Panic attacks most often occur during stressful moments for the body, which can occur in really difficult situations as well as in quite usual activities.
For example, a trip in transport at rush hour or a trip to the mall become a trigger for panic attacks. It’s not easy to get rid of them, especially if you don’t give yourself credit for what’s going on.
In fact, panic is considered an uncontrollable fear, covering either one person or several at once. But if you feel anxiety, trembling all over your body, and sadness that is not motivated by anything, it could be a panic attack.
Panic | What Is It?
Panic attacks are not always caused by a serious traumatic event, such as a car accident, divorce, or illness. Sometimes the cause is simply an event that is significant in one way or another. It may be a move or a layoff. Even positively colored moments, like hitting a huge jackpot at Cookies Casino or going out with friends, sometimes cause panic, such as a wedding.
This suggests that nerve cells can be disrupted simply by strong emotions and experiences, even with minor events.
Medics believe that if anxiety doesn’t leave you for over a month, then it makes sense to talk about a diagnosis of panic disorder. Only a specialist has the right to make such a diagnosis, so you should not delay a visit to him.
If you don’t take action in time, panic disorder will stimulate agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) or other phobias. It should be remembered that about a third of people diagnosed with agoraphobia stop going out at all over time, so insurmountable do their fears become.
Panic Attack | What Is It?
Panic attacks often manifest as sudden and extremely strong feelings of fear and discomfort. This feeling peaks within 10 minutes and passes within an hour.
Scientists suggest that this is the result of abnormal functioning of the nerve cells in the brain. They send a signal to the heart about a surge in the production of adrenaline, cortisol and other stress hormones.
As a result, the heart beats at a frantic rate, causing hyperventilation, which causes the person to inhale large amounts of carbon dioxide. This process changes the acidity of the blood, which causes a chain of chemical reactions leading to calcium leaching from the bones.
Here are the main symptoms:
- Dizziness.
- Tremors.`
- Nausea.
- Chills or, alternatively, fever.
- Sweating.
- Numbness or tingling in the extremities.
Sometimes it’s accompanied by muscle spasms, which provoke pain in the intestines or chest. There are episodes of choking or intermittent breathing. Sometimes the person loses control of himself or herself and has a fear of approaching death.
These symptoms are very similar to those experienced by patients having a heart attack. That is why such people are often taken to the emergency room with a suspected heart attack.
Panic attack is a condition in which a person has at least 5 of the symptoms listed above.
The Difference Between Panic and Panic Attacks
Panic attack is a kind of fear. And it’s a basic emotion that we are all born with. Fear saved our species from extinction. It’s inherent in all living organisms on the planet. The emotion is triggered when there is a real threat. For example, when an angry dog attacks.
Panic attack occurs even in the absence of real danger. The difference is the focus of attention. In a real real threat, the focus is on overcoming it. In the case of a panic attack, the threat is the fear itself.