Causes, Symptoms and Treatment of Anxiety Attacks
Anxiety attacks are normal reactions to a threatening situation and results from an increase in the amount of adrenaline from the sympathetic nervous system. This increased adrenaline speeds the heart and respiration rate, raises blood pressure, and diverts blood flow to the muscles.
These physical reactions are appropriate for escaping from danger but when they cause anxiety in many situations throughout the day, they may be detrimental to a normal lifestyle. An anxiety disorder is a disorder where feelings of fear, apprehension, or anxiety are disruptive or cause distortions in behavior.
At times, an underlying illness or disease can cause persistent anxiety. Treatment of the illness or disease will stop the anxiety. Anxiety illnesses affect more than 23 million Americans with about 10 million Americans suffering from the most common, general anxiety disorder.
Panic attacks can begin with a feeling of intense terror followed by physical symptoms of anxiety. A panic attack is characterized by unpredictable attacks of severe anxiety with symptoms not related to any particular situation. The person experiencing the attack may not be aware of the cause.
Symptoms include four or more of the following: pounding heart, difficulty breathing, dizziness, chest pain, shaking, sweating, choking, nausea, depersonalization, numbness, fear of dying, flushes, fear of going crazy. Heredity, metabolic factors, hyperventilation, and psychological factors may contribute to anxiety causing panic attacks.
Panic disorder tends to run in families with first degree relatives of patients having four to seven times greater risk than the general population. Hyperventilation (rapid shallow breathing) can cause a decrease in carbon dioxide in the blood. This decrease in carbon dioxide has been associated with anxiety. Anxiety can be caused by psychological factors as well.
One theory is that there is an unconscious conflict between certain wishes and desires, and guilt associated with these desires. Another theory is that certain fearful childhood situations provoke anxiety later. This later theory has been associated with agoraphobia in that the fear of being abandoned in the past may lead to fear of public places.
Panic disorder is treated with drugs, cognitive- behavior therapy and other forms of psychotherapy, and/or a combination of the two. Relaxation therapy is also used in combination with other treatments.
Anxiety disorders oftentimes cannot be linked to specific life events and persist for months if not years at a time. Many people with anxiety disorders can be helped with treatment. Most of the medications which are prescribed are started at low doses and tapered off when treatment is near an end.
Side effects generally become tolerated or diminished with time. Behavioral therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy can be effective for treating several of the anxiety disorders. Behavioral therapy focuses on changing specific actions and uses different techniques to alter unwanted behavior.
Techniques include special breathing exercises and exposure therapy – gradually exposing patients to what frightens them and helps them cope with their fears. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches patients to react differently to the situations and bodily sensations that trigger panic attacks and other anxiety symptoms. Patients also learn to understand how to change their thoughts so that symptoms are less likely to occur. These techniques are designed to help people confront their fears. Without treatment, anxiety attacks can be extremely disabling and disrupt family, work and social relationships.
Tom Sample
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/causes-symptoms-and-treatment-of-anxiety-attacks-107409.html
Recognize Anxiety Symptoms for Control and Relief
Anxiety symptoms manifest themselves when facing a threatening situation and result from an increase in the amount of adrenaline from the nervous system. This increased adrenaline speeds the heart and respiration rate, raises blood pressure, and diverts blood flow to
the muscles.
These physical reactions are exactly what define
anxiety symptoms. They are appropriate for escaping from danger but when they cause anxiety, they may be detrimental to a normal lifestyle. An anxiety disorder is a disorder where feelings of fear, apprehension, or anxiety are disruptive or cause distortions in behavior.
Sometimes, an underlying illness or disease can cause persistent anxiety. Treatment of the sickness will probably stop the anxiety. Anxiety illnesses affect more than 23 million Americans with about 10 million Americans suffering from the most common, general anxiety disorder.
Panic attacks can begin with a feeling of intense terror followed by physical symptoms of anxiety. A panic attack is characterized by unpredictable attacks of severe anxiety with symptoms not related to any particular situation. The person experiencing the attack may not know what is the cause.
Symptoms include four or more of the following: pounding heart, difficulty breathing, dizziness, chest pain, shaking, sweating, choking, nausea, depersonalization, numbness, fear of dying, flushes, fear of going crazy. Heredity, metabolic factors, hyperventilation, and psychological factors can also contribute to anxiety causing panic attacks.
Anxiety disorders oftentimes cannot be correlated to specific life events and persist for months if not years at a time. Many people with anxiety disorders can be helped with treatment. Most of the medications which are prescribed are started at low doses and tapered off when treatment is near an end.
Side effects generally become tolerated or diminished with time. Behavioral therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy can be effective for treating several of the anxiety disorders. Behavioral therapy focuses on changing specific actions and uses different techniques to alter unwanted behavior.
Techniques include special breathing exercises and exposure therapy – gradually exposing patients to what frightens them and helps them cope with their fears. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches patients to react differently to the situations and bodily sensations that trigger panic attacks and other anxiety symptoms.
Patients also learn to understand how to change their thoughts so that symptoms are less likely to occur. These techniques are designed to help people confront their fears. Without treatment, anxiety attacks can be extremely disabling and disrupt family, work and social relationships. So if you ever experience some of the anxiety symptoms, make sure you take the necessary health measures.
Ray La Foy
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/recognize-anxiety-symptoms-for-control-and-relief-119317.html
How Are You Maintaining Your Anxiety?
Worries and anxieties are normal and familiar to all of us. They are necessary to our survival as they prepare us for coping with stress and danger. When we perceive danger, changes take place in our body, in how we think and also in how we behave. These changes are triggered by the release of the hormone adrenalin and are crucial as they prime us for action.
Problems arise when the stress response becomes chronic, or excessive and symptoms of long-term anxiety include the following:
Muscular discomfort – headaches – difficulty swallowing – chest pains – stomach cramps – blurred vision – ringing ears – nausea – dizziness – shortness of breath.
So what causes chronic anxiety?
The actual trigger for the stress response might be real or imagined, for example, a person with a social phobia may feel just as panicky at the thought of having to walk into a big party as actually walking into a big party. Whether the trigger is a real or imagined threat, the key to persistent anxiety is you and the cycle that you maintain. This usually takes three forms,
1. Bodily symptom cycles: worrying about the physical symptoms of anxiety so much that this worry re-triggers the stress response and the physical symptoms.
2. Biased thinking cycles: overestimating the threat of danger and underestimating your coping resources. Common thinking biases include; black and white thinking, catastrophising; exaggerating, ignoring the positive. Biased thinking can further increase distress and anxiety, which in turn enhances thinking distortions even more!
3. Behavioural response cycles: avoidance is a common response to anxiety, it is natural to want to escape to somewhere safe and comforting. The problem with this is that avoidance keeps the problem going as the you will never get to learn that you can cope.
Which of these cycles best describes how you keep your anxiety going? Once you have identified which cycle you tend to maintain you can begin to plan to break the cycle.
When clients come to see me at my practice in Aldbury, Hertfordshire. I have a range of techniques in my toolbox that are useful in breaking the anxiety cycle the person is maintaining. An example of techniques include the following:
1. Bodily symptom cycle: controlled breathing, relaxation training, expanding awareness techniques, hypnosis, psycho-education, introducing exercise as a coping strategy.
2. Biased thinking: belief change process, thought challenging, distraction, teaching use of clean language, communication model, sub-modality work, hypnosis.
3. Problem Behaviour: graded exposure, goal setting, swish process, fast phobia cure, problem-solving strategies.
I also work with clients to develop coping strategies, during NLP and hypnotherapy Herts, so that can be used in the longer term. If you are experiencing anxiety that is impacting on your functioning and well-being it may be useful to see a cognitive therapist. Therapies that focus of changing negative patterns of thought are now considered key methods in overcoming anxiety, phobias and depression.
Karen Hastings, Hertfordshire
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/how-are-you-maintaining-your-anxiety-103162.html
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