What is an Anxiety Attack?
As many of you might know, anxiety is a mental condition where our body responds to incoming stress or fear. It could be either your first day at school, public talk, or going to a job interview.
It is discovered that anxiety attacks are normal and are a natural reaction to stress, whereas anxiety disorders are extreme feelings of fear and dread that need to be dealt with.
But is it really the case? Wouldn’t you think normal anxiety attacks are the ones that lead to anxiety disorders? Since we have normalized getting anxious in our everyday life, some people may get these attacks heavily because of their high emotional intensity.
Anyway, it is also said that it helps us to be aware of dangerous situations so that we can stay safe instinctively. So, it naturally protects us or acts as safety in some situations.
Read till the end of this blog to know what you can do to prevent anxiety attacks.
Types of anxiety disorders:
1) Generalized anxiety disorder: This type usually involves people who feel extreme worry and tension. There could be no cause to trigger these feelings but they would keep on worrying about their everyday life – from health to work to relationships.
2) Phobias (social or other): Phobia is an intense fear generally caused by certain things or situations. Some phobias may include something as cute as a dog and some include snakes or other things such as heights, blood, injections, etc. So, it really depends on the individual of what kind of fear he has. ( 1 )
3) Separation disorder: This condition is mostly experienced by children or young adults. They would get extremely anxious about being away from their parents or may fear that their parents would be hurt in some way. Also, in critical cases, these children would severely cry, get violent or end up having nightmares.
What causes anxiety attacks?
Since every disorder has certain things to trigger it, anxiety also does. Some of them are:
1) Health/Medical conditions: Any type of chronic or acute disease that you have upsetting memories of could certainly cause anxiety attacks. This trigger is powerful because it includes personal feelings and would want you to release them at once.
These triggers can be reduced by being proactive and talking to someone who is willing to listen. This may help you to manage your emotions to a certain extent.
2) Drug withdrawal: Many people use drugs as a means to reduce or decrease their anxiety symptoms but when they stop using them all of a sudden, anxiety attacks tend to happen more intensely. That’s the process of any substance abuse including tea, coffee, and so on.
3) Unpleasant thinking: Thinking and saying negative things to yourself when you are frustrated can trigger high levels of anxiety, because as you know your mind controls your body, not the other way around.
4) Non-balanced diet: Eating well-balanced meals is very important for a bunch of reasons. Food affects your mood. When you don’t eat sufficient nutritious food, that can also trigger anxiety.
5) Environmental causes: People go through many events in their lives, some of them include harsh realities as well. They often include childhood abuse, parental neglect, the death of a close one, or seeing violence. These can also be the factors to cause anxiety.
7 Symptoms of Anxiety Attack
Everybody experiences this feeling differently from the other. They can range from shallow heebie-jeebies to a pounding heart. Some people with extreme cases may also feel a sudden disconnection between their body and mind.
Also in severe cases, people may experience panic attacks, hurtful thoughts or nightmares.
Some of the general symptoms of anxiety include:
Physical Symptoms:
- Sweaty hands
- Muscle tension/twitching
- Shortness of breath
- Dry mouth
- Nausea
- Restlessness
Mental symptoms:
- Trouble concentrating
- Excessive thoughts
- Fear
- Uneasiness
- Traumatic flashbacks
How to get rid of anxiety naturally?
To deal with this naturally, there are various things that one can do and they are also considered as the safest therapies because there are no side effects at all.
1) Exercise: This is one of the best and efficient ways to burn your anxious energy. Regular exercising releases feel-good chemicals in your brain that enhances all of your senses, providing better well-being overall.
2) Writing journals: Writing down all of your thoughts and emotions during that time can help you reflect your thoughts with different perspectives and will make it more manageable. Writing generally helps you to release all that stress by fighting negative and overpowering thoughts.
3) Yoga and Meditation: Regularly practicing breathing exercises (pranayama) and mindfulness meditation can help slow down your intrusive thoughts, making it easier to manage stress and anxiety.
Many people do yoga to release negative energy which is in the form of anxiety, depression, anger and so on. A research also suggests that it is useful, particularly with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
4) Aromatherapy: This therapy involves fragrant essential oils to promote health and well-being. The most common way is to inhale them using a diffuser or dilute them with a carrier oil to apply it directly on the skin.
The fresh aroma of these plant oils can help to ease stress and anxiety by promoting sleep, mood and balancing your heart rate. Some of the best essential oils to relieve mental stress are lavender, beragamot, grapefruit and clary sage, though there are many others as well.
5) Healthy Diet: The reason why diet is necessary is because the daily habit of eating junk, artificial flavorings, high-sugar diet impacts one’s temperament. You need to start observing your daily eating habits in order to implement healthy diet changes.
6) Herbal supplements: Some people may also turn towards considering herbal remedies as an alternative to modern drugs. It is said that herbs can help alleviate anxiety. Some of them are:
1) Ashwagandha
2) Chamomile
3) Cannabidiol
4) Lavender
Click here to learn about different types of meditation techniques.
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