Posts Tagged ‘Fear’

This video is really informative about how a Anxiety Disorder affects the body.  The video talks about the 5 main Anxiety Disorders and how they may affect you.  If you think you may have a Anxiety Disorder watch this video, it could help you.

When someone is overwhelmed due to a panic attack, it may often feel as if nothing can be accomplished to help end the Symptoms Of A Panic Attack or maybe relieve the symptoms. Although anxiety attacks are often horrific, steps can be taken to prevent panic attacks. Even if you feel you cannot get rid of the attacks totally, wouldn’t it be smart to make the attacks less extreme. There are many things that may trigger a panic attack. Sometimes they’re caused by unresolved problems from the past, and other times they might have been caused by an overly stressful or painful experience that happened more recently. Other times, the attacks can be because of not having the appropriate coping skills to effectively handle life’s stresses.

If a person is able to recognize the root causes of the panic attacks, he/she can often have less attacks and can be able to get back to their normal life. Panic attacks can become very severe and become a problem known as agoraphobia, a fear of leaving the house, if not addressed properly.

One of the primary steps to stop a panic attack is to acknowledge the triggers that are inflicting your panic. The triggers will be something from an animal, person, or a problem that needs to be corrected. Once these triggers have been recognized, the next steps to stopping a panic attack will be implemented .

Individuals who have  panic attacks can normally go through more than one, and can typically recognize the symptoms that show up following the start of an attack. This way, an individual can then help themselves by talking themselves through the attack, which will in turn keep them calmer throughout the attack. Upon a panic attack, applying the self talk technique, a person can tell themselves they have gone through this within the past and survived, and can do it again. You’ll also want to learn to take nice, deliberate, deep breaths. Breathing gradually from your diaphragm can enable you to calm your body.

Besides these steps to stop panic attacks, as an attack is about to begin, or is already starting, there are many alternative preventative measures that an individual can utilize. A lot  of folks that suffer from panic attacks are hard on themselves for experiencing them. They literally believe something isn’t right with them and do not perceive what triggers these attacks.

It is essential for panic attack victims to understand that the panic attacks are beyond their control. They also have to gain a better self-concept. It’s essential for sufferers to determine reasonable goals for stopping their anxiety attacks, and cut back the incidence of attacks by limiting contact with the things that cause them. Smoking, drinking alcohol, and caffeine ought to be eliminated or drastically reduced as a result of they also can set off panic attacks.

The more you understand panic attacks the better ready you will be to over coming panic attacks.

Thus what are the most common physical symptoms that may happen to you throughout a panic attack.  You’ll start to breathe more rapidly; your heart beat will speed up.  You may experience chest pain and maybe some dizziness and numbness.  You’ll begin to sweat and bear the motion of cold and hot sweats.

So what could be behind the fear of a panic attack.  It’s usually a fear of dying or some impending catastrophe.  It is often some kind of dread or doom scenario or feeling.  These feelings are caused as a result of a physical reaction that is occurring in your body.

Adrenaline is the reason for this, our body’s naturally go into the flight or fight syndrome as a result of the quantity of adrenaline that is being pumped around our body.  Adrenaline provides our bodies the false feeling of danger thus we react to that false sense of danger by going into a panic attack.

We can help ourselves to over coming panic attacks by watching our diet.  Strive to keep your caffeine levels low.  I used to drink a ton of tea, coffee and coke.  This amount of caffeine caused my heart to have palpitations.  Having palpitations used to send me into a panic attack, and because my heart was pumping so hard i thought i was going to die from a heart attack.  Thus I cut out coffee and coke.  It really helped my palpitations, which in turn cut down my panic attacks.

For me the most effective method to over coming panic attacks was after I actually believed that it was my thoughts that caused the panic attacks.  I had been told that it absolutely was my thoughts that where inflicting my anxiety and panics.  But I struggled with that for years and years.  The concept that I used to be inflicting my very own living hell was very hard for me to understand.  However I took small steps to intercept my thought patterns.  Because we do have automatic thought patterns that run when we start to go into a panic attack that feed the panic.

So start to watch your thoughts when you begin to go into a panic attack, the more conscious of your thoughts you are the more equipped you are to over coming panic attacks.

Anxiety and panic attacks can be bought on by many different things, such as stress, depression, grief and alcoholism.  What ever it is triggered by, the affect is that your mind is saturated  with worrying and frightening thoughts. And these thoughts really do influence your life. Everybody who suffers from Anxiety and Panic Attacks knows only to well how scary that panic mode can be. Coming to terms with the fact that it is not the intrusive thoughts that are accountable for your anxiety, but the way you react to those thoughts, that triggers your anxiety or Panic Attack.

For loads of anxious folks, there dwelling or a room in their domicile is a reliable haven.  But while the anxiety and panic plague these safe places, it can leave you feeling entirely helpless and on your own.  Folks who do not suffer with Anxiety or Panic Attacks have no concept as to how to a great extent these feelings take over our lives.

  Having Anxiety and Panic Attacks can really change your self-esteem.  People saying upbeat things to you, have no sincere affect, but people saying downbeat things really hit you hard.
It works very much the same with your thoughts, when you have destructive or disturbing thoughts, you tend to  focus on them and not the positive and happy thoughts… and then so it goes… off into panic. Learning to organize our thoughts is a step towards beating Anxiety and Panic attacks. In my case I learned that these attacks would not hurt me, that was the difficult part. I then learned that if I faced my thoughts and the things that made me anxious, I could seize control again and not be stopped by my Anxiety Disorder.

Anxiety can be overcome, once you start to get an awareness of what is causing your anxiety, you can then learn some coping skills to help you over come your Anxiety and Panic Attacks.

What extremely saddens me is that the only treatment for anxiety and panic attacks the doctors are recommending is tablets. Do not get me wrong  taking medication to assist me get back control of my anxiety and panic attacks does help. But I’m aware that taking medication solely serves to mask the anxiety it’s not actually a cure.  Yes you might go weeks, months or perhaps years without a anxiety or panic attack.  But it can return back.  It comes back because you have not addressed the actual reason for the anxiety.

When figure out what is causing your anxiety, you may doubtless find that you’ll be able to realize a more effective treatment.  I recognize from personal expertise that it will be terribly arduous and distressing to work through your anxiety, however there is value in it, in the long run. You ought to recognize that external factors, such as work and home stress will cause us to feel moments of anxiety when they are not handled, but why is it that some individuals can just house this stress and others can’t? It’s because of our hormones and the balance of them in our bodies.

We tend to all have moments which stress us out and cause us to feel wired or anxious. These moments can persist with us and leave us feeling worried over things, but if your body is making the right balance of hormones, it’s unlikely that these situations can cause you to possess a panic attack in the future. However, if your body is not making enough dopamine, that is the pleasure and youth hormone, and enough serotonin, which is the "feel good" hormone, then it’s probably that your body is making way too much cortisol, which is the hormone that creates us feel a lot of stress. This imbalance is probably inflicting you to become depressed, anxious, sleepless and you would possibly even be having panic attacks.

However it’s not simply these factors that can contribute to you having anxiety, it might conjointly be that it runs in the family.  Although it’s not been medically proven there are thousands of case studies that have been done on the family connection.  For me my mother suffered with anxiety and panic attacks and i spent a chunk of my childhood observing this behaviour.  Guess what i learnt that behaviour, i learnt to worry, i learnt to panic in stressful situations.  I’m not blaming my mum it is not her fault.  It’s simply a fact of life, that as kids we have a tendency to are like sponges and take in everything that’s happening around us.

So it sort of made sense to me, if i learnt that behaviour then surely i may un-learn that behaviour.  It’s about owning what are your thoughts and feelings and letting go off the thoughts and feelings that aren’t yours.  This doesn’t happen over night but by being persistent and sticking at it, over time your thoughts do win through, you’ll be able to replace old behaviour patterns and replace them with new ones.  Ones that will enhance your life not destroy your life.

Bear in mind, anxiety and panic attack treatments don’t all come in prescription form and they don’t seem to be all expensive or lifetime commitments, therefore go searching a little bit and see what you’ll realize when it comes to more natural anxiety attack treatments that truly treat the underlying problems so that you can feel in control again.

A anxiety attack is an overwhelming feeling of panic that occurs for completely no evident reason.  Most people might have just one anxiety attack or  a couple in their whole lives. But the more frequently they happen the more terrifying they are for that person.

The most common signs of anxiety attacks a racing heart, hot and cold sweats, prickling sensation, or pins and needles,dry mouth, to list a few. One of the hardest aspects of anxiety attacks  is the worry of having another anxiety attack.

In years gone by anxiety attacks were regarded as a nervous’ dysfunction or stress, however now repeated anxiety attacks  are described as a medical condition referred to as anxiety disorder.  

What happens when you have a anxiety attack is  the body has a overloaded of hormones and adrenaline, (this is what your body releases to respond to a life threatening event in ordinary conditions). But, with a anxiety attack there no threat so your body does not know what to do with the injection of hormones and adrenaline.

Frequent anxiety attacks can be treated with talking to a counsellor or by taking prescribed drugs from your Doctor.  An isolated anxiety attack may need virtually no treatment, however  chronic anxiety attacks or anxiety disorders may be addressed with behavioural therapy, medicine also self-help or  together with therapies for different mental health conditions.

Simply put, there is not a lot of professional answers about anxiety attacks and they are often clumped together with psychological disorders. The precise causes of anxiety attacks as i said are not truly recognized, however it can be connected to genetic makeup, stress and chemical changes among the brain. Behavioural cognitive therapy and different such treatments has shown a great deal of hope in the treatment of anxiety disorder and statistics signify it’s basically the foremost success for long-term treatment of anxiety attacks.

Treatment of anxiety attacks usually consists of only serving to help the individual to recognize what anxiety attack truly is.  It does help though to understand that they are not alone in struggling with there anxiety disorder and that they can seek help in finding out how to cope with the symptoms. Naturally, this depends on alternative factors, like whether or not the person includes a fear which sparks the anxiety attack. Such as if they get anxious about heights, or if they have a fear of spiders.

Anxiety attacks are not life threatening, although they will feel like they are. Unfortunately they have an inclination to  be chronic and repeated and they could be crippling to the victim.

Affected individuals may not know when an anxiety attack might occur, which may prevent then venturing out (agoraphobia) or avoid explicit situations in which they assume they could experience a anxiety attack.  Not knowing when a factor as disabling as a anxiety attack can arise could have extreme adverse relationship consequences on a person.

Regarding a anxiety attack, physical causes are usually eliminated first. Generally the person has been to many  Doctors and even specialists thinking that they’ve got a life threatening illness that has never been clinically determined. Once  physical reasons are ruled out, the correct treatment of anxiety disorder will begin.

Worry, fear, and anxiety are a normal part of our life. Have you experienced feeling anxious before taking an exam and later find out that you got a higher result more than what you expected? Or, feeling anxious for a job interview and ended up getting hired, or feeling frightened walking down an alley where bad things often happened?

Normal anxiety helps us cope in any stressful situation, it also keeps us watchful.

Mental health professional are not concerned with normal anxiety. But, if your anxiety suddenly occur without apparent reason and lasts for weeks to months and happens in most days than not, that is another issue. If anxiety persists in most days than not, and takes longer than six months, it has become an immobilizing disorder.

An anxiety disorder is a recurring and excessive anxiety and worry about events or activities without logical reasons at all lasting for more than six moths and it is interfering with everyday activities, such as going to work, and socializing. A person experiencing anxiety condition finds it difficult to control the feelings of worry and fear. The thing about people with anxiety disorder is that they actually know that what they think of feel is not real and that they are just made-up.

The common anxiety disorders are Panic Disorder, Social Phobia, Agoraphobia, Specific Phobia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Separation Anxiety, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

A person with anxiety condition may suffer different anxiety disorder symptoms. And because no two people are the same, the anxiety disorder symptoms may vary from one person to the other.

The physical symptoms of anxiety disorder are cause by the brain sending messages to parts of the body to prepare for the flight-to-fight response. The lungs, heart, and other parts of the body work faster and the brain releases stress hormones, including adrenaline.

These are just some of the Anxiety disorder symptoms that people may experience physically:

• Abdominal discomfort
  Diarrhoea
  Dry mouth
  Rapid heartbeat or palpitations
  Tightness or pain in chest
  Shortness of breath
  Dizziness
  Frequent urination
  Difficulty swallowing

Psychologically you may experience:

• Insomnia
  Irritability
  Inability to concentrate
  Fear of going crazy or dying
  Feeling unreal and not in control of your behaviour

There are several types of anxiety disorders and sometimes they are associated with physical addictions such as alcohol and drug abuse. Anxiety is the main symptoms of other mental illness called anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorder symptoms may differ from the symptoms of other anxiety disorders, but all the symptoms cluster around excessive, irrational fear and dread.

With all the useful medical treatment available, it is of great value for you to learn and know how to deal with anxiety and panic attacks.   Anxiety and panic attacks can happen at anytime and anywhere. By learning the ways to manage these attacks, you will be able to intercept potential attacks. Hence, it is an advantage to learn and know these useful methods.  So that in the future you have some tools for dealing with anxiety and panic attacks.

One useful method in handling panic and anxiety attacks is relaxation techniques that can be used to aide you in muscle relaxation, meditation, relaxed breathing and visualization, also known as guided imagery.

Inner achievement of calmness is  a true relaxation. Both the body and the mind have to be in relaxed state when using relaxation techniques to manage these attacks. And learning real relaxation techniques can aid in handling warning signs such as teeth clenching, headaches, and hyperventilation.

To initiate your body into relaxed mode, start off by focusing on the body and suppressing the outside world. Put yourself in a relaxing position and rest your eyes. Just keep the eyelids at ease and heavy without closing them firmly, and allow your jaw to relax and fall gently open.

Start the relaxation method by concentrating on examining your body mentally. Begin scanning from the lower parts of your body, starting from the toes, working your way up to the legs, groins, torso, then the hands, fingers, then finally, the neck and head. Visualize your tension dissolving away as you concentrate on each body parts.

Once all the muscles in your body are relaxed, tighten the muscles in every part, moving from one section to another and count to five or more in each section. While you are doing this, allow your feelings to flow all the way through your psyche, without concentrating on them. It is difficult at times to do this. Say to yourself that you are perfectly calm and at ease.

Envision yourself in your own favourite place and start breathing slowly. Practice this method daily for five to ten minutes to manage panic and anxiety attacks.

Other different ways to manage panic and anxiety attacks is not to indulge into thinking of what could happen. Inform yourself to take care of the matters only when it is time. Do not fight the attacks but instead embrace them.

Panic and anxiety attacks can also be handled by coping statements, in which you are talking yourself through the attack by using your voice and your mind. Use a steady and calm tone, and speak loudly, when using coping statements.

Anxiety and panic attacks are very serious conditions; however, unlike the way the ‘Medical Establishment’ and the Pharmaceutical Industry portrays it, anxiety is not a disease that can be caught like a virus or cured with drugs. So, instead of DRUGS that will only work temporally,and may have serious side-effects and are often addictive, it is much better to take a completely natural approach to treat it. No matter how long you have been suffering from anxiety. You must not simply go on coping with this condition. You must embrace the opportunity now to CHANGE all that today.

 

There are numerous factors that may contribute to the development of anxiety disorders. All of them play a role in creating the necessary conditions for panic attacks, panic disorder and other phobias and anxiety to play an active role in your life.

So have you inherited an anxiety disorder?  Some of the risk factors are: biological causes, childhood traumas,and accumulated stress.  Yes children do suffer with stress, they just display it differently.

If you can identify with any of these then you may be suseptical for potential anxiety and panic problems.  In order for these factors to come into play, they usually need to be triggered or activated by a memory link back to your childhood.

These triggers can include excessive stress, trauma or conditioning. Once panic attacks or anxiety have entered your life, they only stay in your life because you are maintaining the causes that are fuelling them.

Your maintenance of panic and anxiety include nervous or agitated self talk, excessive worries, and avoidance of fearful situations.

In people who have panic disorder or some of the other anxiety conditions, the alarm system is triggered even though there is no danger and many scientists don´t know why this happens.

Panic disorder does seem to run in families, which may mean there is a strong biological component but many people with no family history develop panic disorder which suggests that biology is not the only factor at play.

There is a lot of controversy about whether panic disorders, phobias and anxiety can be inherited. Research has not uncovered a magic gene that controls anxiety or clear evidence that your parents are to blame for you condition.

That would be a convenient source of blame but it´s not the silver bullet. However, studies using twins show an increased likelihood that one twin will have panic disorders if the other does. These studies seem to support that at least some of the responsibility falls to your genetic design.

What many researchers and experts on this subject believe is inherited, is a personality type. If the personality type you inherit is predisposed to be anxious, volatile, excitable and reactive you are more likely to develop an anxiety disorder.

However, the manifestations of that reactive personality depend on the stresses you are exposed to in childhood, adolescence and beyond.

You may never had the opportunity to develop full blown panic disorder or agoraphobia because you were raised in a nurturing environment and were surrounded by supportive people. Its the old nature and nurture argument. Since nurture plays a role, here are some contributing factors that might predispose you to panic attacks or anxiety disorders. If your parents were overprotective this may lead to an excessive worry and concern for your own safety.

The fearful attitude of your parents about catching a cold, crossing the street, not climbing too high etc. etc. will cause and reinforce a reluctant, fearful view of the world is a dangerous place. If your parents were high achievers and expected the same from you it could have had a detrimental impact.

The high standards and the strive for perfection may have made you a perfectionist and too self-critical. These traits can lead to anxiety disorders because perfection is impossible to achieve and a lifetime of coming up short can certainly fuel a doubtful, anxious personality

Growing up in an insecure environment, either physically or emotionally can lead to anxiety conditions. Aside from the more obvious physical, sexual or emotional abuse, experiences such as divorce, death, or an alcoholic or addicted family member can lead to excessive clinginess and lack of confidence later on in life.

Anxiety Panic Attacks are becoming very common in society today.  Studies have shown  that on average, nearly 1 in every 75 people suffer from anxiety or panic at some time or another in their life. For some people there panic and anxiety can be severe, while in others it may be relatively mild. There are occasions where some people do not even know they suffer from this panic disorder at all.

If you are not sure as to whether you suffer from anxiety and panic attack disorder, or you believe you may be a sufferer.  I have compiled a list of anxiety and panic attack symptoms to look out for. This will give you a better understanding of your condition, and put you in a good position to take some action to get rid of your panic disorder, so that you can enjoy life without worrying about a possible attack.

If you find you do suffer from panic disorder, whatever you do, do not worry. This is more of a common issue than you may think, and may people each and every day are beating panic and anxiety with a little work, just like I hope you will too.

The 7 most common Anxiety and Panic Attack Symptoms:

1. Palpitations – A racing rapid heartbeat, and sweating are very common during panic.

2. Dizziness – Feeling dizzy very quickly and being light-headed are common symptoms amongst panic sufferers.

3. Fear – The feeling of “losing control” or constant worrying in any given situation, such as a social gathering, and the feeling of everyone watching you.

4. Hot Flushes – Hot flushes and chills are one of the first signs that occur for an anxiety sufferer.

5. Chest Pain – Shortness of breath is a common symptom you may experience if an attack strikes, you need to be aware, and slow down your breathing calmly.

6. Numbness – Numbness or any form of tingling in the face is a sign you may be about to experience panic.

7. Empty Stomach – The loss of appetite, the feeling of an empty stomach and your mouth going dry, this is another symptom of a potential panic attack.

The list of symptoms that I have provided you are generally the most common that you will experience during an attack, but these are just touching upon the main ones. There are many more, but from experience, they seem to fall under the category of these 7 listed.