People suffering from panic attacks are increasing every year at alarming rate. Researchers have found no specific causes of panic attack. It may happen due to heredity, excessive stress or any life changing incident. Victims of panic disorder go through many troubling symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, fear of dying and going mad, losing control over mind, feeling of illusion etc. Many people assume their first panic attack as severe heart attack. But unlike heart attack, despite causing so severe symptoms, panic attacks never cause death.
It is important to address this issue as soon as possible with professional health. Untreated panic condition sometimes grows into panic disorder. There are many prescriptive medicines available like SSRI and SNRI antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, and Trycyclic antidepressants etc. to cure panic attacks. But these drugs use symptom based approach and not cause based approach. Medicines are not long term solution for dealing with panic attacks. In many cases they are highly addictive and nature so it worsens the condition.
Following list provides alternate non prescriptive options and how to stop panic attacks using them.
Herbs: Herbs like Kava Kava, Velerian, and Passion Flower are very helpful to calm down Central Nervous System and relives symptoms of panic and anxiety disorder. Like allopath medicines, herbs are also no free from side effects. They are better alternative then medical drugs but they should be consumed only after doctor’s approval.
Behavioral Therapy: It concentrates on changing habitual behavioral patterns in trigger provoking situations. It teaches method and techniques to relax mind-body, think clearly and respond positively under panic situation.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: CBT involves cognitive approach along with behavioral manipulation to treat condition of panic attacks. Cognitive therapy involves understanding thinking patterns and hidden fears that cause panic attacks. Knowledge of roots of disorder combined with learned skill to cope up with them; enables victim to overcome panic attacks diligently.
Learning ways to cope or live with panic attacks is a big problem to many people. Panic attacks or anxiety disorder is a condition that is usually associated with chest pain, blackouts, difficulty in breathing and shaking among other physical symptoms, the conditions themselves can be very scary to the patient and the people around them because such a condition is not understood that well. The biggest problem is that panic attacks do not start all of a sudden, they usually manifest themselves gradually, starting as simple harmless worries but later intensify and turn into panic attacks that threaten to take control of and ruin the patient’s life. Since it gets worse with time, it is advisable that a patient finds ways on how to control panic attacks at the first instance.
If you are a patient suffering from panic attacks, you should first start by analyzing your condition, get to understand the triggers, places or situations you are likely to suffer the attacks and the initial symptoms you experience before the actual attack. When you get to know your condition well, you will be better placed to combat it compared to dealing with an enemy you have no clue about. It is common that the frequency of panic attacks depend on the severity of the condition, you should be able to determine how severe your attacks are and choose the most appropriate remedy to deal with it.
Most people often resort to anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications to suppress panic attacks. This is a good thing, only that medications like these are not really a permanent solution to a problem of such magnitude. Since a panic attack is not a disease but state of mind, you can effectively overcome it by changing the way you think, what you think of, your memories and flashbacks, imaginations and assumptions and improve your self-confidence and self-esteem. Other than these, you should also work at eradicating stress because this is one of the biggest causes of stress.
The process of treating panic attacks need not be a complicated affair because this is just a state of mind and not a foreign infestation. What is important is to focus on living healthy, eating the right foods, listening to your body, getting sufficient rest and avoiding substances that are likely to cause problems like alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. This way, you will have an easy time keeping in control of your mind and eradicating stress.
0 Comments