Panic Attack Disorders
Anxiety Disorder Symptoms and Treatments.
Anxiety disorder symptoms can be very upsetting. If you suffer from anxiety or panic attacks, your entire lifestyle can be disrupted. The symptoms of anxiety attacks vary from one individual to the next, as do their severity.
Some anxiety disorder symptoms include:
Shortness of Breath
Trembling or Shaking
Palpitations or rapid heart rate
Confusion or disorientation
Feeling of extreme fear or anxiety
Pains in various parts of the body, including headache, stomach or chest
One of the most distressing thing about anxiety disorder symptoms is that you can end up fearing the anxiety attack itself, in addition to whatever is causing the attack. For example, if you tend to have attacks in public places, you may start to fear going out in public. Or if you wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety attacks, you will start to fear going to sleep.
Treatment for Anxiety Disorder Symptoms
If you have physical symptoms, you should have those checked out to rule out any medical cause. In some cases, certain types of heart or glandular disorders can cause anxiety disorder symptoms.
It is important to get to the cause of your anxiety attacks. If you have a specific phobia, such as agoraphobia (fear of open or public spaces) or claustrophobia (fear of closed in spaces), you should target this. Behavioral therapy can be very effective in treating phobias. Hypnosis often helps as well. In addition to getting to the cause of your anxiety, therapy or hypnosis can help you to learn relaxation techniques that can lessen the severity of the attacks. Once you start to get control over your symptoms, you will at least not have to dread having an anxiety attack so much.
In some cases, drugs are prescribed to lessen the symptoms. While these can be helpful, the danger is that you can become dependent on them. It’s more important to learn how to control the symptoms and to learn what is causing them. However, if your attacks are severe and difficult to diagnose, then medication may be necessary.
There are herbs, homeopathic remedies and natural relaxation techniques that can help to lessen your symptoms. While these may not cure your anxiety attacks by themselves, they can at least help you to reduce the severity of the episodes. You can look into cell salts and Bach Flower Remedies (Rescue Remedy in particular) as examples of this.
Figuring out what is causing your anxiety disorder symptoms can be challenging, but it’s necessary so that you can eventually get past it. In the meantime, there are definitely ways to make your symptoms more bearable.