Panic Attacks Treatment

CBT for anxiety Anxiety is a normal healthy response to stress, in the short term. It involves physical changes, changes to the way we think and feel changes in the way we behave we behave. These changes can actually help to improve our performance in stressful situations, such as interviews, exams etc. We think faster and we are more alert, but if there is too much anxiety it will impede performance. Put simply there is good anxiety and there is bad anxiety. Long-term or excessive stress causes long-term anxiety, which in turn causes unpleasant and unhelpful physical changes and changes in the way we think, feel and behave. These changes can be stressful themselves, causing a vicious cycle of stress and distress. What starts off as a normal response to stress can sometimes become a problem in itself. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy gives you the tools to understand and cope with anxiety and get on with your life without being impeded by anxiety. CBT for social anxiety Someone who suffers from social anxiety, or has a social phobia, feels anxious when talking to other people or being observed by other people. They fear that they will do something embarrassing or humiliating, or that others are thinking badly of them or judging them. This fear of negative evaluation by others may reflect underlying beliefs about being less good than others, different or not quite up to scratch. SAD may give rise to extremely unpleasant (but physically harmless) reactions such as blushing, sweating and trembling). It also produces distressing self-consciouness. It's onset is usually in early adolesence, sometimes it can begin earlier. Without treatment is runs a chronic unremitting couse. CBT is the only evidence based treatment for SAD. Panic attacks are very common, but they are not a sign of serious mental illness. ‘We know that as many as one in ten of the general public may have at least one panic attack in their life time (that’s just around half a million people in Ireland!). Many people have panic attackss for a while, but then the panics go away. For others, they may cause problems for a long time. A lot of people presenting for treatment report that they no longer have panic attacks, but they live in fear of having another one. Unfortunately, perhaps because of the prejudices about psychological problems which still exist, many people wait years before they tell anyone or seek professional help, and some people never seek help at all. Which is unfortunate, given the success rate in treating panic disorder using CBT is over 90%. The symptoms of panic Panic affects your body, your thoughts and your actions. Below are some of the most common symptoms.rnA panic attack has three important features:rn1. It is accompanied by intense fear and anxietyrn2. It usually comes on fairly suddenlyrn3. The most intense feelings last a relatively brief time (although it may seem like a very long time when you are in the middle of an attack, and it may leave you feeling uncomfortable for some time after the peak has passed).rnPanic is usually accompanied by a sense that something awful is about to happen. You may think that you will die, or go mad, lose control, or make a complete fool of yourself, or something else, there are many different fears. Panic often appears to come “out of the blue” the panic attack is completely unexpected and does not appear to be triggered by anything. Other times, people can recognise particular situations which are likely to trigger an attack. For more detail visit: http://www.cbt.ie/