What is anxiety?
A feeling of worry, nervousness or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.
An anxiety attack occurs when stress, worry and anxiety become overwhelming. Generally, persistent worry over big events, or even small everyday things bring them on. The anxiety builds up over time until it reaches a point when the anxiety attack happens. You might experience episodes of intense worry, fear and dread that trigger physical symptoms like heart palpitations, chest pain, hyperventilating, dizziness, nausea, feeling like you can’t breathe or like you’r going to faint, shaking or a wave of overwhelm and panic and feeling out of control. They can be very frightening and often peak in about 10 minutes. They can last for more than 30 minutes.
A panic attack causes you to feel intense, overwhelming fear. It can cause you to freeze. These can happen for no reason, or a particular trigger can cause one. You can feel terrified, threatened and you might notice symptoms such as chest pain, shaking, sweating, nausea, shortness of breath, palpitations, rapid heart rate, dizziness, chills, like you are choking, detachment and unreality. These attacks are usually sudden and reach the peak within a few minutes. They can last for 5-20 minutes, even though it feels like much longer.
Panic attacks usually happen without any warning, they can even happen when you are sleeping or relaxed. Anxiety attacks are usually bought on by excessive worry or fear about situations. This can cause you to feel dread, apprehension and trouble being rational about situations.
Panic attacks are often self perpetuating meaning the person experiencing them will often feel distressed, overwhelmed, scared and then can panic more over the symptoms they are experiencing from this. This can fuel the cycle of panic, including worrying about where they will happen, what other people’s reaction to it will be and so on.
The symptoms of both anxiety and panic attacks can be the same or similar. If you are experiencing chest pain or any other symptoms are getting worse or not subsiding, please get checked by your health professional.
A great way to help calm your body from anxiety and panic attacks is to focus on your breathing, and slowing it down. The 3-3-3 rule can be helpful where you think of 3 things you can see, 3 things you can hear and move 3 parts of your body. This can help to shift your focus from the panic feelings and helps to bring calmness again.
I personally have experiencing both anxiety and panic attacks, and know how debilitating they can be. If you are struggling or need some support to get through them, please reach out to me. Click here to find out more information.