There has been a marked increase in frequency and severity of General Anxiety Disorder as a result of the current economic climate. Nation wide millions of people are experiencing the horrors of severe anxiety, commonly known as panic attacks, to the extent that it affects their everyday lives. Affected activities include employment or study performance, ability to concentrate, sporting ability, sexual desire or performance, and relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.

What happens during an anxiety attack? The body experiences a number of physical symptoms that include some or all of the following:

* shaking

* a pounding or racing heart

* sweating

* tight chest

* shortness of breath

* choking sensation

* nausea

* cramps

* dizziness

* either chills or hot flushes

* tingling in extremities

A person will also likely experience horrid feelings of extreme fear and a sense of losing control, going crazy or even dying. It is very rare for a person to have all of these symptoms at once. However, the presence of at least 4 of the above symptoms strongly suggests that a person has a more serious panic disorder. An anxiety attack may last from just a few minutes to several hours.

Those affected by the more severe attacks report anxiety so acute as to prompt panic attacks that temporarily inhibits their ability to function at what they considered to be simple routine tasks.

Doctors prescribe medication that assists with symptoms and a sufferer’s general well being. Other victims attempt to work through what they hope is a temporary condition sometimes resorting to illicit drugs or alcohol abuse. However severe the symptoms, there is help for victims that will assist in combating this condition.

The difficulty with dealing with anxiety or panic attacks is that the very fear of an attack occurring becomes the overriding reason for having an attack. Or, in other words, the fear of being afraid makes you afraid. So being prepared for the onset of an attack can be very reassuring and therefore part of the cure. Being at ease with yourself and knowing that you are able to cope will reduce the chances of you needing to cope.

To maintain control you can practice some basic but effective skills. Learn to breathe, slowly, deeply in a controlled and focused manner. Some meditation skills will help you to focus on your breathing and any of your favorite calming techniques will help.

Carry with you any medication that your doctor has prescribed. Just knowing that you have it is a comfort. Above all you should know your own anxiety attack symptoms so that you can recognize the onset of an anxiety attack.

There are times when anxiety are nothing but helpful ‘alarm system’ of the body that will alert you from danger. But there are times when this problem can be out of control thus leading you to have fear without any reason. This kind of anxiety can truly disrupt your life. In general, this problem can be the feeling of being worried, fear of certain things or situations, and panicky feelings.

To treat plain-vanilla anxiety attacks, the best thing to do is to ‘get real’ with life. Accept things that are beyond your control because this is the best method in coping with anxiety and panic attacks. Stop imagining what will happen next or worry about the future, you don’t have control over such issue hence the best thing to do is to just face your present. It is normally helpful to seek the comfort of your friends and family members as to past this anxiety cycle. However, in case the problem starts to be overwhelming, it is the best time to consult the help of a therapist for proper medication.

Most of the time, the therapist will allow you to challenge your negative thoughts. Think whether such situation is giving you any good, will you get something from worrying a lot? If it’s making life worse, stop. This is difficult to achieve but you can surely do it with proper mindset. On the other hand, you will be asked to relax. Proper breathing is the best way to achieve the right kind of relaxation and this can help in coping with anxiety and panic attacks. Most of the time, people hold their breath when they are worried about something, this is wrong hence the physician will show the right way of doing things.

First of all, this isn’t going to be a discussion of how to build a fire. Uh no, this is a review of a fascinating physiological phenomenon that I consider a physical contributor to panic attacks and anxiety. And that’s because the limbic system, particularly the amygdala, is highly susceptible to the effects of kindling. Now, before we get to work I want to make sure you know that I’m going to be cramming thirty pounds of information into a five pound bag. Okay? Well, let’s get busy.

In the strictest sense, kindling is the term used for the generation of brain seizures by electrical stimulation. The pioneer of kindling, Canadian scientist Dr. Graham V. Goddard, believed kindling is a process of “message formulation” induced by repeated natural electrical stimulation of small and selected groups of brain cells. Now, scientists can also trigger these epileptic seizures in animals through repeated mild electrical stimulation of deep-brain structures. Curiously, as this electrical stimulation commences the effects are barely noticeable. However, sensitivity to the stimulation intensifies with repeated administration, ultimately leading to the animals seizing spontaneously. Yet, in spite of all this electrical zapping and seizure activity, physical damage to the brain is undetectable.

In the real-life world of brain physiology, chronic life-stress can generate kindling-like stimulation with accompanying mental, emotional, and physical manifestations. Drug abuse and withdrawal, particularly involving alcohol and cocaine, can as well. This expression of kindling is of great significance to depression and bipolar sufferers, as it appears to stimulate and exacerbate mood cycling both in the immediate and down the road. Indeed, a specific life-stressor may initiate the kindling process with no symptoms in the present, only to have expressions of mood cycling pop-up later in life without the influence of a specific stressor. Now, it’s important to note that research isn’t suggesting this is a matter of having actual epileptic seizures, as we traditionally know them. It’s more an issue of a similarity to the strictest definition of seizure-generating kindling we reviewed in the second paragraph.

Okay, let’s bring this kindling business to the panic and anxiety section of the stadium. Kindling can play a mean tune on our limbic system, in particular the amygdala. And this results in the generation of a whole lot of fear and anxiety. At the beginning of this discussion we talked about how electrical stimulation of the brains of laboratory animals generated barely noticeable seizures in the immediate. But, we also learned that the sensitivity to this electrical stimulation intensified with repeated applications, and the animals ultimately begin to seize without any stimulation whatsoever. Well, chronic over-stimulation of the amygdala, or any number of our forged neural highways, may lead to a hypersensitivity to fear-generating stimuli and a propensity toward hyperarousal. Doesn’t that make sense? I mean, consider the scientifically confirmed dynamics of neuroplasticity, the notion that neurons that frequently connect tend to establish long-term working relationships. Well, I believe kindling and neuroplasticity sit in the same section of the ballpark.

So, let’s consider a real-life example of kindling to bring the point home. I’ve written about our HPA axis and noradrenergic (having to do with the neurotransmitter and hormone norepinephrine) system in previous articles. As it applies here, let’s just say the end result of their work is the activation of our fight/flight response; and we become rough and ready to deal with the threat at hand. Well, research has noted that early life trauma may have something to say about how all of this works, and it’s thought to go like this. Someone who’s been exposed to such trauma develops a hypersensitive HPA axis and noradrenergic system due to their overuse so soon in life. It seems our bodies just weren’t designed to deal with excessive amounts of their secretions so early on. These secretions include cortisol, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.

So, as a result of being chronically overworked, these systems become super-sensitive and super-reactive to stress. And as the years go by, any exposure to stress, even in what would seem to be tolerable measures, only serves to agitate and exacerbate this already hypersensitive and exhausted stress response. Ultimately, one ends up attempting to live life as an adult with out-of-control biochemistry. And this goofiness well exceeds design tolerances, resulting in any number of physical, mental, and emotional outcomes; including panic and anxiety. Yes, in this case, early life trauma, and its snowballing biochemical fallout, actually alters neurophysiology in the immediate, as well as stimulating psychopathology in the future. That said, kindling must be considered a significant biological contributor to panic attacks and anxiety.