Understanding Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Understanding Anxiety
Anxiety is the body’s natural response to danger - an automatic alarm that goes off when you feel threatened, under pressure, or are facing a stressful situation. It is our body’s way of letting us know we are not happy with some aspect of our lives.
What is a Panic Attack?
A panic attack is an exaggeration of the body’s normal response to fear, stress or excitement. It is the rapid build-up of overwhelming sensations, such as a pounding heartbeat, feeling faint, sweating, nausea, chest pains, breathing discomfort, feelings of losing control, shaky limbs and legs turning to jelly.
If you experience this, you may fear that you are going mad, blacking out, or having a heart attack. You may be convinced you are going to die in the course of the attack – making this a terrifying experience.
Panic attacks come on very quickly - symptoms usually peaking within 10 minutes. Most panic attacks last for between 5 and 20 minutes. You may have one or two panic attacks and never experience another, or you may have attacks once a month or several times each week. For some people they seem to come without warning and strike at random.
What Causes Anxiety?
There is no one cause of anxiety, rather there are a number of factors that may contribute to the development of anxious thoughts and behaviour. Some causes of anxiety can include:
· Stress
· Upbringing/Parenting
· Life Experiences
· Life Transition/Change
· Trauma
· Abuse/Neglect
· Workplace Conflict
· Bullying
· Family Break-Up
· Loss
What treatments are available?
The most common forms of treatment offered are counselling and medication. Your GP can advise you on medication.
How can Counselling help?
Counselling, particularly cognitive-behavioural therapy has been found to be very effective in the treatment of anxiety.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is made up of two components:
The first component - cognitive therapy - is one of the most common and well supported treatments for anxiety. It is based on the idea that a person's thoughts in response to an event or situation causes the difficult feelings and behaviours (i.e., it is often not an event that causes distress but a person's interpretation of that event). The aim of cognitive therapy is to help people to identify unhelpful beliefs and thought patterns, which are often automatic, negative and irrational, and replace them with more positive and helpful ways of thinking.
The second component of cognitive-behavioural therapy involves assistance with changing behaviours that are associated with anxiety, such as avoidance or restlessness. These may be dealt with through learning relaxation techniques and through changes in the way that certain situations are handled.
What else will help?
If you have any questions regarding counselling and anxiety or if you want to make an appointment
call David on 086 4052211. You can also email [email protected]
Anxiety is the body’s natural response to danger - an automatic alarm that goes off when you feel threatened, under pressure, or are facing a stressful situation. It is our body’s way of letting us know we are not happy with some aspect of our lives.
What is a Panic Attack?
A panic attack is an exaggeration of the body’s normal response to fear, stress or excitement. It is the rapid build-up of overwhelming sensations, such as a pounding heartbeat, feeling faint, sweating, nausea, chest pains, breathing discomfort, feelings of losing control, shaky limbs and legs turning to jelly.
If you experience this, you may fear that you are going mad, blacking out, or having a heart attack. You may be convinced you are going to die in the course of the attack – making this a terrifying experience.
Panic attacks come on very quickly - symptoms usually peaking within 10 minutes. Most panic attacks last for between 5 and 20 minutes. You may have one or two panic attacks and never experience another, or you may have attacks once a month or several times each week. For some people they seem to come without warning and strike at random.
What Causes Anxiety?
There is no one cause of anxiety, rather there are a number of factors that may contribute to the development of anxious thoughts and behaviour. Some causes of anxiety can include:
· Stress
· Upbringing/Parenting
· Life Experiences
· Life Transition/Change
· Trauma
· Abuse/Neglect
· Workplace Conflict
· Bullying
· Family Break-Up
· Loss
What treatments are available?
The most common forms of treatment offered are counselling and medication. Your GP can advise you on medication.
How can Counselling help?
Counselling, particularly cognitive-behavioural therapy has been found to be very effective in the treatment of anxiety.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is made up of two components:
The first component - cognitive therapy - is one of the most common and well supported treatments for anxiety. It is based on the idea that a person's thoughts in response to an event or situation causes the difficult feelings and behaviours (i.e., it is often not an event that causes distress but a person's interpretation of that event). The aim of cognitive therapy is to help people to identify unhelpful beliefs and thought patterns, which are often automatic, negative and irrational, and replace them with more positive and helpful ways of thinking.
The second component of cognitive-behavioural therapy involves assistance with changing behaviours that are associated with anxiety, such as avoidance or restlessness. These may be dealt with through learning relaxation techniques and through changes in the way that certain situations are handled.
What else will help?
- Exercise or engaging in some form of daily physical activity
- Eating a nutritious, well-balanced diet
- Obtaining an adequate amount of sleep
- Seeking emotional support from friends and family
- Monitoring how you think about stress and reduce and/or change thoughts which are negative
- Reducing or eliminating the use of alcohol and drugs and limiting caffeine intake
If you have any questions regarding counselling and anxiety or if you want to make an appointment
call David on 086 4052211. You can also email [email protected]
