Panic attacks affect millions of people; even those who don’t suffer from mental health issues may experience them. These symptoms include sweating, tingling in the hands, rapid heartbeat, tremors, a feeling of impending doom, and fear of death.
Of course, no one wants to live with this. That’s why Colorado psychologist Jennifer Anders, who runs the The.Anxiety.Doc account on Instagram, posted a video showing her followers a way to stop panic attacks. The video was posted last summer, racking up 2.7 million views and tens of thousands of likes, and is still being shared across the platform.
Anders calls the mental health tip the “Lemon Panic Hack,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. In the video, she tells viewers to cut a lemon into wedges and put it in their mouth the next time they feel a panic attack. “The Lemon Panic Hack works by bringing awareness into the body and into the present moment, so it’s a foundational tool.”
Think about it: When you suck on a lemon, your mouth immediately starts to pucker, and you notice a sour sensation. “It takes your awareness away from negative cyclical thoughts and into the present moment and helps you connect with your surroundings, which is what lemons are,” says Anders.
You may even find yourself taking a deep breath after tasting the sour flavor.
“What it really does is help you detach your mind from your thoughts and bring awareness into your body,” Anders said. “That’s what we try to do… whenever we’re in a panic.”
She adds that if you If you don’t have lemons on hand, this method will also work for sour candies like warheads.
Victoria Riordan, a therapist at Thriveworks in Columbus, Ohio, who also shared mental health advice on social media, said that while she hasn’t heard of using lemons specifically, she has heard of using other foods ( such as chocolate) to prevent panic attacks. According to Riordan, this makes sense based on classic panic disorder treatments.
“When you have a panic attack, your sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive,” she says.
Our sympathetic nervous system is a neural network that helps activate us so that we can respond quickly to stressful situations. When you have a fight, flight, freeze response, your sympathetic nervous system is triggered, and its job is to keep you away from danger.
Any sensory intervention that can get you out of your fight, flight, or freeze response—such as using your senses of taste or smell—will be helpful. The sensory component is great for this because our brains use our senses first to determine if we are in danger.
But when you have a panic attack, your body has a hard time distinguishing between what’s truly dangerous and what’s safe. You may be in a completely safe environment, but your brain and body perceive your surroundings as threatening.
This is where sensory tools come in, like biting into a lemon. This method is also known as the grounding technique. According to Anders, they draw your physical and mental attention and bring your mind back to the present moment—similar to mindfulness.
This is not the case for people who have panic attacks due to intense experiences. Feeling anxious about scary and tragic things is a normal reaction, and actually, it makes sense.
In some ways, the adrenaline rush is helpful because it’s part of the fight or flight response, it keeps you going and gets you to take action, but what we don’t like is when your body has this physiological response in Experience without stressors.
Beyond this hack, it’s important to seek out mental health support.
It is important to take care of your health so that you can live without limitations. You can’t—and shouldn’t—eat lemons or sour candies day after day to control panic attacks.
Seeking treatment can address this issue so that your fear of panic attacks doesn’t make your panic attacks worse.
Part of this work includes educating yourself on how to best care for your mental health before it reaches breaking point.
The golden ticket is really combining these things with psychoeducation, which is just learning how to make people aware of how your thoughts, your feelings, and your behaviors are all connected. Learning doesn’t just mean knowing panic attack techniques, but learning how to regulate your mind and body.
While it’s important to have tools to help you manage panic attacks, this lemon hack won’t help you get to the root cause of the problem, which is a necessary part of your mental health journey.
When you’re dealing with something like this, it’s important to get to the root cause and understand that avoidance is not the right way to deal with anxiety. A lot of people, when they experience a panic attack, when they experience anxiety, their natural tendency is to want to avoid the trigger, and that makes sense.But it actually makes the situation more difficult because it creates a mental block in your mind; avoidance only exacerbates your stress.
Additionally, while this lemon tip can help reduce anxiety in the moment, it may not last all day—you may find yourself feeling anxious again 10 minutes later.
It won’t help you with your overall anxiety, but it will help you deal with it by training your brain and body to come back to the present moment rather than looping through your thoughts.
That’s why it’s crucial to seek additional support from a therapist, combined with using tools like Lemon Hacks to manage anxiety. You should feel safe and calm all day, every day, not just in one moment.