When my heart begins to race and my thoughts run cloudy with irrational and targeted thoughts, I often find myself reaching for my phone, for my music, for the songs I grouped into a category boldly labeled panic attack playlist.
There are endless songs that can help one get through a panic attack, but when I choose what to listen to it’s important for them to have steady, simple beats in the background. I am not simply distracting myself with the words or lyrics of other artists; I am making a connection with the chords of a guitar or keys of a piano. I am grounding myself to an entity greater and more complex than myself, in hopes of leaving my mind and rejoining reality.
Music has become my most relied-upon remedy for when panic attacks take over my mind and my body. There is a mix of genres, ranging from classical (Yanni) to folk (Sanders Bohlke) to alternative (The Shins). Of the music on my playlist, these are the songs that have stuck with me throughout the years:
