Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks Fast

by Barry McDonagh

Let this be your mantra: “I can handle this.”

Remember, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, some 40 million American adults alone (about one in six of the population), suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder at any given time.

When you feel anxious, your blood pressure goes up, not down. Hence, fainting is unlikely because your brain has plenty of blood supply.

The reason you feel butterflies in your stomach when the fight-or-flight response is activated is that the digestive system is shut down and blood is drawn from your stomach area and sent to your muscles and other vital organs. The problem with this is that it can lead to feelings of nausea, a very heavy feeling in your stomach, and a fear of vomiting. Again, if you’re out in public, this can easily feed into a social anxiety. The other area that slows down is saliva production, leading to the uncomfortable sensation of dry mouth.

“The bamboo which bends is stronger than the oak which resists.” –Japanese proverb

Anxiety is just like a guard dog. It’s your protector. It’s your fight-or-flight response activated by the emotional part of your brain, designed to keep you from harm. It needs you, the owner (your rational brain), to reassure it that the unusual bodily sensations that pay you a visit are not a real threat and that all is well.

Learning to rest in anxiety is the way you heal it. Resting in the uncomfortable sensations gives your mind and body a chance to relax and detoxify from the stress response. So when you feel fear or anxiety surface, instead of pushing it aside, whisper to yourself, “It’s okay.” Give a gentle “yes” to the moment and what you’re feeling. Acceptance of the anxiety brings a sense of peace and understanding that all will be okay in time.

These are just thoughts and feelings. They can’t hurt you. The only power they have over you is the power and meaning you give them. So give them no significance or meaning. Normalize them and let them pass.

All storms pass.

If anxiety continues to pull at you with frightening “what if” thoughts, think, “Okay. Whatever. I hear you. You can stay, but I have this thing I have to finish, so I’m just going to do that. I’m not pushing you away. I just don’t think this is as urgent as you (anxiety) are making it out to be.”

you see anxiety is not in the sensations; it’s in your resistance to the sensations.

The more you allow your body to flow in the manner it so chooses, the faster it will return to a state of rest.

Your body knows exactly what it needs, and even if you try with all your mental might to get in the way of it, your body will still breathe. Your respiratory control center has a reflex mechanism that will eventually force you to breathe if you’re not getting enough oxygen. You simply can’t override it with your anxious mind. All your fear can do is change your rate of breath.

“What if I suffocate?” “So what? At least I’ll have a good excuse for not showing up at my in-laws’ dinner party tonight.”

“That’s fine. I accept and allow this uncomfortable sensation around my chest. It can stay, and I’m going to continue with my day.”

If you feel that your breathing is too shallow, allow it to be shallow. If you feel you can’t catch your breath, then just allow that sensation too. Your body always compensates as it adjusts to expel excess carbon dioxide. The point to remember here is that your breathing is an unconscious process, and your body has always—and will always—look after that for you, regardless of how much your anxious mind gets upset about it. The more you can sit with the sensation and not respond with fearful thoughts, the better. The more comfortable you get with the sensation, the faster the sensation releases.

“If I faint, I faint and there’s nothing I can do about it. Within a minute I’ll come back around.”

You then allow your body complete permission to be dizzy. If your head wants to spin, let it. If you see stars, that’s okay.

Tell your anxiety: “If you’re going to make me faint, then let’s have it now. But if not, then sorry, but I have to keep going and get on with my day.”

No one can faint on demand. You won’t faint just because you demand it. What you’ll find is that the fear evaporates quickly as you call its bluff .

Then allow the sensation in your stomach to manifest in whatever way it wants to and give it full permission to be present. Tell your anxious stomach that it’s fine to feel sick, and if it feels it’s necessary to vomit, then it may do so and you won’t try to stop it. The reason this approach works well is that as soon as you allow your stomach the freedom to feel uncomfortable, your abdominal muscles immediately start to relax and you feel less nauseous.

To this day, little is known about depersonalization, but one theory states that depersonalization is a protection mechanism your brain uses to keep you from experiencing trauma.

“Oh whatever! I’m getting totally bored by all this fearmongering. It’s not relevant to me or my life. But sure, go ahead, anxiety, and repeat that awful idea again if it makes you feel better.”

I want to emphasize how important it is to let go of trying to control every anxious sensation you feel. Your body has an innate intelligence for keeping you alive and functioning perfectly. The less your conscious mind tries to interfere with that the better.

So, let go and trust your heart. Let go and trust your chest. Let go and trust your mind. Let go and trust whatever the sensation is that’s scaring you.

anxiety is like a disease of uncertainty.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” –Joseph Campbell

You’re as perfectly safe on a deserted island with panic and anxiety as you are sitting in a hospital surrounded by doctors. So understand that physiologically you really aren’t in any more danger at Walmart than you are at home.

“Wherever you go, there you are.” - Buddha

If your fear relates to a fear of the plane crashing due to some mechanical failure, I recommend a course like Capt. Tom Bunn’s SOAR program, which teaches you just how safe flying is.

“Whatever. I’m not worried by that scenario because I have full confidence in controlling my body.”

“I’m excited by this feeling. I’m excited to be eating out. This is gonna be fun.”

“I accept and allow this anxious feeling. I accept and allow these anxious thoughts.”

You can carry bullet-point notes of The DARE Response with you on a card or on your smartphone when you’re out and about so that you can remind yourself how to respond correctly.

try to stay in the situation until you feel your anxiety decrease. If you can’t wait for it to decrease, then at least stay another ten seconds. Just ten seconds more … then maybe another ten seconds after that. Try to win as much ground as you can each time you practice so that you are always building your confidence—even in small incremental steps.

We can’t control the world around us, we can only control our response to it.

Everyone has different types of worry, and it’s all relative to the person that’s going through it. What can seem like a disaster to one person can seem like a trivial matter to another.

“What if his illness comes back? How will we cope then?” “Oh well, if that happens it happens, we’ll have to deal with it, but right now that hasn’t happened, so I’m not going to obsess over that right now.”

Dale Carnegie wrote a great book on how to deal with this first aspect of worry—the “worry over things”—called How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

What he means is that we must learn to live in each day and not spend so much time focusing on the past or the future.

You have to “be willing to have it so,” to accept things as they are, not as you wish they were in this moment.

So that means if you have lost your job or have just had a health scare, once you have overcome the initial shock of that painful experience, you then need to move into a state of acceptance of it in order to move forward.

Write down precisely what you’re worried about. Write down what you can do about it. Decide what to do. Start immediately to carry out that decision.

If I ever catch myself worrying over a matter, I determine if this worry is something I can take some decisive action on or if it’s a worry about something that’s out of my control.

If it’s something I can act on, I list the problem and make a note in my smartphone of what needs to happen to resolve this worry. I then write just one step I can take today to move me closer to resolving the issue. I set a reminder to come back to that step later in the day when I have more t...

Thinking happens … and it’s not who you are. A thought is just a thought—it’s not a fact.

Watching your thoughts in a detached manner allows you to not judge any of the clouds or get sucked in. You’re the silent observer, just watching. Label each thought as you become aware of it (defuse it), “Oh, there’s that weird thought X again—oh well,” and then just let it float on past (allow it). As they float away, tell some of the more troubling or disturbing thoughts to come back (run toward). When you get bored doing this, place your attention back on an activity that holds your attention (engage).

We all crave love, but for various reasons we don’t get the level of love that we need. We are in fact hardwired for love.

Skip the years of therapy trying to come to terms with all the love that was withheld from you. Give it to yourself now and in each and every moment you find your mind idle.

“From this day on I vow to love myself and to treat myself as someone I truly value. Each decision I make from now on will be based on this perspective.”