Panic Attack in Meetings?

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One person I knew, I’ll call her Jane to protect her identity, was very worried about becoming anxious at work.

When she became anxious, she would also have very bad intestinal problems and she’d have to rush to the washroom.  This made her anxiety much worse because she not only feared becoming anxious but the intestinal problems.

When talking with her it was discovered that one of the things that created the most amount of anxiety for her was the fear of having to leave suddenly if she began to feel anxious and/or when she felt her stomach begin to churn.

The suggestion to her was that during a staff meeting she would intentionally leave the room as a practice/rehearsal even when she wasn’t anxious or having intestinal issues.  She became quite nervous when this suggestion was given to her; however over time she agreed to give it a try.

The next staff meeting approached and halfway through the meeting she got up and left the room. 

No one was surprised or shocked; as it turned out various people would come and go throughout the meeting. 

Over the next month or so she did this behaviour (leaving the room) at each of the meetings.  Jane found overtime that she could temporarily leave the room, regroup her composure, and then come back into the room. 

Jane no longer feared having to leave meetings suddenly because she had become accustomed to it.  Her anxiety reduce and so too did her intestinal problems. 

You see this works for Jane and can work for you too. 

You might be wondering why this helps Jane with her anxiety. 

Well what’s going on is that Jane has faced one of her fears – which is having to leave the room suddenly – and has actually seen concrete evidence that nothing bad happens.  Now that she sees nothing happens, the fear of the unknown is removed from the situation.

I would encourage you to look at the things you avoid and devise a plan such as Jane’s where you can face the thing you fear and then see the evidence that nothing bad happens.  This can remove the fear you have of particular situations or places. 

Often these fears might not only be due to anxiety and panic attacks, but let’s say you have a health condition that makes you have to run to the washroom frequently. 

Well you can learn to conquer fear of having to leave social situations quickly if you’re avoiding them because of this condition.  Again this is just one more example but the best way is to tailor this strategy to your needs.

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