Many people may have heard of Panic Attacks often, people who have never experienced them may find it difficult to understand that an experience can be very scary for others. A severe Panic Attack attack is not only a strong feeling about anxiety, but feels like an explosion of terror that the brain remembers about various bad and terrible things. Panic attacks are also often associated with various sensations in the body that are often considered dangerous body reactions for those who experience them. Although relatively common, Panic Attacks are often not well understood by the public. This results in many people experiencing suffering that does not really need to happen.
Basic Principles of Panic Attacks
The first and most important thing to know about Panic Attacks is not dangerous. Panic attacks feel dangerous because the condition is related to the emergency system in our brain that tells us that we are in a very dangerous condition.
Secondly, Panic Attacks are very curable and respond very well with various psychotherapies. Panic attacks often appear like physical problems that need to be taken to the doctor, so many people assume certain treatments can solve the problem effectively. Although Panic Attacks can appear in disorders that require medical treatment, panic attacks themselves generally do not require medication.
What exactly are Panic Attacks?
Panic Attacks is the experience of several separate episodes of feeling very afraid that will usually peak after 10 minutes and appear in the absence of an actual dangerous situation. In contrast to anxiety, which bad things may happen, panic usually includes the feeling that something bad is going to happen at this time. The focus of panic can be very broad, but people who experience Panic Attacks often feel very scared that they will die, will go crazy or lose control.
Panic attacks involve our perception of danger that is happening or will occur in the near future. This results in the brain tuning the cues to “escape” reflexively. This physiological process that occurs is an evolutionary process to get out of dangerous situations. When this process occurs, the following symptoms will occur. Some or all of them can be experienced when a Panic Attack takes place:
increased heart rate, excessive sweating, shaking, short breathing or like suffocation, choking sensation, chest pain or discomfort, nausea, dizziness, unreal feeling that we are like detached from ourselves, numb or feel tickled especially the area of the feet and hands or around the lips and suddenly feel fever or high heat or cold heat.
Although Panic Attacks are harmless, looking at the physical symptoms above, it is not difficult to actually understand why someone who experiences Panic Attacks believes that something dangerous will happen to them.
What Causes Panic Attacks?
Panic Attacks appear in two general categories: Situational and Unpredictable. Panic Attacks Situational is triggered by a specific scenario when Unexpected Panic Attacks come suddenly out of nowhere. For example: a person who has a very strong fear of speaking in front of a crowd, can experience Situational Panic Attacks before starting to give a speech. In someone who experiences Unexpected Panic Attacks will have difficulty identifying why Panic Attacks appear.
For those who experience Situational Panic Attacks, moving themselves out of a scary situation will be able to lower anxiety and end the Panic Attacks experienced. Unfortunately, avoiding scary situations is only effective for the short term. It can cause problems for the long term when the number of avoided problems is increasing and the absence of desire provides an opportunity to learn the situation is actually safe.
Unexpected panic attacks, although they seem to occur spontaneously actually occur from a fear that arises through certain bodily sensations that are mistaken for feelings of dying, will go crazy or lose self-control. The longer this condition is left, people who experience Unexpected Panic Attacks, often develop a fear of Panic Attacks themselves which then assumes the body sensation was caused by anxiety that will cause Panic Attacks in the near future. This type of attack can be understood as a Positive-Feedback Loop, which is scary thoughts and anxiety sensations that arise such as shortness of breath or heartbeat become rapidly giving rise to frightening thoughts. Like “wow this is like the beginning I want Panic Attacks”, which then causes the breath to become shorter or the heartbeat to accelerate. Carrying other thoughts such as “my condition is getting worse, I will definitely experience panic attacks again” which then raises other sensations of anxiety and so on until Panic Attacks reach their peak.
Stopping Panic Attacks
When we can defeat our belief that “worse things will happen”, we will be free from the panic itself. A person can deal with panick attacks by breaking down their own predictions about bad things that will happen. Human thought often remembers things that have not happened or have not happened as if they happened excessively. When we can begin to see our lives as they are and accept the condition, then panic will decrease. If you still find it difficult to understand Panic Attacks, Psychologists can also help you deal with Panic Attacks that you experience through various counseling methods that are adjusted to the panic attacks conditions experienced and the condition of the person himself.
Anindya Psychological Practice 