Panic attacks can be quite a scary experience when they occur.
There are many different things going on in the body that can cause great alarm.
You might be familiar with some of these symptoms such as a racing or erratic hear beat, discomfort in the stomach, dizziness and shortness of breath that is commonly associated with anxiety.
Many people do suffer from this condition and there is help available, but what is interesting to note is that some don't even seek panic attacks help in the first place.
This might be bewildering to you, but a condition like this can make some people feel embarrassed and as a result they tend to keep these issues very private.
There are several ways you can obtain help for panic attacks.
The most commonly known one is medication.
The use of medication is growing as the influence increases from multi-million dollar drug companies on daily medical practises.
There are several different types of drugs that your doctor may prescribe you.
Some of them are Beta Blockers, Tricyclic antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and mild tranquilizers.
What you should be aware of if you do take medication is that these drugs only treat the symptoms of a panic attack; they don't necessarily treat the cause.
Some of them only give you temporary relief and other you have to take for a very long time.
There is a wave of thought that believes that drugs do not affect the basic problem in any curative way, but only providing relief by masking its expression.
Medication can also have various different side effects, so it would be worth your while to check out what they are before you use them.
Other types of panic attacks help come in the form of therapy.
The most common is cognitive behaviour therapy.
Results using this therapy are very promising as it has a high 80% improvement rate.
This type of therapy has two components to it.
The first is to change the thinking patterns that an individual has that promote anxiety and the second is to expose an individual to the situations that they fear and eventually desensitize them.
A different level of this therapy will depend on the nature of your phobia.
Cognitive behaviour therapy aims to help eradicate the core fears and offers strategies to cope with those types of situations.
Some of these strategies are learnt using exposure therapy, desensibilisation or flooding which are effective in eliminating anxiety symptoms.
Cognitive behavioural therapy also combines psychoeducation and specific treatment intervention.
This may involve: -Psychoeducation (information) -Breathing relaxation/retraining techniques -Cognitive restructuring -Self-monitoring symptoms -Exposure therapy Panic attacks to affect a significant amount of the population and it is becoming more and more common as social and economical environments change and the pressure increases.
Although people still like to keep this disorder 'in the closet', there are still numerous ways that panic attack suffers can obtain help.