By: Richard Bleuze
Causes of Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are caused by high anxiety. But, what exactly is anxiety? Understanding how anxiety crops up will help you defeat panic attacks.
One of the biggest myths surrounding anxiety is that it is harmful and can lead to a number of various life-threatening conditions.
Definition of Anxiety
Anxiety is defined as a state of apprehension or fear resulting from the anticipation of a real or imagined threat, event, or situation. It is one of the most common human emotions experienced by people at some point in their lives.
However, most people who have never experienced a panic attack, or extreme anxiety, fail to realize the terrifying nature of the experience. Extreme dizziness, blurred vision, tingling and feelings of breathlessness—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
When these sensations occur and people do not understand why, they feel they have contracted an illness, or a serious mental condition. The threat of losing complete control seems very real and naturally very terrifying.
One of the root causes of panic attacks is what is known as Ithe fight/flight response as an explanation for one of the root causes of panic attacks. Have you made the connection between this response and the unusual sensations you experience during and after a panic attack episode?
Anxiety is a response to a danger or threat. It is so named because all of its effects are aimed toward either fighting or fleeing from the danger. Thus, the sole purpose of anxiety is to protect the individual from harm.
People today when faced with some danger, have an automatic response which takes over and propels them to take immediate action such as attack or run.
Anxiety is a built-in mechanism to protect us from danger. Interestingly, it is a mechanism that protects but does not harm—an important point that will be elaborated upon later.
The Physical Manifestations of a Panic Attack are also caused by . nervousness and chemical effects...
When confronted with danger, the brain sends signals to a section of the nervous system. It is this system that is responsible for gearing the body up for action and also calms the body down and restores equilibrium. To carry out these two vital functions, the autonomic nervous system has two subsections, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
The sympathetic nervous system is the one we tend to know all too much about because it primes our body for action, readies us for the “fight or flight” response, while the parasympathetic nervous system is the one we love dearly as it serves as our restoring system, which returns the body to its normal state.
When either of these systems is activated, they stimulate the whole body, which has an “all or nothing” effect. This explains why when a panic attack occurs, the individual often feels a number of different sensations throughout the body.
You can do your best with worrying thoughts, keeping the sympathetic nervous system going, but eventually it stops. In time, it becomes a little smarter than us, and realizes that there really is no danger. Our bodies are incredibly intelligent. Our body seems to have infinite ways of dealing with the most complicated array of functions we take for granted. Rest assured that your body’s primary goal is to keep you alive and well.
Try this test if your not convinced yet. Try holding your breath for as long as you can. No matter how strong your mental will is, it can never override the will of the body. This is good news—no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you are gong to die from a panic attack, you will not.
Remember this next time you have a panic attack; the causes of panic attacks cannot do you any physical harm. Your mind may make the sensations continue longer than the body intended, but eventually everything will return to a state of balance. In fact, balance (homeostasis) is what our body continually strives for.
Even if you have the fear of suffocating or smothering during a panic attack, you will not.. It is very common during a panic attack to feel tightness in the chest and throat. Anxiety grows from the fear that your breathing itself would cease and you would be unable to recover. Can a panic attack stop our breathing? The answer is NO!.
A panic attack is associated with an increase in the speed and depth of breathing. The feelings produced by during this time period can include breathlessness, hyperventilation, sensations of choking or smothering, and even pains or tightness in the chest. The real problem is that these sensations are alien to us, and they feel unnatural.
Side effects during a panic attack can be any of the following:
1 Increased breathing, which causes the blood supply to the head to actually decreased. While such a decrease is only a small amount and is not at all dangerous, it produces a variety of unpleasant but harmless symptoms that include dizziness, blurred vision, confusion, sense of unreality, and hot flushes.
2. The pupils widen to let in more light, which may result in blurred vision, or “seeing” stars, etc.
3. There is a decrease in salivation, resulting in dry mouth.
4. There is decreased activity in the digestive system, which often produces nausea, a heavy feeling in the stomach, and even constipation.
5. Often, many of the muscle groups tense up in preparation for “fight or flight” and this results in subjective feelings of tension, sometimes extending to actual aches and pains, as well as trembling and shaking.
Upon closer examination of the causes of panic attacks, it would appear that what we are afraid of are the sensations themselves. We are afraid of the body losing control. These unexpected physical symptoms create the fear or panic that something is terribly wrong.
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