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Determine If You Are Experiencing Night Panic Attacks
Our ancestors while having their own set of problems never faced the daily onslaught of stressors that we have to deal with. Many nights sleep is lost due to that stress. Due to such lack of sleep during the night we tend to feel tired and exhausted during the day. As this get worse, we begin to experience nocturnal anxiety attacks, which will disrupt not only our sleep pattern but our life.
As human beings we need to rest approximately every 16 hours. Our resting period lasts approximately 8 hours and then we're up again. This is indeed a never ending cycle that we would have to abide by. However, when there is an obstruction in the normal course of life, the balance is lost and then problems creep in. If you regularly sleep less than 8 hours every night you may suffer from chronic sleep problems. One major issue of concern is nocturnal anxiety disorder or sleep panic attacks.
A certain diagnosis of sleep panic attacks is more more difficult because the disorder is a mix of several different symptoms which indicate various other sleep disorders. During the initial stages of the attack you might be unable to sleep well at night and this would manifest the absence of restfulness after you wake up. You are advised to seek a professional to assist you through this when such a situation occurs.
The general symptoms of panic attacks while sleeping are insomnia, drowsiness during the day and improper sleeping patterns. Insomnia is more prevalent than the other two symptoms in the initial phases. Also panic attacks during sleep are standard with people having intermittent sleeping behaviors.
Over 50% of anxiety attacks sufferers are likely to have nocturnal anxiety attacks, but the majority of their attacks occur during the day.
One of the worse side effects of panic attacks while sleeping is that the sufferers tend to develop a fear of sleeping and that increases their anxiety and complicates matters even more. However, sleeping tablets aren't the way of dealing with these problems; they can only make you addicted.
Night panic attacks should not be attributed to dreams as the attacks occur at the beginning stages of what is known as Rapid Eye Movement.Therefore, dreams cannot be held accountable for triggering panic attacks. Also, the occurrence of nocturnal anxiety attacks can result in sudden waking up, shakiness, breathlessness, fear, sweating and shudders. Such symptoms usually go on when the person is in deep sleep.
The exact cause of such panic attacks occurring during sleep is unknown. But it is said that the suspected cause might be the building up of CO2 or carbon dioxide within the body while we sleep. This has been referred to as the "false suffocation alarm".
Panic attacks can be treated and medications can completely extinguish the signs of such attacks.
Taking into consideration that these disorders can be cured with restrictions and behavior modifications, the use of medications should only be used as a last resort. To be clear, we're talking about anxiety medications and not sleeping pills.
A very significant part or beginning to your treatment is for you to make peace with yourself. You must understand yourself first before you try to explain anything to others. The more you talk about your situation the better the intervention. Apart from that you must make certain lifestyle changes as well - such as quitting or limiting smoking, caffeine and alcohol. These substances can easily increase the intensity of an attack. Additionally I would say that self help is the best help to cure night panic attacks.