What Causes Anxiety and Panic Attacks

There is hardly any other thing related to human psychology that affects more the life and existence of any person as anxiety and panic attacks. Effects of anxiety and panic attacks are evident in the behavior and activities of any man as well as the resultant physical symptoms suffered by such men suffering from attacks of these syndromes. It is therefore necessary to know exactly what causes anxiety and panic attacks

Causes of Anxiety

Usually anxiety is caused by stress and strains experienced by people in their daily lives. Some of the factors to be taken into consideration are –

• Anxiety is resulted from stress and strains experienced by people in their life;
• It is more psychological than physical and the levels of anxiety varies from man to man;
• Sometimes negative self assessment can cause such anxieties;
• At other times some fear psychosis internally can work resulting in anxiety;
• Most potent reason for anxiety is nervousness; and
• People with negative outlook always expect the worse to happen and are the most vulnerable to anxiety attacks.

Anxiety and Panic

While trying to find out what causes anxiety and panic attacks, it is also necessary to understand the basic difference between the two. Anxiety affects people in a negative manner but is still manageable whereas panic attacks are more difficult to manage. Panic like anxiety may be result of strains but there is much more to it. Very often panic attacks are the results of some experiences of the past that is buried in the internal mind of human beings and puts them in a vulnerable position suffering from panic attacks from a given condition.

An Illustration

An illustration would help understand the difference in an appropriate manner. Suppose a person has to reach an important meeting or an interview and is getting delayed, he or she would be anxious as the delay could adversely affect the prospects of success or create a negative impression on the party, affiliate, client or the interviewers. On the other hand panic attacks are different like someone scared of using the lift to go upstairs with the inherent fear that the lift might stop or such problems may arise. Whenever they are inside the lift, they will suffer from such attacks and they will never like to go all alone in an ascending or descending lift.

Anxiety Attack Symptoms

Anxiety attack symptoms can be trembling, tense muscles, nausea, diarrhea, headache, backache, churning stomach, heart palpitations, sweating or flushing, and numbness or feeling of pinching in arms and legs.

Panic Attacks

To know what causes anxiety and panic attacks, one has to realize what it is. Basically panic attack is the sudden surge of anxiety as well as fear. It requires treatment and without treatment it could turn disastrous. Symptoms of panic attacks are similar to the anxiety attacks like heart palpitations, chest pain, discomforts, trembling, chocking feeling, sweating, and hot or cold flashes etc.

Panic attacks could be one time occurrence or may recur from time to time at regular intervals. However, neither anxiety nor panic attacks make one weak or unhealthy.