Are you struggling to live your life while having panic attacks? These episodes usually are harmless but can make you feel as if you’re going to die. Nobody should have to live like this. Here’s a guide to what could be causing them and what you can do about them.
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The most effective strategies for overcoming panic attacks. Do you experience panic attacks? These terrifying debilitating episodes can cause symptoms such as sweating, nausea, palpitations, and feelings of overwhelming fear. They can basically make you feel as if you're going to die and that can occur at almost any time. Almost worse than these symptoms is the fact that worrying about these attacks can actually have a terrible impact on your health as well. Bringing on other health issues associated with stress. One of the often overlooked causes of symptoms such as panic attacks, as well as mood disorders and memory issues are neurotransmitter imbalances. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that help regulate brain function, and allow the cells in your brain to communicate with each other. These chemicals carry out a number of different tasks in the brain and the body. And they can impact your mood, your mental activity, your physical activity, your motivation, your emotional state, your decision-making skills, sleep, weight, and even reactions to the stimuli in the outside world. So, when these chemicals become unbalanced, the consequences can be significant. And unfortunately, there are a number of factors that can affect this delicate balance of neurotransmitters in your body. They include genetics, stress, a poor diet, drug or alcohol use, environmental toxins and even gut health. So there are two main categories of neurotransmitters and they're highly relevant to panic attacks. The first category is inhibitory neurotransmitter, which helps to calm the body, balance your mood, and decrease the effects of the second type of neurotransmitters. Two well known inhibitory neurotransmitters are GABA, and serotonin. Then you have the excitatory neurotransmitters, which stimulate the brain and create similar responses in your body. An example of this is adrenaline, which is released when your body enters this fight or flight state to raise your blood pressure, your heart rate, your alertness. And when there's too much of these excitatory neurotransmitters in your body, you may experience trouble sleeping and relaxing, as well as having panic attacks. So, imbalances between these two types of neurotransmitters, particularly high levels of excitatory neurotransmitters and low levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitters strongly is associated with anxious feelings, poor or low moods, and excitability. They could easily be the cause of the panic attacks. So what can you do about them? Well, first you need is your doctor just to ensure there isn't something more serious underlying going on. And they will be able to tell you if you need a neurotransmitter test or some other testing like thyroid or adrenal, to make sure to identify any clinical issues that need to be addressed. Once you've done that, you need to make sure you try to make some lifestyle changes to help lower that stress and encourage balance and health in your body and your brain. Here are some strategies that will help with that. Number one, limit your use of alcohol and caffeine and energy supplements. Eat a diet that's filled with nutrient dense foods, and regular exercise as long as your body can tolerate it, can help burn some of that adrenaline off. Talk to your doctor about certain vitamins and mineral supplements that would be able to help balance your neurotransmitter levels. Make sure that you're sleeping at least eight hours a night with good sleep habits to support this. And the most important one is actually Adrenal Breathing. This type of conscious form of breathing actually helps slow down your heart rate, calm the fight or flight response and relax the body. It goes from the sympathetic fight or flight over to the parasympathetic, rest and digest. Thanks for listening today. We hope you get something from what we've talked about in overcoming panic attacks. If you'd like to hear more great tips, make sure you click that subscribe button, like and share the video so that we can definitely keep helping people through this. Remember, we're here to empower you to take control of your health.