You’ll always be stuck in a state of fear if you’re always trying to keep your distance from it. — Barry McDonagh

This is the book that stopped my panic attacks

Hi! Welcome back to Words on Words, where readers discuss what we love about literature. Today we are taking a look at the book that stopped my panic attacks.

I repeat: stopped my panic attacks.

The Great Anxiety | Walter Gramatté

DARE: The New Way To End Anxiety And Stop Panic Attacks by Barry McDonagh was was recommended to me by — who else? — my therapist. Since reading this book in 2021, I haven’t had a single panic attack (I came close one time at the dentist, but that’s a story for another time).

In reference to my propensity to catastrophize, my therapist brought up this book again this week. While I haven’t had any panic attacks since reading DARE, I have begun to get lost again in what McDonagh calls an anxiety loop. It typically has to do with worries about my children — illness, gun violence, you know, typical parent stressors — and once I start thinking about these worries, I have a hard time stopping.

Instead, I spiral like this:

Taken from my copy of DARE

Getting trapped in these thoughts is uncomfortable, impractical, and completely irrational. When I spiral, I feel untethered, like that little illustrated tornado is just going to swoop me up and dump me into some horrible place.

This book walks you through how to break this spiral and other thought patterns that can result in panic attacks. McDonagh says anxiety is just nervous energy in your body. It’s an intangible force that’s cooped up inside and expresses itself in annoying, frustrating, and often times scary ways. And because it’s scary, you begin to fear it.

McDonagh says:

“Your fear of what the anxiety might do to you is what has you stuck and trapped in anxiety. It’s your fear of fear that causes the whole problem.”

In the book, he takes you through four steps to fight this fear. It’s called the DARE Response and it retrains your brain so that you can respond to (and ultimately combat) anxiety. It is so easy and truly helped me so much. Here are the steps:

Defuse

Allow

Run Toward

Engage

I’m going to take you through a brief overview of each step so you can see how this helped me so much:

Defuse

This is your first point of contact with anxiety, or the top of the spiral above. McDonagh uses the analogy of bobbing around in the ocean and being met with a wave. When you resist, you get tossed around. When you move with it, you ride up over the wave. His suggestion for moving with your initial wave of anxiety is to respond to the what ifs that are starting to pull you under with so what.

An example from the book:

What if: I have a panic attack in the car?

So what: I’ll pull over and get through it like I’ve always done in the past.

If that doesn’t resonate with you, he provides readers with another (better) option: replace so what with something stronger like who gives a fuck. It doesn’t matter what you say (in your head), as long as you say something that dismisses the initial what if.

The purpose of this response is to disarm the buildup of nervous energy that’s yanking you down that spiral.

Allow

Remember how we’re supposed to move along with the wave? This is where we do it. We can’t swim away from a wave, so the only option is to allow it.

McDonagh says:

“You’ll always be stuck in a state of fear if you’re always trying to keep your distance from it.”

How do you do that? You say I accept and allow this anxious feeling. By accepting it, you halt what McDonagh calls the mental friction that’s winding up. This gives your nervous system a chance to calm itself down. In effect, acceptance is riding that fast approaching wave. Running away from anxiety does not work. Instead, McDonagh says to let the uninvited guest be welcome. It seems counterintuitive but it works. It worked for me while claustrophobic on an airplane flying overseas. I literally spoke to the anxiety (again, in my head) and welcomed it. I said, I’ve been expecting you. Take a seat.

Maybe it’s because it’s silly and lightens the mood, or maybe because once identified, anxiety likes to take off, but welcoming it like this has worked for me every time.

Run Toward

This one is weird, but I guess they all are, so here goes. McDonagh says to run toward your anxiety by telling yourself you feel excited by your anxious thoughts or feelings. Remember, anxiety is just nervous energy. Nervous energy could also be considered excited energy.

So, run toward your anxiety. Tell yourself you are excited by this feeling. This interrupts your brain’s interpretation of the sensations you are feeling at this stage. Instead of allowing yourself to be pulled down to the bottom of the spiral, you tell yourself you’re excited and you’re ready for what’s to come.

Engage

The last step is to engage with something other than your anxiety; something that takes up your full attention. You’ve already acknowledged your anxiety so now you’re not running from it, you’re moving onto something else. Reading will do the trick if you can focus on it. So will going for a walk. Singing a song. McDonagh says it’s important not to be idle when in this stage. If you are lying in bed, you could put on a podcast. If you’re on an airplane, you could get up and walk down the aisle. If the seatbelt light is on, pull out some form of entertainment. Look at photos on your phone.

This whole thing may seem overly simplistic, but I think that’s why it works. It’s easy to remember and easy to implement. The book goes way deeper into each step and provides many examples, and even sample dialogue to have with your anxiety. If you tend to hang out in those worry spirals like me ( 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼) you should check out this book. The brain is immensely powerful (we know this — it can cause physical sensations when anxious!) and you can use it to guide you through your anxiety and safely to shore.

What I’m reading: World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down by Christian McEwen, Motherhood by Sheila Heti, and Four Squares by Bobby Finger.

What are you reading? Listening to? Loving? Thank you for reading! Love,

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