Panic Attacks at Night - Why They Happen, How To Stop Them
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
Panic attacks at night are actually pretty common amongst people with panic and anxiety disorders. When I first started experiencing them many years ago, I thought I was unique, but now I know differently.
Sometimes referred to as “nocturnal panic attacks,” these night-time episodes can be truly terrifying. In many cases, you’ll be fast asleep and perfectly calm, only to awaken all of a sudden and find yourself slap bang in the middle of a huge panic attack.
Or on other occasions, you may be lying awake for an extended period of time, and slowly feel your anxiety levels increase until a full-blown attack develops.
In my own case, I experienced both types of these panic attacks at night.
I tried many different approaches to stopping them, mostly unsuccessful approaches, but finally I stumbled onto some ideas that worked. The first one is to simply address the root-cause of the anxiety, whatever that may be for you. The night-time attacks are just the symptom, so we have to go after the root-cause.
So that approach needs some time and some effort on your part, in order for you to investigate your own situation and find what’s really causing your panic and anxiety.
But the good news is, there’s also something you can start doing right now.
And that’s to eliminate anything stimulating for an hour or two before bed. So no TV, no Internet, no books (unless it’s very gentle subject matter), no coffee (of course!), and no stress that you can avoided.
The calmer you are when you go to bed, and the longer you’ve been calm before you go to bed, the greater your chances of avoiding these horrible panic attacks at night.
Panic Attack Causes & How To Avoid Them
The list of potential panic attack causes is extremely long, and that’s because we’re all different and can all have different anxiety and panic triggers. My worst trigger, which might have the potential to cause an instant panic attack if it catches me at the wrong time, may not even cause you to bat an eyelid.
And you might have a similar trigger that causes me no problems.
So, if all the potential panic attack causes can be so varied and so different for each of us, how do we go about spotting them and discovering our own causes?
Well, finally some good news.
While there are many panic attack causes that are different for us all, there a handful of them that seemingly affect everyone with any form of anxiety and panic disorder. It’s a good idea to be aware of these common causes, and then you can do your best to avoid them whenever you can.
1. Stress: Yep, stress rears its ugly head. It’s almost become a cliché to say it, but it needs to be said anyway - stress causes anxiety. And if you already have anxiety, it increases it.
2. Stimulants: Ready to hear how everything you love is bad for you? Okay, here goes! Coffee, chocolate, sugar, canned drinks, artificial sweeteners. Anything that contains a lot of sugar, or that gives you that “buzz” that you love until it passes and leaves you out cold, can be a trigger for anxiety.
3. Negativity: TV news, tabloid papers, negative people, your own lack of optimism. All of them can increase stress and anxiety levels. Avoid when possible!
Panic Attack Drugs - The Facts
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
Panic attack drugs is a blanket term for all the various medications that your doctor may prescribe you if you’re experiencing severe symptoms of anxiety and panic disorders.
If you have any form of anxiety or panic disorder, then in severe cases this will lead to you suffering panic attacks. These will vary in their severity - some will be mild spells where you feel slightly on edge, with an increased heart rate and increased sweating; some will be severe, causing you extreme panic, along with symptoms such as palpitations, nausea, dizziness, depersonalization, fatigue, and headaches.
In the latter case, when the attacks have become severe, this is when your doctor may prescribe one of the many panic attack drugs.
Usually, that will mean a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). You may have heard of these, and you may associate them with depression. But these anti-depressants are also used to treat many forms of anxiety disorder.
Some of the most common SSRIs in use today, and ones that your doctor is likely to discuss with you, are:
Celexa (citalopram)
Prozac (fluoxetine)
Zoloft (sertraline)
Paxil (paroxetine)
Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate)
Luvox (fluvoxamine
If you and your doctor decide that one of these panic attack drugs is right for you, then you’ll typically start on a very low dose to reduce the risk of suffering any unpleasant side-effects.
This dose will be increased gradually over a few weeks until you are taking the full dose.
Similarly, when it’s time to stop taking your medication (usually anywhere between 6 and 12 months), you will gradually reduce your dose over a period of many weeks, reducing the risk of experiencing any withdrawal symptoms.
Panic attack drugs work for around 1 in every 3 people who try them, and it’s important to remember that when you go down this road.
Panic Attack Relief That Works
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Random Thoughts
If you have any form of panic or anxiety disorder, then you’ll probably know how hard it can be to find panic attack relief.
And the reason it can be so difficult is because by the time the attack strikes you’ll be in no condition to decide what to do to stop the attack, or to lessen its impact. If you have this kind of attack frequently, then you’ll know how they scramble your mind, disorientating you, making it very hard to think clearly.
So by the time you’re actually having the attack, coming up with a plan to stop it will be close to impossible.
The answer? Decide your plan ahead of time, when you’re not having an attack.
If you decide on the steps that you’ll take right now, when you’re calm and can think clearly, it will be much easier to recall that information during an attack than it will be to invent it on the spot.
So first, ask yourself this: In general, what calms you, what relaxes you?
Because whatever calms you and relaxes you in general will also work best when you’re having a panic attack. We’re all different, so finding out what works best for you is the key to being able to find panic attack relief.
You may find that music works well for you. Or perhaps doing something physical will be a better option. How about talking to a friend or family member? If that’s something that normally relaxes you then it might be a good choice to employ when your anxiety strikes.
The key here is not so much what you decide to do when you’re looking for panic attack relief. The key is that you have a plan in place, ready for when the attack strikes. This will make it much easier for you to find relief when you need it the most.
Panic Attack Symptoms - What They Are & How To Stop Them
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help
If you’re currently experiencing panic attack symptoms, and you’d like to know if they’re normal and what causes them, then read on.
Panic attack symptoms are any physical or mental signs or indications whose cause is anxiety or panic. These symptoms can be extremely wide-ranging and can affect almost every area of the body.
The severity of your anxiety will determine the severity of your symptoms. Usually, the longer you’ve suffered with anxiety, the stronger and more pronounced your symptoms will be.
Even though the problems that anxiety causes can be so wide-ranging, and affect you in all areas, there are some symptoms that are very common, and will affect most people with any form of anxiety disorder.
It’s best to concentrate on what these are, since these will be the ones you’re most likely to develop or experience yourself.
Headaches: Any pain in your head - the pain can be in the back of the head, in the front around the forehead, on either side of the head, or all over the entire head. Headaches are almost always caused by stress in your back and neck, which rises up into the base of your skull, causing a tension headache that can be tough to shift.
Nausea: A sickly feeling in your stomach, the sensation that you’re about to vomit, or a general feeling of being unwell. This is most often caused by stress, which can produce excess stomach acid, resulting in nausea or other digestive problems.
Palpitations: A quickened pulse or heart beat, or being aware of your heart beat in other areas of your body, especially your hands, back, and feet. Most of the time, this is a direct reaction to the anxiety you’re feeling at any given time, but it can also be caused by the excess adrenaline in your system from prolonged bouts of stress, panic, and other panic attack symptoms.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Cure - Find It By Learning The Facts
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
Finding an obsessive compulsive disorder cure is often much easier if you first make yourself familiar with the of the basic OCD facts. What follows are 5 facts that you should know in order to effectively begin treating your OCD.
1. Obsessive-compulsive disorder affects 1 in every 40 people. That represents about 2.5 percent of the entire population. This is a surprisingly large number of people, but it shout be noted that of those 2.5 % of people, only a few will have OCD to a level that affects the quality of their lives.
2. The vast majority of people are aged between 19 and 25 at the time they’re diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, although some people and their doctors fail to recognize the symptoms as OCD, and so they’re often misdiagnosed until their 30s or 40s.
3. Did you know that the average person will live with their OCD for 17 years before they seek help of any kind? That’s a staggering statistic, especially when you consider OCD’s degenerative qualities, and how the condition worsens over time. The earlier action is taken the easier recovery will be.
4. There are many doctors and psychologists who are still not well-informed with OCD, its symptoms, signs, and treatments. This can lead to years of misdiagnosis and unnecessary suffering. To prevent this happening, more and more people with OCD are taking the time to learn all they can about the condition, in order to reduce the risk of misdiagnosis, and to find a treatment suited to their own specific needs.
5. Despite many theories to the contrary, OCD actually effects men and women equally. In the past this statistic was often skewed due to the tendency for less men to seek help or advice for a problem like OCD. But the stigma that once prevented men from seeking help has long since faded, and OCD is now considered by the population at large as a legitimate and treatable form of anxiety disorder.
Learning some simple facts about OCD is a great start to finding your own path to recovery. People with OCD who learn all they can about their condition typically experience a much quicker recovery, and less chance of relapsing. This is an ideal way to begin looking for your own obsessive compulsive disorder cure.
Panic Attack Self Help - Negative Suggestion
If you’ve been looking, unsuccessfully, for some great panic attack self help ideas, then perhaps you should consider the power of negative suggestions.
Throughout our lives, we’re constantly faced with negative suggestions – “Beware” signs, “Don’t Hit Your Head” signs, “Don’t Run With Scissors.” You get the idea. But here’s the problem with all these negative suggestions: the more we try to avoid doing something, the more likely we are to actually go ahead and do it.
In its simplest form, this is often simply a rebellious desire to do something that society, or our own brain, is telling us not to do. But in its more complex form, it’s a very dangerous and subconscious power that our minds have over us.
Think for a moment about the words your mind speaks to you on a daily basis regarding your panic attacks. In a busy area, when you feel flustered, you may tell yourself over and over again, “Don’t have a panic attack, don’t have a panic attack.” If you experience a physical symptom that’s caused by your anxiety, such as palpitations, for example, you may repeat in your head again and again, “I’m not having a heart attack, I’m not having a heart attack.”
On a basic level, you’re doing a good thing – you’re reassuring yourself.
But on a deeper level, and on a level that’s still very real to your subconscious, your mind is yelling at you the thoughts you’re trying hardest not to have. So, “Don’t have a panic attack, don’t have a panic attack” becomes “Have a panic attack! Have a panic attack!” And “I’m not having a heart attack, I’m not having a heart attack” becomes “Having a heart attack! Having a heart attack!”
If you want proof that negative suggestions do, in fact, affect all of us in this way, then try this little test.
I want you to try as hard as you can not to think of an elephant.
My command to you was not to think of an elephant, but the command “think of an elephant” is still embedded in there, and your mind finds it impossible not to think of an elephant. The moment I gave you a command not to think of an elephant, an image of one will appear in your mind.
And the thoughts that are inspired by your panic and anxiety disorders are no different.
Simply being aware of how negative suggestion has the power to worsen your problems with panic and anxiety will allow you to alter very slightly the way you think, and instantly create a better frame of mind that’s more beneficial in fighting off panic attacks and the horrible things associated with them.
The key is to turn your negative suggestion thinking into positive suggestion thinking. So instead of the thought “Don’t have a panic attack,” which in your head becomes “Have a panic attack,” you can think something more along the lines of, “I’m feeling fine,” or “This will pass and I’ll be fine again.” Notice in those last two thoughts that there are no concealed negative suggestions hiding in there.
Now that you’re aware of the destructive nature of negative suggestions, you’ll discover that you experience them on a very frequent basis. But now that you know how to recognize them, you will be able to nip them in the bud, and eventually be able to cut them out of your thoughts completely.
This simple reorganizing of your thoughts is an incredibly powerful strategy, and one of the most beneficial panic attack self help concepts that you should make a part of your life from this point on.
Cure Panic Attacks With A Daily Highlight
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help
If you want to cure panic attacks, then one of the best tricks you can try is one called “The Daily Highlight.” This idea is based on having something pleasant or uplifting to look forward to, so that during times of low mood, depression, or if you feel a panic attack approaching, you can shift your focus to the upcoming highlight instead.
This trick alone is often enough to cure panic attacks before they ever materialise.
To understand why this simple method can work so well, imagine this scenario: You work a full-time job. You work 8 hours a day, Monday to Friday. Now imagine that at the end of the week you know you’re due for a week’s vacation (this could be a vacation where you take a trip, or perhaps just one where you laze around at home and have a “vacation” away from work).
I can almost guarantee that the final week of work before your week off will be an incredible good one. And why? Because all week you’re looking forward to Friday when you know your time off officially begins.
So when something gets you down, you shrug it off because in a few days you’ll be on a beach, or sleeping in late at home eating breakfast in bed. A co-worker annoys you? Any other time you’d carry it around with you all day, but not this week. Not when you’re about to have your week off.
So if having a highlight to look forward to helps ease our stress and anxiety levels, why don’t we make use of it more often?
Well, that’s the whole theory behind “The Daily Highlight” trick.
Find small moments each day to look forward to. They can be anything that you know will life your mood, even if it’s only by a small amount.
Perhaps a highlight would be eating lunch somewhere peaceful or beautiful. Perhaps it would be meeting up with a friend for coffee. Perhaps it would be soaking in a hot bubble bath before bed. Perhaps it would be watching your favourite TV show.
You can see how these daily highlights can really be anything.
And you can start to use them to cure panic attacks before they ever even strike. From now on, when your stress levels are rising, and your anxiety is threatening to get out of hand, focus on that days “Daily Highlight” and in many cases you’ll find the pleasant thing you’re looking forward to is enough to overpower anything unpleasant going on in your mind.
Take the time to make a list of all your potential “Daily Highlight” and you’ll find that in the future you always have one you can call on when that time comes when you need to escape a bad moment.
Health Anxiety Symptoms - Can A Paper Bag Stop Them?
Filed under: Articles, Panic Attack Help, Random Thoughts
If you currently experience any unpleasant health anxiety symptoms, you could benefit from using a simple tip that’s recently been discovered, and which is proving highly beneficial to health anxiety sufferers.
It’s based on the very old (and very well-known) trick of breathing into a paper bag to normalize your breathing during a panic attack, or when you’re hyperventilating.
When your breathing is too shallow, and when you hyperventilate, your body becomes over-oxygenated. This can cause many of the symptoms associated with panic attacks, and with health anxiety in particular: headaches, dizziness, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, and many more.
Breathing into a paper bag during a panic attack, or when you’re hyperventilating, helps to fight off these symptoms by correcting the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide. By breathing in your own carbon dioxide from inside the paper bag you remove the excess oxygen from your body.
This trick can produce good results for anxiety suffers while they’re experiencing an attack.
But there’s a slightly different way to apply this paper bag idea, and it can produce incredible results in combating the undesirable physical symptoms associated with health anxiety, and with all forms of panic disorder.
It’s the same concept, applied very differently.
Instead of breathing into a paper bag during an attack, or while you’re hyperventilating, you do it a handful of times a day when you’re not having an attack, and when you’re not hyperventilating.
This is a completely different approach to using the paper bag trick. It goes from being “cure” to being “prevention.”
And prevention has to be better than cure, because it means the attack never has to come.
And here’s why this idea can work so well: people who suffer with extreme anxiety are almost always in a state of over-oxygenation. This is because anxiety sufferers’ breathing is always too shallow, which means the oxygen/carbon dioxide levels are never correctly balanced.
If an anxiety sufferer breathes into a paper bag for 30 or 40 seconds, 4 or 5 times throughout the day, their oxygen/carbon dioxide levels will be more balanced than they have ever been before.
The first benefit of this will be far fewer panic attacks, simply because the breathing will be under control, and the oxygen/carbon dioxide levels will be balanced.
But it’s the second benefit that can really make the difference.
Many of the physical and mental sensations experienced as a result of health anxiety are caused because of extremely shallow breathing. These same problems are present in almost all forms of panic and anxiety disorder, and it all comes down to the body being over-oxygenated.
And using the paper bag trick in this new way can go a long way to preventing this physical state from happening, which in turn can cause a massive reduction in the mental and physical symptoms experienced by those with extreme anxiety.
So take 30 or 40 seconds a few times a day to breathe into a paper bag, get that oxygen/carbon dioxide balance back to normal, and see the difference it can make in reducing or even eliminating your health anxiety symptoms, and the symptoms experienced with all forms of anxiety and panic disorder.
Agoraphobia Support Groups and What They Don’t Tell You
Filed under: Anxiety & Panic Resources, Articles, Panic Attack Help
Agoraphobia support groups will often tell you what you should be doing to successfully overcome your condition, but they may neglect to tell you what to avoid doing. So what follows are the 3 most common mistakes you should absolutely avoid in your effort to beat agoraphobia:
1) You Don’t Keep A Journal:
Keeping a journal is important with all forms of panic disorder, but it is of vital importance when it comes to agoraphobia.
Being able to look back over weeks and months of entries will allow you to quickly see the progress you’re making, which can single-handedly cause your condition to become far less severe.
Start keeping a journal today!
2) You Try To Do Too Much Too Soon:
Rome wasn’t built in a day. And agoraphobia is never beaten overnight. People who overcome this condition do it slowly and steadily, in small baby step increments.
A tiny improvement that’s almost too small to measure should be celebrated. Making tiny improvements even once a week will build into a wonderful story of recovery over the period of a year.
It creates exponential growth - this week, you improve half a percent, then next week you improve another half a percent. Except now you’re improving on your improvements and your results are snowballing.
So celebrate those tiny baby steps you’re taking. Baby steps can take you a long way.
3) You Don’t Let Yourself Enjoy Things:
It’s very common in agoraphobics that even when they feel safe and secure at home they are not happy, simply because they feel they’re losing the battle against their condition.
But there’s absolutely nothing wrong in being happy, contented, and enjoying things in the area where you feel safe.
You’ll be making progress in other areas of your life, so let those take care of themselves.
But when you’re at home, or wherever you feel safest, allow yourself to relax, do things that make you happy, and never feel guilty that you’re not doing something about agoraphobia right at that moment.
Allowing yourself to relax and be happy will do wonders for your frame of mind, your emotions, and your life in general.
So relax at every opportunity you get, and have fun!
If you can successfully avoid these 3 common mistakes, and you can combine them with the more standard advice given by agoraphobia support groups, you’ll soon discover that your problems are much easier to overcome than you ever thought before.
