Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Break a Panic Attack in 2 Minutes

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Dr. Daniel Amen and actress/model Nikki Leigh demonstrate a technique to break a panic attack in 2 minutes. Panic disorder is a type of anxiety disorder in which a person experiences recurrent panic attacks. A panic attack involves sudden feelings of intense fear and worry combined with overwhelming physical symptoms even though there is no real danger present. Panic attacks themselves are not life-threatening, but they can make you feel like you can’t breathe like you’re having a heart attack, or like you might die. Panic attacks tend to come on suddenly and without warning. They can hit you anywhere at any time—even in places you would expect to feel safe. For example, a panic attack can wake you from a sound sleep in your own bed, hit you when you’re on vacation at the beach, or strike you while you’re in church. The distressing feelings can linger long after the initial onset of the panic attack. You may begin to live in fear of having another attack and begin avoiding places or situations where you think it might happen again. This can ruin your quality of life and cause problems at work, at school, and at home.

Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. I'm going to teach your diaphragmating. Because if you do that and breathe with your belly. Yeah. And when you're beautiful, beautiful women hold their stomach. in. Yes. And they wear tight clothes. I don't want you wearing tight clothes. Right. Yeah. I don't want to do that. I'm doing all those diaphragm. Because, because, so imagine,

these are your lungs. And, you know, you breathe so that you get oxygen, and your brain is the most oxygen-hungry organ in your body. So it's 2% of your body's weight, about three pounds. but it uses 20% of the oxygen in your body. So when we do whole body scans, it's like the brain's a little heater and everything else goes through. In between your lungs and your belly, you have a big muscle,

and the muscle's called your diaphragm. And, you know, in your belly, you have all sorts of stuff. You have a liver and a pancreas and the kidneys and the stomach. 30 feet of intestines. You've got to walk. Yeah. And if you ever watched a baby breathe or a puppy breathe,

always with their belly, they keep their chest still, and it's all here. So when you breathe in, I want you to stick your belly out. And when you breathe out, I want you to stick your belly in. And I want you to exaggerate it initially. So what I'll have you do is I'll have you lay down in the kitchen. couch. I'll put a book on your belly and we'll just watch the book go up. When you breathe in, watch it go down when you breathe out and practice it. This skill, from a singer's perspective, you'll double your lung capacity because when you stick your belly out, you flatten the diaphragm

and it doubles your lung capacity. All right. Later, put your head over. We're down. Okay. Okay. Okay. Then I just breathe my stomach. Yeah. Slow deep, mostly with the stomach. What I want you to do is think about four seconds in.

Hold it just for a second. And eight seconds out. Yeah, you're doing great. And just try to keep your chest still. And just over time, it's a skill to build, but you're already doing it just about perfect. I'm going to work on this whole thing for a while. And this is really interesting to watch the book.

I mean, they usually say, like, put your hands on there and watch it rise, but I don't know, this is a lot better. Yeah, no, you're doing great. So practice this. Okay. Or another thing. Let me trade the book for the answer. Because you know why we have the answer. To get rid of the ants.

Yeah. You want to get rid of the ants. I'll let you take them home. You need a T.Y. Bany baby. Because it's like you don't need any ants, so you have to have an ant eater. So hilarious. To get rid of it. And when you have sad thoughts or mad thoughts or anxious thoughts, your breathing disintegrates.

Right. So start to breathe with your chest. You breathe fast. It's more erratic. And the simplest thing to do is just getting control of your breathing. So you have to practice this couple times a day. And then when you need it, like you're going to perform and you get anxious or you're in a situation that makes you're anxious, you'll know how to do it. It's the very first thing to do to break in a panic.