Do I have panic attack?
Fear is an innate feeling of danger to a risky or threatening situation. In event of danger or risk, there would be an adrenaline rush into our body muscles so that we can react defensively to protect ourselves in the survival fight. The brain would decide on the better reaction of whether to fight for our survival or to run and hide away from the danger called fight or flight reaction. This emotion is natural instinct of humans and has evolved and ingrained in our daily lives. For some people, there are cases where the state of emotional fear lingers for so long that it cannot be eliminated as a result of the fight or flight reaction that results in what is known as panic attacks.
An extremely intense and disabling psychological distress and fear, panic attacks bring terrifying feelings to flee the particular place in its fight or flight response. The fear associated with panic attacks is distinguished from the ordinary fear and panic by its extreme level of intensity and the sudden and periodic nature of the attacks. The apparently unprovoked panic attacks are stimulated with little or nothing dangerous and impending to bring the body into such fight or flight situation. When the attacks hit, the experience can be intense, frightening and very little or nothing can be done to alleviate it.
The physical symptoms of panic attacks include abdominal distress, shortness of breath, trembling and shaking, nausea and diarrhea, muscle tension and usually accompanied by pounding heart, sweatiness and faintness. During these attacks, the people may feel chilled or weak and they may experience tightness in chest and smothering sensations. They may also suffer derealisation and depersonalization the feelings of unreality and detachment from oneself, fear of losing control or going insane, paresthesias (numbness sensations) and fear of dying.
In presence of perceived threats and dangers, simple bodily sensations will be stimulated as described in the symptoms and signs in the preceding paragraph. But when you have a panic attack, there can be absolutely no warning signs at all. The body alarm system will trigger by itself without any real or perceived danger like a false alarm signaling dangers that do not even exist or is less serious than the reaction warrants. Therefore, it is not unreal that there are instances that a victim can suffer sudden panic attack even when he or she is sleeping.
It is easy to understand why panic attacks can be so upsetting and life altering because when panic attack happens to a person, there are no means to stop the attack at all as there no early warning signs that can be noted to prevent its occurrence. The feeling of fear and extreme terror and disability together with the intensifying physical reactions stimulated in an environment of disproportionate imbalances of adrenalines and hormones production and flows has to be controlled with various means of treatments alternatives.
The sudden surge of overwhelming fear that is experienced by the person hit with panic attack can be so extreme and devastating that even few minutes into the attack feels like forever to him or her.
For those of us who live normal lives terror is but a fleeting emotion. A person who has panic attacks relives this fear constantly every day. The only way out of this maze is treatment and if you suffer from panic attacks be assured that there are many viable treatment methods out there and that with a little time and effort on your part you should be able to cure your panic attacks without too much hassle.