Free Webinar on "Anxiety & Panic Attacks"
Anxiety and panic attacks have identical signs, also often occur simultaneously and can be physically and emotionally dreadful and terrifying.
Panic attacks are usually more extreme and may or may not be as a result of Anxiety.
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this webinar is to identify when you're having a panic or anxiety attack. Moreover, it would help to cope up with the situations that cause anxiety and panic attacks and inform you on how to deal with it whenever you experience this.
Furthermore, you would be able to help someone else who are suffering with it!
4. Anxiety Disorders
We all experience anxiety
Anxiety Disorders are characterized by excessive
and persistent fears
25-35% of the US population will meet the criteria
for an anxiety disorder in their lifetime
In this Chapter we will cover several of the anxiety
disorders
Specific Phobias
Social Anxiety Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Panic Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
5. Irrational persistent fears, anxiety, and
avoidance that focuses on specific objects,
activities, or situations
People with phobias realize that their fears
are unreasonable and excessive, but they
cannot control them
Phobias often begin after having an anxiety
attack or panic attack related to the feared
object or situation
Specific Phobias
6. Phobias often develop from bad or traumatic Experiences (Learned Behavior)
Classical conditioning: object or situation is paired with fear
Operant Conditioning: Phobias are negatively reinforced because people are able to
avoid anxiety by avoiding the feared object
Observational learning, modeling, watching a scary movie as a child (IT)
Fears become phobias when they are paired with feelings of panic
How do Phobias develop?
Fears
vs.
Phobias
7. What is the best way to
over come your fears?
To Face them!
8. Behavioral treatment that gradually exposes person to feared object
or situation
Person comes up with an anxiety hierarchy of the feared stimulus
and is gradually exposed until they feel comfortable with stimulus.
For example; picture of spider, touch picture, look at spider in a glass case, spider in
someone else's hand, spider in your hand, etc.
Best Treatment for Phobias
Systematic Desensitization/Exposure therapy
10. Rapid exposure therapy
Is gaining in popularity
And works on the same
principles as systematic
desensitization
11. • Social anxiety disorder is a distinct fear of
social situations and fear of being judged by
others
• Intense, irrational fear of being observed,
evaluated, humiliated, or embarrassed by
others in social situations
o Symptoms
o extreme shyness,
o not eating in front of others
o not talking in public situations
o Avoiding being in public situations,
avoid parties, concerts, etc.
Social Anxiety Disorder
12. Celebrities coping with Social Anxiety Disorder
Zach Grienke Adele, suffers from social
anxiety and panic attacks
Barbara Streisand
Forgot the words to a song and didn’t perform again for 30 years
13. Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Continuous state of worry about
everything
Highly co-morbid with mood disorders
Lasted for at least 6 months
Often a chronic condition
14. • Experiencing recurrent and unexpected Panic attacks
and constant worry over having another panic attack
for at least a month
• Often panic attacks seem to occur out of the blue.
Anxiety attacks occur when we know we are stressed
• Anxiety attacks tend to be less severe and of shorter
duration than panic attacks
• People with Panic disorder often start to avoid
situations where panic attacks occurred in a desperate
attempt to avoid another attack
• Panic disorder can be terrifying and very debilitating
Panic Disorder
15. Panic Disorder
Panic attack: sudden experience of intense fear and
discomfort that escalates quickly. Physical and Cognitive
symptoms include:
increased heart rate, sweating, shortness of breath, chest pain,
nausea, lightheadedness (Sympathetic Nervous system)
Cognitive symptoms: Fear of losing control, fear of dying, or
going crazy
People often believe they are having a heart attack and
head to the ER
Affects 2-3% of the population, with heritability estimates
around 40-48%
Panic attacks and avoidance of them are the basis of most
anxiety disorders
Hinweis der Redaktion
Evolutionary psychology and specific phobias
Biological predisposition to certain threats that provide true danger
Cultural components to reactions
Agoraphobis: Extreme anxiety in new settings beyond what might be expected in particular cultural context.
Most people who have a phobia do their best to avoid the feared object or situation. If avoidance is not possible, they withstand it, but only with extreme fear and anxiousness.
Biology of panic disorder
May be related to smaller amygdala which is involved in fight-or-flight response, fear and aggression, and memories associated with these emotions
A psychological disorder that includes recurrent, unexpected panic attacks and fear that can cause significant changes in behavior
The amygdala is involved in fear and aggression, as well as he memories associated with those emotions
A smaller amygdala could lead to dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system resulting in behavioral and physical symptoms of panic attacks
Remember, heritability explains the variation and risk among individuals in a population.