It doesn’t matter what you are talking about in life, panicking will only make things worse. At home, at work, during a true bloodletting emergency, fear and panic will not help you. The only solution I have ever found is to tell myself, often loudly “it is only (fill in the blank)”. The “blank” could be blood, pain, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of public speaking, dying in a plane crash, failing a test, losing your job, stock market crash or being eaten by a shark while swimming. Taking a firm and confident mental position will help you, here are some thoughts.

At one point in my life I was a trained “first responder” as well as certified to teach Red Cross first aid and CPR. Rule #1, secure yourself and your situation, one disaster is bad enough-don’t make it two disasters. So if you stop to help at a car accident, make sure your car is blocking traffic from hitting YOU so you can assist others. If you happen to run into an electrical emergency, shut off the power before you touch anything-better to be safe than electrocuted, you can’t help anyone if you are being electrocuted. If someone has fallen through frozen ice, get them a rope or branch, take off your shirt or jeans and throw it out to them, do not try to walk on the ice out to save them. It sounds like common sense right? But the thing is when panic takes over common sense, calm clarity and critical thinking go right out the window.

Before I go further I want you to click this link and start the music-reduce the window and come back to me.

Here is how it starts for me; I generally start by holding my breath, which after a short period of time makes me dizzy. Around the time I start to feel dizzy I know I am panicking-so I remind myself to breath. Immediately things get better. Then the song you are listening to, well it starts playing inside my stomach which makes white caps in my little sea of stomach acid. (BTW you should recognize this music-it is played in several famous slasher and satanic movies).

Then I say to myself “Jemma, go to solution” and more often than not it flips a switch in me. It reminds me that if I am panicking I am not going to finish the physics test. If I panic, I am not securing my life preserver on the sinking ship. Panicking doesn’t help you perform effective CPR. Panicking, while totally natural, is essentially useless so save you or anyone else. Panicking was designed to increase your sympathetic nervous system responses so that in an emergency there would be more blood flow to large muscles to you could run away from a bear. A stimulated sympathetic nervous system increases blood flow to your ear drums so you can hear better and increases the size of your pupils to let more light in so you can see with better acuity. Adrenalin released in panic mode causes constriction in your bronchial tubes so you can increase the volume of oxygen you can take in and make it available to your body to do work in an emergency. Stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system makes it so you don’t notice if you are hungry or have to go potty-I suppose because if a bear is chasing you-it’s not a good time to stop for a sandwich. Adrenalin released by your sympathetic nervous systems constricts blood vessels so you bleed less if injured. The other funny stuff like an upset stomach, feeling dizzy-well that is all just silly side effects from the adrenalin. If you know about these silly side effects you can talk your way through them and control them rather than they control you.

When I worked in emergency veterinary medicine, guess what the busiest day of the year was? 4th of July. Animals generally don’t appreciate fireworks; they think that their previously quiet neighborhood has suddenly turned into a war zone. They run into the street panicking and get hit by cars, they chew through dog crates, they chase and often bite fireworks, they run full speed into closed glass doors, and they escape yard boundaries and meet up with other panicking animals and get in fights. For the people of the USA, it’s a great day for celebrating independence from England for animals on the other hand it is a terrifying, horrific bonanza of unexpected and unpredictable loud noise and light. Fortunately as humans with a supposed larger forebrain we can understand what is happening whereas animals cannot.

This brings me back to my point which is whether in business or personal life panicking won’t help. The wolf lurking at the door is just fear disguised as a scruffy dog, he can’t really hurt you. Panicking on the other hand can suspend your ability to save your business or a life. Next time panic sets in, remind yourself it can’t help you and go to solution. As Ivar Hagland would say “remain calm, cool, and collect”.