Originally Posted by CossieRich
What do you actually class as a panic attack? I know it may be hard to describe in words sort of thing, but for those of us that dont ever seem to panic or be anxious its a difficult concept to understand. I hope no one feels offended by me asking
Effectively its a MASSIVE over reaction from your body to a situation, in some ways its kind of similar to a phobia in that respect.
A mate of mine had them really bad about 10 years ago.
In his case it was stress that brought them on in the first place, he was working as a consultant flying all over europe, lots of hours, some fairly heavy socialising (not excessive drink, just up long hours), as far as he was concerned he had no problems at all, didnt really feel stressed particularly, then one day he was sat on plane waiting to take off, and he just suddenly felt like he was about to have a heart attack, he wasnt actually scared of flying, did it all the time, but just so happens that was when the first panic attack happened, he suffered badly with them then, and the worst thing of course is that they are a bit self fullfilling, from what i gather half the time that people have panic attacks its cause they are sat there worrying that they are going to get a panic attack and that itself brings it on.
In his case a change of lifestyle sorted it out, he took some time off work, slowed down his pace of life, essentially learned to relax more, and that sorted it for him, but sadly as is often the issue with mental health, different people suffer with the same problem for different reasons and hence will find a different cure works for them, best advice anyone can give you really is to go to your GP, as he will know more about you and your history and be in a better position to help.
Certainly TOTALLY ignore Phil's advice to cure it with drinking, but sounds like you already have enough sense to realise thats NOT the way to deal with it anyway.
