You Need to Understand Anxiety Panic Attacks For Recovery
Saturday, July 11th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Respected biblical scholar Thomas S. Kepler wrote a highly publicized story about a woman who kept track of her worries. She found that 40% of the things she worried about never happened, 30% of the things she worried about had already happened, 12% of the things she worried about were imagined criticisms and the fear of judgment from others, 10% were needless health worries and only 8% were legitimate life problems. This little story can help people suffering from anxiety panic attacks to realize that the key to overcoming panic attacks is in understanding triggers and prioritizing worries.
Many Americans wonder what the difference between healthy worry and chronic worry is. On one hand, California writer Dr. Beverly Potter explains, “Think of it as a mental fire drill, a ‘thinking through’ of things that potentially might happen. It’s good to think over what could happen and to have a contingency plan. That is what productive and effective people do.” Yet, on the other hand, panic anxiety worrying can become a kind of “stuckness,” where worrywarts “get stuck identifying danger as they immerse themselves in a dread associated with the threat, which may be real or — more likely — imagined.”
Dr. Potter uses one story to illustrate the essence of anxiety panic attacks. One woman is madly waving her arms. Another woman asks her what she’s doing and the first woman says that she’s keeping the tigers away. “But there are no tigers here,” the second woman protests. “See, it’s working!” the first woman replies. In essence, panic anxiety seems like a way of thinking to look out for all possibilities and plan everything out so one will be prepared for every situation. However, the anxiety attacks panic goes beyond the normal realm of healthy planning and is, instead, a morbid fixation on the worst case scenarios.
Without seeking cognitive behavioral therapy, sufferers of chronic anxiety panic attacks and panic attack disorder usually lose their ability to function in everyday life. After a few months, 10% of panic attack sufferers become housebound and are unable to leave (Agoraphobia). After a few years, 30% of panicked patients can no longer meet job responsibilities or go to work everyday. Another 17% have become alcoholics and a whopping 40% have developed chronic depression. The majority of people who do not seek panic attack help suffer marital problems, reduce their travel and withdraw from their social lives. However, with treatment, over 70% of sufferers can find a panic attack cure.
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