how to handle "intense" positive attention?

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Depends on the situation, if I am being praised at work I always deflect it from me to others, and say something like “I’m just lucky to have a great team.” It gets me out of the praise and makes my teams work that bit more appreciated.
If I’m with friends I pretend that my work was inspired and as the result of someone else idea. “I know I did the work, but I’d have not been able to without help from….”
I hate being touched by relative strangers, so suffer agony, both mental and physical when people come up to me and want to congratulate and Hug me. I am a master of not flinching and pulling back (running is what I want to do) I grin/smile and bear it, then escape as soon as I can. It’s not un-usual for me to be/feel physically sick after such an encounter.

Ugh, I have the same issue. Also, a lot of them like to put themselves down to juice up the praise, which is creepy. Most of the time they seem perfectly cheerful when they say it, but I don't know how to respond to a compliment when it includes, "I don't know how you do that! I could never do that." It's stupid anyway. I doubt if they ever tried, much less took years of art classes in order to learn...

Anyway, gushing can really spoil a compliment. And if you gripe about it, don't you feel like they'll think your a jerk for not appreciating a compliment? That's how I feel about it, even though I'm almost in a panic trying to escape the intense focus of praise that some of them give me. I mean, what can you say, anyway? "Why, thank you, I know I'm good. I've worked at it for years." Thanking them is all you've got but when they won't let you go, you have to figure out what you can say about the thing you did that was good or maybe not as good as they seem to think, as the case may be, without looking conceited or insecure.