Complete Idiot's Guide to Conquering Fear and Anxiety

die. Should you stop breathing and faint, which you won't, you would automatically start breathing again." What a relief! She wasn't going to die. She could fight thisthing.Miscued Survival InstinctPage 215When Sarah told the therapist of her panic attacks, the most important thing that he said to her was that she wasn't going to die.During a panic attack, many people feel as if in mortal danger. This is how you're supposed to feel. What you're experiencing, as you may recall from earlier chapters,is your body's spontaneous fight/ flight survival reflex that, within the context of a real danger, is an entirely natural bodily reaction. In fact, your body goes through thesame physiological flight reaction as it would were you facing a charging bull.If you were facing a bull, your concentration would be focused entirely on saving yourself from peril. But since a panic attack doesn't occur in the face of a real threat,your bodily symptoms absorb your attention and you misperceive their exaggeration as perilous and even life threatening. In the midst of a panic attack you might feel:A pounding heart that feels like you are having a heart attack.Breathing difficulties that lead you to believe you will stop breathing, even suffocate.Vertigo, or dizziness, making you feel like you will faint.Buckling knees that make you fear you will be unable to walk or you're going to fall.General disorientation that makes you feel you are losing your mind.None of this will happen. In his very helpful book, The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, Edmund Bourne debunks each fear.1. A panic attack cannot cause heart failure or cardiac arrest. Although frightening, rapid heartbeat and palpitations during a panic attack are not dangerous. During atrue heart attack, people commonly experience continuous pain and pressure, not a pounding heart, or a missed or few extra beats. If you move around, the pain andpressure intensifies, while during a panic attack movement may ease a racing heart.