Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety
If you or someone you love may be suffering from a problem with anxiety, it’s important to be able to recognize the symptoms of anxiety. People have often asked this question over the years and wondered how they can spot signs of anxiety for themsleves. The first step to getting treatment is to learn the signs.
Often people have a problem with anxiety and they're not even fully aware of it. They may feel ashamed to tell anyone what they are going through and they fail to realize that thousands of other people are going through the exact same thing. This feeds into the anxiety so that people have panic over just the thought that they might have another anxiety attack. This is a problem that continues again and again.
Knowledge is very important and knowledge of this problem will help you recognize it and treat it. There are quite a few different symptoms that can manifest themselves through anxiety but the official measurement scheme used by the medical community is called DSM-IV. This system says you are having an anxiety or panic attack if you have four or more of these following symptoms:
· Fear of dying
· Strange warping of reality
· Sounds are not normal; blurry vision
· Increase in heart rate
· Increase in breathing; deep breathing
· Chest pain or uncomfortable feeling
· Nausea
· Tingling sensation or numb sensations
· Fear that you are going crazy
· Fear of no control of yourself
· Lack or breath or feeling that you are being smothered
If you have four or more of these symptoms or recall having them at the last time you felt you might have had an anxiety attack, chances are you did. These feelings can be so frightening that you associate them with whatever you were doing at the time and find that the symptoms return if you ever go to do that same thing again. When you return to times, places or situations that created past anxiety for you, it can bring those feelings back again.
This is both frightening and overwhelming. Your panic and fear increase even more when you feel like you have no control. When you understand how the body reacts to danger or death, you will know why this happens.
The brains pumps blood to muscles to prepare us to fight or run. Since it is a defense mechanism, our bodies automatically tell us to do this. We react this way today because it's become hard-wired into our brains.
It's important to talk to your doctor about treatment options if you have the symptoms of anxiety. If anxiety or panic attacks prevent you from enjoying the things you once did or from having a normal life, you should seek to make changes in your life to prevent this.
Tags: tingling sensation, anxiety attack, anxiety symptoms, exact same thing, Health, panic attacks, symptoms of anxiety