Body & Mind

This trick promises to help you get rid of your panic attack in no time

By Sophie Rietmulder | #!30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:004330#30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:00-2Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam202330 08pm30pm-30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:002Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam2023302023Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200002009pmFriday=9#!30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:00Europe\/Amsterdam9#09-08-2023#!30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:004330#\/30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:00-2Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam202330#!30Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:00:43 +0200+02:00Europe\/Amsterdam9#

woman sitting on the ground with a dog beside her

Oh yes, there is a new life hack in town that promises to help you get rid of your panic attacks in no time. As a professional stress chicken, this makes me very happy and I can't wait to share this phenomenon with you. I believe I am certainly not the only one with a nervous system that prepares daily to fight in the Hunger Games, while in reality I have at most one online meeting and two deadlines.

It's called brainspotting, this new lifesaver for neurotics like you and me. It is a technique based on EMDR therapy that is used to treat trauma. The theory behind brainspotting is that the body experiences trauma and holds onto it. When your body experiences a traumatic event, your fight or flight mode is activated and brainspotting helps to calm this down.

A study published in 2017 in the Mediterranean Journal of Clinical Psychology even called it an ‘effective alternative therapeutic approach’ for participants who had experienced trauma and/or PTSD. The other studied therapy forms, EMDR and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), all showed that participants' symptoms returned after the six-month follow-up, but that did not happen with brainspotting. Curious? Here’s how to approach it:

1. Focus your gaze on an object in front of you. This can be a stationary object or something you hold in your hand.
2. Move your gaze past that point.
3. Shift your focus back to the object.
4. Keep repeating this and alternate your gaze from near to far.

What you are essentially doing here is using your eye position to distract your thoughts from what panics you, so you can focus on something else to achieve a feeling and state of calm. Trauma therapist Lauren Auer explains how this can work: ‘The eyes are the only part of our brain that sees the outside world, and there is a lot of connection between what we see with our eyes and what we feel in our nervous system. You don’t need to have perfect vision for this; what matters here is the position of your eye, not the information you receive through sight. Once you master this, you will see that you can slow your heart rate down in no time and calm yourself this way time and time again.’

Source: Well and good