Understanding Anxiety and Panic Attacks FAQ’s

By understanding anxiety and panic attacks you’ll have a much better chance of overcoming them. Here, you have 10 frequently asked questions to help you gain a better understanding of anxiety and panic attacks and how to beat them without medication.

1 – WHAT IS ANXIETY?

Anxiety is a state in which you feel uneasy, tense and fearful. You also worry and perhaps even obsess about things or events in a way that is way beyond their seriousness. Many people suffer from general anxiety which is where they experience anxiety on a daily basis over an extended period.

2 – WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF ANXIETY?

There are psychological symptoms such as; difficulty sleeping, irritability, poor concentration, feeling worried / anxious all the time. But there are also physical symptoms that occur when you suffer from what is commonly called an ‘anxiety’ or ‘panic’ attack (see FAQ 5). These are things like; racing heart, palpitations (irregular heartbeat), chest pains, sweating, trembling, hyperventilation (breathing faster) and nausea.

3 – WHAT CAUSES ANXIETY?

As we learn more about the condition, it is believed that there may be several reasons for anxiety. These are things such as; genetics, personality, life experiences and brain chemistry.

You are more likely to have anxiety if a family member has suffered from it. If you have poor social skills, poor coping skills and have low self-esteem, you are more prone. Someone who has suffered poverty, abuse or violence in their life also is more prone. Finally, chemical reactions / imbalances in your brain are believed to have a role to play in anxiety disorders.

4 – WHAT ARE PANIC ATTACKS?

A panic attack is your body’s primeval response to a ‘perceived’ threat. Our ancestors, hundreds of thousands of years ago, had 2 simple choices for survival when faced with a perceived threat; either run away or fight, what we call the ‘fight or flight’ response today. In such a situation the ‘unconscious’ mind takes over and assumes that there is in fact danger — better safe than sorry — and primes the body to run or fight.

Many things occur to achieve this, but some of the most important are that adrenaline is released, blood pressure increases and breathing increases. Also, blood is diverted from the stomach to the major muscles for strength and speed, pupils dilate to let in more light to see more, and, hands and feet can sweat to give better grip. These are some of the things necessary to give the greatest chance of survival.

Today we aren’t faced with the same daily dangers as our forefathers. But our bodies still retain the primeval fight or flight response to perceived danger. And, in today’s society, it can ‘trigger’ a fight or flight response even when there is no apparent danger or threat. See FAQ 6.

5 – WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF PANIC ATTACKS?

There are many panic attack symptoms but the most common are; racing heart, tightness in chest and throat, tingling fingers and toes, dizziness, nausea, sweating, trembling, irregular heartbeat, hyperventilation, a feeling of ‘detachment’, a real feeling of impending doom.

6 – WHAT CAUSES PANIC ATTACKS?

In today’s society, a panic attack happens when someone with higher-than-normal levels of anxiety is confronted with a stressful situation. This stressful situation heaps more stress on top of the person’s already heightened anxiety levels. The unconscious part of the brain perceives this as signalling a threat and so triggers the ‘fight or flight’ response.

But because you aren’t in a dangerous situation, when you start to feel the effects of this mentally and physically, you don’t tie the two together, i.e. a threat and the body’s response. The result is that you experience the symptoms without the knowledge of why they have occurred. You conclude then that you are having a heart attack, or stroke, or some other serious event. You aren’t.

7 – CAN PANIC ATTACKS HARM ME?

No they can’t. They are just the results of your body’s natural reaction to a perceived threat in a situation where there isn’t a real threat. The symptoms you experience are the results of that process. They cannot harm you. But because you’re experiencing them in isolation you are thinking that you’re having a heart attack, etc., when in fact you aren’t.

8 – DO I NEED TO TAKE MEDICATION FOR MY ANXIETY AND PANIC ATTACKS?

No you don’t. Drug-based medications are normally your physician’s first line of treatment. And although for many people they can be effective in the short term, they aren’t really a long term solution. They have several side effects and some can be addictive if not handled carefully.

There are other non-drug therapies such as psychotherapy, counselling, hypnotherapy, relaxation techniques, and support groups, etc. If you look around the anxiety forums, more and more people seem to be looking to more natural therapies.

9 – HOW CAN I STOP PANIC ATTACKS WITHOUT MEDICATION?

The key is to lower your general anxiety levels, so that everyday stressful events won’t push your overall anxiety over the top and trigger a fight or flight response, i.e. a panic attack. And this is what a lot of the non-drug therapies try to do. There are many self-help therapies to lower stress for example.

But one of the critical factors in all of this is your ‘fear’ of having another panic attack. This is an understandable fear because the symptoms of a panic attack are so devastating that you don’t want to repeat them.

The problem is that this subconscious fear is building upon your already heightened anxiety so that your overall anxiety increases. Then when another panic attack is triggered your fear factor increases adding even more to your overall anxiety. This is a vicious cycle of anxiety.

The bottom line is that you need to first eliminate your fear of another panic attack and break your cycle of anxiety in order to work effectively on lowering your general anxiety.

10 – HOW DO I GET RID OF MY FEAR OF ANOTHER PANIC ATTACK?

There are techniques to help you do this. But the key is to confront your fear head-on and in doing so diffuse that fear. You need to take control and not let your fear control you. A great American once said, “all we have to fear is fear itself”, and this is especially true here.

Even trying to self-invoke a panic attack can help diffuse your fear. I bet you that, if you try to trigger a panic attack right now, you can’t. Because by trying to trigger one you’ve effectively taken control and diffused the fear.

By John Cielo