Ciente's Conversations: Panic Attacks

Sometimes, you don’t feel emotions gradually but, in a rush, – sudden and overwhelming. It pulls the rug from beneath your feet and unsettles your breathing.

This feeling takes over your being so unpredictably that it makes you sweat profusely and triggers an anxiety disorder so intense that you cannot think.

You're stuck finding an escape outside this fight-or-flight state of mind.

If you have ever felt this way – you might be having a panic attack. This, while only lasting a few minutes, can make you feel you’re losing your sense of control. It's discomforting and fear-inducing.

Most often, people having a panic attack don't know what is quite happening to them, increasing their worry. Because its severity isn't merely limited to a declining mental state – its impact on the physical state of being is quite numbing, too.

Mimicking a heart attack is not something to joke about. From feeling tingly and sweaty to trembling and a sudden increase in heart rate – panic attacks instill an impending sense of doom.

But what is it exactly?

Browsing the internet will tell you that panic attacks are like false alarms where the body's survival instincts kick in or are way too active.

No one understands how it's passed down in the family or if it is. But some researchers believe so. It isn't something life-threatening, but at the moment, it may seem like it is.

Some feelings are hard to define, so we call it a feeling.

But panic attacks cannot be just articulated as a feeling. Panic attacks are one of the most common mental health issues people grapple with - no one is immune. While a single panic attack may not be put under the radar, a panic disorder is comparatively more serious.

They are hard to manage and even harder to bear. Nausea, hot flashes, faintness, chills, and shaking – these are at the end of chronic and unmanaged stress. How do we address this conundrum?

They say the first step to calming a panic attack is finding your own space and breathing slowly. But in the jitters of a workplace, this is quite impossible to do.

When the blaring alarms in your brain refuse to quiet down, how do you help yourself? Especially in a space that adds to the noise.