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nervous system. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, your nerves carry messages about that to your brain and you feel pain (and probably say something unprintable too). Your brain sends messages back to yourbody so that it can start the process of healing the damage you’ve just done to yourself.
    A similar process happens if you are frightened. Something scary happens, your brain reacts, and sends messages to your body. But why those particular messages, the ones that make your heart thump and your stomach churn?
    The answer is that the whole system evolved a very long time ago, when primitive people were living lives filled with physical danger. Dangerous animals, floods, forest fires, and of course people on the warpath were all sources of danger. And without all the contrivances of modern life people usually only had two choices when confronted with danger: fight back, or run away.
    Both of these options require physical energy. You need to pump more oxygen to your arms and legs if you are going to fight, or run. You need to stop digesting your dinner, make swift decisions, move quickly.
    And this is why, when you are very anxious or panicky, your heart races, your limbs tremble, you need the loo, your head swims and you simply can’t bear to stay in one place.
    The fact that you are frightened of something that doesn’t present any physical danger to you is neither here nor there to the primitive system that takes charge at that moment. You are frightened, and without hesitation your brain and your body prepare you for fight or flight.
    Recovery largely consists of finding ways to first tolerate the sensations and then turn off the fight-or-flight system. However, fight-or-flight is controlled by your involuntary nervous system. As the name suggests, you have no conscious control over it.
Changing your breathing
    There is an exception to most rules, and in the case of your nervous system the exception is breathing. Breathing is automatic and is controlled by your involuntary nervous system but at the same time we do have a certain amount of control over it.
    You can choose to hold your breath, or to pant like a dog. Athletes, singers and actors use breath control to improve their performance. People who do yoga or meditation work with their breathing as part of the process.
    During a panic attack, most people feel that their breathing is wildly out of control. They feel the need to suck in great gulps of air, as if they can’t get enough, and often feel unable to breathe out fully before taking the next breath in. In fact doing this only fuels the panic attack and makes it worse.
    This is because it is all part of the fight-or-flight mechanism. The extra oxygen that you are taking in is being rushed to your muscles to pump them up ready for action. If you are in a situation where you don’t need to take any physical action, such as in a queue or driving a car, then that oxygen will stay in your system and add to your uncomfortable sensations.
    It doesn’t help that concerned companions will often advise you to ‘take a deep breath’. They may be worried that you are about to faint (you may be worried about that too) but in fact you don’t need any more breath, you already have too much.
    In a panic attack breathing becomes very noticeable, but many Anxiety sufferers tend to breathe in an unhelpful way most of the time. Anxiety makes you tense, and tension make you breathe in a shallow, fast way, using only the top half of your chest. This means that you are probably taking in more oxygen than you need, and you are not breathing out all of the carbon dioxide. The stale air at the bottom of your lungs is never properly cleared out.
    The result of this can be a permanent light-headed feeling, and fatigue. Changing your breathing habits is an important part of Anxiety recovery.
    Key skill – breathing exercise one
    We will have more to say about breathing later, but for now here is a simple technique to practise.