Panic Attacks
Coping with anxiety panic attacks
Panic attacks are scary experiences. Nevertheless, you can work through them if you know how.
You start by acknowledging to yourself that you are about to have a panic attack. Then decide to take control of the situation. Conjure in your mind an object or image that you can focus on and distract yourself with it while the panic attack takes effect. Then, while focusing on the object or image, slowly breathe in and out to counts of five. While breathing, place your index and middle fingers on your wrist and check your pulse. Knowing your heart rate—and whether it is within the normal range of 60 to 100 beats per minute—will boost your feelings of being in control.
What Triggers Panic Attacks
Panic attacks arise when one feels out of control, physically threatened or in a situation that is unstable or strange. Public speaking and panic attacks can go hand in hand. So do airplane flights and panic attacks. If it is a situation that instills some degree of fear or anxiety, panic attacks are apt to accompany it.
Roughly three-quarters of sufferers are women, and they usually experience their first panic attacks when they are 20 to 30 years old. The first sign will be a momentarily rapid heart rate, which might only last for about a minute. Then, a month or more later, a full episode will ensue with all the typical symptoms—rapid heart rate, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath and hyperventilation, chills, hot flashes, nausea and abdominal cramping.
Living with Panic Attacks
Many people who experience panic attacks will start to avoid situations where they think having a panic attack might be disastrous. They will stop driving, for example. They might also limit the time they spend in any social venue—shopping malls, churches, restaurants, parties—lest they create a scene in public.
If they are not treated, clinical agoraphobia can set in, accompanied by overall demoralization and depression. Some will become addicted to alcohol or drugs to relieve the painful emotions and the agony of the hot flashes and panic attacks themselves. One out of five untreated sufferers will attempt suicide.
There is help. Psychotherapists can guide patients in cognitive behavioral therapy exercises that can aid in coping with the symptoms, and prescribe anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications to reduce the frequency and severity of episodes.