There are a range of physical symptoms our mind can generate around our bodies. As everyone is different, you may not experience all of these to experience a full panic attack. However if you experience several of these together, it is likely you are having a panic attack.
*A feeling of lightheadness or dizziness. This is often at the beginning of the attack. You can feel a little like you’ve had a few glasses too much to drink, or a sense the room is shifting a little around you. There maybe a rushing sound in your ears, as the blood moves away from your brain, causing you to feel like you may faint.
* Difficulty in breathing. Your throat feels as if it has a large lump in it, and it hurts to swallow. Your chest tightens and constricts and it’s difficult to take deep slow breaths. If feels a little like you’ve just been sprinting for a few kilometers and you need to catch your breath.
* Your heart rate increases. Your pulse becomes faster and fluttery and sometimes a little uneven. Your heart is thumping against your chest and you are unable to slow it even if you are sitting still.
* Hot flushes. Your face feels flushed and it feels almost as if you have a high temperature. You can also feel nauseous, as if you are trying to fight off an infection.
* Waves of anxiety. The anxious feelings rise and fall through the attack as you struggle to regain control. As each wave comes it becomes a little more intense.
* Unable to stop unwanted thinking. The inability to keep control of your thinking, struggling to manage where your thoughts go. Your thoughts may skip from normal every day concern to imagined fears, fantasizing the very worst outcome of whatever you are battling. It can run as a loop inside your mind, repeating the very thoughts you lease enjoy.
* Feeling disconnected from reality. You’re unable in the place the way you feel with what is actually happen. Often part of you can know what you are thinking isn’t correct, and it’s too much, but you still can’t stop. It’s like there is two of you inside your mind, one stable and sensible and the other losing it- and the sensible one can’t shout the panicking side down.
* Feeling out of control. Panic attacks are in the main a loss of control. From your physical manifestation of panic to your thoughts, you lose the ability to manage the way you think and act. The problem is that much of the effect is internal so while you may be deathly panicked inside, with your heart racing and your mind going all over the place, your physical body can remain completely still. It’s like panic is running a marathon inside your body, and you can’t work out how it can escape.
