Anxiety attacks are episodes of severe anxiety and panic.

Anxiety is an emotional state characterised by feelings of nervousness, worry and fear. Symptoms may include faster heartbeat and breathing, tense muscles, sweaty palms, a queasy stomach, trembling hands, fear, worry, nervousness and negative thoughts. Anxiety is a natural instinctive human reaction that serves an important basic survival function. It triggers off an emotional alarm system in the brain that activates the ‘fight or flight’ response whenever we perceive danger or threat. Everyone experiences normal anxiety from time to time, having a sense of uneasiness, nervousness, fear or worry of what might happen. But anxiety can be problematic if it occurs too often, with excessive amounts of fear, nervousness, worry or threat affecting your daily life and happiness. It may develop gradually due to stressful issues in your life or because of how you respond to adverse conditions. Or sometimes anxiety can develop suddenly, following a traumatic experience.

Anxiety Treatment

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy has an important role to play in anxiety treatment because this therapy can help to alleviate all the symptoms quickly and easily, as well as dealing with the contributory factors, which is important in obtaining lasting relief (unlike medication which just treats the symptoms). At Mindfully Well we start off by teaching you techniques to calm down your symptoms and ultimately eliminate them. Then we use other powerful strategies to help you deal with issues underlying the anxiety (We use the same approach as UK charity PTSD Resolution. You can read key facts about this approach here). We can help you to relax and feel better surprisingly quickly. You can expect improvement right from the first session.

What are Panic Attacks?

 Panic attacks are sudden intense feelings of fear or apprehension that occurs in the absence of any actual danger. Symptoms can include shortness of breath or hyperventilation, heart palpitations or racing heart, chest discomfort, trembling, choking sensations, feeling unreal or detached, sweating, nausea or upset stomach, feeling light-headed, and having a feeling of fear of losing control. Panic attacks can arise from a build-up of stress, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and constant firing off of the ‘fight or flight’ response. And what can happen is that the next time that you are in a situation where a panic attack previously occurred (or a situation resembling it), another one is triggered by the emotional memory. At Mindfully Well we can use effective techniques to break the pattern of the unconscious processes that are sustaining the occurrence of panic attacks, and we can help you to eliminate them quickly and easily in just a few sessions.

If you are suffering from anxiety or panic attacks, all counsellors & psychotherapists in the MindFully Well network are fully trained and qualified in the treatment methods mentioned in this article. Contact any therapist and they will be happy to help you.

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