It is only the sufferer of a panic attack that will know how frightening the whole experience is, they take us by surprise and rip every sense in our body apart, like a hurricane can rip a whole town apart, we fear them and that fear in itself does not help keep them at bay, in fact it probably makes the threat of another one stronger. This is how the sufferer of this condition lives, in fear of the next emotional hurricane.
But what happens to the individual after this terrifying episode. Each individual sufferer can have many different emotions and many different physical results. The episode once over is an obvious relief, but it can take a considerable amount of time to actually recover and get back to normal, whilst having an overwhelming fear that another episode could happen at any time. This could be described as a viscous circle, because anxious thoughts of the threat of another episode will not help in recovery or their state of mind and in fact will only strengthen the possibility of another attack happening.
The different types of emotions that may be felt immediately after a panic attack are helplessness, having no control over what has just happened is a hard emotion to deal with, nobody likes to feel out of control. Humiliation is another emotion felt, especially if we have had an episode where there was other people around, even if the other people did not notice our suffering, we still feel as if they all stared at and judged us, thinking we are weak and pathetic. Feeling alone is the same kind of emotion, in that even if there was someone there to help us we still feel alone in our plight and no one can understand what it is to go through this emotional torture. Probably the biggest emotional thought of all is the fear, the pure scared stiff feeling of when the hurricane might erupt again. These emotions do nothing to help us overcome our condition and unless we can deal with these emotional thoughts we are not going to be able to get off the anxiety train.
What about the physical side of the aftermath of panic attacks, we will almost certainly feel physically exhausted, these episodes can take a lot out of the body, our muscles become tense throughout and we can be left feeling as though we have just run a marathon. Apart form our muscles being fatigued and worn out, we may also have a rather violent headache. The whole body has been tense our breathing racing and our heart pounding, so it is no wonder the head may be pulsating with pain. Some sufferers have complained of chest pains after wards and this is down to the chest muscles becoming so tense during the episode, what happens is that the chest muscles become strained and this is why the chest may feel tight and painful for a day or so after wards.
These are just some of the emotional and physical effects a panic attack can have on the sufferer and it is important to try and calm the whole body down after wards. This can be done by slow breathing techniques, or meditation techniques, at the very least the sufferer should try and find a quite place where they can sit or lay to let the body return to its natural working speed. It is well worth learning breathing and or meditation techniques, they not only help to sooth and calm the body after an episode, but they can also help to overcome this condition altogether. Think of the kind of people that practice these techniques, for example lets just pull out say, Buddhist Monks, now they practice meditation and how many of them do you think suffer from anxiety or panic. Teaching your whole self to be calm through these techniques teaches you to let go of anxious thoughts and only think calm thoughts and a calm person is a calm person.
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