Panic attacks. Let's take them under control
I wanna talk with you about panic attacks. If person has panic attacks only before exams, or in the closed space or after signals about air alarm – are they true panic attacks? What do people really feel during them? How to check whether you have panic attacks? Could meditations help with them? Could yoga practice help with them? And, if so, what kind of yoga practice should it be?
Step by step I’ll answer all these questions today.
First and foremost, panic attacks are unpredictable. As soon as person mentions that they have attacks only at nights or when somebody cries at them or when they come into the underground, we understand that it is something else. Maybe even more serious than panic attack. Technique of overcoming this problem is different, though. So, panic attack can happen whenever and wherever. At home, at working place, in public transport, day or night, in a noisy space or in a quiet place, near unpleasant people or among your loved ones.
What do people feel during panic attacks? It’s a time to propose you a definition. Therefore, panic attack is a period of incredible fear or discomfort, which starts and stops suddenly, lasts several minutes. I’d like to list these symptoms to be on the same page with all of you, speaking further.
Thus, the symptoms are:
Rapid or pounding heartbeat Chest pain or discomfort
Chills or hot flushes
Sweating
Nausea
Trembling or Shaking
Dizziness or faintness
Fear of losing control or going crazy
Breathlessness
Feelings of unreality
Fear of dying
Feeling of choking
Numbness or tingling
We use The Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS). It’s a standard global rating scale for panic disorder.
Could meditations help with panic attacks? It's time to talk about the causes of them. And there is a small surprise for most of you. The reason of panic attacks isn’t in mental health, but in physical state. In this crazy way our brain from time to time checks different systems of our organism. Because organism doesn’t do it by physical exertions.
Returning to the questions about meditations, I don’t have arguments to say just no. It would be the much longer way, than practicing physical trainings, though.
Could yoga practice help with panic attacks?
Yes. Here I should warn, that work on the current state will be on border between normal feeling and panic attack. Because we try to take under control the processes, which we haven’t been controlling lately. We start to practice physical activity and as soon as we catch first symptoms of attack, use methods to stop it. As soon as we return to normal feelings, we continue physical activity. We provoke attacks, cope with them, little by little train organism and step by step tackle the problem. It should be individual work with teacher.
Also I could talk about levels of panic disorders, but I would not like to do this. If you are at the beginning of this scale, it’s not a reason to postpone your healing, take care, begin to solve this problem today. If you are already at the top of the scale, it’s not the reason to give up.
If you want to check yourself for panic disorder, follow the link: