What is the difference between panic and anxiety attacks? Anxiety is considered a normal reaction to stress associated with fear, while panic is a sudden feeling of fear. Both deal with mental disturbances but with a common factor, “fear”. These conditions are frightening with debilitating effects on the body and mentally. If you prefer to treat yourself, it is better to distinguish between the two attacks to get an accurate diagnose. Simple ways to determine the differences is by the causes and symptoms.

Causes of Anxiety Attacks

Anxiety attacks are recognized as a source of worries such as fear of flying, phobias, or getting sick. It can be brought on by too much worrying about your up coming wedding or an arguement with your husband that ends without understanding. In the event of attack, pressure on your mind builds up and keeps increasing until you feel like you are going to explode and go crazy. Losing control over yourself is very frightening. It is very scary, as severe anxiety attacks could cause you to lose control of your mind or “go crazy”.

Causes of Panic Attack

Stopping medication or withdrawal of alcohol may result in a panic attack. It can also be from genes that you inherited from your parents. Hypoglycemia and other biological issues can caused panic attacks. Exposure of a phobic situation may cause severe panic attacks and if the patient cannot gather back her/himself, it may result in losing control of oneself. When fear of a possible recurrence constantly plays inside your head, it may lead or result into a more often and severe panic attack. Worst case scenario is heart failure may developed.

Both deal with a mental imbalance, but on different grounds or reasons. Anxiety attacks are from worrying that something might happened. In other words your mind advances to the future negative result. And panic attack is from within yourself. It is a fear of recurrence that could lead to a more severe problem. Another difference between the two is that anxiety attacks can keep going on and on until you are able to fully recover, while panic attacks can peak after a short period of time and cease. Therefore, between the two, it is easier to treat panic attacks than anxiety.

Symptoms of Anxiety attack

Anxiety attacks start a bit slower than a panic attack in terms of heart rate increase, dizziness and flashes. The attack starts with a long-term stress such as muscle tension, restlessness, disturbed sleep and often changes in moods. It takes longer for the attack to occur and may even take a few hours, sometimes even days before it peaks.

Symptoms of Panic attack

Panic attacks start with the pounding of the heart, nausea, chills, shortness of breath and hot flashes. It does not take long to reach its peak , in 3 to 10 minutes you will feel a rapid feeling of discomfort. Heart beat will intensify so fast that it makes the patient sweat a lot. Disorientation and fainting may occur.

Treatments of both anxiety and panic attacks

Anxiety attacks may require medical treatment, unlike panic attacks. Anxiety is close related to post-traumatic stress, which needs antidepressants to calm yourself down. While panic attacks need more self-control and self-motivation. There are so many ways and strategies on treating both conditions and whichever you choose make sure to be responsible, consistent and patient. Those attitudes are very important for treating panic and anxiety attacks.

There is no treatment needed when you have an occasional panic attack. And discovering the trigger may help you to understand why they occur. For those patients with a panic disorder, treatments can help you to recover.

How to treat panic attacks? Try the following treatments:

Antidepressant Medicine – medicine given to patients that provides aid to relax them. However, antidepressants are given to patients to treat depression, but it also works well to treat panic attacks. Antidepressants do not work instantly, it takes 2 to 4 weeks to see any results. The effects of antidepressants build up slowly and patients often think it does not work, causing them to stop taking the medication.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – a type of talking treatment that is probably the most effective. This treatment is a combination of changing your thoughts (or cognitive) and changing the patients behavior. Therapists will help you to understand your current condition and to change your way of thinking to identify harmful, unhealthy and wrong beliefs about the physical symptoms. It aims to change your behavioral approach to the condition, particularly during attacks. Therapists will also teach you how to control your fear when faced with certain situations.

Self-Motivation Exercises – a technique of promoting self-control to overcome panic attacks. Exercise motivates your mind and stimulates your body to keep a positive outlook. This is suitable for patients aiming for a complete recovery by changing their lifestyle through eating habits, physical activity, sleeping and meditation. This works well when trying to figure out how to treat panic attacks.

Eating the right food will help your body to function properly and indirectly cure the nervous system. Being active everyday stimulates your body and promotes proper circulation of the blood which activates the immune system. Having adequate hours of sleep eliminates stress and relaxes your mind. And meditation through yoga and other exercises will also help keep your entire body synchronized.

Psychotherapy – can improve the effectiveness of medication to produce good results. This method reduces the relapse of someone who stopped taking medication and also for patients that don’t react to medication at all.

Relapse is defined as a fall back into an illness in its former state. Psychotherapy helps patients to avoid this from happening. The panic-focused psycho-dynamic psychotherapy has a better effectiveness in controlled trials that focuses on the role of dependency, anger causing panic disorder and separation anxiety. People with panic disorder are fearful and dependent on others for their security. This method involves exploring the patient and proving the psycho-dynamic conflict of the defense mechanism.

Now that you have learned a few ideas for how to treat panic attacks, fear no more. And whichever works best for you, be patient and consistent as stated above. There are treatments that will take some time before you can see results. Always think positive and set your goals high to keep your mind in a courageous state.

What is anxiety attacks? Anxiety is consider as an intense worry or scared feeling when under great pressure or in a stressful situation. It is a natural response of the body. When danger is about to be unfolded it is like an automatic alarm that goes off when there are trespassers.

Symptoms of anxiety attacks are:

- Physical effects like heart palpitations, nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, stomach aches and headaches.
- Blood pressure increased and compulsive heart rate.
- Sweating, trembling and pale skin.
- Irritability and short tempered.
- Restlessness and a feeling of being tense or jumpy.
- Anticipation of losing control and feeling like your going crazy
- Feelings of dread and denoting signs of danger.

Now that you know the symptoms of anxiety attacks you can easily determine or diagnose what you really are suffering from. Oftentimes, people think they have panic attacks but actually they are anxiety attacks. To distinguish which one you have will lead to better treatment.

Anxiety attacks can be treated by medication with self-motivation and consistency. If you have tried a medication that really works for you keep it, do not jump to another one because your best friend recommend it. Always remember no one knows your condition better then yourself.

Natural treatments for anxiety attacks:

Eating a balanced diet – learn the best foods suited for you. You can ask your doctor what foods you can and cannot eat. In certain conditions like acne, patients are told not to eat greasy foods because it will trigger the formation of acne. In your case there will be foods that you are not allowed to eat to avoid anxiety attack recurrences. Follow the advice and maintain eating a balanced diet. Fruits and vegetables are very helpful in any kind of illness.

Good and adequate hours of sleep – stress and depression which leads to anxiety attacks are due to lack of sleep. Practice bedtime hours, like go to bed at 9:00 PM everyday. It will discipline you and eventually you will cope with your sleeping hours better. Good sleep will start your day off right, feeling fresh. One secret way of motivating yourself to have a positive outlook in life. This is necessary when fighting the symptoms of anxiety attacks.

Drinking the required amount of water – water is essential in our body. Drinking enough water, 7 to 8 glasses a day, will cleanse your body from toxins. It will maintain balance distribution of nutrients throughout the body. It is like when a car has enough gas, it will run smoothly.

Exercise everyday – do some stretching, walking and jogging at least 30 minutes a day. It will keep your cells and muscles in good condition. Also, it will help burn fats, stimulate your cells and motivate your mind.

Panic attack is common to an anxiety patient. It is a sudden feeling of fear that creates hysterical and irrational behavior. It could happen anytime and any place without warning. In order to cope with panic attacks it is best to know the symptoms before a full bloom panic attack occurs.

Symptoms are warnings the patient must listen to and should not disregard. From symptoms you can take necessary precautions to prevent panic attacks from occurring, which is the best method of coping with panic attacks.

Mostly these attacks only last in few minutes, but in rare occasions they can last a few hours. Frequency of attacks differ in each patient. Some have them often and some only once in a while. According to experts panic attacks are a result of an adrenaline rush that alleviates pumping of blood to the heart. However, this feeling is helpful to heightened your abilities and make you run fast, but this is dangerous in normal conditions.

If an attack persist you will feel a strong pounding of your heart. Heart rate is fast followed by trembling and shaking of the entire body. Sweating starts and increases as you feel the sensation of shortness in breathing. You will feel like you are choking, chest discomfort and pain. Slowly you feel chills and hot flashes that seems like you are losing control and going crazy. A fear of dying plays in your mind that makes you feel low, dizzy and probably fainted.

How to cope with panic attacks?

When you feel your heart start pounding do some breathing exercises to relax. Take a deep breath inhale and exhale. Keep doing this until you feel relaxed and calm. Stay in a position in which you are comfortable and can breathe easily. If you are in a restaurant and feel shortness of breath, go out of the restaurant and have some fresh air while doing breathing exercises. As much as possible keep yourself calm and do not allow negative thoughts to play in your mind.

In most cases people tend to drink water or any liquid when they feel shortness of breath, this is wrong. Instead, calm yourself down breath as comfortably as you can. Settle yourself first before drinking anything. When you drink water while your heart is beating so fast, you feel like you cannot breath, you only add pressure to your heart that could result into fainting.

It is easy to say what you are going to do, but doing it is the hardest part. Motivate yourself by saying you are going to be fine during attacks. Remember, nobody can help you except yourself. If you think you need some one to guide you or advise you what to do, a psychologist or psychiatrist can guide through the process of recovery.

Stopping a panic attack is based on the kind of situation and level of the attack. Some patients that suffered from a mild form of a panic attack found it manifested with a sudden feeling of a bad situation or social involvement. While other patients that suffer a severe form of a panic attack found it manifested with shortness of breath, dizziness and mixed-belief. Each requires a different kind of approach to stop the attack.

In order to stop a panic attack correctly one must consider the level of attack, either mild or severe, in order to reduce and most cases stop the attack. You can do this by doing the following:

Breathing Technique - Consider a breathing technique that helps you to focus on happy memories rather than sad ones. Good breathing will stimulate your body and that will help you to think the right way of handling your condition. On the event of an attack, take your time to perform good breathing to calm yourself down and slowly relax your mind. When you have the grip to control what you are thinking, the strong pounding of your heart beat significantly slows down as well.

Regular Exercise - Regular exercise of any kind will help you overcome your stress. Meditation and yoga are great ways to relax your mind. Self motivation always play a big role in treating panic or anxiety disorder. A panic attack is a result of a nervous malfunction that affects your mind due to the sudden fear and rapid heart beat. Most patients lose control and cannot stop a panic attack because of the negative thoughts that are playing on their mind.

Adequate Sleep - A good 7 to 8 hours of sleep will do wonders for you. In any kind of illness sleeping is one the best solution, prevention and treatment. Depression and stress are factors in causing a panic attack. In order to avoid recurrence or occurring of a panic attack, one must fight stress and depression. When you have a good amount of hours of sleep your mind is fresh and can think properly. Knowing how to stop a panic attack is necessary in order to overcome one.

With these basic natural ways to stop a panic attack, you are safe from side effects of any medication. The more natural ways you use to treat an illness, the better the chances you have in recovery. With this method you are not required to take any kinds of medication, but advice from a psychologist will help you understand how to stop a panic attack.

Maintaining a good diet, good amount of sleeping hours and an active lifestyle will keep you safe from any threat of attacks, as well as any kind of diseases. Always keep your focus and keep yourself motivated with a good and positive outlook in life.