What Are The Symptoms Of An Anxiety Attack

Anxiety attacks affect a variety of people and there are many symptoms of an anxiety attack. Knowing the symptoms and what causes them is a better way to understand anxiety and panic attacks.

Various symptoms of attacks are things we have all experienced in some form: our hearts starts to beat a million beats per minute; our breathing becomes very out of key and hard to control -- fast short breaths, unable to take deep breaths, or a feeling of loss of breath all together; a change in body temperature, we can become very cold or become very hot; we might start to sweat; our body tenses up, especially in the chest; weakness in the knees occur; we might start shaking and have no control over it; we may start to get dizzy and want to vomit; abdominal cramping occurs; an sudden need to urinate may occur.

These symptoms of anxiety attacks are all part of our fight-or-flight defense mechanisms, built into us over the course of tens and tens of thousands of years. It's when we are confronted with a scary and dangerous situation, we make the choice -- do we fight it out or do we run. We're not going to undo our genetic hard wiring, but we can understand it and this will help us.

We get tense as a means to protect our inner organs and prepare for response; we get dizzy because blood flow and breathing is erratic; coldness can occur as our blood flow is reduced; we may go weak in the knees because of reduced blood flow and the brain concentrating so heavily on other systems. This response have kept us alive from our beginnings.

What has happened now is that we have these symptoms when not even an actual event is occurring in front of us. Now it is just the thought of or anticipation of a fearful event that produces symptoms of anxiety attacks.

Medication can be taken but doctors will only want to prescribe medicine in extreme cases. One of the best ways to deal with it is now thought to be breathing exercises or thought change.

All of the negative and catastrophic thoughts we have which lead to our symptoms can be reversed or greatly minimized by simple reinforcement techniques. By reminding ourselves when these thoughts arise that they are not based in any actual event and by reversing them into a positive statement, we can train our minds to think positively.

Simple breathing techniques where we count our breath for 20-30 minutes everyday allow us to gain ultimate control of our breathing and to become hyper-aware of our body changes.

The symptoms of anxiety attacks can be reduce and or relieved once we understand the root causes.