| Are You Fearing Your Next Panic Attack? |
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By James Wood For a great many individuals around the world, living in fear of when their next panic attack might appear is much worse than going through the symptoms themselves. We feel apprehensive about our normal daily activities, worried that we could lose control of ourselves and the circumstances at any time. Simple common things like driving a car or going to the shops become very worrying and sometimes it seems less trouble to avoid them altogether.We are, of course, our own worst enemy. We know this. We start feeling anxious, so we get worried that we're going to have an attack, so we feel more anxious and often end up starting the panic attack that we were trying to avoid. Human beings don't like being out of control. It feels dangerous. Being Familiar With what we're facing makes us feel more secure, and comprehending the nature of our anxiety will make us feel safe too. The panic attack response is designed to save your life. Mankind has 75 million years of evolution behind us that has outfitted us for survival. We have only had cars and shopping centers for less than 100 years, so we haven't had time to adapt to the much safer environment in which we live. We all have triggers built into our unconscious minds that can make us panic, with the sole purpose of getting us away from danger. There isn't time to think about it, waiting to think it over in your head just means more time being near the dangerous situation, so our unconscious mind takes over. It floods the body with hormones that ready it for 'fight or flight', increasing the heart rate and speed of breathing, making senses more aware and readying muscles for intense use. The trouble is that these effects in themselves can increase the amount of stress that you are feeling. When your heart starts beating rapidly, it can feel like you're having a heart attack; when your body is craving more oxygen, it can feel like you are suffocating; increasing the rate of breathing can lead to hyperventilation and giddiness. Determining the cause and purpose of our panic attacks can help us to dismiss some common beliefs about them, which will leave us feeling less anxious: You Are Not Having a Heart Attack - though it may feel awful, your heart is designed to react in the way it does during a panic attack. It is getting you ready to run away from danger or to fight to get out of trouble. Unless you have a heart condition already, there is almost no risk to your heart. You Are Not Suffocating - your feeling of not being able to breathe is because your body is asking for more oxygen in case you need to run for your life. You are actually less likely to suffocate during a panic attack because your breathing is working harder than normal. You Are Very Unlikely to Lose Consciousness - it wouldn't be much of an evolutionary safeguard if it made you fall to the floor at the first sight of danger. You feel light-headed because you are hyperventilating, taking in much more oxygen than usual. You Are Not Out of Control - though it feels like you don't have any control over your body, your brain is still completely in charge. Your unconscious has just taken over in order to get you away from the danger. You Are Not Likely to Collapse, However Weak You Feel - the shaking in your arms and legs, along with weakness, is actually just the muscles getting ready to do great things to get you out of trouble. You are, in fact, stronger and faster under these circumstances than at any other time. All sufferers know the extremely unpleasant feeling of having a anxiety reaction, but controlling our own fear of them is half of the battle to stopping them altogether. James Wood writes for stopping-panicattacks.blogspot.com |
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