What is a Panic Attack?

A Panic Attack is generally the result of an anxiety disorder and comes without previous warning signs and quite unexpectedly. It strikes as a short period of intense fear, triggering unexpected and apparently uncontrollable body sensations, adrenaline discharges and triggering negative false mental pictures about the entire situation.
Although the duration is short and the fear is generally non consistent, the feeling and perception of danger is extremely real, causing the person having the attack to feel as if they’re about to pass out or die.

When one reads this panic attack definition, you realize that it isn’t such a bad thing after all, and can eventually be controlled.

The duration of a panic attack may be different from subject to subject, but varies between 10 minutes and 2 hours, and generally reaches it’s peak within 30 minutes, generally preceded by high levels of anxiety and limited symptom attacks, and subsided during the course of several hours.
Fully recovering from a Panic Attack is extremely difficult especially in the case of anyone experiencing one for the first time, as it leaves behind a very intense and frightening memory about the experience, which is later recalled every time anxiety levels are high. A panic attack generally takes days to recover from.

Once a person has a panic attack, they may tend to develop fear for the situation where they first had the attack. For example, if a panic attack happens in a small space with no apparent exit, you may develop a phobia for that certain situation and try to avoid similar situations at every cost.

Over time, if a person keeps avoiding these situations and avoids engaging in activities where they suspect they may have a panic attack, they may develop a panic disorder, which debilitates them; disabling them to perform many daily tasks such as driving, and even leaving the house. This disorder is called agoraphobia, which is an addition to panic disorder.

(Agoraphobia: fear of being outside or otherwise being in a situation from which one either cannot escape or from which escaping would be difficult or humiliating)

Although it may seem as if a Panic Attack is a serious health problem, it is in fact the body’s way of protecting itself against harm.
It is the result of a situation where the body feels as if it is in danger, and releases Adrenaline into the bloodstream causing a fight-flight situation and where the body prepares itself for intense physical activity. The physical symptoms caused by this, makes the subject think and believe that there is something wrong with the body, as they include increase of heart rate, hyperventilation (rapid breath) interpreted as lack of breath. Because the physical activity expected never occurs, the adrenaline charged blood flows slower to the brain, causing a variety of other symptoms such as numbness, dizziness and numbness throughout the body, causing even greater concern to the victim.

In the video above is a testimonial about a panic attack sufferer who reports about some of the symptoms and how he’s dealing with the problem. It is important to have a view of how a panic attack can condition your entire life, apart from reading only about panic attack definitions. Apart from the information provided in this definition, you may want to check out some of things that he’s referring to, such as the “happiness chemicals” that the brain manufactures – Serotonin – and a Panic Cure that you can apply, which can provide every ounce of information that you will ever need about anxiety and panic attacks; information that your doctor cannot give you.