What is the treatment for anxiety attacks? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

I’ll start by saying I’m not a doctor so please take everything I say as personal anecdote rather than medical advice! That said, there are many different treatments for anxiety and panic attacks, and I myself have used lots of them, including biofeedback therapy (which worked well for me but had to be done 2x per week for at least 6 weeks or so before it really made a difference).

In the course of that therapy I learned about breathing exercises (very easy to do) and that journaling is an effective method to reduce anxiety. I was skeptical at first but I was also desperate to stop feeling so anxious all the time, so I gave it a shot, and it REALLY worked. Apparently the act of committing your thoughts to paper—handwritten, ideally, not typed—is scientifically proven to help quiet the anxiety in your mind, almost like you have “released” it on to the page. I found this incredibly useful in the early days of treating my anxiety and panic. And I wrote a lot of angry letters to the people and things in my life that were causing me so much stress (I just didn’t send them). Highly therapeutic!

I also take medication for panic disorder, 25mg daily of Zoloft, which was, I have to say, a life saver. It just took the edge off of the crushing daily anxiety and looming panic attacks that I had been experiencing and allowed me to live my life again. I’m neither 100% happy all the time, nor am I an emotionless zombie, but life is a LOT better, for me, with meds. I have a Xanax prescription as well, just in case I find myself in an otherwise unmanageable situation, or for when I fly. (Xanax works really quickly and can help me get out of a panic attack that has already started. Again though: NOT A DOCTOR.)

If you’d like to read more, I tell a story in my third book, You Do You, that was also excerpted in Woolly Magazine, about how I once used a litter box full of [clean] sand to keep panic attacks at bay. Check it out HERE.

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