Is There a Cure for Panic Attacks?

"Is there a cure for panic attacks?", is one of the first questions a person who’s just had a panic attack asks.

The answer is yes. There is a cure for panic attacks.

To understand how they are cured, it is first essential to understand what panic attacks are and what causes them. Panic attacks are exactly what their name implies. They are waves of overwhelming feelings of uneasiness, fear, stress, and anxiety.

Panic attacks are not the same as worrying, which everyone experiences at some point in their life. Worrying is normal and usually confined to psychological or emotional symptoms. The source of worry is almost always known or identifiable. For example, when a child is about to attend his first day of school it is normal for him to feel apprehensive and even a little scared. The school is the obvious reason for the anxiety and after the child arrives and sees other children his feelings naturally diminish.

Panic attacks, on the other hand, are not triggered by a readily identifiable stimulus. They are bouts of anxiety accompanied by dramatic, visible, physical symptoms. These may include sweating, flushing of the face, squinting, shortness of breath, tightening in the chest, discomfort in the waist and chest, pain, dizziness, nausea and a need to flee or leave the location in which they are occurring.

The physical nature of these symptoms are so profound that the sufferer often mistakes his/her first panic attack with a life threatening condition such as a heart attack. It is not uncommon for people having a panic attack to feel they need immediate medical assistance.

Panic attacks are part of a primtive, biological response known as the “Fight or Flight” reflex to a perceived threat. This response is innate rather than learned and originates from the mid-section of the brain where the body’s survival mechanisms reside.

Just prior to an attack the brain is functioning normally in the frontal area of the brain where decisions and rational thought occur. When the attack occurs, brain activity increases in the mid-section of the brain. It is for this reason that panic attacks are nearly impossible to quell using rational self-talk. The absence of an identifiable stimulus and the inability for the sufferer to talk him/herself down from the anxiety perpetuates the panic and heightens the terror.

Panic attacks have many different origins and can be different for every individual. A partial list of stimuli are:

Phobias
Personal Habits (literally talking yourself into a panic situation)
Stimulants & Drugs
Biological & Heredity Factors
Medications

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_attack#Triggers_and_causes