Tag: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

What You should Do if You Had a Panic Attack

What You should Do if You Had a Panic Attack

Experiencing a panic attack for the first time can be distressing not only because of the actual experience during the attack but also because you tend to develop fear of future attacks. Also known as anticipatory anxiety, fear of future attacks causes continuous fear and tension disabling you to relax. Often when the condition is not addressed, it will lead to phobic avoidance wherein you avoid places, situations, gatherings, and events where emergency help is not readily available or where having an attack can be embarrassing.

Take into extreme, this condition may lead to agoraphobia where you begin to avoid much of the activities you usually do. To avoid this, consider the following advices:

1. Consult your medical doctor. Symptoms attributed to panic attacks such racing heart, chest pain, heavy breathing, profuse sweating, agitation, etc., are also common to other physiological and psychological conditions. Seeking for proper diagnosis from your doctor, therefore, will rule out any cause unrelated to anxiety. Tell him your symptoms, when did the attack happen, and how intense the attack was. Your doctor will ask about your past medical history and may run some tests (e.g. urine test, blood test, drug screens, etc.).

2. See a therapist who is properly trained to handle such psychological condition. No, you are not crazy (people who go to a therapist are not crazy). The reason why you have to see a therapist is to process your emotion and prevent future attacks. Do not wait too long to seek help. Left untreated, a panic attack can lead to more severe conditions. Your therapist may subject you to cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy to process your thoughts.

3. Find the cause of the attack. Some cases of panic attacks may show a “pattern” certain activity, thoughts, time or person you are with at the time of the attack. These give you important clues to eliminate later symptoms.

4. Learn some relaxation techniques you can practice at home or while out. Music, meditation, yoga, and breathing techniques are not only helpful in reducing the symptoms during the actual attack but also in strengthening your body’s relaxation response.

5. Do not add more fear. Absorbing all the fears and other negative thoughts that come with anxiety attack only adds to more fear which worsen the negative impact even further. Instead, recognize that you are afraid and make it work to your advantage.

6. Practice healthy lifestyle (regular exercise, balanced diet, and enough sleep). Studies prove that at little as 30 minutes of physical activity 3 to 5 times a week is a great stress buster, helpful in preventing future attacks. Balanced diet keeps the supply of nutrients and maintains the balance of chemical in the body. Sleeping at least 8 hours each day recharges the body, refreshes the mind, and calms the muscles.

7. Remove all unnecessary stress. Since, panic attacks are closely linked to stress, avoiding things, people, and situations that stress you out help reduce the chance of future attacks.

8. Educate yourself about panic attacks. There are many resources where you can learn more about the condition. Reading books, health magazines and internet articles about panic attack will definitely equip you with the right information on how to combat any negative effects it brings.

Various Treatments for Panic Attacks

The cause of panic attacks is still not fully understood. What is known is that it can happen to anyone, without any reason, regardless of age. Meaning, a happy and healthy person has an equal chance of experiencing a panic attack with those who are depressed and unhealthy. An episode of panic attack chooses no time. It can happen while you are at home, sitting on your couch, watching television, while driving, shopping or walking, at the office, etc. It can even happen while you are asleep.

Given such circumstances, methods of treatment may vary from person to person, depending on his conditions, symptoms, lifestyle, and frequency of attacks. Typically however, treatment involves psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and/or medication. Other treatments that can be employed are meditation, breathing exercises, relaxation techniques and herbal treatment.

Anti-anxiety medications such as Ativan, Xanax and Klonopin provide quick relief from the symptoms panic attack. Benzodiazepines have immediate effects, usually within 30 minutes to an hour. Benzodiazepines, however, are highly addictive and have some serious withdrawal symptoms. Anti-depressant drugs (Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, and Celexa) should be taken continuously before you can begin to notice the effects, usually up to 6 months to a year. You cannot take anti-depressant drugs just during an attack.

In addition, since you cannot anticipate when you will have such attack, only those who are diagnosed with panic disorder (or recurring panic attacks) can acquire these types of drug.

Panic attacks, as well as panic disorder, agoraphobia and other phobias and related conditions can be treated effectively by psychotherapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is proven as an effective way to reduce the symptoms of panic attacks or completely eliminate the condition. CBT focuses on changing the thinking pattern of the person from negative to positive thoughts as well as changing the way a person reacts or behaves when he encounters emergency or situations that can trigger an attack.

Another treatment similar to CTB that is worth mentioning is exposure therapy. This helps the person overcome his fear by letting him face those fearful situations in a controlled and safe manner. The result of this technique is that the person learns how to react positively on what he thinks are fearful situations. Moreover, through this experience, the patient learns that the situations he fears are not harmful and dangerous.

In many cases, medication alone or therapy alone is enough to completely treat the condition, but other cases require both treatment methods to effectively treat panic disorder.

Meditation, breathing exercises, and relaxation techniques have been found effective in reducing the chances of experiencing another attack. They help calm the mind and relax the muscles. Regularly practicing these exercises and techniques strengthen the body’s relaxation response.

Natural herbs such as bacopin, ginkgo biloba, passion flower, St. John Wort, hyperforin, 5HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan), chamomile, rhodiola, are equally effective since they have natural anti-stress properties. In some cases, using these herbs is sufficient enough to combat panic attacks. Many people also react positively using this kind of treatment.

Fresh leaves can be made as tea. Some are also available over-the-counter in oil, tincture, capsule, powder and tea. The best thing about these natural herbs is that they do not carry any side effects as compared to mainstream anti-anxiety and anti depressant prescription medications.

Panic Attacks Psyche Your Self

Consulting a psychologist, or a behavioral therapist for that matter, regarding panic attacks may be the best course of action you could do for yourself. That is, if you are not convinced that you can actually help your self out of your condition. But you cannot forever rely on drugs and medical practitioners to give you help. Somehow you have to take action; you have to learn to cope. Here are some ideas that could help you psyche yourself into coping with panic attacks.

You are what you think. If you think that you are fearful of something, you would actually become fearful of that thing, regardless of how irrational that fear could be. If you expect that you would have panic attacks any time soon, you might actually enter into one. The mind is so powerful that it could trigger experiences that are frightening enough to cause you extreme levels of panic sensations. With this similar capacity at your disposal, you could reverse the power of your mind and use it to your advantage.

Based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a psychotherapeutic approach, a person has the capacity to manipulate dysfunctional reactions, emotions, cognitions and behaviors in order to arrive at a more cohesive and healthier well-being. Given that your panic attacks are triggered by your brain, you could help your brain tone down certain symptoms by just trying to fix its dysfunctions. While simple positive thoughts can help you direct your experience of panic attacks, more intensive and systematic Cognitive Behavioral Therapies can provide you an atmosphere of peace that is free from panic attacks.

Run towards the object of your fear. People have the natural tendency to get away from things, places and events that caused them bad experiences. But the thing is, running away from something would not help release you from your fear, it may actually aggravate your condition. This is because you are somehow reinforcing your fear by feeding in more dosages of fear to your current condition which is the last thing you should really want to do.

No matter how difficult the idea of facing your fear may seem, it is actually among the most effective ways to help you cope and overcome panic attacks. Once you confront the object of your fear or the cause of your panic attacks, you can gain more courage to subdue the symptoms without having to resort to pills and medications.

Win over yourself. Sometimes, it is much easier to accept your lack of sense of control after undergoing panic attack symptoms. One thing will lead to another until you find yourself completely powerless against your condition. Unfortunately, many people have become victimized of their own disorders only because they did not try anything to save themselves from panic-triggering episodes.

If you could try to gain power over yourself and over your symptoms little by little, you can possibly cope well with the disorder until you either have learned to effectively live with it or entirely remove it from your system.

It sometimes the self that causes people with panic attacks the most serious problems. It is also sometimes the mitigating factor to the progression of the condition and its symptoms. If you can gain some control over your own predicaments, half of the trouble is already resolved.

Childhood Treatment Options for Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, has in past years only been found in adults, while children with similar symptoms have been mistakenly diagnosed as have attention deficit disorder (ADD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, in recent years, psychiatrists and pediatricians have found that bipolar disorder definitely rears its ugly head in childhood as often as it does in adolescent or adult years.

Diagnosis of bipolar in childhood increases the chances for bipolar patients to have successful treatment and ordinary, uninhibited lives as adults. However, treatment options of bipolar in childhood is a controversial subject. Many doctors wish to medicate first, and regulate with therapy in addition to medications. However, many parents and some psychologists disagree with these methods.

Overall, many parents discover that once their child has been put on bipolar medications, the child seems to lose some of their personality traits that endear them to the parents. Children, and adults, who have been overly medicated or medicated when not absolutely necessary lose a sense of who they are. Some medications can make children overly despondent, seeming “out of it” or “spacey.” This causes concern for parents and doctors, and raises the question of whether or not the child is really better off on medication.

Play therapy can be quite effective in helping children with bipolar disorder live more successful childhoods. This play therapy typically involves placing children in various hypothetical situations in which they must work out a logical and emotionally healthy solution. While play therapy is very successful in some children, it is not enough for others. In certain childhood cases of bipolar disorder, the mood swings and symptoms are so severe that the child is not able to control their actions or emotional reactions to stimuli and situations.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a fairly new method of therapy for bipolar patients in which the patient learns to recognize symptoms of their illness, triggers for mood swings and inappropriate behavior, and alternatives to inappropriate behavior. Cognitive behavioral therapy also allows the patient to discover what he or she can do to avoid manic or depressive episodes, and how to manage the episodes more effectively. In adults, this treatment option is very viable, and works well both in conjunction with and without medication treatment.

However, cognitive behavioral therapy requires a level of problem solving and critical thinking that is not often present in childhood. For this reason, it is not commonly used in children with bipolar disorder under a certain age or maturity level. Some believe that the techniques learned through cognitive behavioral therapy could be equally viable in treating childhood bipolar disorder if the exercises and learning could be geared toward children. This, however, could prove difficult.

In the end, treatment options must be discussed with pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, parents, and teachers. Everyone involved in childhood must be involved in the treatment process in order for it to be successful. If a parent or teacher has concerns about the effects of childhood treatment for bipolar disorder in their child or student, those concerns should be expressed immediately so that changes in treatment can be made. Additionally, parents should not be afraid to change doctors if they feel their child is not benefiting from treatment or medication.