The Desire To Numb Or Escape It Can Be Incredibly Tempting
It is no surprise that anxiety is closely connected with substance use disorders, eating disorders, and other process addictions like compulsive shopping, sex, or gambling. After all, nobody likes to feel uncomfortable- chronic anxiety often leads people down a path of self-medicating, numbing, or downright escaping.
While it is reasonable to avoid your feelings from time to time, chronically doing so tends to create more problems. For one, you dont address the issue . Second, you face the risk of complications arising from your compulsive behavior .
That said, it is important to remember that these desires arent random. They are a desire to escape the discomfort. When anxiety peaks, the distress can feel so overwhelming that you are drinking, using drugs, having sex, or overeating is the only viable solution.
What Causes Panic Attacks
Experts dont know why some people experience panic attacks or develop panic disorder. The brain and nervous system play key roles in how you perceive and handle fear and anxiety. Your risk of having panic attacks increases if you have:
- Family history:Anxiety disorders, including panic disorders, often run in families. Experts arent sure why.
- Mental health issues: People who have anxiety disorders, depression or other mental illness are more prone to panic attacks.
- Substance abuse problems:Alcoholism and drug addiction can increase the risk of panic attacks.
I Thought I Was Having A Heart Attack
Nicholas Ruggiero, 42, Dumfries, Va.
Police Sgt. Nicholas Ruggiero was packing his lunch for work one morning in October 2018 when his heart started dancing in his chest.
He felt hot and sweaty, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Then the room began to spin. As he fell to the floor, his wife called 911.
“I actually thought I was having a heart attack, Ruggiero remembers.
An ambulance rushed him to the hospital, where we underwent a full workup. Afterward, the doctor gave Ruggiero an unexpected diagnosis: He was having a panic attack.
“At first, I just started laughing, Ruggiero says. As a police officer, I’d been in a lot of stressful situations shooting scenes, homicides and I had never panicked. How could I be having a panic attack?
It turned out that the stress of his job had built up over time and triggered the attack. In the two years since, Ruggiero estimates he has had another 100 panic attacks, but medication and lifestyle changes have helped make them less frequent.
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You Avoid Things Because Of Your Fears
We all avoid things we fear or dislike: you could go your whole life without roller coasters or cilantro or horror movies. But they dont really affect your life. Anxieties start to strip away the things that do. You may dread getting a medical test because of what you could learn, says Albano. But if youre avoiding going to your doctor at all because of it, thats a problem.
People with an airplane phobia may, similarly, limit their travel to only places they can drive. People with big dreams may sometimes settle for smaller ones because their anxiety holds them back. I know people who went to law school and wanted to pursue a career in criminal law but were afraid to be in front of a courtroom, says Albano. So they push documents in a law firm instead.
Signs And Symptoms Of Anxiety Attack
Anxiety attacks can happen out of nowhere or gradually build into an overwhelming sense of fear and panic. They often get confused with panic attacks, and some symptoms do overlap. But anxiety attacks are different and have different indicators. It’s important to distinguish common anxiety symptoms and signs of an anxiety attack.
Common anxiety symptoms include:
- Difficulty controlling worry
- Having the urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety
Anxiety attacks are a build-up of common anxiety symptoms and are intensified episodes of panic or fear. They usually peak within 10 minutes and should not last more than 30 minutes. The symptoms of an anxiety attack are:
Surge of overwhelming panic
You may feel like you are in danger or something bad is going to happen. This will occur out of nowhere, which may increase your feeling of panic or impending doom.
Feeling of losing control
Adding to the feeling of panic, you may feel like you are losing control of yourself or your surroundings.
Chest pain or heart palpitations
Anxiety attacks have physical symptoms like an increased heart rate, which can make you think you’re having a heart attack. The increased heart rate should last no more than 30 minutes, usually subsiding in 10 minutes.
Trouble breathing
The feeling of panic and increased heart rate may make you feel like you can’t breathe or are choking. You may also start to hyperventilate if you are gasping for breath.
Hot flashes or chills
Nausea
A detached feeling from reality
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What Does Anxiety Physically Feel Like
When you are under stress or anxious, this system kicks into action, and physical symptoms can appear headaches, nausea, shortness of breath, shakiness, or stomach pain. Doctors see it all the time patients with real pain or other symptoms, but nothing is physically wrong with them, says Dr.
How To Cope When You Have Panic Attacks
Desperate for help, he reached out to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, which sent him a list of therapists experienced in treating panic attacks and anxiety. This is how I got better,” Sideman says. “I found a therapist who understood what panic disorder was, understood agoraphobia, and knew cognitive behavioral therapy, which I had not known about. He also started practicing meditation.
Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to help with treating panic disorder and agoraphobia. According to a study published in December 2013 in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, its effects lasted as long as two years after the initial treatment. And a study published in August 2017 in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology suggested that it may be superior to traditional psychotherapy in the treatment of this condition.
People generally can overcome panic attacks faster if they seek help after the first one or two, says psychologist Cheryl Carmin, PhD, director of clinical psychology training at the Wexner Medical Center and a professor at Ohio State University in Columbus. When you do seek help, your doctor or therapist will ask about your symptoms and the situations in which they arise, and might also recommend additional medical testing to rule out other health concerns.
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What Causes Panic Disorder
Panic disorder sometimes runs in families, but no one knows for sure why some family members have it while others dont. Researchers have found that several parts of the brain, as well as biological processes, play a key role in fear and anxiety. Some researchers think that people with panic disorder misinterpret harmless bodily sensations as threats. By learning more about how the brain and body functions in people with panic disorder, scientists may be able to create better treatments. Researchers are also looking for ways in which stress and environmental factors may play a role.
When Might I Have Panic Attacks
Panic attacks happen at different times for everyone. Some people have one panic attack then don’t ever experience another, or you might find that you have them regularly, or several in a short space of time. You might notice that particular places, situations or activities seem to trigger panic attacks. For example, they might happen before a stressful appointment.
Most panic attacks last between 5 to 20 minutes. They can come on very quickly. Your symptoms will usually be at their worst within 10 minutes. You might also experience symptoms of a panic attack over a longer period of time. This could be because you’re having a second panic attack, or you’re experiencing other symptoms of anxiety.
“My panic attacks seem to come out of the blue now. But in fact, they seem to be triggered mainly at night when I want to go to sleep but cannot stop my mind racing, experiencing worry and panic about anything that may be on my mind.”
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Are All Panic Attacks The Same
Not all panic attacks are experienced in the same way. The following describes one way panic attacks are categorized:
- Expected panic attacks: These attacks occur when a person is subjected to or is anticipating a particular trigger. For example, a person with a fear of heights may have a panic attack when inside of a tall building.
- Situational predisposed panic attacks: These attacks are similar to cued panic attacks, but do not always occur after subjection to a feared situation. These attacks also dont always occur at the time the person is exposed to the trigger. For instance, a person who has a fear of flying may not always have a panic attack while on a plane or may have one after being on a flight.
- Unexpected panic attacks: These attacks occur suddenly without any internal or external cues.
What Is An Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety describes a group of disorders that cause worry, nervousness, and fear. These feelings of anxiety interfere with everyday life and are out of proportion to the triggering object or event.
In some cases, people are unable to identify a trigger and feel anxious for what seems like no reason.
While mild anxiety can be expected in some situations, such as before an important presentation or meeting, persistent anxiety can interfere with a persons well-being.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders represent the most common mental illness in the United States and affect 40 million adults in the country every year.
While these disorders respond well to treatment, but only 36.9 percent of people with an anxiety disorder receive treatment.
Types of anxiety disorders include:
- Generalized anxiety disorder excessive anxiety for no apparent reason that lasts for 6 months or longer
- Social anxiety fear of judgment or humiliation in social situations
- fear of being away from home or family
- Phobia fear of a specific activity, object, or situation
- Hypochondriasis persistent fear of having serious health issues
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder recurring thoughts that cause specific behaviors
- Post-traumatic stress disorder severe anxiety after a traumatic event or events
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Youre Sweating Up A Storm
If youre already grappling with anxiety, the thought of sweating profusely may just make it worse. Who wants to worry about pit stains or wiping their palms when theyre already totally anxious? Unfortunately, sweating is a common side effect of anxiety disorders, according to the NIMH.
When your sympathetic nervous system gets activated, it can influence the sweat glands basically all over your body. You have two kinds, according to the Mayo Clinic: eccrine, which cover most of your skin, and apocrine, which are only on body parts that have a lot of hair follicles. Both types of sweat glands can cause anxiety-induced perspiration, but its the milky fluid from your apocrine glands in particular that may make it smell bad.
What Are The Different Types Of Anxiety Disorder
This section provides an overview of the most common types of anxiety disorders.
- Generalised anxiety disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
Generalised anxiety disorder
GAD is common. The main symptom of GAD is over worrying about different activities and events. This may feel out of your control. You feel anxious a lot of the time if you have GAD. You might feel on edge and alert to your surroundings.
This can affect your day-to-day life. You might find that it affects your ability to work, travel places or leave the house. You might also get tired easily or have trouble sleeping or concentrating. You might have physical symptoms, such as muscle tension and sweating.
It is common to have other conditions such as depression or other anxiety disorders if you have GAD.
GAD can be difficult to diagnose because it does not have some of the unique symptoms of other anxiety disorders. Your doctor is likely to say you have GAD if you have felt anxious for most days over six months and it has had a bad impact on areas of your life.
Panic disorder
You will have regular panic attacks with no particular trigger if you have panic disorder. They can happen suddenly and feel intense and frightening. You may also worry about having another panic attack.
Panic disorder symptoms can include the following.
You may also dissociate during a panic attack. Such as feeling detached from yourself.
Social anxiety disorder
Some common situations where you may experience anxiety are the following.
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Your Panic Is Persistent
An anxious brain, like a non-anxious brain, is always learning. But the anxious brain sometimes learns the wrong things and has an awfully hard time unlearning them. Once youve decided that people at parties are probably judging you, your brain may lock that lesson in and pretty soon generalize it to any social encounter. Ditto an obsessive-compulsive fear of disease or a panic over separation or loss. Sometimes, especially in the case of OCD, it takes just a single traumatic event a genuinely embarrassing social moment, say, or a legitimate medical scare for the brain to establish a fixed fear. Left untreated, those anxieties can go on for months and years.
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What Is The Difference Between An Anxiety Attack And A Panic Attack
The terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but anxiety attacks are not the same as panic attacks. The former is a longer-lasting period of worry and tension, the latter is a relatively short period of overwhelming anxiety with physical symptoms, like shortness of breath, palpitations and a sense of detachment from yourself or your surroundings.
A panic attack is characterised by a sense of doom an unshakable feeling that something terrible is about to happen, says Nicky Lidbetter, chief executive of Anxiety UK. When something stressful is sensed, neurons in our brain stem start firing more intensely than usual. A chemical called adrenaline is released from the nerve endings to act on the heart, blood vessels and respiratory centres, causing your heart to start pounding, your blood pressure to elevate and your breathing to quicken.
While panic attacks are usually linked to panic disorder, anxiety attacks can be caused by a whole range of conditions.
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