Anxiety And Panic Attack – What Are The Causes?
A lot of researches and analysis have concluded that there is a good connection between anxiety and panic attacks. The anxiety disorders can be divided into several categories. These categories are as mentioned below:
a) Generalized anxiety disorder
b) Obsessive compulsive disorder
c) Panic disorder
d) Post traumatic stress disorder
e) Social phobia
f) Specific phobia
A panic attack can be referred to as a sudden outburst of fear that can be related to one or many varied symptoms.
When it comes to causes, there are many of them that actually work towards triggering the disorder in an individual. The panic or anxiety can be associated to anything. These attacks are not just restricted to major stressful events or concerns. One can experience anxiety over a loved one, the kind of clothes to wear, a party or speaking to someone.
Panic attacks can be really terrifying. These attacks can occur anywhere, anytime without giving out a warning sign. However, these attacks are more common when you are outside home.
You can experience these attacks inside a shop, while driving a car or even when casually walking down the street. The worst part about this disease is that it can occur even while you are sleeping. This results in you waking up and that too in a state of fear that’s overwhelming.
Different people experience these panic attacks in a different way and each attack varies with the situation a person is facing at the time of attack.
When a person faces period of extreme stress, there is a possibility that the stress lead to panic as a result of natural reaction of the body to higher levels of stress. This condition is widely known as the fight or flight reaction.
Experts in the field of medical science have widely accepted this reaction as the main reason behind any panic attack that occurs in a person’s lifetime.
It is said that when a person experiences a situation that’s extremely stressful or traumatic, the body will definitely react. The situation actually triggers a chemical release into the system of the individual that eventually results into an extreme reaction to the situation.
A panic attack can also occur when the chemicals are sent into the body via reactive stressor. The body does not require these chemicals but the body comes to know that certain type of danger exists around and to which it must react to. This situation is known as panic attack.
This type of attack is usually characterized by different factors as mentioned below:
a) Overwhelming feelings of fear
b) Hopelessness
c) Increased heart rate
d) Tingling in the extremities
e) Headaches
f) Nausea
g) Extreme emotional fluctuations
h) Tightness in the chest
i) Weakness
j) Pain in the abdomen
The panic attack can start abruptly and then reach its’ peak within a period of about 10 minutes and lasts for about half an hour.
However, panic attacks can exhibit several variations. These may actually last for many hours on even up to a full day under rare circumstances. You may also feel tired and completely worn out after the attack subsides.
People vulnerable to panic attacks usually get affected by several other mental health conditions such as depression, social phobia or fear of public places most commonly referred to as agoraphobia.
Lesser Known Types of Anxiety
November 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Mental Health
Anxiety is simply excessive worry or exaggerated reaction to a triggering event. Although most people do not realize, there are various types of anxiety. If you feel that you are suffering from anxiety, you may like to have a brief learning about the different types of anxiety, including the lesser known ones. That will help you with symptom description, which in turn will help your doctor in diagnosing.
The most common forms of anxiety are generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, social phobia and other phobias, panic disorder and separation anxiety disorder. These disorders are attributed to past traumatic events or genetics, and it is rare that anxiety is brought about by no reason at all although cases like this have been reported.
Now, let’s focus on the less common forms of anxiety, and I have listed some of them below. These are all common worries that one may go through at one time or another, and often they are not perceived as disorders. However, it never means that disorders haven’t been developed from such anxieties.
1. Existential Anxiety
This type of anxiety is related to spirituality and mortality. Sigmund Freud called this type of anxiety as the “trauma of non-being”. When a person realizes that he is not immortal and will die someday, this can load him with enormous worry.
Freud believed that religion then becomes the coping mechanism so that the sufferer’s unwholesome fear of death will be minimized. This form of anxiety can be somewhat harmless and may even motivate ingenuity; but it can also be hazardous if a person starts to have strong suicidal urges because of feelings of hopelessness.
2. Boredom Anxiety
This type is fairly obvious and is brought on by extreme boredom and idleness. The person becomes totally bored of his/her present living status, and develops into anxiety for no apparent reason at all. The solution to this type of anxiety is to help the suffer find out the meaning and happiness in life, be it a hobby or love.
3. Test and Math Anxiety
There have been cases reported that tests and math are sources of anxiety. This is so because all students are expected and supposed to be able to succeed in academic study. They are trained, at a very early age, to think that academic achievement go hand in hand with self worth and that low grades are an embarrassment. This type of anxiety is usually accompanied by physical symptoms like nausea, headaches and dizziness, and can actually hinder the performance of a student. So it is important to make the students today realize that having a low grade is not an equation to the end of social importance and peer acceptance.
All forms of anxiety can possibly lead to serious anxiety disorders with severe emotional and physical symptoms. So, ignoring the initial signs of anxiety never helps in treatment. The correct way is to pinpoint the root cause of your
anxiety and seek professional help.





