The National Institute of Mental Health claims that more than 6 million U.S. citizens suffer from an anxiety disorder. However, let's keep it real here, not everyone suffering from anxiety attacks actually report their symptoms to friends, family or their doctor, so the real numbers could be much higher.
Anxiety attacks or panic attacks are generally very short periods of extreme and intense fear. Though everyone experiences different symptoms and signs of anxiety attacks, a few common ones are as follows below:
Breathlessness or Shortness of Breath
Excessive or unusual Sweating
Mild to Severe Chest Pain (sometimes mimicking a heart attack)
Nausea/ Feeling Bloated or having an Upset Stomach
Trembling and Shaking
Dizziness and Feelings of Vertigo
Tingling or Numbing of the Hands
Increasing and Rapid Heart Beat
Fear of Dying or Presence of Morbid Thoughts
Feeling Too Hot or Too Cold without Reason
Fear of 'Going Crazy,' Insane or Being Out of Control
Many people land up in the emergency rooms of hospitals the first time they get a serious panic attack, as the physical pain they experience as well as the discomfort they go through leads them to believe that they are actually suffering from a heart attack of another life or death situation. This is because the symptoms of anxiety attacks can sometimes resemble the symptoms of heart attacks, extreme low blood sugar or even nicotine poisoning, though ninety percent of the time, doctors find no physical reason for these symptoms.
Anxiety attacks are highly uncomfortable, to be sure, but let's be clear: they are not physically dangerous. It is normal to think that death will fall upon you any second when you are in the middle of an attack; however you are perfectly all right and there are virtually no known cases of individuals dying of panic attacks. What actually happens during an anxiety attack is that your body switches to the 'fight and flight' mode in order to prepare to defend itself because it (erroneously) thinks it is being attacked.
Almost all of us have experienced a situation wherein we felt threatened by a situation we found ourselves in. It is essential that we differentiate these reactions from anxiety attacks. When you are scared by a 'real' outside source, you feel afraid and waves of fear run through your body. But this is a normal reaction to dangerous stimuli. However, anxiety attacks differ. They are unfounded bouts of severe feelings of fear without the existence of an actual threat. Anxiety attack symptoms usually are unexpected and seem to come 'out of the blue.'
It is common for a person who has undergone an anxiety attack to later be afraid of the attacks themselves. Once this vicious circle of 'fear of fear' starts, it becomes extremely hard to handle because the sufferer now start getting attacks based on their earlier experience. This attitude and behavior can lead to agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder wherein people are afraid to even leave the house. They are actually attempting to shield themselves from any signs of anxiety or stress in the environment, but of course, this is impossible to do, as stress, and even some anxiety, are a normal part of life.
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