Basic Panic Attacks Information To Understand
“Panic attack” is a phrase you sometimes hear people use casually when they feel a bit stressed or pressured by everyday life. But a real panic attack is much more than a feeling of nervousness or of being rushed or harried, and it can be readily distinguished by the intense physical sensations that accompany an episode. Though the precise symptoms vary in different people and at different times, when in the grip of an attack, a sufferer may tremble, sweat, have trouble breathing, dizziness and nausea, the heart may pound or even feel like a heart attack is coming on. It’s not surprising given the intensity of these feelings that panic attack victims even feel they are dying. There is usually no clear cause for the beginning of a panic attack—it is just an “irrational” unmotivated event. Eventually, however, people who are prone to these episodes develop intense fear and anxiety about the experience recurring, which can in turn become a trigger, causing even more attacks. This is why it is imperative that someone who suffers from this condition gathers and understand panic attacks information.
There are ways of treating people who suffer from panic attacks. Various kinds of medication are available, and there are a number of therapeutic approaches that can help people gain control of their experience and lessen the intensity or even prevent a full blown attack. Unfortunately, too few of the people who are prone to this disorder realize that help is available and reach out for treatment.
Behavioral therapy can be helpful for many people. In this approach the person may be taught to deliberately relive or invoke some of the symptoms they have experienced. If they can learn to do this deliberately, the symptom itself becomes less frightening. Once the victim recognizes under controlled conditions that in fact he or she is not actually in danger of dying, the fear of that particular symptom will decrease and become less of a trigger to cause or intensify future panic attacks.
Another therapeutic approach focuses on learning to relax. At the first indication of an attack onset, the person is trained to direct the attention toward internal tensions—relaxing first in the head and upper body, and gradually through the entire body. Learning and practicing breath control is another key element of relaxation therapy, since rapid breathing and pounding heart are primary symptoms. Conscious deep slow inhalation and exhalation can help bring those reactions under control.
The essential element of these techniques is teaching the panic attack victim to recognize what is happening early enough that they can begin to take control of the experience before it is completely debilitating. Then, hopefully, the first signs of an attack will not simply bring on more panic. Instead they will cue the person to remember these learned coping mechanisms and the reassuring knowledge that “this too shall pass.”
Anxiety is the general underlying cause of panic attacks for most people. There are a number of other specific psychological disorders associated with panic attacks—post-traumatic stress victims are highly vulnerable, as are people with obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD). These illnesses share with panic attacks the unpredictable and uncontrolled intrusion into the sufferer’s mind of thoughts and fears they cannot control. OCD is actually a kind of behavioral response to panic through repetitive actions—it’s just not a healthy behavioral response, because it becomes just as uncontrollable as the panic or anxiety it seeks to allay.
