Anxiety Attacks

April 20th, 2010

For those of us who suffer with anxiety attacks, we distinguish what it feels like. Our heart pounds. We get butterflies in our tummy. We fear and fret over everything and anything. We have hot and cold sweats. Our throats go dry and we have difficulty swallowing, just to name a few.

If you are experiencing any of the above, then you may well be suffering from anxiety attacks.

Anxiety attacks can transpire out of the blue. I have spoken with lots of people who have said "my life is great; I don’t understand why I am suddenly suffering with anxiety attacks". This is the nature of the beast. There is no chosen format for anxiety attacks. They can occur to people whose lives are going really well, as well, as those who lives are not going so well.

This is why anxiety attacks are so difficult to diagnose. It’s not like having a cold or some other illness, where there symptoms are typical and easy to see and diagnose.

Understanding what anxiety attacks are will help you to have more control. It’s normal to worry and feel tense or fearful when under burden or facing a taxing situation. Anxiety is the body’s natural response to danger, an automatic alarm that goes off when we feel threatened.

From my personal understanding off living with anxiety attacks, I am aware of the fact that the more you think about the anxiety the stronger the symptoms become. The stronger the symptoms, the stronger the anxiety attacks become. Then you’re in the realms of a viscous circle. This is when it becomes really hard to over come your anxiety attacks.

It’s not till you truly become aware of the fact that your thoughts have shaped your anxiety, so it stands to reason that if you have manifested the anxiety attack then surely you can UN-create the anxiety attacks. This element is really hard for people to understand. And I know precisely how they think! When I was told this, I rejected it. Why would I want to do this to myself? It did not make sense.

But at the end of the day no matter how much I tried to ignore that fact, it was accurate, my thoughts where the foundation of my anxiety. I experimented with it. The more I focused my energy on the anxiety the stronger my anxiety attack became. So with the help of a therapist, I was able to work on my thoughts and defeat my anxiety.

I am not anxiety free, but I am able to stop my anxiety before it becomes a full blown anxiety attack.

An added thing to bear in mind, is that anxiety may be unpleasant, but it isn’t always a difficult thing. In fact, anxiety can help us stay alert and focused, spur us to action, and motivate us to solve problems. But when anxiety is relentless or overpowering, when it interferes with our relationships and activities-that’s when you’ve crossed the line from normal anxiety into the territory of anxiety disorders.

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