Lessons on Anxiety

Anxiety

Hi. I often wish that I could give a class on anxiety to my peers. But I can't. So this is me educating others on anxiety.

As humans, we have an initial fight or flight response to danger. This stretches all the way back to when we were apes. Anxiety gives you that fight or flight response. It's your body telling you there's danger when there isn't any. That's how panic attacks come about.
Panic attacks
Panic attacks are different for everyone. For me, panic attacks include
1. Hyperventilating (your breathing coming quicker and quicker until you're breathing extremely irregularly)
2. Shaking. Rocking back and forth or shivering, or half of my body shaking uncontrollably
3. Increased heart rate. My heart rate speeds up until it feels like it's beating out of my chest.
4. Sweating. Because of all the above, I get quite hot!
5. Feeling of death/doom. It feels like I'm going to die, like this is the very end.
My panic attacks usually last around a minute.

This is obviously not the case for everyone, but are my personal symptoms.

What I have are called stereotypical panic attacks. They're the ones that are often portrayed by movies and such. They're the most recognizable.
But Hollywood often doesn't portray panic attacks properly.