Panic Attacks Support Group

I’m sure I’ve used the terms in­ter­change­ably my­self on this site, and it doesn’t re­al­ly mat­ter as long as we all know what we’re talk­ing about at any given time. The basic dif­fer­ence is:

•Worry and anx­i­ety – A set of re­spons­es to an un­known, im­pre­cise or ill de­fined threat; often an­tic­i­pa­to­ry in na­ture and cre­at­ed by the imag­i­na­tion. It’s more as­so­ci­at­ed with the need to be pre­pared. Worry leads to feel­ing anx­ious.

•Fear and panic – A set of re­spons­es to a known, pre­cise, well de­fined threat, which can be real or vivid­ly imag­ined. It’s main­ly about avoid­ance and es­cape. In its ex­treme form, fear be­comes panic.

Anx­i­ety / Panic Se­quence

In short, anx­i­ety and fear start in dif­fer­ent parts of the brain but elic­it sim­i­lar re­spons­es be­cause they end up in the same place. To clar­i­fy things, here’s a def­i­ni­tion of all four show­ing how they re­late to each other.

Worry

This is the thought pro­cess that cre­ates the feel­ings and emo­tions ex­pe­ri­enced as anx­i­ety. Wor­ry­ing can be use­ful in help­ing to find so­lu­tions to prob­lems; how­ev­er, wor­ry­ing often cen­tres on prob­lems that can­not cur­rent­ly be solved. Think­ing soon be­comes very neg­a­tive and doom laden, and this is mis­us­ing the imag­i­na­tion.

This wor­ri­some think­ing style can eas­i­ly cre­ate the con­di­tions that make a per­son feel anx­ious:

•Help­less­ness – In­suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion.

•Over stim­u­la­tion – Too much in­for­ma­tion, or in­for­ma­tion over­load.

•In­con­gruity – Con­flict­ing in­for­ma­tion.

•Un­pre­dictabil­i­ty – Hav­ing an un­cer­tain out­come.

Anxiety

It’s a bit like being on ‘yel­low alert’; anx­i­ety is about look­ing out for pos­si­ble dan­ger, and often cen­tres on try­ing to find cer­tain­ty in un­cer­tain sit­u­a­tions. It’s an at­tempt to stay safe – a sur­vival tac­tic – by fore­see­ing and plan­ning for every con­ceiv­able out­come; what if...

This wor­ry­ing is often about the fu­ture, and be­cause it’s too far away, the out­come can­not eas­i­ly be de­ter­mined. This leads to many un­re­solved ‘what ifs’, and a per­son seems to set­tle on the most catas­troph­ic out­come, just in case... don’t you!

Sub­tle changes start to occur with­in the body, in­clud­ing:

•Jumpi­ness and feel­ing on edge.

•Height­ened sens­es, look­ing out for dan­ger.

•Mus­cles tensed, just in case phys­i­cal ac­tion is re­quired.

This ap­proach serves us well when faced with a real po­ten­tial threat. In cave­man times it was wise to as­sume the rustling in the bush­es might be a hun­gry lion. If it turned out to be a gust of wind, noth­ing was lost. It is, how­ev­er, less than help­ful when try­ing to eval­u­ate a fu­ture sit­u­a­tion in the mind.

Fore­cast­ing dis­as­ter sce­nar­ios leads to feel­ing ap­pre­hen­sive and fear­ful. Al­though very un­like­ly to hap­pen, a per­son starts to imag­ine what those dis­as­ters would be like. Re­mem­ber, the mind can­not tell the dif­fer­ence be­tween re­al­i­ty and a vivid­ly imag­ined thought, so they start to ex­pe­ri­ence fear.

Fear

Fear is as­so­ci­at­ed with more pre­cise dan­ger and starts to en­gage other sur­vival tac­tics, like the fight or flight re­sponse. Like step­ping up a level to ‘or­ange alert’; fear is one stage away from panic. A def­i­nite threat of dan­ger, or at least some­thing un­pleas­ant, has been sensed. This could be some­thing tan­gi­ble or some­thing imag­ined; a fu­ture based ‘what if’.

The in­ten­si­ty of the fear de­pends upon:

•The se­ri­ous­ness or un­pleas­ant­ness of the threat.

•How far into the fu­ture it is.

A per­son feels scared and afraid in an­tic­i­pa­tion, but at this mo­ment they’re only think­ing about a fu­ture event. It isn’t ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing and hasn’t been clas­si­fied as life threat­en­ing yet; there­fore, full panic mode hasn’t been trig­gered. How­ev­er, fear starts to en­gage the body’s ‘fight or flight’ re­sponse, es­pe­cial­ly if the ob­ject of that fear is imag­ined vivid­ly, and phys­i­cal changes are oc­cur­ring with­in the body, in­clud­ing:

•Rapid breath­ing, to take in more oxy­gen.

•Raised heart­beat, to pump that oxy­gen rich blood to the mus­cles that have al­ready been su­per­charged with adrenalin.

•Sweat­ing, to both cool the body and give the hands bet­ter grip.

This state of fear can be ex­pe­ri­enced for pro­longed pe­ri­ods when it’s due to thoughts and not a real sit­u­a­tion. That’s why anx­i­ety and fear can be ex­treme­ly tir­ing, and it’s not the way it’s sup­posed to work at all. Fear is in­tend­ed for short term sur­vival not long term ex­is­tence.

This state of readi­ness means the body can quick­ly step up to the full panic re­sponse if events deem it nec­es­sary.

Panic

This is es­sen­tial­ly an ex­ten­sion of fear, but in an ex­treme form; feel­ing to­tal­ly over­whelmed by the phys­i­cal and men­tal feel­ings of it. It hap­pens when faced with sud­den life threat­en­ing dan­ger at this very mo­ment now. The panic re­sponse – ‘red alert’ – is vital in this sit­u­a­tion be­cause it gets the body in­stant­ly into the op­ti­mum state for sur­vival; get­ting ready to fight or flee, or some­times even freeze.

Panic is more often ex­pe­ri­enced in the con­text of a panic at­tack. In a truly dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion the phys­i­cal ef­fects of panic are put to good use fight­ing or flee­ing, and the per­son would be fo­cus­ing on doing just that; not think­ing about how they were feel­ing. It’s only when panic strikes for no ap­par­ent rea­son, that a per­son has chance to be­come aware of its many phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions.

Depression

One other emo­tion­al state often ac­com­pa­nies the above four; it’s called de­pres­sion. While not di­rect­ly re­lat­ed, de­pres­sion in­di­rect­ly shares some of the same neg­a­tive think­ing styles.

Con­stant anx­i­ety and fear even­tu­al­ly leave a per­son feel­ing over­whelmed, and that life is hope­less. Feel­ings of hope­less­ness are a key char­ac­ter­is­tic of de­pres­sion.

•How anx­i­ety leads to de­pres­sion

•Books to teach you more about anx­i­ety and panic.

http://www.psychology-solution.com/anxiety/worry-anxiety- fear-panic