There are quite a few anxiety attack treatments being used nowadays, but the underlying cause of an anxiety attack is the fear of the attack itself; the fear of an attack can actually spark another anxiety attack.
So although mainstream anxiety attack treatments could be helpful in the near term through the use of drugs or 'coping' therapies, until you break the vicious fear cycle (cycle of anxiety) you are likely to have more attacks down the line.
The psychological and physical experiences of a first anxiety or panic attack are just so scary that you are left anxious even when it is concluded. You do not ever want to go through that experience another time.
Nevertheless the state of anxiousness coming out of a fear of a repeat is just what can trigger another attack. Thus the cycle can be described as:- panic attack...anxiety...fear...panic attack... and so on. We can now look at some typical anxiety attack treatments:-
Breathing to Calm Down
Deep breathing may help slow your heart rate, and calm you down both mentally and bodily. Now, while breathing can help somewhat during an attack, it can't help in the overall recovery from general anxiety.
Relief Through Meditation
For lowering the general anxiety and stress outside of an attack. Meditation can help in the lowering of those unfounded fears which can trigger anxiety attacks. As a relaxation 'tool', meditation can certainly be beneficial, but is not enough by itself to cure your anxiety.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
A therapy that helps in changing your negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Simply put it emphasizes the power of positive thinking. Helpful in particular for low levels of general anxiety, but perhaps not so effective for really high anxiety levels.
Hypnosis and Self-hypnosis
This can be helpful in some cases. But by its very nature, it targets perceived behavior rather than the root cause(s) of an anxiety attack which are somewhat hard to pin down. So you cannot be completely sure that another attack will not occur at some point in the future.
Mainstream Drug Treatments
These are what doctors normally use to help manage the signs of anxiety and anxiety attacks. Typical drugs are tranquilizers like benzodiazepines, antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and, beta blockers like propranolol, which help reduce physical symptoms like shaking and palpitations.
Drug-based treatments can aid in the treatment of the symptoms of anxiety, but, cannot help with the underlying cause(s). They also have some pretty severe side effects including drowsiness, slurring, dizziness, nausea, dependency, etc.
The above anxiety attack treatments can be roughly divided as follows; 'coping' techniques and 'mind-numbing' drugs. Although they all have their pro's they miss the key point that until you can break-out of your vicious cycle of anxiety you are unlikely to get back to your old self.
Would you like to find out how to effectively break your vicious cycle of anxiety without mind-numbing drugs and finally get rid of anxiety attacks? If so, please go to http://eliminatepanicattacks.blogspot.com and get your old self back again.
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