Panic Attack and Anxiety Attack, Recognize the characteristics and differences
Panic attack and anxiety attack seem just normal panic and anxiety, even though these two conditions are classified as psychological disorders. Could it be, you also experience it? Learn more about panic attack, what is anxiety attack, and how to recognize its characteristics and symptoms.
What is that anxiety or anxiety?
Anxiousis the body’s natural alarm system when you feel threatened, under stress, or are faced with a stressful or uncomfortable situation. Generally, anxiety is not a bad thing. Anxiety can help you stay alert and focused, prepare you for work, and motivate you to solve problems.
Anxiety is more than just an instinct. As a result of the body’s “fight or flight” reaction, anxiety has several physical signs and symptoms.
What are the signs that you are worried?
Signs and symptoms anxiety or anxiety is:
- Nervous, restless.
- Sweating.
- Stomach cramps or dizziness.
- Frequent urination or diarrhea.
- Breathless.
- Tremors and twitches.
- Tense muscles.
- Headache.
- Sluggish.
- Insomnia.
- Fright.
- It’s hard to focus.
- Easy to get angry.
- Tense and anxious.
- Sensitive to potential hazards, easily startled.
- Empty mind.
However, if you continue to have an overwhelming amount of anxiety and fear that is prolonged to interfere with your daily routine and functions, this is known as an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety disorders can be frightening, annoying, and debilitating. Many of the symptoms are similar to a number of common ailments (such as heart disease, thyroid problems, and respiratory problems), people with anxiety disorders often make multiple visits to the emergency room or doctor’s office, thinking they have a life-threatening illness. It can take months or years and many frustrating episodes before getting a proper diagnosis.
The difference between normal panic and panic attack
Anxiety disorders are actually a big umbrella covering six types of psychological disorders, namely generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic attacks or panic attack, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), phobias, social anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic disorder (PTSD).
On the other hand, panic attacks are a condition derived from anxiety attacks that have more specific characteristics. The terms “panic attack” and “anxiety attack” are often used to describe one another. In fact, in the medical world, anxiety attack is an inaccurate term.
Perhaps you have had feelings of fear flood your body when you are caught in a threatening or dangerous situation. Crossing the road when a car suddenly speeds up, for example, or hears the screams of a crowd that booms during a demonstration. The momentary panic causes chills and goosebumps, causes the heart to beat fast, the stomach feels heartburn, and confused thoughts.
When the danger is over, usually the symptoms of panic will also disappear. The panic has now been replaced by a sense of relief that we made it through the crisis and got back on with our lives.
Now, imagine that you were shopping at a supermarket and met an old neighbor or friend. In the midst of an exciting conversation, suddenly you are in a panic that is very, very much like a big disaster will come. Your heart beats so fast it feels painful, sweats cold, and you feel lightheaded. You suddenly want to pass out, feel crazy, or even feel like you are going to die.
Then when everything is over, the panic turns into a feeling of weakness, tiredness, and confusion; You are constantly haunted by thoughts of why it happened suddenly, when it will happen again, and what to do when the attack returns.
If you often experience sudden panic without cause and that is unrelated to the situation you are in, and you are constantly terrorized by the fear that this attack will happen again and again, you may experience a serious but easy-to-treat psychological condition, namely panic attacks. panic attack.
Then, what is panic attack?
Cathy Frank MD, director of Outpatient Behavioral Health Services at Henry Ford Hospital, explains that panic attacks, or panic attack, occurs spontaneously and not as a reaction to a stressful situation. Panic attacks occur for no reason and are unpredictable.
During a panic attack, the person experiencing it will be trapped in so much terror and fear that they feel like they are going to die, lose control of their body and mind, or have a heart attack. Furthermore, sufferers will be terrorized by feelings of worry about the emergence of further panic attacks.
Although the exact cause of a panic attack is not yet known, research suggests that the combination of the body’s biological conditions (genes) and external environmental factors contributes equally to attacks and development. panic attack.
How to detect panic attack?
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), panic attacks are characterized by four or more of the following symptoms:
- Heart palpitations, fast heart rate.
- Heavy sweat.
- Trembling, chills.
- The sensation of being out of breath, difficulty breathing.
- Feeling suffocated or choking.
- Pain or discomfort in the chest.
- Nausea, or upset stomach.
- Lightheaded, lost balance, passed out.
- Derealization and depersonalization, the feeling of being separated from the body or reality.
- Feeling like losing control of your body, feeling crazy.
- Fear will die.
- Numbness or paresthesia.
- Cold sweat, chills, or the body flushes and warms up.
Many of the symptoms of anxiety disorder and panic attack are similar to each other, but in anxiety disorders, the attack period is generally shorter and less serious than a panic attack. However, the symptoms of anxiety attack are more difficult to disappear in an instant and can last for days, or even months.
Many people who have this anxiety disorder also experience depression at some point in their life. Anxiety and depression are believed to be rooted in the same biological vulnerability, which may explain why these two different conditions often overlap. Depression exacerbates symptoms of anxiety disorders, and vice versa. It is important that you seek help for both of these psychological problems.
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