Panic attacks tend to be a common reason why clients reach out to us here at Good Therapy SF. And a question we often hear during the intake process is, can you die from a panic attack?
And while answer is, of course, no you cannot die from a panic attack. We always encourage people to reach out to their medical providers. For those more medically based questions this video is more around education. It’s not a medical evaluation.
So that being said, let’s try to understand some of these panic attack symptoms more concretely. So often when we’re talking about panic attacks, the symptoms include an increase in heart rate, an increase in breathing. Sometimes there’s some chest pain. Often there’s sweating. And sometimes people report having some sort of sensation of dizziness, or as well as some sort of tunnel vision going on as well.
What’s important is when you work with a professional around these particular symptoms of panic attacks, you learn how each of these symptoms is associated with the fight or flight response. And through that process, you learn to be less concerned or less afraid of the symptoms themselves. Because in therapy with a professional, you learn how to address each one of those symptoms individually, and you get more control over those really fearful sensations that coming from your body.
So one of the things that’s really important, like we said before, was the fight or flight response. When we’re feeling those physical symptoms in our body, the increase in heart rate, increase in breathing, the muscle tension, maybe that dizziness, it can be a really frightening experience. But the more you know about those symptoms and the more you know about why they’re occurring, as a result of the fight or flight response, the less fearful they become over time, because it provides you with a sense of control with that knowledge.
Things that are unknown, such as a sudden increase in heart rate and a sudden increase in breathing can be really upsetting. But if you understand the physiology about why that is happening to you in that moment, then it’s a lot easier to approach it from a different perspective and often one that gives you a stronger sense of control.
When it comes to the actual panic attacks themselves, it’s important to remember that panic attacks in and of themselves. are not dangerous, even though it feels like you could potentially die in that moment. If it’s a panic attack symptom, while incredibly fearful and intense in the moment in and of themselves, the symptoms are not dangerous.
And again, we really do encourage people if they have questions around this to talk to their medical provider or their medical doctor for more of a medical background on this. But often when we work with people that have panic attacks, specifically that have been diagnosed by us with panic attacks, we know, and we try to really tell them that the panic attack symptoms in and of themselves are not dangerous.
Often really trying to determine the difference between a panic attack and a medical emergency is often going to be a case by case basis. And certainly I wouldn’t use this video in any way as a screener. That really should be something you should talk to your medical provider about specifically.
But if I’m working with someone specifically, then I can have a better opportunity of helping them understand those symptoms and why they might be happening for them. So just important to approach your providers specifically, if you have more questions around the panic attack symptoms and the type of harm that you think that they might be causing if you think that’s occurring for you.
How do we work with panic attacks? Often there’s going to be an emphasis on stress management or some type of relaxation techniques that can include deep breathing, grounding exercises and often some sort of mindful approach as well to help manage and reduce the intensity of those panic attack symptoms.
Those three approaches with breathing, grounding exercises and mindfulness are also part of Cognitive Behavioral therapy, which is one of the more effective ways of treating Panic attacks and panic disorder. And within Cognitive Behavioral therapy, the more specific approach is something called Interoceptive Exposure, which is helping to identify the panic attack symptoms themselves and going through a certain protocol that helps people identify their own physical symptoms, the types of thoughts and emotions they have around those symptoms, and then teaching them more helpful ways to deal with those symptoms as they occur in real time. So again, that’s an Interoceptive Exposure approach from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
So if while listening to this video, you feel like any of these symptoms created questions or concerns or anything you’re interested in, please feel free to reach out to us here at Good Therapy SF.
Take care.
