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How to manage an anxiety attack

Managing intense anxiety and panic involves shifting from trying to control or eliminate the experience to accepting and allowing it. Key strategies include practicing acceptance, mindfulness, breathing and relaxation techniques, taking action aligned with your values despite anxiety, questioning unhelpful thoughts and beliefs, being compassionate towards yourself, and focusing attention outwards. Experiential exposure, or facing feared situations, is also a core component to teach the brain that these experiences are not dangerous. Ultimately, the goal is to change your relationship with anxiety and learn to function effectively even when it is present.

Finding Freedom and a Fulfilling Life with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for anxiety is an approach that shifts the focus from trying to eliminate or control anxiety symptoms to living a full and meaningful life with anxiety present. It helps you identify how your attempts to avoid uncomfortable internal experiences (thoughts, feelings, sensations) may be limiting your life. Through acceptance, mindfulness, cognitive defusion, clarifying your values, and committing to value-guided action, ACT helps you build psychological flexibility. The goal is to drop the unworkable struggle against anxiety and instead take action that matters to you, allowing your experiences to be as they are.

ACT for anxiety

ACT for anxiety is an approach focused on changing your relationship with anxiety rather than trying to control or eliminate it. It posits that control efforts often exacerbate the problem. The goal is to help clients live a rich and meaningful life aligned with their values, even when anxiety is present. This is achieved through core processes: Acceptance (willingness to experience anxiety), Cognitive Defusion (changing the relationship with thoughts), Contacting the Present Moment (mindfulness), The Observing Self (perspective taking), Values (clarifying what matters), and Committed Action (taking steps towards values despite anxiety). These processes are seen as more beneficial than symptom control because they target underlying issues and foster psychological flexibility. Clients can use ACT for anxiety as a self-help tool by working through principles and exercises presented in workbooks, focusing on understanding the rationale, practising the core skills, identifying values, and taking committed action, using tools like monitoring forms and specific exercises like Conscious Questioning and FEEL exercises. The emphasis is on taking action with anxiety towards a valued life.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety:What makes it different.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for anxiety is a process-based approach that helps individuals live a full and meaningful life while learning to coexist with anxiety. It does not view anxiety as a disease but as a normal human experience that can become problematic when one attempts to control or avoid it excessively. Key principles include acceptance (willingness to experience difficult thoughts and feelings without struggle), mindfulness (paying attention to the present moment nonjudgmentally), cognitive defusion (changing one’s relationship with thoughts), clarifying personal values (chosen life directions), and taking committed action (steps towards values, even with anxiety). The goal is not necessarily anxiety reduction itself, but building psychological flexibility to engage in a rich and meaningful life, guided by values.

ACT Therapy for Anxiety: Why It’s More Effective and How It Works

ACT therapy for anxiety is more effective than earlier therapies because it focuses on psychological flexibility rather than symptom control. Its six core processes—acceptance, cognitive defusion, present moment awareness, the observing self, values, and committed action—empower individuals to live meaningful lives despite anxiety. Modern psycho-sensory therapies like Havening can complement act therapy for anxiety by reducing the emotional impact of traumatic memories.