I believe you can! There are so many areas in my own life that have changed over the years–even the past few months–in this area of fear and anxiety.

Anxiety has a way of grabbing hold of your mind and not letting go. Most of you know what I’m talking about. You’re sitting at home reading a book or lying in bed about to go to sleep and WHAM! you’re hit with a tornado of anxious thoughts. All of sudden, your mind is spinning and your body starts to get jittery. The harder your fight those thoughts, the faster they come. You quickly spin into full blown panic.

There are two specific areas you need to address to break this cycle: the trigger and the root.

What is triggering the anxious thoughts?

Understanding the triggers of those anxious thoughts is important. You need to pray through what’s causing fear to arise in you. For some, it may be physical like too much caffeine or sugar. Or, it could be something mental like stress or wrong thinking patterns. Whatever the situation, it’s important for you to learn what is triggering the anxious thoughts.

There was a time I had to stop all caffeine, because it was pushing my body too hard, releasing adrenaline that was not good for me. Today, I’m back to one cup of tea in the mornings, and that’s all. No sodas, no coffee, and no energy drinks.

Another trigger for me is stress. I run my own production company, and business is booming right now. I’ve never experienced such growth as I have the past year. It’s been wonderful but it has also been quite stressful. I’m learning more each day on how to delegate and how to say no (which is very hard for me). But, my emotional and mental health is far more important than just making money.

Take a moment during or after the anxiety attack to write down your thoughts. What were you thinking before the rush of anxiety? What emotions were you feeling and experiencing? Was there something that happened during the day that caused you stress, or got you thinking about about something? Write down your thoughts, your ideas, and your emotions. See if you can start to recognize a pattern.

What root is there in my soul that is causing these anxious thoughts?

Getting to the root cause of anxiety, fear and worry is absolutely essential if you want to find true freedom. Most people stop at the first step. Once they find out what’s triggering the anxiety, they simply avoid those triggers without ever dealing with the root cause of the anxiousness.

It’s like a splinter in your finger. You can clean it, numb it and cover it, but if you never remove the splinter–the very cause of the pain–it’ll never heal. It’ll just get more painful. In the same way, until you properly deal with the “splinter” in your mind and thoughts, you’ll never really find true freedom from anxious thoughts and worry.

How do you start?

There are lots of great resources available to help you learn how to break the cycle of anxiety, worry and fear. There are books, freedom ministry teachings and blogs. Find out if your church has a freedom ministry or counselors who can help you tear down the strongholds of fear and anxiety.

I’m reading a great book by Greg Boyd called “Escaping the Matrix: Setting Your Mind Free to Experience Real Life in Christ“. For those of you who are fans of the movie, The Matrix, Greg uses illustrations from the movie to talk about “patterns of thinking” or strongholds, as the Bible calls them. And, he walks you through how thoughts get lodged in your mind, and how we can break those patterns (or matrixes) of our mind. It’s an excellent book, and I highly recommend it.

Romans 12:2 explains, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

We must renew our mind. We must break those unhealthy patterns of thinking that are often rooted in lies that we believe about ourselves and about God. We must fill our minds with truth because if we know the truth, the truth will set us free (John 8:32).

Prayer: Father, show me how to renew my mind and break down these strongholds, these unhealthy patterns of thinking.

All of sudden, your body and mind hit panic mode. Terror seizes every part of your soul. You can’t run because no matter where you go, there you are. The rush of numbness fills your body as your heart pounds out of your chest. Confusion swirls in your head and your mind frantically searches for an escape.

Does this sound familiar? What I just described is a panic attack. It can be an incredibly terrifying experience. When panic hits, everything in your body and mind goes into high gear, and it can be extremely difficult to break that cycle and stop the panic attack.

For years, panic attacks controlled my life. Fear told me what I could and couldn’t do. Even the fear of fear would create a generalized anxiety that kept me in a chronic state of worry. But today, panic attacks no longer control my life.

I want to share with you these five steps on how to stop a panic attack:

1. Recognize

When panic hits, you immediately go into autopilot mode and start reacting to fear. But, you need to realize that it’s just an attack. It’s your body doing what it’s designed to do–it’s responding to a threat. The problem is that you don’t know where or what the threat is, so your mind races and adrenaline is released into your body, causing the situation to spin out of control.

The first thing you need to do is recognize what is going on. Tell yourself, This is just my body going into fight or flight mode. There is no real danger. You need to recognize what’s happening and remind yourself, This has not killed me in the past, and it’s not going to kill me now. Your body is lying to you and you need to call the bluff.

2. Don’t fight it

When panic hits, adrenaline is released into your body to prepare it for fighting or running. Adrenaline increases your heart rate and blood pressure. Your mind races to find the threat so that it can focus on the danger. Physiologically, everything in you is gearing up to respond to a dangerous situation. So, when you fight those feelings, you are actually feeding your body more adrenaline. And, you don’t want that!

It’s like starting a campfire. As the embers start to spark, you blow on them to cause them to burn hotter. But, that’s backwards! You would think that blowing on a fire would snuff it out. On the contrary, you’re not blowing out the fire–you’re feeding it oxygen causing it to burn more. The same is true with a panic attack. When you fight it, you feed it more adrenaline making it worse. To stop the attack, you must not fight it.

3. Check your breathing

Another result of the “fight or flight” mode is rapid, shallow breathing. As your body prepares for danger, it’s trying to get more oxygen into your bloodstream for the extra energy it needs to face the threat. The increase in oxygen releases more adrenaline which you don’t want. Doctors have proven that simply by hyperventilating, you can trigger panic. And, the opposite is true, that by controlling your breathing, you can stop panic.

When you start to feel the rush of panic, you should immediately go into controlled breathing. I did this often, and it’s amazing how quickly you can stop the attack. I would quickly move into a 4-4-4-4 breathing pattern: Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds, and hold for 4 seconds. Then, keep doing that till the panic subsides. It may be hard at first because you’re used to shallow, rapid breathing, but keep doing it.

4. Pray

Prayer is powerful! I believe God responds before we even finish praying the prayer. There are numerous examples of this in the Bible. When panic hits, call out to God for strength, wisdom, and clarity of mind to break the cycle of fear. There were numerous times that prayer alone carried me through those terrifying situations.

The LORD says, “I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue them and honor them” (Psalms 91:14, 15).

5. Call someone

There were times that I would call someone to help talk me through the panic. While it was good in that moment to help break the cycle, you have to be very careful with this step. When you call someone in the midst of panic, and it successfully stops the attack, you can start to rely on that person for peace. And, that’s dangerous because you can develop an unhealthy dependency on that person or the act of calling someone. If you need to call someone, do it rarely and don’t rely on it.

I have found these steps to be incredibly helpful over the years, but please understand that these techniques are temporary. They are only coping methods that can help you through a panic situation. Complete freedom happens when you find out what is triggering these attacks, and then work through the pain, the wounds and the patterns of thinking that cause you to experience this. Once you find freedom, the panic attacks and fear will go away. You won’t need these coping techniques any more!

For more information on finding freedom, you can read through the series called Freedom from Fear. Also, start meeting regularly with a counselor who can walk you through the pain.

Prayer: Father, give me the strength, wisdom and clarity of mind to stop the panic, and help me find freedom from what is causing this.

Our struggle with anxiety and anxious thoughts primarily happens in our mind. What we think and believe often affects what we experience physically. Let me show you.

As you read this, imagine yourself holding a lemon. Look at it. Feel the texture. Smell it. Now take a knife and cut the lemon in half. The smell is stronger now. Close your eyes, and imagine taking a big, juicy bite of the lemon.

Did your mouth water? If you really imagined that lemon in your mind, then most likely, it did. I find this experiment amazing, because it proves that a thought can trigger a physical, chemical response in your body.  And, if that’s true, then surely anxious thoughts can produce chemical reactions in your body.

Here are four practical steps on how you can stop anxious thoughts:

1. Recognize

First, you need to recognize an anxious thought as simply that: a thought. It’s only in your mind. In most situations, there is no real danger. Too often, we’ve built a pattern of dangerous thoughts in our mind that really have no danger.

If we can start by recognizing those anxious thoughts when they come, and see them simply as thoughts, then it becomes easier to stop them. It helps to write down irrational thoughts when they hit. When you have a thought that doesn’t feel right or brings anxiety or confusion, write it down and take note of how it makes you feel. Keep a journal. This will help you recognize certain patterns in how you think.

2. Take those thoughts captive

When an anxious thought hits you, it’s essential to capture that thought immediately and think though where it’s coming from. Remember, the enemy can put thoughts into your mind and make them sound like your own. Don’t believe everything you think. Look at the fruit of that thought. Does it produce peace or fear? If it produces anxiety, fear or heaviness, then don’t receive it. It’s not from God. Reject it as a lie and ask God to give you peaceful thoughts.

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

The Bible says we must renew our minds and stop conforming to the patterns of this world (Romans 12:2). This world–with its horror movies, fear-inducing reality shows, depressing news broadcasts, and unstable economy–will not produce peace. Quite the opposite. My family and I no longer watch the news on TV. We don’t watch horror movies, nor television shows that would produce anxious thoughts.

3. Find a healthy release

Most anxious thoughts release adrenaline into your body, raising your heart rate and blood pressure. Guess what? That’s what adrenaline is supposed to do. It’s preparing you to face danger. The problem is that there’s no real danger. So, our mind starts racing around, looking for something that’s a threat because our body is screaming, “Danger! Danger!”

I have found exercise to be an extremely helpful release of adrenaline. At the end of the day, when anxiety levels are raised, I often go for a run or a bike ride. The exertion is very good for ridding your body of the excessive adrenaline. If exercise is not an option, then spend time in prayer, meditation and reading scripture. Flood your mind with God’s truth and his promises of peace over you.

4. Get to the root

I read a great quote last week from Alan Smith, one of the freedom ministry pastors at our church. He writes: If I’m struggling, it’s not because of what I’ve been through. It’s because of what I came to believe when I went through it. God heals me, not by changing my past, but by revealing truth and displacing lies.

This is so true! Everyone has lies and wounds deep within our souls that affect how we perceive the world around us. That’s why it’s imperative that we know the truth so that the truth will set us free (John 8:32).

If your church does not have a freedom ministry, then I encourage you to start reading and studying all that Christ has done for you. There are some great books on our online bookstore.  Also, check out our church’s Freedom Ministry foundation videos. They are wonderful! And, you can watch them online for free.

Prayer: Father, help me recognize the anxious thoughts when they hit, take them captive, release them and then get to the root so that I may find complete freedom in Jesus.

What is the soul? It is that part of us that thinks, remembers and makes decisions. Our soul experiences emotions, memories and fear. The definition of “soul” often taught in churches is the “mind, will and emotions.”

So, how do you treat the soul? If there is one area that counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists have excelled in treating panic attacks, it is the area of the soul. Treatments like Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Exposure Therapy have done wonders for people battling anxiety and panic.

To treat the soul, we must start by changing the way we think. Somewhere in our past, a bad experience, tragic event or trauma to the soul has corrupted our thinking process. Dealing with everyday thoughts has become a challenge. We feed the fear with more fearful thoughts, triggering the body to respond. The cycle is vicious.

First, the mind. The Bible says in Romans 12:2 that we should “not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.” This is a powerful truth. The patterns of this world speak an ungodly message–the deceit, despair and infidelity of a soap opera; the murders, shootings and corruption revealed in the evening news; the lust, lies and unrealistic ideals of a beer commercial. What is going into your mind?

Don’t conform to the patterns of this world. Rather, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Through prayer, worship, Bible study and time alone with God, you can renew your mind. And, it’s not a one-time thing–it’s a daily experience. We need to daily experience God in refreshing ways. We need to make that heavenly connection.

Next, the will. Choosing how to respond to the onslaught of fearful thoughts directly involves our will.

I think about Jesus in the garden of Gethsamane when he was faced with fearful thoughts. I can’t even imagine what must have been going through his mind. He knew the kind of tortuous death that awaited him. He even prayed three times for God to show him another way–another way to restore man’s relationship with God. Yet, he ended his prayer with this: “Lord, not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22;42). He chose not to respond to the fear, but rather to God.

Finally, the emotions. I’ve heard people say, “Well, God never wants us to be emotional about things.” I don’t believe that. God has emotions–anger, joy, frustration, happiness, sadness, excitement. God is an emotional God, and we are created in his image (Genesis 1:26). I think the problem is when our emotions get the best of us. We should control our emotions, not let them control us.

One of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control (Galatians 5:23), and when emotions rise up within us, taking control of our soul, we need to cry out to God for strength to manage our emotions. Yes, we can experience emotions. They are the spice of life. But when they control us, that spice quickly becomes bitter.

Treating the soul is very important in treating anxiety and panic attacks. I encourage you find ways to address each of the areas described in this message. Ask God for wisdom on how to renew your mind, respond to his will and regulate your emotions. In doing so, you will bring Godly balance into your life.

Prayer: Father, you created us to have a soul–a mind, a will, emotions. And when you created us, you said it was good. Our mind is good. Our will is good. Our emotions are good. Lord, help us renew our mind and heal our emotions.