what is anxiety and panic attacks

What is a panic attacks?

Panic attack is a feeling of terror that comes its way suddenly without warning .
Experiencing a panic attack recounted his experience as follows :
Suddenly I felt a wave of fear that is very scary without any reason at all. My heart was pounding, my chest hurt and become more difficult to breathe. I thought I would die.
I was so scared. Every time I started to leave the house, I got a bad feeling in stomach I am, and I am so in terror by the feeling that the panic attack will come or some other horrible thing that is not known to occur.

Panic Attack Symptoms

As described above, the symptoms of panic attacks occur suddenly without an obvious cause. They can include :

• Rapid heart rate
• Chest pain
• Stomach disorders
• Dizziness, nausea
• Shortness of breath , choking feeling
• The pain or numbness in the hands
• Flushes or chills
• Sensation as a dream or perceptual distortions
• Terror : An awareness that something unimaginably scary will happen and someone is helpless to prevent it
• Fear of losing control and doing something embarrassing
• Fear of death

A panic attack typically lasts several minutes and is a condition that is the most stressful that can be experienced by a person. Most if someone gets one attack then he will have another attack. If someone gets recurrent attacks or very fear of another attack, so he called to have panic disorder or panic attacks.

Panic attacks may be symptoms of an anxiety disorder. These attacks are a serious health issue in America and in this country at least 1.7 % of the adults or 3 million people will have a panic attack in their life time. The symptoms are very striking differ from other types of fear that a panic attack coming so sudden and unexpected, it seems not to be provoked and often disabling.

Panic attacks can occur at any time even though sleeping. Generally, panic attacks will peak within 10 minutes, but some symptoms will last longer.

Once someone gets a panic attack, for example, when driving a car, while shopping in a crowded store, or browsing in the lift ( elevator ), then he could be able to develop an irrational fear, which is called a phobia in these situations and begin to avoid them.

In the end, the pattern of avoidance and level of fear of another attack, can reach a point where the individual with panic disorder may no longer be able to drive a car or even get out of the house. At this level, the individual is known to have panic disorder with agoraphobia. Thus panic disorder can have a serious impact on the daily life of a person as well as other major diseases, except for those individuals who receive effective treatment .

Is a panic attack a dangerous thing?

Yes, panic attacks are real and potentially crippling emotions, but they can be controlled with special care. Caused by the disturbing symptoms that accompany panic attacks, they can be mistaken as a heart attack or other life-threatening diseases.

People frequently go to hospital emergency rooms when they got panic attacks and medical tests that can be performed to rule out widespread these conditions. Personalized medicine will generally try to convince patients that their panic attacks is not in danger.

However, attempts to persuade can sometimes add to the difficulties patients : If doctors use expressions such as " nothing serious " , " all just your head only " or " no need to worried ", this will give the impression that not true that there is no real problem and that treatment is not possible or necessary. The point is panic attacks can be very serious, but it does not harm the body organs.

Causes of Panic Attacks

According to one theory of panic disorder, " warning system " which is normal from the body, a set of mental and physical mechanisms that allows a person to respond to the threat, which does not appear to be driven to an important, when there is no threat.

Scientists do not know exactly why this happens or why some people are more prone to this problem than others. Panic disorder was found to occur in families, and this may mean that inheritance ( genes ) plays a strong role in determining who will get it.

However, many people do not have a family history of this disorder, to develop this disorder. Often the first attacks are triggered by physical illness , major life stress , or perhaps medications that increase activity of the brain associated with fear reactions .

Panic Attack Treatment

Thanks to research, there are several variations of treatments available, including several effective medications and bentun - specific forms of psychotherapy. In terms of drugs, specifically members of the drugs of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor ( SSRI ) and the benzodiazepine family has been approved by the FDA ( Food and Drug Administration ) to treat panic disorders. Examples of these drugs include sertraline ( Zoloft ) and paroxetine ( Paxil ) of the SSRI group and clonazepam ( Klonopin ) of the benzodiazepine group. Of family medicine beta blockers (eg, propranolol ) are sometimes used to treat the physical symptoms associated with panic attacks.

Component of psychotherapy for panic disorder treatment is as important as treatment with drugs. In fact , research shows that a combination of drug treatment and psychotherapy is more effective than treatment alone. To deal with the fear, the theory of behavior therapy is widely accepted as an effective form of psychotherapy.

Form of therapy that tries to help people with panic disorder identify and decrease the thoughts and behavior - behavior that reinforces irrational panic symptoms. Behavioral techniques are often used to reduce fear, including relaxation techniques and gradually increasing exposure (exposure ) to the previous situation can improve on an individual 's fears.

Often a combination of psychotherapy and medications give good results. Repairs are generally recorded in a rather short period of time, about 2 to 3 months. So adequate treatment for panic attacks can prevent panic attacks or at least substantially reduce the severity and frequency, bringing drought to 70 to 90 % of people with panic disorder.

There are also things that can be made by those premises to create a panic disorder therapy / treatment is more effective . Because materials such as coffee, alcohol and illicit drugs can worsen panic attacks, then these materials should be avoided .

Might be worthwhile to do aerobic exercise and stress management techniques such as deep breathing and yoga, in which these activities turned out to help reduce the frequency and severity of panic attacks. In addition, people with panic disorder may need treatment for other emotional problems.

Depression is often associated with panic disorder, as well as alcohol and drug abuse. Recent research also shows that trials suicide more often in people with panic disorder. Lucky the problems associated premises panic disorder can be overcome effectively, just like panic disorder itself. It is tragic that many people with panic attacks do not seek or receive care / treatment.

Result of untreated panic attacks

Panic attacks tend to last for several months or years. When the panic attacks typically begin in adolescence, in some people the symptoms can occur earlier or later in life. If left untreated, it will worsen to the point where life is seriously affected by panic attacks and by attempts to avoid or conceal them.

In fact many people have problems with friends and family or lost jobs while struggling to cope with panic attacks. There may be periods of spontaneous improvement in panic attacks, but generally do not disappear altogether unless the individual was receiving treatments designed specifically to help people with panic attacks.