Anxiety Panic Attack Treatment

As part of the body's natural response to impending danger, we experience anxiety from time to time. Anxiety serves as our body's alarm to keep us focused and alert. However, if one experiences intense panic and worry, one is most likely suffering from an anxiety attack..

An anxiety attack (or panic attack) is an episode of intense feelings of worry. Most sufferers describe the attack as acute and sudden, without really knowing the cause of their panic. However, the fact is, an attack is always triggered by any stimulus, such as major stressful situations such as job interviews, talking with one's boss, or loss of a family member or partner, or minor ones such as the recognition of a skip in one's heartbeat, which may remind a sufferer of his or her previous attacks and consequently trigger the body's alarm and develop into a real attack.

Most panic attacks last for a few minutes and seldom last longer than 30 minutes. One is likely suffering from an attack when:

* He feels intense panic.
* He experiences headache and fatigue.
* His experiences palpitations and chest pain.
* He can breathe hardly.
* He feels out of control.
* He feels that he is going to faint.
* He is sweating and shaking.
* He feels nauseated and is having stomach cramps.
* He feels his mind going blank.

Anxiety Panic Attack Treatment

Victims of anxiety attacks usually undergo therapy sessions and take medications to cope with their condition. Cognitive behavioral therapy is an anxiety attack treatment that focuses on restructuring a patient's way of viewing his or her condition in a realistic and more positive light. While a panic attack seems to occur out of the blue, it is actually a product of one's belief that he or she is in danger. This belief leads to more catastrophic thoughts, thus, the panic attack. Part of the therapy includes exposure of patients to fearful situations in a controlled environment. Through these therapy sessions, one gains a deeper understanding of his fears and will eventually take control of them.

Anti-depressants are also prescribed to sufferers of panic attack to help minimize the severity of symptoms. For immediate relief of panic attack symptoms, anti-anxiety drugs are prescribed.

Regular exercise, meditation and relaxation techniques, as well as hypnosis are also sometimes used as complementary treatments for anxiety attacks.

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