Anxiety Attack Help

We all feel some anxiety from time to time. It’s a normal response to uncertainty and potential problems. However, for some of us the anxiety itself becomes the problem. That’s when its time for some anxiety attack help.

 The first step is to determine if you have a problem or not. How do you know if the anxiety you’re experiencing is too much anxiety or an appropriate response? Here are some things to consider.

Normal anxiety helps you deal with real danger. It can motivate you to seek solutions to problems. A little bit of anxiety is good if it leads to productive behavior.

For example, if your anxiety about an upcoming test leads you to study rather than go to the movies, it’s helped you.

However, if you feel very anxious for no reason, and if your worries interfere with your daily life, then you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder. If your anxiety makes you feel unable to act rather than motivates you to action, the anxiety itself has become a problem.

How to Tell If You Need
Anxiety Attack Help

Physicians have diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders. These include:

  * daily anxiety for six months or more
  * the severity of the anxiety and the extent to which it interferes with daily life
  * physical symptoms such as palpitations, muscular tension, GI distress, etc due to the anxiety
  * feeling out of control and difficulty managing the anxiety

 If you meet these criteria, what can you do? What’s the best way to help your anxiety attacks?

Other pages on this site talk about various treatments for anxiety and panic in some detail, but here’s a quick summary about anxiety attack help.

If your physical symptoms are significant, you should see a physician to rule out physical causes.

Since we’re considering generalized anxiety here rather than a full-blown panic attack using breath control techniques isn’t as important but can be useful.

Many people look for the solution in a pill. Physicians commonly prescribe Valium-type drugs (Xanax, Ativan, Librium and so on). These are sedatives and really do nothing to solve the real problem. They may "take the edge off" short term, but when they wear off you're left with the same issues.

If you use them regularly, they can become habit forming. If you go this route, use them short term only.

A better approach is to learn to control your thoughts. This is the aim of cognitive behavioral therapy. The premise of this treatment is that our thoughts about situations, not the situation itself, determines our experiences and our behaviors.

For example, suppose you have a picnic planned with a friend and it rains. The rain is a fact and you can’t change it. However you do have complete control over how you respond to it. You could respond with anger or you could respond with creativity. The anger would make for a miserable day. Creativity gives you a chance to think of something else fun to do or to find a place where you could have your picnic despite the rain.

The point is that anger isn’t the only option. Neither is anxiety. We have control over our thoughts, but it’s not always easy to exercise it. However the techniques of cognitive behavior therapy work very well.

There are other non-drug techniques that have a very high success rate. One that thousands of people have used successfully is Panic Puzzle. All the anxiety attach help you need is likely in this one program. I encourage you to check it out by clicking on the links below:

Panic Puzzle