How to avoid having panic attacks on the subway

This is one dude's funny, self-deprecating look at his experiences with panic attacks on New York subway trains. The first one went like this:

out of nowhere, i started feeling really intense feelings that i couldn’t control, like more and more and more nervous and scared and i wanted to get off the subway so much but i couldn’t obviously because it was moving. then my legs started shaking and i was sweating and i could only see straight in front of me it felt like the universe was collapsing in my mind, and i was hyperventilating and i slid my headphones down to my neck and gently touched the arm of this middle-aged woman next to me who was also holding onto the pole. it felt like i couldn’t control my thoughts and they were spiraling towards a point where my mind would snap and/or i would actually die

so the woman whose arm i touched took one of her ipod earbuds out and suspiciously said “is everything okay?” like i think she thought i was like trying to get money from her or gonna bomb the train or something because i was nervous and sweaty and i look a little middle-eastern, and my hand was trembling, and i said to her “i don’t know what’s happening to me, i’m really sorry, i’m terrified, i don’t know why, can you talk to me please? just for like thirty seconds?”

But the panic attacks apparently didn't end there, and over time, to combat panic, the writer came up with the five techniques for managing his anxiety on the subway. (Actually, there are eight, but who's counting?) For instance, technique number one:

wear a bunch of rubber bands around your wrist and then when you start feeling terrified, pull them as far from your wrist as possible and then release them so they snap back against your wrist and it stings. this is a cheap solution that will distract you from the terror, but you will also confirm peoples’ suspicions that you have a mental illness

And technique number three-point-five:

try to envision where you are, but above ground, when you’re on the subway. like if you are on the C line for example, between Spring Street and Canal Street, think about that car wash on 6th Avenue that charges different prices for a carwash depending on the time of day, then think about that restaurant Lupe’s, then think about the Soho Grand hotel, then you’re at Canal! then do that all the way home. you will find that you know the city better than you thought you did

Clever stuff. Worth a read, for sure.
Also worth a read, or so I hoped when I wrote it five years ago: an account of my first subway panic attack.