By Zyana Morris
Panic is one of the worst things that can catch you off guard and make you vulnerable to becoming caught in the heat of the moment. During panic situations, our instinct kicks in and initiates the innate fight or flight response which was useful when in prehistoric times, things were a bit more primitive and required only physical involvement to overcome them. In modern times whatever situation of panic we face requires a lot of mental exertion to overcome due to the systematic approach needed to solve all problems. The problem mostly arises when people cower away from the situation and don’t think over it by believing that somehow let’s get rid of it no matter what. It’s just like if a ship gets a hole in it, you try to cover it up with anything you find near you be it cloth, your hands, an apple and the list can go on endlessly, without even realizing that you are losing valuable time because the water is still coming in and your efforts are going in vain as they lack enough value and substance to overcome the magnitude of the problem.
We have all faced this dilemma, but the correct approach to ending it has to be programmed into you, it’s part of extra-somatic information and with a few correct techniques in your mind to refer to whenever such a situation arises. You can not only learn to deal with the situation successfully but do so while being unfazed and unaffected on a personal front while doing it. Here are the tools that will help you achieve such a state whenever a moment of panic springs up its head!
Analyze the situation fully:
Critical analysis of a situation is the solution to half the problem itself as it allows you to understand what actually caused the problem in the first place itself. To achieve this state you have to give much more importance to the problem than allowed by its actual magnanimity because as you do that you will become prepared for the further worsening of the situation even before it happens allowing you stay abreast of what is quite uncomfortable to you.
Every problem shares a unique characteristic and that is detail. A crisis situation may look like it’s quite unplanned and has suddenly popped up but every problem happens when a lot of unfortunate factors combine themselves together in a chain of events. Thinking like this equips you to think in a manner that you look deeper than you are supposed to and get an equal understanding of what you need to do.
Don’t hide the situation and ask for help when it’s required:
All of us carry the tendency to get involved in cover-ups which give us a momentary sense of relief that no one other than us is going to know about what happened or is happening. This is probably the most worse of all the strategies of handling a panic situation. It also involves hiding the situation from yourself and is most often referred to as self-denial, where you constantly fail to acknowledge that the problem exists but your mind doesn’t forget it and end you end carrying mental baggage that will not harm the situation but will also affect your peace and mental health. For e.g. if any of your parents suddenly happens to fall ill and you are too caught up in your work that you can’t attend to them making you feel extremely bad but you tell yourself that you are doing enough and they don’t need extra care. This type of thinking will make your parent more ill in addition to making you feel even worse as time progresses. What you need to do in a proper way to get rid of the guilt and take care of the situation is to think of the options that you can fall over to give them the care and time required by calling in an acquaintance, acquiring home care services, making them transfer to a friend’s home who is there to care among others.
You need to realize that facing the problem head on is what will inhibit strong behavior in you while also allowing you to get more confident that this situation can be handled by me easily.
Prevention is better than cure:
I know that this age old saying but it defines perfectly, the importance of a solid wall to keep you away from such situations happening in the first place. Although things will keep on going wrong and there is no guarantee on who will mess it up the next time, this behavior will bring down the amount of panic situations you find yourself in considerably. The first step in doing this is to prepare for the future at all times as unfamiliarity with things is most likely to spring up panic situations than other things for e.g. if you are travelling to a new city or country than you need to plan and check for everything within the city before you visit like the taxi fares, hotels available, urgent care centers, routes to and from your place among others, this information will equip you with better weaponry to ward off any undue situation that may rear up its ugly head during your stay there.
We live in a world that’s interconnected, which has made us approaching people for guidance and finding information really easy, allowing us to better prepare ourselves for anything that will strive to harm us. Chalk out a plan as to how you would use alternative ways to do what you need to do if the original plan fails or is inaccessible.
Panic situations are an excellent opportunity to learn and acquire experience and if that happens, then you’re better off after having faced it. You will become more agile and prevent such a situation from happening ever again, the circumstances for learning may not be tailored to your liking but after all, it’s learning, grab this opportunity with open hands and embrace it as your own.