The symptom of anxiety experienced for a short time is called the flight-fight response. When a person encounters any danger, changes occur in his body to escape or fight that danger. The amount of blood going to the skin decreases, and the blood going to the large muscles that will help escape or fight increases. Thus, the skin becomes pale and numbness occurs in the hands and feet. The heart beats harder and faster to increase the amount of blood it pumps. This causes palpitations to be felt. The amount of blood flowing to the brain decreases and a feeling of dizziness occurs. Deeper and faster breathing is taken to increase the amount of oxygen in the blood. This is felt as shortness of breath. In primitive times full of dangers, this response was crucial for human survival. For example, when they encountered an animal that could harm them, they survived with this flight-fight response. Today, in a risky situation for our lives, this reaction is still life-saving. However, although the issues we worry about vary greatly, we experience the same symptoms in case of anxiety. In other words, the body of a mother who is worried about her child coming home late reacts as if she had encountered a wild animal. This may cause a sudden anxiety attack, that is, a panic attack.
Panic attacks are attacks of intense anxiety that start suddenly, increase rapidly, and are accompanied by the thought that the person is going to die. During a panic attack, there is an accelerated heartbeat, tremors, sweating, difficulty breathing, nausea, dizziness, dizziness, numbness, tingling sensations, coldness, feeling like you are going to lose control or die. Symptoms reach their peak within 10 minutes. It usually ends within half an hour. However, patients often describe feeling tired and dizzy after the attack.
In panic disorder, unexpected, recurrent panic attacks occur. At the same time, the person worries about having another attack and therefore makes some changes in his/her life. For example, if he has an attack when he is alone, he cannot stay at home alone, go out or enter a crowd because no one can help him.
30% of people have a panic attack. However, 5% of them result in panic disorder. Having a panic attack once does not indicate that you will develop panic disorder. So who has panic disorder? What does it result in? People who worry about having a panic attack again and therefore focus on physical sensations such as shortness of breath, palpitations, numbness, and sweating are likely to develop panic disorder. Physical sensations are perceived as a harbinger of a panic attack and the attack is triggered due to anxiety. For example, it is normal for a person who drinks coffee to have palpitations. However, a person who has had a panic attack before and experiences intense palpitations during the attack matches the attack with the palpitations. Therefore, when palpitations occur, people worry about whether they will have an attack, and this worry results in a panic attack.
Read: 0
