Three Ways to Manage Your Next Anxiety Attack

What is an anxiety attack, anyway? Anxiety attacks are unpleasant, unsettling, and an event most of us will likely experience to some degree at one point or another. While we all have different tolerances for anxiety, stress, and what triggers these feelings, our human “Fight or Flight” programming is universal. An anxiety attack (also sometimes called a panic attack) is essentially the body’s neurological system preparing to respond to a stressor, real or perceived. When a person walking down the sidewalk suddenly startles at a bent stick on the ground that at first glance looks like a large snake, it is because the Fight or Flight system doesn’t know the difference between a stick and a snake, and it doesn’t care to wait around to find out … it prepares the person to respond to a possible worst case scenario threat. Similarly, we can have anxiety attacks when we perceive an emotional, social, or other non-physical threat. Facing an important meeting at work isn’t quite the same as facing down a venomous reptile, but our bodies often don’t know that. To our bodies, all stressors are potential threats to which we might need to respond. Why can anxiety attacks feel so awful? The body’s Fight or Flight system prepares us to face a threat by activating certain physiological processes that can be uncomfortable. The sympathetic nervous system unleashes a flood of hormones and other naturally occurring substances that can result in increased heart rate, swe...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Anxiety and Panic Self-Esteem Stress Anxious Thoughts Body Language Calm Coping Skills fight or flight Nonverbal communication Panic Attack Resilience stress reduction Sympathetic Nervous System Worry Source Type: blogs