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Panic Attack SymptomsHave you ever felt what you thought were panic attack symptoms? I do not want to alarm you, but if you have, you likely remember the episode as one of the most terrifying of your whole, entire life. Perhaps you on this page because you don't know what a panic attack is and you're trying to find out. Panic attacks are an extremely common manifestation of acute anxiety. Some people suffer from anxiety attacks (panic attacks) throughout their life if they do not learn how to deal with them. Others start to suffer panic attacks because of a sudden or long term stressful situation such as financial worries, domestic problems or bereavement. Some people start with panic attacks for no reason that they can identify. The thing that all panic attacks have in common, is that they are very real and very terrifying and can severely affect a persons quality of life Please watch the video below (if you have not already) where Dr Paul Salkovskis talks about what panic attacks are, including some panic attack symptoms and then about some of the treatment available. As you read my pages, you will see that I do recommend CBT alomgside of natural remedies, as I have worked as a CBT Practitioner helping people with their anxieties and very often panic attacks. You may be interested to know that it was Dr Paul Salkovskis who trained me in the use of CBT originally and for that I am indebted to him. It is a marvellous tool that can be used for many circumstances in life, and I do use it on myself sometimes if I have an issue to resolve. Anyway, back to the subject in hand , this is quite a long page and so for ease of navigation I have divided it into sections which you can jump to easily by clicking any of the following links (or of course you can just read from here down)
Introduction
Panic
attacks are regarded as episodes of really intense
apprehension or fearand cover a whole gamut of panic attack symptoms. Now
when I say intense, in truth we are talking outright terror feelings to the
point that some people think they won't even survive and that they are dying.
That this is it; it is the end of the line for them. Making matters worse, the onset of these episodes
is usually very abrupt and sudden, and often out of the blue but on the upside,
they normally last only a relatively short period of time. It may however take
up to a few hours to feel like you are "back to normal". Sometimes,
as well as feeling that they are about to die any minute they often also
describe this horrible episode as something that makes them feel that they are
“going crazy,” or feeling like they’re having a heart attack or actually feeling
like they are losing control of themselves. In short, having a panic attack is a short lived but traumatic event that if experienced on a regular basis can really impact on a person's quality of life.
What is occurring in a panic attack?
It is an age old safety mechanism that goes right
back to caveman times when of course there would have been a lot of danger
around and so being able to respond to it was vital for survival. These days
though, we are unlikely to come across a dinosaur but we still have the old
evolutionary mechanism within is which is known as fight or flight. The physical symptoms of panic attacks are clearly going to be conceived with a lot of alarm by the people who are experiencing them. Unfortunately for people who are already prone to panic attacks, this will only add to their problems, as they will feel heightened anxiety, which further works to form a positive feedback loop.
What triggers panic attacks?
Panic attack symptoms can be triggered by many things and in fact the triggers are so varied it is impossible to go through them all here suffice it to say that a person's anxiety reaction or panic attack is based on their beliefs and fears to some kind of stimulus. For example, a common trigger for a panic attack is when someone who is not comfortable in crowds and enclosed spaces has to go shopping for groceries in a busy supermarket. Because they already know that this is a situation that they will struggle with, there will already be some anxiety building before they even get there. Once they are in the supermarket, their anxiety and fears will start to surface and they start to have
thoughts such as "I hate crowds", "I have to get out of here", "everybody's
looking at me", "it's too hot and I can't breathe", or I'm going to pass out
"and I don't know what to do". The more these thoughts whizz around inside
someone's head, the more they lead to more thoughts like it and before you know
it the person is launched into a full-blown, stopping dead in your tracks, full
glorious Technicolor panic attack. There is another alternative and that is that they escaped the situation by leaving the supermarket immediately and so avoid the panic attack (on that occasion at least).
However, this doesn't solve the problem because now
not only do they not have any groceries but now that they feel better because
they left the situation, this gives weight to the conclusion that they are
better off avoiding these situations. This means
they become even more fearful of them, avoid the situation more than ever and
have to conduct a more limited life or if they do go to the supermarket will
find that they are even more likely to have an outright panic attack. The whole thing is a vicious circle but fortunately
there are ways to deal with this, and some of them are natural panic attack
treatment methods which of course are completely safe. You can find out more about the causes of panic attacks here on this page.
Panic attack symptoms
As I already mentioned, panic attacks symptoms are when the body physically reacts in an automatic way to what is perceived as a dangerous or threatening situation. This will give rise to many physical symptoms, many of which can be mistaken for other more serious illnesses, which of course then only leads to more fear and anxiety and ultimately panic. It is vitally important to keep things in perspective. There are quite a variety of symptoms that may be included in a typical panic attack as follows:
Trembling
One of the extremely common panic attack symptoms is that of trembling. Trembling is when you experience involuntary and rhythmic muscle contractions and subsequent relaxations that include to-and-fro movements. These movements involve things such as twitching of one or more of your body parts. Trembling is actually one of the most frequent of the group of involuntary actions you can experience, and it normally affects your face, hands, arms, eyes, legs, and trunk.
Shortness of breath
Sometimes known as dyspnea. Another of the panic attack symptoms, shortness of breath is usually normal if you have been doing some heavy exertions like lifting and so is to be expected at those times. However, shortness of breath becomes a problem if it happens in unexpected situations, such as during a panic attack. The shortness of breath can be frightening in a panic attack and people really feel that they are suffocating.
Hyperventilation
When a person starts to panic, they will start to
breathe more shallowly but also much faster than normal. The breaths are
actually ineffective but the more the person panics; the more they
hyperventilate which makes matters worse. Sometimes
people who hyperventilate will start to get numbness or tingling sensations in
the feet or hands and sometimes the lips although this does not happen every
time. Nonetheless it is something that will add to the fear that the person is
already experiencing if they do not understand. You may have seen in the movies people being made to breathe into a brown paper bag when they are panicking and hyperventilating. This does actually work, whether by does not need to be brown particularly. It means that they are re-breathing their own air and this will start to correct the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood which are now all over the place. As these levels begin to normalize, the persons breathing also become more normal in response and they begin to calm down and panic subsides.
Heart Palpitations
Some people
when they are having panic attacks actually have what is known as palpitations
of the heart. This
is where they can feel the heart pounding in their chest and may
even feel it's going to burst out. This is one of the particularly common panic attack
symptoms that send people off to the ER. Many people will interpret this as a sign of an
impending heart attack and so of course it will add to the panic. Yet there are
some people who will have palpitations for many other reasons including heart
problems but even low-level anxiety and in some cases it will even happen during
menopause. Nonetheless, it can feel so severe that the person is convinced their heart is about to stop. But it cannot possibly go on like this.
Chest Pain
The problem with this symptom is that it can be attributable to many other medical issues, so just having chest pains is not going to automatically let you know that you are experiencing panic attack symptoms. In fact, chest pain can also be attributed to other psychological issues such as clinical depression, anxiety or hypochondria.
Nausea
Nausea is just a feeling of either general unease or discomfort right in the upper portion of your stomach so that you feel you might vomit (though you may not actually do so) making it one of the panic attack symptoms to be aware of for it is not an immediately obvious one.
Other symptoms
As you can see, there are a wide array of symptoms of panic attacks to be aware of and it is easy to understand why someone is so devastated if they are a frequent sufferer of these terrible events. As I said before however, it is important to know that there are things that can be done and it is up to you to take control of the situation and your anxiety attack with help of course. You might want to make a start by looking at my natural remedies for panic attacks page.
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When you get
panic attack symptoms, you are experiencing what is actually a reaction of the
sympathetic nervous system or SNS. This is the automatic part of the nervous
system over which we have little control and it is reacting to something that is
being perceived as dangerous or threatening. 
Hyperventilation is basically just
over-breathing and is one of the more terrifyling panic attack symptoms. Don’t get
bogged down on too much medical terminology with hyperventilation! 
Normally
seen as a medical emergency, chest pain is yet another one of the panic attack
symptoms. This is why people who are having a panic attack may get shipped off
to the nearest emergency room if they all of the people do not realize what is
happening.