Elizabeth Olsen used to experience panic attacks 'on the hour every hour'

msn.com:

Elizabeth Olsen suffered from panic attacks "on the hour every hour" for six months when she was 21. The WandaVision actress revealed in an interview with Variety that her panic attacks were so bad at one point she thought she was "going to drop dead" while trying to cross the street in New York. "I remember I would get them on the hour every hour.

I used to live on 13th Street between 6th and 7th. I was crossing 6th Avenue at 14th Street, and I realised I couldn't cross the street - I stood up against the wall, and I just thought I was going to drop dead at any moment," she recalled.

The 33-year-old explained that an ears, nose, or throat (ENT) doctor thought her attacks could be vertigo-related because "it was all about truly spinning". "If I went from cold to hot, hot to cold, full to hungry, hungry to full - any kind of shift in my body, my whole body thought, 'Uh oh, something's wrong!' And I just started spiralling," she shared. "So, it was an interesting six months. " The Avengers actress explained that she got over the attacks with the help of medication and by learning "brain games" that kept her thoughts in check. "When I would walk down the street, I would just start naming everything I saw out loud to get myself out of the spiralling thoughts in my brain.

That was a helpful tool. But it just became a practice that got me out of it," Elizabeth continued. "I didn't want to be on medication, but I had medication in case I felt like I was having an emergency and just having that in my bag felt good.