What are panic attacks?
A panic attack is an intense wave of fear accompanied by increased heart rate and shortness of breath. It also includes a feeling that the heart is beating too fast or too loud, pain and discomfort in the chest, tremors, and a sense of suffocation or derealisation. The person may feel as if he is dying or going insane. Symptoms most often develop very suddenly and peak within 10 minutes.
Many experience them a couple of times in a lifetime, which does not affect their quality. But if the attacks are repeated regularly, they become a problem. Panic attacks rarely last long. Most are over in 20-30 minutes. Often the first experience is associated with unpleasant physical sensations in the body. When a person focuses on this, anxiety arises – and they unconsciously cause or intensify unpleasant feelings.
Why do they arise?
Most often, panic attacks happen suddenly and do not require a trigger (an event that causes a sudden re-experiencing of psychological trauma and highly negative emotions). The problem is that when it happens, the place [where it happened] can be associated with it – a person begins to think that his panic attacks occur in the subway or the car. The circle of what a person avoids is getting bigger and bigger.
How panic attacks manifested
Panic attacks were manifested mainly by a growing and intense feeling of fear. It all starts with a slight anxiety, which intensifies and turns into a sense of a nightmare, from which it is difficult for you to escape somewhere. Your nervous system is screaming that the body is not in order, and you urgently need to do something about it. But what exactly – you do not know.
Panic attacks arise for various reasons: sometimes out of the blue, when dealing with daily activities – in a calm and familiar environment. But it also can happen under the influence of some unpleasant events: conversations about illnesses, catastrophes, and terrible incidents.
How do they affect the quality of life?
A panic attack cannot affect the quality of life if it is one time. But panic disorder can do this, and there are two critical components. The first is anticipatory anxiety, where the person remembers the fear and terror of a panic attack and fears it will happen again. The second point is avoidance: a person feels panic attacks occur at certain events and is afraid that he will not be helped in a specific or unfamiliar place.
This can lead to a situation where people do not even leave their homes: they refuse to walk on the street, take the bus or drive a car. Sometimes they avoid certain foods or dishes – fearing something will get stuck in their throat, because of which they can die.
How common are they?
About 1/3 of the population has experienced them at least once. And the prevalence of the panic disorder is 1.8%. The median age is 24, which is about twice as common in men. After the age of 60, the prevalence dramatically decreases.
Risk factors include heredity, intense stress – sexualised violence or accident, and divorce.
How can you help with panic attacks?
Cognitive behavioural therapy. Even though it was developed for the treatment of depression, it is in the treatment of panic disorder that the most outstanding results have been achieved.
Medications are not the therapy of choice and will not affect a panic attack. If a person carries medication with him, then he may begin to think: “Nothing happened to me because I took the pills.” This is not the case, and everything turns into a vicious circle.
The most important advice is that you don’t have to do anything during a panic attack. During therapy, sometimes they provoke a panic attack, cause a similar feeling, and the person waits for it to end. A panic attack is not dangerous; you cannot die from it or go crazy. Moreover, it cannot last forever: this intense anxiety will begin to fade. And our task is to wait for this moment.
What can help manage panic attacks
The critical factor is working with a psychologist, a competent and suitable specialist for you. Secondly, a comprehensive study of internal conflicts and destructive attitudes that provoke constant stress and make you misinterpret some emotions.
Supplementation therapy is also needed since the nervous system is at an impasse and does not perceive anything but fear.
Working with the body – yoga and a massage also has a positive effect because, during panic attacks and constant fear, a lot of clamps and tension in the muscles form in the body, which cannot disappear by themselves.
