A panic attack can feel like a heart attack or worse.
When you have a panic attack, your heart may palpitate, hands tremble and you may sweat profusely.
Any or all of these symptoms can present at the same time and the really scary thing is they come from nowhere.
When you are dealing with anxiety attacks such as these you want one thing fast, and that's help.
Thankfully, there are many avenues to choose from when you are looking for help.
You have the choice of two kinds of panic attack help, medication and therapy.
Either or both of these methods can be employed to alleviate symptoms and eventually leave you free from panic and anxiety attacks altogether.
When you experience an anxiety attack, you should see your family doctor to determine which techniques or combination of techniques will work best for you.
When anxiety attacks are severe or frequent you might want to consider using medication for the attack help at least for a short time.
Severe panic attacks are ones in which you truly feel like you could die at any moment, and if you are having these weekly or more often you might find that you avoid social situations for fear of having an attack in public.
There are two kinds of medication used to treat these attacks, these are tranquilizers and antidepressants.
Tranquilizers have an immediate effect on panic but they can become addictive.
Antidepressants have little risk of dependency however; they take much longer to work and will not offer immediate panic attack help.
Regardless of whether you choose to use medication or not therapy is the best help you can get.
A trained professional will help you by giving you the tools to overcome your anxiety.
For each person these tools may be different, depending on the underlying cause of your anxiety.
For example if your anxiety is situational, such as speaking in public, your tools will be different from those for a person who feels generalized anxiety whenever they are in public.
In the first scenario, your therapist will take you through a series of exercises that will desensitize you to speaking in public and give you some ideas on visualizations you can use, such as imaging the people in the nude.
For the second individual who feels anxious most of the time your therapist will want to delve into why you are experiencing this kind of anxiety and guide you in exercises designed to quell the anxiety.
These kinds of treatments are what is known as cognitive behavior therapy or CBT.
CBT aims to alleviate panic and anxiety disorders through different methods and techniques.
All the methods have one goal and that is to change the thinking processes that lead to anxiety.
Panic attack help comes in many forms, including some not talked about above.
Diet and exercise has a surprisingly positive effect on panic attacks as do support groups.
The key is finding the panic attack help you are comfortable with and pursuing it until anxiety is no longer a problem.