Q: Hi Eva, what is the highest panic attack heart rate that I’m safe to have? When I panic, my heart beats out of my chest and I can feel myself getting sweaty and dizzy.
I’m just wondering what these panic attacks are doing to my body long-term and whether anxiety and chest pain can turn into heart attack.
Any tips on lowering my heart rate during a panic attack?
I try to calm down during an anxiety attack by consciously relaxing my body, accepting the panic rush and try to float through it but I don’t know, it’s like my body isn’t convinced so that makes my brain unconvinced.
Any advice for someone who feels like she is just beyond help?
Related: Panic Self Help Meditation
Eva’s response: Hey Missy! Thanks for trusting me with your question about your panic attack heart rate and ways you can lower it during a panic attack.
I had to giggle when I saw what you wrote about “healing powers” – not sure about that but I do have some energy healing tips you can use to lower a panic attack heart rate and soothe your energy to prevent panic attacks from hijacking your body in this way.
The average heart rate during a panic attack is up to 150 beats per minute. But the actual number doesn’t really matter. This is why:
No long –term damage can result from the increased heart rate during a panic attack. However, if you have other issues such as high blood pressure already, obviously the higher panic attack heart rate isn’t what you want.
The good news is, you can train yourself to lower your panic attack heart rate. The best way is to distance yourself from it. This is how you do it:
During the panic attack, when you feel your heart rate rising, simply affirm to yourself “Oh yeah, that’s just my heart rate increasing due to this panic attack. That’s ok. My heart rate will increase but soon it will decrease and my heart will go back to normal.”
While you are doing this, really relax every muscle in your body and breathe space into your cells.
At first it’s quite a challenging thing to do, but as you get the opportunity to use this method more often, it becomes easier each time. You gradually train your body to respond in this way during a panic attack, until it becomes automatic.
So many people make the mistake of trying to force their heart rate back to normal, or getting upset when their heart rate doesn’t return to normal as quickly as they would like.
Don’t get discouraged if your panic attack heart rate doesn’t calm down as quickly as you would like it to – a large part of recovering from anxiety in general is developing patience – true patience – and faith that your anxiety is something that you can recover from.
Another great thing to do during a panic attack is to download and listen to my free Panic Self Help Meditation – which I designed for you to listen to DURING the panic attack, to gently guide you out of it and into recovery.
Love + light to you Missy!
Eva xo