Panic Attacks

[tinytalker]

My 15yr old dd has a history of anxiety disorders and has recently had a panic attack at school. She is a very conscientious student with very high predicted grades which I think is adding to her stress, she is doing GCSE's this summer. I don't mind what grades she gets as long as she does her best and gets the results that ensure she can move on to the A level's she wants.
School and our GP are very supportive and she is seeing a counsellor for CBT.
My question really is does anyone have any instant techniques she can use to avert a panic attack or lessen its effect when it happens? Does breathing into a bag help?
ANy ideas gratefully received.

Telling myself that it was "only a panic attack, I am NOT going to die" used to help some as did rescue remedy by Bach flowers.

CBT definitely helped the best though.

Rescue remedy helped, as did deep breathing. I always used to suck a mint as well which helped (don't know why). Best wishes to your DD - I've been there and know how it feels. Sadly I didn't get help until I was 21 (started when I was 14) so I'm glad she's getting help now. Just let her know she will get through it and it does pass.

the remedy as taught on first aid courses is indeed to breathe into a PAPER bag. (have to make the obvious statement that it should not be plastic!) So she should carry one with her.

this calms by recycling more CO2 in, without risk of suffocation. Also the obvious ones of someone with her to calm, reassure and keep too much of an audience away.

Dd once hyperventilated so badly in the night that we rang for an ambulance: the usual paper bag method didn' work and we thought she might be having an asthma attack. It took the paramedics a full hour to get her under control, but they did tell her two very useful things.

The first was that you can't actually come to serious harm from hyperventilating: once your brain gets really short of oxygen you will pass out and then you will start breathing normally.

The second- and more immediately useful- was that counting aloud makes you start breathing normally. That's what they did: no clever medical equipment or anything, they just had dd counting 1-2-3-4 until her breathing slowed down.

Thanks everyone for your replies, all very useful :)

noting that counting tip should I ever need to help someone with this. Brilliant!