Help For Those Attacks – How To Treat Anxiety Disorder

Many people never realize that they are suffering from panic attacks.  Too many times, general practitioners have faced patients complaining of sudden heart palpitations, nausea, breathing difficulties and sudden sweaty palms, only to have them tested negative for heart attack.

As its name connotes, panic attacks are basically that – sudden, unexpected feelings of panic or fear that cannot be explained.  The person experiencing the panic attack does not know what it is that he or she faces fear about; all that is certain is that the fear is all consuming.  Most people describe the feeling as very real with an “almost as if you can touch or taste it” texture.
Panic attacks are a part of an anxiety disorder.  The disorder is a broader, all encompassing description for a myriad of psychological conditions that have one thing in common – deep anxiety and fear.  These include:

-    Panic disorder or attacks

-    Obsessive Compulsive Disorder where the need to do a simple task, like washing your hands, repetitively brings about some comfort from the consuming fear

-    Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome which occurs when a person has experienced a highly distressing event like a car crash in which their loved ones are involved in or personally being in a hostage situation.  It is important to note that a person can experience this disorder due to both recent and past events – it could be some childhood trauma that had been suppressed through the years or something that happened last week.

-    Phobias.  While it is absolutely normal to have some kind of fear of some things, like snakes or ghosts, having an apparent uncontrollable fear of everyday things is not.  These phobias could be of small spaces or bodily fluids.

-    Agoraphobia which is the fear of not having an exit in sight at all times

It is imperative that you treat anxiety disorder as soon as possible so as to regain control over your emotions during an attack.  You cannot afford to lose control of your fears while you are driving, for instance, or operating heavy machinery.

Panic attacks, particularly those that have strong displays of physical disturbance, can also pose a danger to those around you.   While you are driving, for instance, a panic attack can make you veer out of your lane and hit another car unintentionally.  This is one of the simplest reasons why you must seek treatment as soon as you know for sure that it is a panic attack.

Panic attacks help come in different forms.  Milder attacks can be handled through deep breathing techniques and the addition of healthy habits like regular exercise and getting enough sleep.  You would be amazed at how much help these little routines can be towards alleviating panic attacks and their frequency.  Many a sufferer has acknowledged that with regular exercise, particularly yoga, and sleeping early to ensure 8 hours of quality sleep, the frequency of their panic attacks has lessened significantly.

Those with acute attacks (and by this we mean attacks that actually induce the sufferer to physically clutch their chests in apparent pain and/or duck for cover from some unseen danger) may need to resort to more “aggressive” action.  Medication may need to be prescribed to help calm the sufferer down during an attack.  Some may need to take them at regular intervals, as opposed to only during an attack, to regulate the beating of the heart and encourage a consistent and even blood flow.

Acute or otherwise, all psychiatrists believe that treating the ailment directly is the best way to get rid of the disorder or at least control it, permanently.  And the best way to do this is with cognitive therapy.  Simply put, this means delving into the mind and try to understand its thought processes in relation to the fear.  This form of therapy involves regular dialogue sessions with an experienced psychiatrist.  These dialogue sessions will focus on finding the panic attack triggers in the hope that once they are identified, they can be faced by the patient and the healing process can then be accelerated.

Sometimes, psychiatrists may even recommend hypnotherapy.  This is a more specialized form of cognitive medicine and may not be a comfortable option for many patients.  Psychiatrists who are experienced in hypnosis, however, often testify to its effectiveness.