What are Panic Attacks?
When you put the question: ‘What are panic attacks?’ to most people, they will give a variety of answers which usually relate to getting worried about an upcoming experience which they feel is unpleasant.
The term panic attack is thrown around quite loosely in the media these days but the truth is that most people don’t understand the reality of living with and dealing with them. Panic attacks are periods where the sufferer has feelings of intense, unabating terror, usually in the absence of any real physical threat.
The release of large amounts of adrenalin is coupled with an increased heart rate, palpitations, shortness of breath and, due to the lack of any external cause, the sufferer often feels that they are losing control of their mind or going crazy. In almost all cases, the panic attack sufferer is in no physical danger.
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The physical symptoms such as the increased heart rate also leads the sufferer to believe that they are having a heart attack or are suffering from some other chronic medical condition. Resultantly, in many cases where one experiences their first panic attack, they will seek medical attention and often end up in hospital. Most panic attacks peak in intensity almost immediately after their onset, but this peak can last for anything up to 15 minutes.
Most people report that the first time they experience panic attacks that the attacks ‘seem to come from nowhere’, in that the sufferer is just going about their daily business and the attack comes on with little or no symptomatic warning. The episode is generally intensely frightening and unpleasant, and can often cause the sufferer to live in fear of having another panic attack.
There is a strong link between general anxiety and panic attacks, and so the fear of having another panic attack, which adds to general anxiety, actually increases the likelihood of further episodes. This is known as a positive feedback situation
If left untreated, sufferers of panic attacks will often develop panic disorder. Their lives become dominated by the fear of having further attacks and plan their lives around avoiding situations where they believe an attack is likely to occur. As well as the episodic panic attacks, people who suffer from panic disorder have very high levels of day-to-day general anxiety.
In many cases, the will to avoid situations where they believe attacks will occur becomes so intense that the sufferer develops agoraphobia, where they become extremely reluctant to leave their ‘safe place’, which is usually their home, or the homes of close friends.
In terms of treatment there are a number of options available. Generally medication based treatment involves the prescription of anti-depressants, in particular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and anti anxiety drugs. Most studies however, favor cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) over medical treatment. In the absence of therapist-led CBT there are a number of self-led programs available online where the sufferer follows a combined audio and book course which detail the necessary thought process and patterns for overcoming panic attacks and in turn general anxiety. If you are suffering from panic attacks and/or general anxiety, I strongly recommend you get Panic Away by former panic sufferer Barry McDonagh. It is by far the most effective of these programs.