A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense anxiety that triggers severe physical reactions without any real danger or obvious cause.
Panic disorder is characterised by recurrent panic attacks that often occur spontaneously. People with panic disorder are aware that their panic is usually unfounded and illogical. Therefore, they avoid public situations and being alone. A panic attack can be so severe that sufferers can lose control and hurt themselves.
What are the Symptoms of panic disorder
Panic attacks are accompanied by severe physiological symptoms such as dizziness, rapid heartbeat, sweating, or a tightness in the chest, and sufferers are afraid of dying or losing control.
What Triggers a panic disorder?
The first attacks usually occur in stressful, distressing situations, sometimes characterized by psychophysiological- (migraine headache, tension headache, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, and essential hypertension.) exhaustion and exertion, which are subsequently avoided.
Due to fear of repetition of the situation, people with panic disorder are constantly afraid of these situations and the associated physical reactions increase, which in turn can cause the panic attacks to occur more frequently. They are often triggered by even the smallest physical changes, which they observe very closely and interpret in a disastrous way as the beginning of an upcoming panic attack. These feelings of disaster increase the person’s anxiety and physiological alertness, so that the threshold for triggering a panic attack is reached more and more quickly.
How to Treat Panic Attack
Since panic attacks are often triggered by the overinterpretation of actually harmless physical symptoms, e.g., strong heart palpitations are misinterpreted as signs of a heart attack.
Focus of the treatment of panic disorder
Habituation and remapping (reinterpretation)
Habituation and remapping (reinterpretation) of interoceptive stimuli (physical symptoms). Thus, the patient learns through so-called behavioral experiments that physical symptoms such as an increased heartbeat (consciously triggered by physical stress) are in principle not signs of a heart attack. At the same time, habituation to physiological anxiety symptoms is achieved.
Exposures to real-life situations in vivo
Exposures to real-life situations in vivo have been shown to be beneficial in treating this kind of disorder. A common consequence of panic attacks is avoidance of perceived dangerous situations, which ultimately perpetuates the disorder. Therefore, confrontation with fear-inducing situations or triggers must take place in therapy, and attempts must be made to achieve habituation to these situations.
If the attack occurs during the activity, it is necessary to remain in the situation until the symptoms subside. Discontinuing the exposure would be considered avoidance, since the panic attack would then subside due to the termination of the confrontation and not due to familiarization.
Exposure exercises must be repeated and increasingly performed independently by the patient to be successful. The sufferer must learn about his or her avoidance and safety behaviors and “smart up” on his or her own. Safety strategies for the affected person include, for example, calming medications, carrying cell phones, emergency exits, mental reassurances such as “nothing will happen.”
Visit a therapist
The condition usually begins with generalized panic attacks or mild phobias and develops into an increasingly serious condition. In addition to gradual exposure, your therapist may combine treatment with anti-anxiety medications. Some therapists may also perform alternative treatments such as hypnosis, which is becoming increasingly popular in the medical world as a treatment for panic disorder and other anxiety conditions.
In conclusion, panic disorder usually occurs when the person feels unsafe. These unsafe feelings include the person feeling trapped, out of control, or too far from their personal comfort zone. Many people who suffer from this disorder are confined to their home or even a specific room in their home where they feel safe.
Panic disorder is neither a fear of open spaces nor a fear of crowded rooms. While these conditions can also occur in a person, panic disorder is specifically a condition of being too far away from a normal area, regardless of the crowd. People with this disorder usually and simply need to be in complete control of the situation.
