, and you will need to repeat the exercise. Repeat step 4 until you feel no more anxiety and only then tackle the next place on your list etc.

I look forward to writing about overcoming more subtle forms of avoidance in a future article.