What are Panic Attacks?

Panic attacks are repeated unexpected episodes of intense anxiety and fear, followed by physical symptoms similar to that of body’s response to a dangerous situation.

Fight or flight

Fight or flight is a body mechanism in response to danger. Heart rate increase and blood flows to arms and leg muscles fast. This cause a trembling and tightening effect along with excessive sweating. The person then becomes flushed, intensely fearful and very alert. For panic attacks these symptoms occur even without any danger.

Effect of panic attacks

At the height of the panic attack there may be a frightening feeling that the environment has become unreal or unattached. The person experiencing this may worry about dying, having a heart attack or going crazy. Some people with the disorder have several attacks every day. While some experience weeks or months gaps in the attacks.

Agoraphobia

Since attacks occur without warning even during sleep, people who suffers from panic attacks are usually anxious about it happening at any time. The worry is not only about psychological or physical discomfort, but about embarrassing themselves or frightening others. This unintentional fear may lead to avoiding public places and the fear is called agoraphobia.  People with agoraphobia may avoid public places such as going to store, waiting in line, public busses etc.

Cause of panic attacks

The development of the disorder not fully understood by researchers yet, they believe that its cause by disturbance in the brain pathways which deals with emotions. There is another possibility that people with the attacks may have inherited a fight or flight response that is either more intense than normal or more sensitive than normal.

other related disorders

People with panic disorder have a relatively high risk of developing other psychiatric problems. More than 90% people who suffers the disorder have major depression. They may also suffer from personality disorder or substance abuse.