Anxiety; It is also expressed with different terms such as anxiety, anxiety, worry. There is no one who does not recognize the feeling we call anxiety. You experience anxiety when you are taking an exam, when you are about to give a public speech, when you think that something will happen to the people you love, or when you feel that you are in trouble.
Anxiety and fear are different from each other. While fear is an emotion related to a concrete situation, person, event or object that happens here and now; Anxiety is about a situation or event that may happen in the future. For example, you get scared when you suddenly encounter a dog. But when you think the dog will bite me, you become worried. A car suddenly honking its horn in front of you scares you, but if you walk worrying that a car might come and hit me at any moment, you are experiencing anxiety.
When anxiety occurs, some physical sensations occur. Many people do not know that sensations such as increased heart rate, difficulty breathing, flushing, sweating, tremors, numbness, blurred vision, muscle tension, shortness of breath that can extend to suffocation and shortness of breath are also part of anxiety. For this reason, when these physical sensations occur, the person cannot understand why it is happening, and his distress may reach the level of panic because he thinks he may have a serious physical illness at that moment.
Anxiety is a reaction to threat or danger. It is an alarm system created by our nervous system. When human beings first emerged, in the primitive environment full of dangers they lived in, it was extremely vital that an automatic mechanism that created an immediate flight or fight response took over the organism when a human being faced with a danger. Even in today's relatively safe world, this is a necessary mechanism.
Imagine that while you are crossing the road, a truck is coming towards you, honking its horn. If you don't feel any anxiety, you're probably crushed. But thanks to anxiety, which is the alarm system in our body, your flight-fight response will take over and allow you to run to a safer place. The main idea of this situation is very simple: the purpose of anxiety is to protect the organism, not to harm it. This is something that should happen is. Because it would be absurd for a living creature that has survived in nature to this day not to have developed a protective mechanism against dangers (or for this protective mechanism to be harmful to it).
Scientifically, it would be absurd to escape into a short-term anxiety response. -called fight response. It is called so because all psychological and physical changes that occur in anxiety are aimed at either fighting or escaping from danger. This is because the main purpose of anxiety is to protect the organism.
Anxiety does not last forever or gradually rise to a level that can harm the person. After a while, the anxiety level rises, the nervous system works to balance it. The reason why physical sensations continue for a while even though the danger is gone is; The elimination of chemical messengers adrenaline and noradrenaline is achieved within a certain period of time. Therefore, even if the danger passes and the sympathetic nervous system stops reacting, you may feel anxious and excited because these chemicals will remain in your body for a while. Remember that this is an absolutely natural and harmless situation.
According to the real data given to us by science, the physical sensations created by anxiety (such as palpitations, difficulty breathing, tremors), that is, this alarm system, not only threaten human health, but also We now know that there is a mechanism for protection. It should not be forgotten that the main feature and purpose of this system, which causes the flight-fight response (anxiety), is to prepare the organism to take immediate action and to protect the body.
In the light of all this, why is it that there is absolutely no danger to be afraid of? In the event of a panic attack, does the flight-fight response occur?
The person misinterprets these physical sensations and the alarm state in his body and says "I'm having a heart attack", "I'm dying", "I'm going to lose control", "I'm going crazy". He concludes that there is a danger like this. Since this interpretation of physical symptoms is very frightening, it is only natural that the result is panic and fear. Fear and panic then lead to more physical symptoms, and fear A vicious circle occurs in the form of physical symptoms and fear.
So how come the physical symptoms seen in the flight-fight response are felt without any initial fear?
You become extremely sensitive to these symptoms and have a fearful reaction, mainly due to past panic experiences that have become associated with them. Physical symptoms and sensations that may occur during your daily activities as a result of such conditioning may cause you to panic.
For example, shortness of breath and sweating after engaging in a physically tiring activity, palpitations or feelings of restlessness after drinking coffee. , conditions such as hot and dirty air in crowded environments, symptoms caused by insomnia, if you use an anti-anxiety medication, its level in the blood decreases, side effects caused by a medication you use for the first time, some flu and cold medications, or the simple symptoms you are experiencing at that time. Some physical illnesses can cause panic (through stomach discomfort, flu, fever in colds, and rapid heartbeat).
What Should Be Done?
Why such a situation? Even in cases where there is no clear reason for the first symptom to appear, by monitoring this, you can be sure that the physical symptoms that occur are part of the flight-fight response and will not harm you. Then, if you truly believe with 100% certainty that physical sensations are not dangerous, fear and panic will no longer appear and panic attacks will disappear. Of course, since you have had a panic attack before and misinterpreted the symptoms, these misinterpretations have become automatic and it has become very difficult for you to consciously convince yourself that the symptoms you experience during a panic attack are harmless.
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