Overcoming panic attacks is something many people struggle with right now. Because of the current economic crisis including home foreclosures, job losses, credit problems and the Wall Street meltdown, many people are feeling anxious and worried about life in general.

Panic attacks are no fun (that's an understatement). I remember the first time I had a panic attack, I thought I was having a heart attack. I was short of breath and my heart was beating fast and a felt like I was ready to jump out of my skin.

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The panic attack seemed to come out of the blue. I didn't know what to do. I was very afraid and I didn't know why. No one was bothering me and my life was not being threatened. Yet, there was that fight or flight response to fear as if I were in grave danger.

For me, overcoming panic attacks was a process that took years. I read every book I could on it, saw a psychotherapist and even took anti-anxiety medication. Of what I tried, medication worked the least. I would say that my biggest gain in overcoming the panic attacks were behavioral changes.

I learned not to be so impressed with the sudden onset of the intense anxiety. I learned that when I was in the middle of a panic attack I had to start taking slow deep breaths even when I was in the company of another person.

"Oh, I feel winded right now for some reason," I would say and take a few deep breaths and the other person generally thought nothing of it or asked if they could help. "No, I just need a moment," I would say.

If I was alone and in public I could overcome the panic attacks by simple leaning on something and breathing for a while. I would try to orient myself to my environment and feel grounded.

I would tell myself over and again, "It's not a heart attack." I would also try later to do some soul searching to see what might have triggered the panic attack. I would usually find some childhood issue or other issue from the past that for some reason had pushed itself into the present.

The past is always present, as they say and this has been true in getting to the root causes and overcoming future panic attacks.

By not being impressed with the panic attacks, fear, anxiety, fight or flight in the present and just say to yourself, "Oh here it comes again. I will get through it" this is a powerful message to yourself that you are a strong and capable person and will be able to endure the short term discomfort of the panic attack.

As I said before I'm done a lot of reading about panic attacks in order to try to get a handle on this condition and have some self control. One of the top resources I've come across is called Panic Away, which is a program that teaches you techniques of what to do when you feel that you're in the crisis of an intense anxiety attack. There's an 8 week guarantee with this so it's really a low risk resource and it helped me to add to the techniques that I already knew to keep the panic at bay.