When I have panic attacks, there's always one thing I end up doing. I'll sit somewhere secluded, rock myself back and forth, and make shushing noises. At some point during this, I invariably find myself wondering why I'm doing that? I never had an answer and I couldn't even tell if it helped, but I always ended up doing it anyway.
But guess what! I know why I do it now!
On Sunday, my mom, my sister Kimberly, and I were chatting after church. As Kin is still hugely pregnant, we naturally got onto the topic of babies and Kin told us about one of the new things she had learned. It's called "The 5 S's" or something like that. If I remember right, the 5 S's are swaddling, sleeping, swinging... something else, and shushing. She told us about how when a baby is crying you need to shush louder than they're crying so they can hear you, and rock them back and forth more vigorously if they're crying harder. It sounds odd, and likely the mental picture this gives you is also odd, but it is apparently very soothing to the baby. Saying, "Shhh, shhhh," over and over calms a baby down.
After Kin mentioned that, I had a moment of, "Oh! That's why I do it!" Thinking back, whenever I do start shushing myself when I'm panicking, it does stop my crying. My sister mentioned that shushing is also soothing to an adult. Why? I have no idea. When I picture someone shushing me when I'm not upset, it seems like it would be obnoxious, but when I'm in tears, it's not. Weird. I suppose it's just something that stayed with me from my baby years. It calmed me then, it calms me now. Maybe it's relaxing because when someone is saying, "Shhh," the noise is loud enough that you can hear it past your tears, and it thus reminds you that someone is with you and watching over you.
I feel slightly cool that my natural instinct when I'm panicking is clinically proven to be soothing. It's also nice that I won't have to wonder what the heck I'm doing next time I have a panic attack. Yay!
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