The risk of facing one is usually inherited, seen twice as more often in women than in men. Apart from some illness-related causes, like hypoglycemia, hyperthyroidism, Obsessive compulsive disorders amongst others, it generally is a result of an unnatural trigger. People whose dealings are fraught with passiveness, who’ve been victims to a trauma, or are drug-addicts and chronic consumers of alcohol, have also been found as sufferers.

Agoraphobia, or fear of open crowded places, can also amount up to it. So how do we recognize a, technically speaking, genuine panic attack, and not confuse it with, lets say a nervous breakdown or maybe a heart attack, the latter being frequently misplaced.

A Panic attack has some unique symptoms. And they appear as if the body is breaking down, when actually, it’s shielding itself from possible harm. To say it in a word, it’s an adrenaline charge. A rushing heart-rate, chest pain, breathlessness ridden with anxiety, an endlessly perspiring body, nauseating dizziness, and a fear of dying, are quite visible. In such a loss of self-possession, where there’s an exact opposite of tranquility, anything that might return it is a valuable measure. And what could be better than a dose of laughter.

The best things in this world are free, they say, and though you won’t find it on a prescription, a chortle is an irreplaceable treatment. A behavioral therapy works on the same thing. Laughter combats cortisol (stress-hormone) levels, and thus, is a wonderful way of relaxing oneself. It brings back a much-needed peace of mind. The old in the Orient, are still found saying, that Laughter is the best medicine. Sounds clichéd doesn’t it? That’s because it’s absolutely true.

Rather than swallowing the granules or tablet with water, they should be allowed to dissolve slowly in your mouth and after the intake of remedy, nothing but water should be ingested for at least fifteen minutes.
Some of the medicines useful in treating the symptoms of anxiety are as follows:

Aconitum Napellus (commonly known as Aconite): It is a kind of sudden panic attack accompanied with a strong fear (often of death). This remedy is effective in case of these symptoms shown: dizziness or faintness upon waking up, intolerable pain often followed by tingling or numbness, painful urination accompanied with anxiety, flushing of the face, shortness of breath and strong palpitations.

Arsenicum Album: This remedy is useful for people who are deeply anxious regarding their health and extremely concerned with security and order. Panic attacks usually occur around midnight or very early hours of morning. The person may be restless-fidgeting and still exhausted, pacing and moving anxiously to different places. These people can suffer from asthma attacks followed by anxiety and digestive problems too. The other symptoms for which this remedy can be prescribed are drowsiness with insomnia, vomiting after eating and drinking with or without diarrhoea, anxiety associated with sneezing and later stages of head-cold, fearing suffocation while lying down and asthma getting worse after midnight.

Gelsemium (Gels): This remedy is given when you experience trembling, weakness, and mental dullness on being paralyzed by fear. It is useful during anxiety about and upcoming event such as interview or public performance, or anxiety before taking a test, visit to dentist or some other stressful events. A fear of falling, fear of crowd or fear of heart getting stopped suddenly is some of the indications for Gelsemium. The symptoms are fatigue and whole body ache, lack of thirst, sore throat, nervousness, head, limbs and eyelids heavy etc.

The other such remedies for short term anxiety attacks are Argentum Nitricum (Arg-n), Lycopodium, Phosphorous, Silicea, Pulsatilla, Ignatia Amara, Kali phosphoricum, Natrum muriaticum which are effective for some specific symptoms.

Various antidepressants are found effective in the treatment of anxiety disorder as well so if your doctor prescribes an antidepressant, you should take it for number of weeks to let the symptoms fade. SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are the newest antidepressants acting in the brain on serotonin which is a chemical messenger. Examples of these medications are Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro and Prozac which have fewer side effects than earlier antidepressants; these medicines are started at lower dose and gradually increased till therapeutic level is reached. Some people reported to have experienced sexual dysfunction at initial intake of these medicines and some also feel slightly jittery or nauseated which disappears gradually with time. These issues are not bothersome as dosage adjustment and switch to other SSRI often corrects these effects.

Other class of antidepressants are tricyclics which are older than SSRIs and are equally effective other than in case of OCD. SSRIs are preferred to tricyclics as these medicines causes dry mouth, drowsiness, dizziness and weight gain. Similarly MAOIs (Monoamine oxidase inhibitors are the oldest class of antidepressants but is not preferred much as those who take these medicines are put on restrictive diets. These medications interact with other medications as well as some food and beverage including red wine and cheese which contains a chemical called tyramine. These interactions between different substances can cause elevated blood pressure and other potentially dangerous reactions.

Among anxiety disorder medications, Benzodiazepines are the high potency medicines that are quick in relieving symptoms and have fewer side effects. Except panic disorder these medicines are prescribed for shorter periods of time and people with alcohol or drug abuse are not good candidate for these medications which can increase their dependence. Azipirones are another class of drugs which has a member called Buspirone (BuSpar) which is the latest anti anxiety medicine used for the treatment of GAD. It should be taken consistently for two weeks to reach anti anxiety effects. There are other medications like beta-blockers (propanolol) which can be prescribed by doctors to stop the development of physical symptoms like heart pounding and hand shaking.

This therapy has been proved most effective in case of panic attacks. General statistics has revealed that about one third of American population has experienced panic attack at some point in their life based on several reasons. Getting too scared, tension, stressful life, dealing with enormous pressure and handling too much of pressure are simple reasons to get someone a panic attack making him quite uncomfortable, abnormal, and obviously daily life activities of the person comes to complete halt.

Often people remain ignorant about the disease, symptoms and its treatment options. To cure these panic attacks, hypnotherapy is one of the most effective options that can work in several ways.

Hypo- analysis or analytical Hypnotherapy is the latest accepted technique of hypnotherapy for curing panic attacks. This therapy uses talks as a remedy to help a patient feel safe and secure first; often by providing him a cordial atmosphere surroundings. The patient then travels through a process of identifying the causes of his phobia, anxiety, fears and panic attacks. This Therapy is extremely focused and the process is intensively carried out using hypnosis. Once the ulterior cause of panic or anxiety is identified and minimized, all symptoms associated to it are reduced dramatically.

As it is a natural process, there are no side-effects or after effects of this treatment. Often the patients recover really fast and experience better relaxed mood and feel more positive, providing him all new way to think and behave. There are a lot of breathing exercises involved in the treatment procedure too as it helps patient relax and get rid of negative thoughts and fears from within.

So far, the therapy has been proved helpful in several cases of panic attacks and individuals have been extremely happy with the way it cures the disease and restores back their lost life and confidence.

Apart from this, the person finds the substance abuse as an easy way to escape from stress. He feels this might make him feel happy and peaceful and relieve stress. Many a times there are no reasons for substance abuse, it is just curiosity which makes the person to start substance abuse.
Cognitive behavioral therapy helps the patients to come out of the substance abuse and modify their thinking, attitude and behavior. It also increases their life skills to lead a healthy and happy life. The recent research shows that this therapy actually works and helps the substance abused patients to come out of their abuse. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on a combination of Behavioral Theory and the Cognitive Theory. The Cognitive theory assumes that most of the psychological problems derive from a wrong thinking process, the therapy focuses on the thoughts, beliefs, attributions and attitudes that influence one’s feelings. The Behavioral theory assumes that substance abuse disorders are developed through the general principles of learning and reinforcement. As per this theory, changes in one’s behavior come through the learning of new behaviors.

At last, it can be concluded that the CBT approach is not only successful but rather superior to that of other approaches to deal substance abuse disorder. The comparative studies also indicated that, in most of the cases, the cognitive behavioral therapy is preferred over other therapies. The skills of this therapy can be used for a long time. This therapy is normally used to treat mental illness like depression, phobia and anxiety disorders.

Therapists use several techniques in the course of their behavioral therapy to help their patients and change their thoughts and behaviors. Some of these techniques include:
• The therapist normally asks the patient to defend their thoughts and beliefs. If the patient fails to produce the objective evidence, their faulty nature is exposed.
• The patient is sometimes asked by the therapist to imagine a difficult situation he has encountered in the past and then try to practice how to cope successfully with.
• In Guided discovery technique, a series of questions are being asked by the therapist from the patient. This is done to discover the cognitive distortions of the patient.
• The patient is being told to maintain a diary of the situations arise in his everyday life and the behavior to those situations that accompany him. The therapist then reviews the diary with the patient and discovers all the maladaptive thoughts so as to correct them
• In positive reinforcement technique, the behavior of patient is routinely motivated by positive things and reward system is set up for them
• Some distress strategies are also given to the patients. The main goal in these techniques is calm and peace. The more the brain is relaxed and quiet, the easier the information can get into it and be processed accordingly. The main focus of this technique is on healing, inner peace and healthiness.
Several studies indicate that Cognitive behavioral therapy reduces the rate of rehospitalization, can help anxiety patients in managing their worry, effective treatment of insomnia, depression and many other disorders.