Overcoming Panic Attacks

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Basically what causes panic attacks is anxiety. And if you can understand better how anxiety crops up, you will be able to control and overcome your panic attacks.

Anxiety is a basic emotion we all face. While anxiety, by its nature, is an unpleasant sensation, it is not dangerous or will lead to life-threatening conditions.

Most people who have never experienced a panic attack, or extreme anxiety, fail to realize the terrifying nature of the experience. Extreme dizziness, blurred vision, tingling and feelings of breathlessness—and more..

When these sensations occur and people do not understand why, they feel they have contracted an illness, or a serious mental condition. The threat of losing complete control seems very real and naturally very terrifying.

I am sure most of you have heard of the fight/flight response as an explanation for one of the root causes of panic attacks.

Anxiety is a response to a danger or threat. It is so named because all of its effects are aimed toward either fighting or fleeing from the danger. This may seem ironic given that you no doubt feel your anxiety is actually causing you great harm…perhaps the most significant of all the causes of panic attacks.

However, the anxiety that the fight/flight response created was vital in the daily survival of our ancient ancestors—when faced with some danger, an automatic response would take over that propelled them to take immediate action such as attack or run.

Anxiety is a built-in mechanism to protect us from danger. Interestingly, it is a mechanism that protects but does not harm—an important point that will be elaborated upon later.

What Are The Causes Of Panic Attacks?

Nervousness and Chemical Effects…

When confronted with danger, the brain sends signals to a section of the nervous system. It is this system that is responsible for gearing the body up for action and also calms the body down and restores equilibrium. To carry out these two vital functions, the autonomic nervous system has two subsections, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system is the one we tend to know all too much about because it primes our body for action, readies us for the “fight or flight” response, while the parasympathetic nervous system is the one we love dearly as it serves as our restoring system, which returns the body to its normal state.

The sympathetic system is responsible for releasing the adrenaline from the adrenal glands on the kidneys. When a panic attack begins, it does not switch off as easily as it is turned on. There is always a period of what would seem increased or continued anxiety, as these messengers travel throughout the body.

After a period of time, the parasympathetic nervous system gets called into action. Its role is to return the body to normal functioning once the perceived danger is gone.

When we engage in a coping strategy that we have learned, for example, a relaxation technique, we are in fact willing the parasympathetic nervous system into action.

Try holding your breath for as long as you can. No matter how strong your mental will is, it can never override the will of the body. This is good news—no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you are gong to die from a panic attack, you won’t.

Remember this next time you have a panic attack; the causes of panic attacks cannot do you any physical harm.

The interference for your body is nothing more than the sensations of doing rigorous exercise. Our body is not alarmed by these symptoms. Why should it be? It knows its own capability. It’s our thinking minds that panic, which overreact and scream in sheer terror! We tend to fear the worst and exaggerate our own sensations. A quickened heart beat becomes a heart attack. An overactive mind seems like a close shave with schizophrenia. Is it our fault? Not really—we are simply diagnosing from poor information.

A fascinating feature of the “fight or flight” mechanism is that blood (which is channelled from areas where it is currently not needed by a tightening of the blood vessels) is brought to areas where it is urgently needed.

This is why many feel numbness and tingling during a panic attack-often misinterpreted as some serious health risk-such as the precursor to a heart attack

Respiratory Effects

One of the scariest effects of a panic attack is the fear of suffocating or smothering. It is very common during a panic attack to feel tightness in the chest and throat. Can a panic attack stop our breathing? No.

A panic attack is associated with an increase in the speed and depth of breathing. This has obvious importance for the defense of the body since the tissues need to get more oxygen to prepare for action. The feelings produced by this increase in breathing, however, can include breathlessness, hyperventilation, sensations of choking or smothering, and even pains or tightness in the chest.

Importantly, a side-effect of increased breathing, (especially if no actual activity occurs) is that the blood supply to the head is actually decreased. While such a decrease is only a small amount and is not at all dangerous, it produces a variety of unpleasant but harmless symptoms that include dizziness, blurred vision, confusion, sense of unreality, and hot flushes.

There are a number of other effects that are produced by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, none of which are in any way harmful.

For example, the pupils widen to let in more light, which may result in blurred vision, or “seeing” stars, etc. There is a decrease in salivation, resulting in dry mouth. There is decreased activity in the digestive system, which often produces nausea, a heavy feeling in the stomach, and even constipation. Finally, many of the muscle groups tense up in preparation for “fight or flight” and this results in subjective feelings of tension, sometimes extending to actual aches and pains, as well as trembling and shaking.

Overall, the fight/flight response results in a general activation of the whole bodily metabolism. Thus, one often feels hot and flushed and, because this process takes a lot of energy, the person generally feels tired and drained.

Causes of Panic Attacks

Are the causes of panic attacks all in my head? It is a question many people wonder to themselves.

The goal of the fight/flight response is making the individual aware of the potential danger that may be present. Therefore, when activated, the mental priority is placed upon searching the surroundings for potential threats. In this state one is highly-strung, so to speak. It is very difficult to concentrate on any one activity, as the mind has been trained to seek all potential threats and not to give up until the threat has been identified. As soon as the panic hits, many people look for the quick and easiest exit from their current surroundings, such as by simply leaving the bank queue and walking outside. Sometimes the anxiety can heighten, if we perceive that leaving will cause some sort of social embarrassment.

If you have a panic attack while at the workplace but feel you must press on with whatever task it is you are doing, it is quite understandable that you would find it very hard to concentrate. It is quite common to become agitated and generally restless in such a situation.

This is worth bearing in mind if you work for long periods of time on a computer. Regular break reminders should be set up on your computer to remind you to get up from the desk and get some fresh air when possible.

In other situations, when during a panic attack an outside threat cannot normally be found, the mind turns inwards and begins to contemplate the possible illness the body or mind could be suffering from. This ranges from thinking it might have been something you ate at lunch, to the possibility of an oncoming cardiac arrest.

Upon closer examination of the causes of panic attacks, it would appear that what we are afraid of are the sensations themselves—we are afraid of the body losing control. These unexpected physical symptoms create the fear or panic that something is terribly wrong.

For example, it may be that you have become generally stressed for some reason in your life, and this stress results in an increase in the production of adrenaline and other chemicals, which from time to time, would produce symptoms….and which you perceive as the causes of panic attacks.

This increased adrenaline can be maintained chemically in the body, even after the stress has long gone. Another possibility is diet, which directly affects our level of stress.

Unresolved emotions are often pointed to as possible trigger of panic attacks, but it is important to point out that eliminating panic attacks from your life does not necessarily mean analyzing your psyche and digging into your subconscious.

Panic attacks are most usually the indications and symptoms of nervousness problems and can effect about one in 5 Americans at some point in their lives. This translates to some substantial variety of sufferers and plenty of concern as panic attacks and nervousness problems in common can effect the substantial substantial quality of existence of all those struggling with the condition. Of all those numbers it could possibly be assumed that virtually just a tiny a lot more than 1.5 % will knowledge a an excellent deal a lot more significant version of panic assault which could bring about severe consequences. It could possibly be also assumed that all those in between 15to 20 many years of age are in the highest degree of danger. What is also important to note here may be the reality that this condition is quite in contrast to other problems associated to nervousness problems because they happen quite out in the blue and are fairly difficult to predict. When the cause in the panic assault is not addressed at first it could end result within a vicious cycle that transforms the person?s existence from poor to worse.

Close studies of all those struggling with panic attacks have revealed the likelihood of growing phobias. This has in turn resulted in the identification of two unique kinds of panic attacks wherever one comes with agoraphobia plus the comes with out it. Usual indications and symptoms of a panic assault contain palpitations, mild to significant chest pains, stomach ailments, and common dizziness to nausea. Extra indications and symptoms contain hot flashes, chills and numbness to all out terror. Although panic attacks are capable of causing psychological distress they’re hardly ever existence threatening. The severity of all those can nonetheless fool people into believing they’re getting a heart assault, which in most instances is proved to become otherwise under the related healthcare tests. But what most hospitals fail to complete is diagnose a certain individual with panic attacks. That failure tends to cause people to continue struggling when instead they could possibly be working inside the direction of freeing themselves in the specific condition.

While there’s no consensus on what causes panic attacks, it could possibly be assumed that a combination of elements contribute inside the direction of it. This combination could contain psychological upbringing, biological vulnerabilities, believed processes and stress induced by social norms. If left untreated, the condition can end result in prolonged phrase mental ailments for illustration phobias and significantly alter one?s way of living. All this can nonetheless be avoided by timely and focused remedy regimens. Numerous remedy remedies are obtainable for all those looking for a break from this condition. These contain specific kinds of medication, numerous kinds of psychotherapy and even self support regimens. Mostly merely because Panic attacks are mostly a end result of nervousness problems the remedy regimens and options follow a pattern related to all those employed for nervousness problems. About the other hand the exact type of remedy recommended may well well change from certain individual to certain individual depending on the severity in the condition plus the nature, likes and dislikes in the person struggling with panic attacks and associated complications.