Coping With Anxiety

Anxiety is a common affliction and can happen to anybody at anytime in their lives. Suffering from anxiety, can bring about the suffering of panic attacks, which can be defined as a normal reaction to an irrational or misunderstood fear. For example, a trigger for anxiety can be the death of someone you love. This can make you become afraid of your own mortality, and start to see normal everyday happenings as a threat to your life. A walk to the shops could become a hazard. This in some ways is irrational. Yes it could be dangerous but this is like most things in life, like the risk of being in a car.

To help understand and begin to deal with anxiety, we should first understand what a panic attack is. As i said earlier it is a normal healthy reaction. When a person believes they are faced with danger, a huge dose of adrenaline is released, which causes symptoms throughout the whole body, such as a sense of not being able to breathe, a tight throat, racing heart, dizziness, headache and cold limbs. This is a HEALTHY reaction, your body is doing what it is supposed to.

So if it is normal, then why is it so frightening and can leave you feeling you are about to die?

Panic attacks are frightening as the majority of sufferers are unable to identify what makes them happen and why. They can be very very sudden and experiencing such a strength of symptoms, can leave you feeling you are about to die. This is where it helps to understand that you cannot die from the symptoms of panic attack.

Knowing the above, that panic attacks are healthy in a way and cannot kill you can then help you change your thinking when you have one. You can begin to think, okay i am having a panic attack, but that is because i am well and healthy, if i just relax and let it happen, it will pass as the adrenaline runs out. But it still doesn't help you stop them from happening. This is because you need to find what triggers them in your mind.

Sometimes there is no trigger and it is hormonal, so going to your GP and discussing it will help you receive the right treatment, such as cipralex, a form of tablet designed to target anxiety. What will help most of all though it so either see a counsellor to help you understand what it could be that triggers your anxiety, or dealing with it yourself. Start to analyse what was happening when you had your panic attack...what were you feeling? make notes each time it happens, this will provide a distraction from your anxiety and help you begin to look for a pattern. Once you have an idea of what the trigger is, you need to face it.

Here is what was my trigger when i suffered anxiety. It was a fear of death. Not the losing my family etc, but of being dead. So how on earth can you face that? I began by instead of avoiding thinking about it, allowing myself to. Writing down my feelings on it, about what scared me, and trying to come to conclusions. I read up on fear of death, i read theories on what happens when you are gone and i even started walking through graveyards, something that previously i wouldn't have done. I also looked for the trigger of my fear of death, the situation that caused me to have the irrational fear in the first place. This was my brothers sudden death. The next step was then to get counseling for this. Finally my panic attacks became less until they were not there at all.

SUMMARY

So looking back on what has been written, there could almost be a strategy for dealing with panic attacks and anxiety.

1. See your GP for advise and possible medication and/or counselling
2. Understand what panic attacks and anxiety are
3. Begin to try to find a pattern and so a trigger behind it.
4. Face up to your trigger, don't avoid it, a fear, however irrational can only go away, when you realise there is nothing to fear.

Finally, remember to take one step at a time, don't push yourself too hard, or put yourself down. Work on building some confidence, taking some control of your life and not relying on others to provide it all. Talk about it, share your fears, as even just that can make them less. And remember, you will get there if you don't give up!