The Difference Between Anxiety Attack and Panic Attack + Panic Disorder
In this article, we’ll talk about The Difference Between Anxiety Attack and Panic Attack, the good and bad advice for treating them, and how to stop panic attacks from recurring with Some Examples.
So we are now going to discuss first what is the difference between a panic attack an anxiety attack and a panic disorder this is important because people sometimes use these terms interchangeably they both have a lot of overlapping symptoms but the treatment for each of them is different.
Both panic attacks and anxiety attacks include a sense of fear and discomfort and the fight-flight-freeze response triggers physical symptoms like –
- Fear
- Discomfort
- Fast heartbeat
- Shortness of breath
- Tightness of throat
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Sweating
- Dry mouth
- Shaking
- Etc.
Difference
Definitions vary because the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual of mental health disorders doesn’t define an anxiety attack, anxiety is defined as a feeling of worry physical discomfort, and fear.
Anxiety Attack
Anxiety attacks usually come in anticipation of some event you might have work stress or a family event or financial trouble or all three and the stress becomes overwhelming anxiety builds over time until it reaches a breaking point and while anxiety may build over hours or days anxiety attacks usually last less than 30 minutes.
Panic Attack
Now panic attacks are defined in the DSM-5 as around one in three people will have at least one panic attack in their lifetime and with panic attacks, a sense of overwhelming fear comes on suddenly they are more like a balloon popping.
There are two types of panic attacks:
- Unexpected panic attacks which seem to come out of nowhere
- Expected panic attacks which come in response to some kind of phobia
For example, if you’re afraid of snakes and you suddenly come across one that may trigger a panic attack.
Panic Attack and Panic Disorder
Panic attacks usually last less than 10 minutes but panic disorder specifically includes one of three main symptoms:
- Derealization of feeling numb detached or floaty
- Fear of a heart attack
- Fear of hyperventilating and passing out
Panic disorder happens when you have repeated panic attacks.
Now it is even possible to experience both at the same time
For example – you may feel nervous about an upcoming exam and as the stress builds into an anxiety attack it may culminate in a panic attack during the test.
Now both panic attacks and anxiety attacks are treatable decreasing overall stress by working with a therapist exercising sleep relaxation meditation and breathing techniques and also cutting alcohol and nicotine can all help, cbt techniques can help you learn to decrease panic and anxiety attacks but treat anxiety attacks and panic attacks require different approaches.
How to stop a Panic Attack?
If you google how to stop a panic attack you might get really bad advice if you have chronic panic attacks. “the articles all say to try to take some deep breaths calm yourself down distract yourself” look if you’ve tried this and it worked you wouldn’t be here, so with a panic attack and especially with panic disorder this is the exact wrong advice.
Let me explain
An anxiety attack comes on gradually it’s like a buildup of anxiety that overflows like a bathtub that’s been filling up too long so this means the treatment is all about slowly lowering the level of the water so if you’re overflowing with anxiety these are the sort of things that gradually let the water drain, you know slowing down calming your body take deep breaths to get present to try the 3-3-3 rule, get more organized and decrease your overall stress and set boundaries, process the stress that you can’t decrease writing practicing willingness, getting support laughing exercise, all of these techniques can help decrease overall anxiety prevent both anxiety and panic attacks and they may possibly help you calm down in the middle of a panic attack.
Repeated panic attacks
now panic attacks are a different beast altogether if you’ve only ever had one panic attack or just a handful you can try any of these previous techniques that you want to give a try and just experiment and see if they work but if you get repeated panic attacks then it’s likely that trying to make your panic attacks go away is actually causing recurring panic attacks because you see panic attacks are anxiety about the anxiety they are fear of fear, there’s this jimmy Fallon clip where they talk about something funny that they overheard.
Now jimmy makes a great joke of it but I can almost guarantee that it was someone in the bathroom trying to force a panic attack to not come on because that’s the exact mindset that causes recurring panic attacks you start to feel some anxiety and then your body starts to produce some stress chemicals which trigger some uncomfortable sensations like a faster heartbeat or an upset stomach and you think please not now I can’t have this panic attack now this would be terrible and the more you try to force your body to calm down the more messages you send to your body that you’re in danger that anxiety and panic are dangerous and must be stopped.
So in this situation trying to calm down your body sends a message to your brain that the anxiety is actually dangerous and must be avoided which makes anxiety worse, for people with panic attacks trying to use deep breathing actually makes the problem worse anything you do to try to force a panic attack to go away makes them worse and makes them come back again stronger the next time.
So when you google how to stop a panic attack and the advice is to try to take deep breaths if you have recurring panic attacks that are probably going to make you feel worse because it’s going to feed that cycle of panic attacks you can learn to calm down but it’s a paradox because acceptance has to come before the change and the technique is a little bit paradoxical.