Panic Attacks

If you have had the misfortune to suffer from a panic attack you know what a truly terrifying experience it is.
Suddenly and without warning you start to feel dizzy or light-headed, you can't seem to catch your breath, your body starts trembling or shaking and most frightening of all your heart starts to race and you can literally feel it pounding in your chest as if it is about to explode. Your mind screams: Help! I must be having a heart attack!


The first time I suffered a panic attack, I felt sure I was either having a heart attack or about to have one, and took myself off to the local hospital. Oddly, even as I was on my way to the emergency room I felt the symptoms decrease, until by the time the doctors saw me I was feeling much better. Later I was told that this is one of the ways you can tell whether it's a panic attack or heart attack. Panic attacks symptons generally decrease in a short time, whereas heart attack symptoms generally increase or stay at the same level.


After that first panic attack, I learned that my feelings and thoughts produced the physical symptoms, which in turn fed the feelings and thoughts of panic and terror. Which is why, as I was on my way to the emergency room, the focus of my thoughts naturally moved from how terryfing the symptoms were, to thinking about how much better I would feel at the hospital were I could receive help. I literally stopped myself from being panicked by the panic itself.

Panic attacks usually lasts less than ten minutes, although some of the symtoms may last longer. As soon as you feel yourself in a spiral from anxiety to sheer panic, try and focus on your breathing, and think about how you are feeling. Remind yourself that the actual fear of a panic attack feeds on itself like a raging fire, and that this fire will quickly burn itself out. Fortunately, despite their frightening nature, be reassured that panic attacks themselves do not lead to heart attacks, loss of control, mental illness or death.


A panic attack is a mental thought process that produces the physical symptoms, whereas a heart attack produces physical symptoms that leads to the mental thought process of panic.
Quite simply, you panic first, and the panic attack itself produces the symptoms that make you think you're having a heart attack. Conversely, you have the physical symtoms of a heart attack, which then produces the worry that makes you get to the hospital.

So in answer to the question, is it a panic attack or is it a heart attack, simply try and ask yourself what came first: the mental panic or the physical pain?

If you have suffered a panic attack, please either get yourself to a hospital or see your doctor to rule out any physical problems. Panic attacks and generalized anxiety are very common and are treatable a variety of ways, but you should be diagnosed by a professional before embarking on any treatment.
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