Complementary therapies may be useful to people who suffer with panic and anxiety attacks in a number of ways, primarily in helping to reduce anxiety levels which appear to be an integral part of anxiety attacks.

Therapies could be described as falling into two main categories; those which address your mind and the thoughts you may have, and those which treat your body. Having said this, mind and body are so closely interlinked that one inevitably affects the other. A therapy might be directed at either your thoughts or your physical sensations, but will probably end up affecting the other.

Or you might want a therapy which will help you acquire new skills to be of direct use in learning how to stay calm, control your thoughts, be more assertive, reduce the frequency of anxiety attacks, or help you to cope with them better.

Complementary therapies can be incredibly enjoyable - a positive ingredient to include if you're aiming to improve the quality of your lifestyle. They can also increase your sense of well-being and have a very positive effect on those vitally important feelings of self-confidence.

Which Therapy?

This question is really for you to answer. It is your decision. Since there is little comparative literature to support one therapy over another, it is your responsibility to investigate the possibilities and decide for yourself. We are all individual and we all have different needs. A therapy which is ideal for me may not provide what you want.

From the things you have started to find out about yourself, you may now be in a position to know that you would appreciate some help with sorting out what goes on in your head. You may have discovered some unresolved conflicts from your past which you feel are holding back your progress and having a negative effect on your life.

Or you may now feel that you would like to know more about self-control and the power of thought, in which case you would be wise to look at those therapies which are more concerned with the mind.

Alternatively, you may be aware of how tense and unyielding your body has become through the effects of anxiety and constant worry about your next panic attack. Although you know your mind could do with a bit of work on it too, your priority might be to bring some respite from tension to your body. That's fine. It's up to you where you decide to start from, and finding a therapy which treats your body may bring enormous benefits to you and be what you need first.

In choosing a therapy there are other aspects to consider, such as whether you want individual treatment or group work. Price might be an important factor. Decide if you need to find someone local, or even someone who can visit you at home. Do you need to find a therapist who can do weekend or evening work? What do you need the therapy to help you achieve? What are your aims for going there? It might be something as vague as wanting to get more in touch with yourself. That's fine. So long as you know what you need, then it will make it easier to find a therapy which suits.

You might be able to think of more things which are important to you and which may affect your final decision. Spend some time thinking about what other needs you have.

There are many books available on the wide range of different therapies. Take the initiative and make a trip to your local library; ask them for a reference book on complementary therapies. One which outlines a variety will be of most use to begin with, to help you compare without having to go into too much detail. Once you have identified those which you think might be able to offer what you are looking for, you can then do more specific in-depth reading.