How to Recognize an Anxiety Attack Symptom

If you have ever experienced being uncomfortable and feeling that something just isn’t right when it comes to your breathing or the way your body seems to be failing you, it is entirely possible you could have been experiencing an anxiety attack symptom. Let’s take a look at some of the symptoms that usually come with anxiety attacks.

A Pounding Heart

One of the more common of an anxiety attack symptom is a pounding heart. This symptom can be caused by a number of different anxiety attacks, from mild to severe. Many people who do have an attack tend to clutch at their chest in fear of a heart attack or other ailment, when in reality they are experiencing anxiety.

Shortness of Breath

Shortness of breath is another anxiety attack symptom that is seen a lot because of someone feeling panicked due to other symptoms they are experiencing. The shortness of breath can seem like your world is caving in, but by being able to recognize the symptom as part of an anxiety attack, you can more easily control this.

Lightheaded or Faint

Becoming lightheaded is one anxiety attack symptom that happens a lot in crowded areas. Many people have a phobia about being in crowds and becoming lightheaded or fainting is a common symptom that they experience. People will sometimes think they have a more serious issue, but it reality it's only one of the symptoms that are associated with anxiety attacks.

Fear of Losing Control

Another anxiety attack symptom that is almost always present in an attack is the fear of losing control. This fear comes from the seemingly uncontrollable symptoms that precede like becoming light headed with a racing heart, and shortness of breath. It is a natural feeling for us to feel as if we are losing control of our own bodies.

Overview

Anxiety attack symptoms vary and are not isolated to just one group of people. Everybody is different and may experience varying symptoms based on what their fears may be. Anxiety is a treatable problem and many people live normal lives once they learn to control there attacks. In the end, by visiting a physician to talk about the anxiety attack symptoms that bother you, a plan can be put in place as to how you can effectively overcome the symptoms as they occur, making it possible to ensure anxiety attacks do not have precedence over your life.

Anxiety Attack Heart Problems

Anxiety attack heart problems are any problems related to the cardiovascular system of your body that are caused by anxiety or panic attacks. Due to the very nature of a panic attack, it is not surprising that anxiety attack heart problems are among the leading causes of heart attacks or other cardiovascular issues among North Americans today. This is not to say that an anxiety or panic attack does not have a heavy effect on other systems of the body as well, but it’s effect on the heart and blood flow is easily measured and quite noticeably dangerous.

A panic attack is a sudden onset of fear or other terror that causes frightening symptoms that can paralyze a person in the mood of the moment. Many people report the notion of being “frozen by fear” and an anxiety attack definitely resembles that to a large degree. Patients discuss shaking, trembling, chills, numbness in extremities, heart palpitations, and trouble breathing among other things that are caused by the great difficulty of a panic attack.

Anxiety attack heart problems are common because of the close association stress has with other heart problems. Anxiety can accompany any heart disease or cardiac condition that causes a drop in blood pressure because of this close relationship in systems and bodily functions. This, in fact, causes a sudden decrease in cardiac output, which is the amount of blood being pumped by the heart. Anxiety is also closely related to (but not the cause of) a condition called mitral valve prolapse or MVP.

Panic attacks generate a common human response to danger: the “fight or flight” response. This was said to evolve from early human types that either fled danger or took it on if they could. Fight or flight generates a lot of biological processes because of the energy the body needs to perform either task. The heart races, the blood quickens, the eyes function differently, senses are heightened, and other parts of the body begin to react in other ways such as muscles tightening, etc.

Anxiety attack heart difficulties can arise from the heart being told to work too fast by the brain, which is in charge of the “fight or flight” mechanism. At this point, the body often decides to simply shut down because it’s easier on the systems involved. For this reason, the heart once again runs the virtual gamut of both beating faster and beating slower; calming the body down and slowing blood flow one moment and then speeding the body up and creating more blood flow the next minute.