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It’s Giving Lost in Translation: How the Internet (and Our Brains) Shape the Way We Talk

Ever notice how you sometimes can’t quite find the right words? Or how you end up using a meme, a GIF, or a slightly silly phrase to say something that’s actually kind of serious?

You’re not alone — and it’s not just about personality or style. The way we speak is shaped by bigger forces than we might realize: our brains, our culture, and yes, even the algorithms running our favorite social media platforms.

When the Internet Rewrites the Rules

On apps like TikTok or Instagram, people sometimes bend their language to avoid getting their posts taken down or buried by the platform. Instead of saying “suicide,” for example, someone might say “unalive.” Instead of writing out a “controversial” word, they might replace letters with symbols.

Linguist Adam Aleksic calls this algospeak — language that’s been reshaped to play by the algorithm’s rules. Over time, these workarounds can become part of how people talk even offline.

Why Our Words Are Always Chasing Meaning

Here’s the thing: language has always been a bit slippery. Words are like little containers for meaning, but they’re limiting and they’re leaky — they can’t hold everything we feel or experience.

Philosophers like Jacques Derrida and psychoanalysts like Jacques Lacan pointed out that words don’t give us pure, fixed meanings. They point to other words, which point to more words, and so on — raw meaning is always moving.

Neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist adds a brain-based twist:

• Our right brain lives in the richness of real, lived experience.

• Our left brain translates that into symbols and categories (like words).

This means every time we speak, we’re re-presenting an experience — not giving it in its raw form. And sometimes, a simple curse word or a meme can point back to the original feeling more directly than a carefully chosen “polite” term.

Meme Language: The New Emotional Shortcuts

Meme phrases like “it’s giving…”, “big yikes”, or “this is fine” can pack a surprising amount of meaning into just a few words. They carry a whole emotional tone, a cultural reference, and sometimes even a shared joke.

That’s why you might notice yourself — or your friends — slipping into meme language when talking about something real. It can:

• Soften vulnerability (“I’m low-key freaking out” instead of “I’m really anxious”)

• Make a connection (shared cultural references feel bonding)

• Say a lot quickly (a meme phrase can sum up a whole situation in seconds)

But meme language can also act like a mask, giving a safe, humorous cover for feelings that might be hard to express directly.

The Quiet Frustration We All Feel

Whether it’s algospeak, meme talk, or just struggling to find the right word, there’s a shared, subtle frustration in being human: what we feel inside never lands exactly the same way when we put it into words.

That gap can feel a little lonely. And while social media didn’t create this gap, it does make it more obvious — especially when we bend our language to dodge filters or fit into online trends.

Why This Matters for Your Relationships (and Your Mental Health)

The words we choose aren’t just about communication — they’re clues. If you notice yourself switching words, joking instead of naming a feeling, or defaulting to a meme, it can be worth asking:

• Am I protecting myself from something?

• Am I trying to connect without being too vulnerable?

• Is there something I want to say more directly, but don’t know how?

Therapists often listen for these shifts in language because they can point toward deeper feelings, hidden fears, or important parts of your story.

A Takeaway

The next time you hear yourself using a workaround word, a meme, or an online code phrase, pause for a second. That little twist in language might be doing more than you think — it might be carrying emotion, hiding it, or wrapping it in a form that feels safer to share.

Either way, it’s giving… human.

The Temptation of Judgment and the Ethics of the Other: A Reflection Through Levinas (and Beyond)

People want so desperately to control. Whether it’s a situation, an outcome, or another person’s reaction, we long for the comfort of predictability. But underneath this striving lies something more tender: a deep desire to feel safe, gratified, or simply at ease. Control is often less about dominance and more about protection.

When someone offends us—leaves us confused, angry, or hurt—it’s common to skip over the truth of our own emotional experience and reach instead for judgment: “What’s wrong with them?” “They always do this.” “That was manipulative.” In that moment, rather than saying, “I felt hurt, confused, and disoriented,” we flip the lens outward. It’s quicker. It feels cleaner. And it gives us a fleeting sense of authority over what is, in truth, a vulnerable internal state.

But what’s important to recognize is that these judgments aren’t just conscious strategies—they’re often defenses, and by definition, defenses are unconscious. They arise automatically, like emotional reflexes. We don’t choose them; they choose us. They operate beneath awareness to protect us from the discomfort of disrupted, dysregulated emotional states.

And yet, we can become aware of them. Awareness is possible—but it requires slowing down, and it requires courage. Because stepping away from a defense doesn’t mean we return to peace; it means we step into the very vulnerability the defense was shielding us from. We open ourselves to feeling raw, uncertain, exposed.

This is where the philosophy of Immanuel Levinas can guide us. Levinas teaches that the face of the Other is not merely a surface to interpret or explain—it is a site of ethical demand. The Other is not for us to define, control, or consume with judgment. The Other is sacred. And to encounter the Other ethically means to resist the impulse to reduce them into categories we can manage.

To define the other person—“they’re just selfish,” “they’re emotionally immature,” “they always do this”—is, in Levinas’ view, a subtle act of violence. We substitute our interpretation for their humanity. We replace their infinite otherness with a version of them we can control. And in doing so, we fail the ethical call their presence places on us.

But this work—the work of stepping out of defense and into presence—is not always equally available to everyone. This becomes exponentially more difficult within unjust power dynamics.

Jessica Benjamin, in her psychoanalytic and feminist work, reminds us that mutual recognition is not just a psychological achievement; it is a relational and political act too. Where there are asymmetries of power—based on gender, race, age, class, or role—the ability to “see and be seen” is compromised. The one with more power may unconsciously negate the subjectivity of the other—a process Benjamin names as a failure of recognition.

In relationships shaped by trauma, hierarchy, or systemic injustice, both the more powerful and the less powerful parties may engage in defensive acts that negate the other’s subjectivity. Benjamin calls this a doer or done to configuration. Which is basically a combat situation, someone is winning and someone is losing and the both people are wrestling for domination. This often takes the form of unconscious denial—a way to protect against our own vulnerability. This negation isn’t always overt; it can appear as withdrawal, silence, or avoidance. In response to the other person may also negate as a way to preserve their sense of self in the face of ongoing dysregulation and a lack of safety in reaction to feeling negated.

In this context, stepping out of defense is more than just difficult—it can feel existentially threatening. When someone has learned that expressing pain leads to punishment, dismissal, or rupture, moving toward emotional truth requires more than personal bravery. It demands relational scaffolding: trust, attunement, and often a supportive community that can help hold the weight of that risk. Only in such environments can enough safety and shared wisdom emerge to support true adaptation and mutual recognition. Which, for Benjamin, is healthy relating, each person offering a recognition and validation of the other person’s perspective without losing a sense of their own.

So what do we do?

We start where we can. We practice awareness, we build capacity to sit with our own disrupted states, and we work to notice when we are defining others too quickly or too harshly. We strive to live, as Levinas suggests, not from the ego’s desire to master, but from the soul’s openness to the face of the Other.

And we hold ourselves accountable—not just to our feelings, but to the structures of power we inhabit. The call to love, to see, to stay open is not just personal—it’s profoundly ethical. Especially when we hold more power, the work is to risk meeting the Other without collapsing them into our judgments.

Reflection Prompt:

Next time you find yourself mentally diagnosing or dismissing someone’s behavior, pause. Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling underneath this judgment?

• What defense might be at play here?

• Am I unconsciously negating their subjectivity to protect myself?

• What power dynamics are shaping this moment?

You don’t have to answer perfectly. But asking opens the door to something sacred: an encounter marked not by control, but by care.

Mapping the self: a guide to emotional healing and wholeness

By Analog Counseling & Consulting Services

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Emotions Aren’t the Problem—They’re the Map

Emotions are your body’s internal GPS. They aren’t obstacles—they’re signals that something needs attention.

They arise before conscious thought and aim to help you regulate, connect, and adapt. But when we block emotions—due to trauma, fear, shame, or survival needs—they go underground and show up as distress, anxiety, numbness, or disconnection.

The Triangle of Conflict and Change: A Map for Healing

Based on the work of Hilary Jacobs Hendel, Diana Fosha, and David Malan the Triangle of Conflict and Change helps us move from distress and defenses toward clarity and connection.

1. Defenses (Top Left)

Anything we do to avoid feeling:

• Overthinking
• Numbing
• Blaming
• Scrolling
• Addictions
• Perfectionism

2. Inhibitory Emotions (Top Right)

These are the “red lights” of our emotional system:

• Anxiety: Am I safe?
• Shame: I am bad.
• Guilt: I’ve done something bad.

They block access to deeper core emotions.

3. Core Emotions (Bottom Point)

These are biological, adaptive feelings:

• Grief / Panic
• Rage
• Lust
• Play (Social Joy)
• Fear
• Care
• Seeking (Motivation / Curiosity)

Trauma: A Stuck Emotional Response

Trauma is not the event itself—it's what the nervous system does after the event.

When emotional responses can't complete (crying, running, connecting, yelling), they stay stuck. The nervous system gets trapped in fight/flight/freeze. Instead of completion, we move into coping (i.e. defenses).

What Inhibitory Emotions Feel Like

Anxiety

• Racing heart
• Tight chest
• Breathlessness
• Dizziness
• Racing thoughts
• Nausea

Guilt

• Muscle tension
• Crying
• Restlessness
• Insomnia

Shame

• Feeling exposed
• Frozen
• Wanting to hide
• Blushing or hot
• Feeling “less than”

The Threat Response Cycle

Novelty → Orient → Assess → Respond → If needed Fight/Flight/Freeze → Rest

In trauma, completion of the response doesn't happen so we never get to the “rest” part. The system stays alert, reactive, and to cope with that dysregulation we dissociate through using defendes. The body never feels safe enough to feel as long as the original dysregulation maintains without support or help.

How to Work the Triangle

1. Undo the Defenses

• Notice what defense you're using
• Reflect on how it feels to be defended
• Thank the defense—it's trying to protect you
• Gently ask it to step aside and observe what happens

2. Calm and soothe the nervous system from the Inhibitory Emotions

Use somatic tools like:

• Name that you are feeling a red light emotion
• Physiological Sigh (i.e. the double inhale)
• Orienting to notice you are safe and to give your nervous system a chance to reset (a specific Somatic Experiencing skill)
• Focusing on lowering heartrate, softening muscles, deepening breath, etc.

3. Build Safety With Emotions

Use somatic tools like:

• Voo breathing
• Grounding (feet, breath, body awareness)
• Swaying, walking, rocking
• Journaling, art, or music to evoke and explore emotion

4. Practice Feeling in Safe Ways

• Start slow—don’t flood yourself - focus on restful/calm/strong/positive feelings first
• If you start to notice tension in your body, as long as it's not overwhelming or flooding, stay with it until the wave of actation dies down stay with the sensations themselves to do this
• After a wave of activation and de-activation journal about the feelings and memories that you experienced
• Share how you feel with someone you trust
• Notice how it feels to be heard

Two Powerful Healing Modalities

Somatic Experiencing (SE)

Helps the body complete stuck trauma responses through:

• Grounding & orienting
• Gentle touch work
• Tracking bodily sensation
• Building capacity to feel safely

EMDR Therapy

A structured process that helps “digest” traumatic memories:

• Recall a memory while using eye movements or tapping
• Let feelings, images, and beliefs surface
• Notice how the memory shifts or lightens over time

Your Healing Goals

The goal isn’t to “get rid” of emotions. It’s to feel them safely, let them guide you, and return to your authentic self.

You can learn to:

• Calm your physiology
• Understand your emotional cues
• Feel without shutting down or overreacting
• Reconnect to others in meaningful ways

Summary: Mapping the Self

• Emotions are Signals: Not problems. They tell us what we need.
• Trauma is Dysregulation: Not just the event. It’s what sticks.
• Healing = Feeling: Safely, with support, and in the body.
• Defenses + Red Light Emotions = Blocks
• Core Emotions = Authenticity + Adaptation
• Therapies like SE and EMDR help complete the cycle

References

• Hendel, H.J. (2018). It’s Not Always Depression
• Panksepp, J. & Biven, L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind
• Porges, S. (2017). The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory
• Levine, P. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice
• Solms, M. (2021). The Hidden Spring
• Badenoch, B. (2017). The Heart of Trauma

*If you ever become flooded or overwhelmed stop the exercise and comfort/soothe yourself. Then consider waiting to engage the feelings again until with a professional.

Understanding the change triangle and it’s relation to somatic experiencing

This is an image I made that is slightly different than Hendel or Fosha or Malan’s triangle. It uses Panksepp’s basic emotion systems and integrates in Porges’ Polyvagal Theory.

The Change Triangle is a practical map of emotions developed by Hilary Jacobs Hendel, grounded in accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP), affective neuroscience (especially the work of Jaak Panksepp), and psychodynamic theory. It's designed to help people move from states of anxiety, shame, and depression toward core emotions, open-hearted states, and authentic connection with self and others.

Overview of the Change Triangle

The triangle has three points:

1. Top Corners (Defensive & Inhibitory Emotions):

   • Defensive behaviors (e.g., sarcasm, people-pleasing, intellectualizing) block emotional experience.

   • Inhibitory emotions include (I used the title “Red Light Emotions” above):

     • Anxiety

     • Shame

     • Guilt
       These act like red lights, blocking or overriding core emotional experience.

2. Bottom Point (Core Emotions):
   These are universal, biological, adaptive emotional responses hardwired in the brain.
   Core emotions include (again - in the image above I’m using Panksepp’s core emotion systems vs the emotion list from Hendel as listed below):

   • Anger

   • Sadness

   • Fear

   • Joy

   • Excitement

   • Disgust

   • Sexual excitement

3. Authentic Self (Middle of the Triangle):
   When core emotions are felt and processed fully, a person can access their authentic self, characterized by clarity, calm, confidence, and connection.

Inhibitory Emotions in the Nervous System

1. Anxiety

A global arousal signal of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), especially the sympathetic branch (fight or flight). It arises when core emotions are experienced but cannot be tolerated or expressed safely.

• Brain regions:

  • Amygdala: hyperactive in threat detection

  • Hypothalamus: triggers HPA axis → cortisol release

  • Insula: processes internal sensations (interoception)

  • Prefrontal cortex: may attempt to suppress emotional awareness

• Somatic markers: Rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, restlessness, tight chest, shallow breathing

Reference: Porges, S. (2017). The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory; LeDoux, J. (2015). Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety

2. Shame

An inhibitory emotion triggered by perceived failure to meet social or internal standards. It shuts down expression of vulnerable states.

• Biological function: Social protection. Prevents ostracism by curbing behavior that could threaten connection or belonging.

• Brain regions:

  • Medial prefrontal cortex: self-evaluation

  • Anterior cingulate cortex: emotional pain and conflict

  • Periaqueductal gray: immobility response (freezing)

• Somatic markers: Collapse posture, averted gaze, facial flushing, desire to hide or disappear

Reference: Nathanson, D. L. (1992). Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self; Gilbert, P. (2003). Evolution, Social Roles, and the Differences in Shame and Guilt

3. Guilt

Another socially-oriented inhibitory emotion, guilt helps preserve social bonds by motivating reparative actions when behavior conflicts with moral values.

• Brain regions:

  • Ventromedial prefrontal cortex: decision-making tied to values

  • Temporal parietal junction: perspective-taking

  • Insula: subjective emotional awareness

• Somatic markers: Sinking stomach, tight chest, sense of heaviness, tears

Reference: Zahn, R. et al. (2009). “Social Concepts Are Represented in the Superior Anterior Temporal Cortex.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Why They Block Core Emotions

Inhibitory emotions function like internal brakes. They arise when core emotions trigger conflict, fear of rejection, internalized shame scripts, or trauma-based reactions. For example:

• Feeling anger → triggers shame (“I’m bad for feeling this”) → emotion gets blocked

• Feeling sadness → triggers anxiety (“If I cry, I’ll lose control”) → body tightens, emotion suppressed

Rather than expressing the core emotion, the person may default to defensive behaviors (e.g., pleasing, avoiding, dissociating).

Somatic View: How They Exist in the Body

Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing and Porges’ Polyvagal Theory explain that inhibitory emotions often result from overcoupling — when activation of core emotion is paired with danger signals from the body.

The nervous system constricts, narrows awareness, and attempts to “shut down” to maintain regulation and social safety.

Over time, chronic reliance on inhibitory emotions leads to:

• Autonomic dysregulation (chronic sympathetic or dorsal vagal dominance)

• Disconnection from felt sense

• Reduced affect tolerance and expression

Reference:

• Levine, P. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice

• Panksepp, J. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind

• Hendel, H. J. (2018). It’s Not Always Depression

The Seduction of Thinking: When We Mistake Analysis for Feeling

In therapy, I often ask clients, “Can you describe what you’re feeling—what it actually feels like?” I’m inviting them into their embodied experience: the tightness in the chest, the flutter in the stomach, the heat behind the eyes. But more often than not, what I hear back is, “It feels like it means…”

This response is familiar—and telling.

Our culture rewards insight, action, and interpretation. We’re praised for what we make of a moment, not for the quiet work of sensing and staying. Slowing down to feel is not something we’re taught, and if we’ve experienced trauma, it may not even feel safe. Trauma trains the body to cope, not feel. And in the absence of safety, thinking becomes a powerful—if unintentional—way to avoid feeling altogether. It can even become part of our identity, “a thinking person not a feeling person”.

But this avoidance comes at a cost.

When we think in place of feeling, we lose access to vital information that arises from within. Our nervous system isn’t waiting on us to invent meaning—it already knows. But its language is slow, subtle, and bodily. It needs space, and sometimes support, to speak—and for us to listen.

When we short-circuit this process with premature interpretation, we miss out on:

• Knowing when we don’t feel safe

• Recognizing when we do

• Clarifying what we want

• Sensing the emotional tone in a room (social intelligence)

• Accessing the deeper, creative problem-solving that emerges from felt awareness

These aren't just “soft skills.” They are central to how we live, love, and make decisions. And without them we run the risk of living blindly.

The work, then, is to notice when we're thinking instead of feeling—and gently return to the body. That’s where the real conversation begins.

The Cult of Meaning-Making: When Thinking Hijacks Feeling

In our fast-paced culture, thinking is often elevated as the highest human function—our prized problem-solver, meaning-maker, and escape hatch. But thinking, as necessary as it is, can become a trap. Especially when it overrides our capacity to feel.

Neuroscience tells us that emotions come first. Literally. We feel before we think. Research by Jaak Panksepp and Lucy Biven (2012) demonstrates that emotional experience arises from deep subcortical structures in the brain—what they call the “core self”—before the neocortex (the seat of conscious thought) even gets involved.

Yet when we feel overwhelmed, vulnerable, or dysregulated, we often reach for thinking as a shield. We lean into analysis, planning, interpreting—often without realizing we're doing it to avoid the raw intensity of emotion. This pattern shows up neurologically in the dominance of the left prefrontal cortex—what psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist (2010) describes as the left hemisphere’s narrow, detail-focused grasp on the world.

McGilchrist’s work reveals that the left hemisphere, especially the top-left-frontal region, tends to "make meaning" even when it lacks full data. It creates interpretations to soothe uncertainty—even if the result is distorted, fragmented, or, frankly, wrong. It favors coherence over truth. It would rather invent an answer than admit it doesn't know.

And here’s the rub: the left brain doesn’t have direct access to the richness of lived experience. It depends on the right hemisphere—our embodied, relational, and emotionally attuned brain—for that. The left side is secondary. A translator. A map-maker, not a navigator. As McGilchrist puts it, “The right hemisphere sees the whole, the left sees the parts and confuses the map for the territory” (McGilchrist, 2010).

The danger is cultural as well as personal. A society dominated by left-brain modes of thought can become obsessed with control, explanation, and certainty. Feeling is dismissed as irrational. Intuition is sidelined. Opinion replaces embodied knowing. As a result, we become more reactive, less reflective—and more cut off from ourselves.

But there’s another way.

Like many in the fields of affective neuroscience and psychotherapy, I invite a return to the wisdom of the body. As developmental neuropsychologist Allan Schore (2012) suggests, we can "shift down and to the right"—from the high-speed highways of left-brain cognition to the slower, more relational terrain of the right hemisphere and subcortical brain.

This shift asks us to pause. To feel. To listen to our body’s signals—its tension, breath, heart rate, gut response—before rushing to interpret or explain. It’s in this space, Schore says, that self-regulation becomes possible. And once we’re regulated, the deeper wisdom stored in our emotional and somatic systems begins to rise.

Our nervous systems are not just reactive—they're adaptive. But they need time. Time to feel before we think. Time to notice before we narrate. Time to allow the truth of our experience to emerge from the inside out—not be forced from the top down.

So let’s resist the cult of premature meaning-making. Let’s be willing to not know for a little while longer. In that not-knowing, something truer may take shape.

References

• Panksepp, J., & Biven, L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotion. W. W. Norton & Company.

• McGilchrist, I. (2010). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press.

• Schore, A. N. (2012). The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

Supporting a Loved One Through a Panic Attack: A Resource for Family Members, etc.

In the previous post, I wrote about how to survive a panic attack. In this post, we’ll explore how to support our loved ones when they are suffering panic.

Panic Attacks Are Not Just "All in Their Head"
Panic attacks are overwhelming surges of fear or distress, often accompanied by racing heart, shallow breathing, dizziness, and the intense feeling that something terrible is about to happen. Though they are not physically dangerous, they are emotionally intense and deeply unsettling to witness or experience.

Key insight: Panic is often rooted in attachment distress — a reaction in the brain's emotional systems that signals threat, disconnection, or vulnerability. Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp identified PANIC/GRIEF as one of the brain’s core emotional systems — the same system activated during separation, loss, or loneliness.

What Panic Attacks Feel Like to the Person Experiencing One:

• “I think I’m dying.”

• “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

• “I’m going crazy.”

• “I have to get out of here.”

These thoughts are often not rational — they are physiological reactions.

What Family Members May Feel:

• Helpless

• Anxious or panicked themselves

• Frustrated or confused

• Unsure what to do or say

Important: The more confident and calm you can stay, the more their nervous system can begin to settle.

How to Help During a Panic Attack

DO:

• Speak gently and slowly. Try: “You’re safe right now. I’m here.”

• Guide them to breathe slowly (match your breath with theirs if they can’t follow commands).

• Help them orient: “Can you look around and name 5 things you see?”

• Offer presence, not solutions (don’t ask a bunch of questions): Sit beside them, be steady.

• Use their name. If appropriate, offer a hug, or touch their shoulder or hand gently (only if welcomed).

• Afterward, offer water or something grounding (a cool cloth, weighted blanket, or walk).

DON’T:

• Say “calm down” or “you’re overreacting.”

• Ask them to explain or justify their feelings.

• Leave unless they ask for space and are safe.

Understanding the Emotions Behind Panic: The Change Triangle (from the work of Hilary Jacobs Hendel)

The Change Triangle shows how we often move from core emotions (like fear, sadness, anger, joy) → to anxiety or panic → and then to defenses (like shutting down, lashing out, numbing). Panic attacks may appear out of nowhere, but they are often a signal that unprocessed core emotions have built up or been avoided.

Helping someone move from panic toward core emotion (like grief or fear) and then to connection or relief takes time, presence, and a calm environment.

You Are Not Their Therapist — But You Are Their Anchor

Your role is not to fix or diagnose. Your role is to be a safe attachment figure — someone whose presence says: “You are not alone in this.”

Think of yourself as a calm dock as they ride out a storm. You don’t have to stop the storm. Just stay close.

Helping Yourself While Helping Them

• Take a deep breath yourself.

• Remind yourself: “This is hard, but I can stay with it.”

• Reach out to your own support system if needed.

• Reflect on what you need afterward (rest, time alone, reassurance).

Repeat This to Yourself:

“This is not forever. This is a nervous system in distress. My steady presence helps.”

How to survive a panic attack

Many people have panic attacks or panic episodes. Panic might be one of the most misunderstood experiences in mental health. This is because many people don’t understand where panic is rooted in the brain and what that brain placement means. In the next post I will write about the meaning of panic attacks and how to support a loved one in a panic attack. For this post, here are immediate techniques you can try.

IMMEDIATE PANIC ATTACK TECHNIQUES

(Fast-acting methods to reduce panic and re-regulate)

1. Physiological Sigh (double inhale)

How to do it:

• Inhale once through the nose

• Take a second quick inhale on top

• Exhale slowly and fully through the mouth
  → Repeat 1–3 times

Why it works:
Rapidly reduces CO₂ and calms the autonomic nervous system by engaging the parasympathetic “brake.”
Source: Huberman Lab, Stanford Neuroscience; Zelano et al., 2016

2. Orienting (Somatic Experiencing®)

How to do it:

• Let your eyes slowly scan the environment

• Notice colors, shapes, light, or movement

• Gently turn your head as you do this

• Let your body follow what feels interesting or settling

• If rocking or swaying or other movement is spontaneous during this that’s fine too

Say to yourself:
“I’m here. I can look around. There’s no immediate danger.”

Why it works:
Engages the superior colliculus and ventral vagal system (Polyvagal Theory), signaling to the brain that you are safe.
Source: Peter Levine, SE International; Porges, 2011

3. 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding

How to do it:

• 5 things you see

• 4 things you can touch

• 3 things you hear

• 2 things you smell

• 1 thing you taste

Why: Brings you back to the present moment using sensory input, diverting focus from fear cycles.
Used widely in trauma-informed CBT and DBT

4. Box Breathing

How to do it:
Inhale – Hold – Exhale – Hold (4 seconds each)
→ Repeat 4–6 times

Why: Regulates breath rhythms and stimulates vagus nerve, reducing physiological arousal.
Navy SEALs, mindfulness protocols, HRV research

5. Cold Water or Ice Hack

How to do it:
Splash cold water on face or hold ice to palms or neck.

Why: Triggers the mammalian dive reflex, slowing heart rate and bringing attention back to the body.
Clinical anxiety relief; parasympathetic activation

6. “Feel Your Feet” Grounding

Press feet firmly into floor.
Wiggle toes, shift weight, sense contact.
Say: “These are my feet. The floor is holding me.”

Why: Activates proprioception, helps shift out of freeze or dissociation.
Somatic Experiencing®, Polyvagal Theory

7. “Name It to Tame It”

Say: “This is a panic attack. It will pass. I am safe even though it feels scary.”

Why: Puts language to emotion, engaging the prefrontal cortex to regulate the limbic system (amygdala).
Dan Siegel, “The Whole-Brain Child”