Why Do I Have Anxiety In School
There are many reasons you may be having anxiety or panic attacks in school.
Frankly, even without an anxiety disorder, an academic environment can be pretty nerve-wracking to boot.
Painfully early mornings fueled by anxiety-inducing caffeine, frantic attempts at time-management divided amongst countless assignments, and brutal late-night cram sessions fueled by more caffeine.
And dont even get me started on the stress of trying to navigate the hellish social hierarchy that is high school cliques.
Add to this the complication of having an anxiety disorder or, even worse, a straight-up phobia tied to the classroom setting, and youve got a recipe for disaster.
Its obvious why we might experience general anxiety and OCD in such a setting, but why might your anxiety be severe enough to have a panic attack at school?
Walk Or Do Some Light Exercise
Walking can remove a person from a stressful environment, and the rhythm of walking may also help them regulate their breathing.
Moving around releases hormones called endorphins that relax the body and improve mood. Taking up regular exercise can help reduce anxiety over time, which may lead to a reduction in the number or severity of panic attacks.
When Might I Have Panic Attacks
Panic attacks happen at different times for everyone. Some people have one panic attack then don’t ever experience another, or you might find that you have them regularly, or several in a short space of time. You might notice that particular places, situations or activities seem to trigger panic attacks. For example, they might happen before a stressful appointment.
Most panic attacks last between 5 to 20 minutes. They can come on very quickly. Your symptoms will usually be at their worst within 10 minutes. You might also experience symptoms of a panic attack over a longer period of time. This could be because you’re having a second panic attack, or you’re experiencing other symptoms of anxiety.
“My panic attacks seem to come out of the blue now. But in fact, they seem to be triggered mainly at night when I want to go to sleep but cannot stop my mind racing, experiencing worry and panic about anything that may be on my mind.”
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How To Help Someone Who Is Having A Panic Attack
- Stay with the person
If you can, stay with the person during their panic attack. Just by you being there, you can help them to calm down and remind them that help is available. It is okay if you are finding it overwhelming. You can find another friend, family member or teacher they trust to support your friend and you.
- Talk to them and encourage them
You can chat to the person about how they are feeling or anything that they like, such as favourite Netflix shows or their hobbies. This can distract them from their anxious thoughts, helping them to feel calm and to slow down their breathing. They might find it difficult to talk and might want to focus on their breath – thats okay and its important to respect their boundaries and how they are feeling.
- Check in with your friend
Even though your friend may no longer be panicking, they can still feel anxious or on edge afterwards. You can check in with them to see how they are feeling. This will remind them that they are not alone and you are there for them.
Talk about how you can support themIf your friend feels comfortable to, you can suggest talking about how you can support them in the future. This can be things like helping them find a safe space or finding breathing exercises that can help in the moment. This will help them feel better about coping with panic attacks.
Watch A Funny Show Or Cartoon
Another great way to stop a panic attack while high is to watch a funny show.
Stand-up routines, stoner comedies, or nostalgic cartoons are all great options for this method.
Much like enjoying snacks, the ability to appreciate humor is significantly amplified while under the influence of marijuana.
If you dont have a friend around to talk and laugh with , put on something funny to laugh at and your panic attack may dissipate in seconds.
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What To Do After A Panic Attack
After a panic attack, and once you have calmed yourself down physically and emotionally, take some time to learn from this experience in order to lay down a stronger foundation for the future. This period of self-reflection will help you to assess what happened, how you responded, and what you can do differently the next time around.
Here is a four-step process you can use to help you gain the most value from each panic attack:
What Do Panic Attacks Feel Like
During a panic attack, physical symptoms can build up very quickly. These can include:
- a pounding or racing heartbeat
- feeling faint, dizzy or light-headed
- feeling very hot or very cold
- sweating, trembling or shaking
- pain in your chest or abdomen
- struggling to breathe or feeling like you’re choking
- feeling like your legs are shaky or are turning to jelly
- feeling disconnected from your mind, body or surroundings, which are types of dissociation.
During a panic attack you might feel very afraid that you’re:
- losing control
- going to die.
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Try Muscle Relaxation Techniques
Another symptom of panic attacks is muscle tension. Practicing muscle relaxation techniques may help limit an attack. This is because if the mind senses that the body is relaxing, other symptoms such as rapid breathing may also diminish.
A technique called progressive muscle relaxation is a popular method for coping with anxiety and panic attacks.
This involves tensing up and then relaxing various muscles in turn. To do this:
What To Do Before A Panic Attack
There are certain things you can do before a panic attack strikes that will help you better prepare yourself mentally for whats to come. These moments you spend preparing can successfully desensitize you from the events, people, things and/or circumstances that might cause you to panic. In addition to this, the preparation you do now will help you handle stress, worry, anxiety and unexpected change with more thought and control.
Here are some suggestions to help you prepare yourself mentally and physically for the likelihood of a future panic attack:
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Learn How To Stop A Panic Attack In Its Tracks
Medically Reviewed By: Lori Jones, LMHC
Panic attacks can feel excruciating and painful. It’s hard to figure out how to deal with panic attacks when you experience them frequently. When a person has a panic attack, they might feel like they’re dying. People report that a panic attack feels similar to what one might imagine is a heart attack only it isn’t. You may feel shortness of breath, numbness and tingling throughout your entire body, which is extremely uncomfortable and can be terrifying. The truth of the matter is, you are not in danger even if you feel like you are.
Panic attacks are deceptive. Panic disorder is a completely natural body response that can occur on its own or is provoked by a trigger. You may have searched for panic attack help and been disappointed that you haven’t found a solution to alleviate your persistent anxiety this is understandable and frustrating. Panic attack treatment can vary from person to person, but there are things you can do to help yourself during an attack. In this article, you can learn how to stop panic attacks in their tracks.
I feel out of control
Anxiety Vs Panic Attacks
Anxiety and panic attacks are both very common. They are both often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed as medical conditions.
Anxiety is characterized by ongoing worry or fear about the future. With generalized anxiety disorder , for example, anxiety symptoms are present for normal everyday experiences and can create mild-to-severe interruptions in a person’s life. With anxiety, symptoms may be present on some level all the time or during specific periods of known stressors, such as during a public presentation.
Panic attacks tend to come on suddenly and can happen from either a calm state or a state of feeling anxious. They often occur without warning or a known trigger and bring a sense of doom, intense fear, and a feeling of dying.
Similarly, both anxiety and panic attacks have physical and psychological symptoms. With panic attacks, however, the symptoms tend to come on quickly and are often only present for up to 10 minutes. With anxiety, symptoms can be present for a much longer period of time.
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Understand: Panic Attacks Are Not Dangerous
Its important to keep reminding yourself that panic attacks are not dangerous. Yes, the body does some strange things, and it might even feel as though youre experiencing a heart attack, however, thats not actually the case. Your body is just responding to perceived danger by activating the fight-flight response. It notices that there is an emergency and it needs to make sure that you are aware and prepared to survive this encounter.
The excessive adrenaline that is pumped through your body at the time of a panic attack is what makes you feel on-edge and somewhat out of control. This is a natural and normal experience to a perceived threat. Yet, its important to remember that its only a perceived threat. You perceive things a certain way and as a result, you react accordingly. Therefore, it would make sense that if you perceived things another way, that you would react differently.
If you do end up experiencing a panic attack, keep in mind that they tend to come and go in short bursts. Therefore, its important to feel secure in the fact that experiencing panic is natural, normal, not dangerous, and wont last very long.
When To Get Help
See a GP if you’ve been experiencing symptoms of panic disorder.
They’ll ask you to describe your symptoms, how often you get them, and how long you have had them.
They may also carry out a physical examination to rule out other conditions that could be causing your symptoms.
It can sometimes be difficult to talk about your feelings, emotions and personal life, but try not to feel anxious or embarrassed.
You may be diagnosed with panic disorder if you have regular and unexpected panic attacks followed by at least a month of continuous worry or concern about having further attacks.
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Could You Be Suffering From Panic Disorder
Take our 2-minute panic disorder test to see if you may benefit from further diagnosis and treatment.
During the day if she was out, the attack felt like my head suddenly weighed a thousand pounds and my chest would get really heavy. It literally felt like something was pulling me down. I would usually have to head home immediately. I would then experience foggy vision where itactually looked like there was fog in the air. I also experienced double vision and parts of my bodylike my neck or one arm or one entire side of my facewould go totally numb.
In addition to the emotional turmoil and the physical manifestations that Caroline and Kirstie describe panic attacks can cause palpitations, pounding heart or accelerated heart rate sweating trembling or shaking sensations of shortness of breath or smothering feelings of choking chest pain or discomfort nausea or abdominal distress feeling dizzy, unsteady, light-headed or faint chills or overheating numbness or tingling feelings of unreality or being detached from oneself fear of losing control or going crazy and fear of dying.
Isolated attacks are bad enough. But when the attacks recur in a short period of time or when the fear of another attack is so strong that you begin to avoid situations, places, and people that may trigger an attack, you may be diagnosed with panic disorder.
What Happens To Your Body During A Panic Attack
Panic attacks are caused by a sudden surge of intense anxiety. This surge is activated through your built-in alarm system which helps you jump to action in situations that may be dangerous, similar to when a smoke alarm detects a hint of smoke.
Holly Brick, a senior well-being practitioner, explains how this mechanism, which can happen in a flash, is critical to your survival. She compares it to the ‘fight or flight’ approach used when humans would hunt for food.
“It helps push you to take action in life-threatening and dangerous situations. For example, think back to cave people times when they hunted for food. While out hunting, if someone came across a large and very hungry bear, this built-in alarm system would trigger a variety of complex and purposeful mechanisms to keep them safe.
“This could be to fight the bear with a sudden surge of adrenaline that pumps more blood through the body to the areas where it’s needed. Or, they might have assessed in that split second that they needed to get out of this situation, taking the flight approach. Again, the adrenaline pumping through their bodies would have prepared them to run while other symptoms, such as sweating, kept them cool. The third option might have been to play dead and totally freeze. This was sometimes the best option.”
We now live in an advanced society where we won’t usually have to fight or flee from a bear, but social threats present themselves in different ways.
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How To Distract From A Panic Attacks
The next time you experience a panic attack or intense anxiety, try to keep emotions in check by temporarily distracting yourself. The following is a list of some distraction techniques you may want to try when faced with overwhelming emotions:
- Count Your Breaths: Inhale and exhale, counting as one then inhale and exhale and count two, etc. Continue counting each cycle of breath until you reach 10. If you lose count, go ahead and start over from one.
- Use Entertainment: Read something of interest, such as reading a book or flipping through an enjoyable magazine. If reading doesnt work, you may want to try watching TV or a movie to set your mind on something else. Listening to music may help you feel calmer. Research has also shown that playing video games can be effective for distracting people from anxiety.
- Engage in a Relaxation Technique: Relaxation techniques such as visualization, progressive muscle relaxation , or mindfulness meditation can help you re-center and find a sense of calm.
- Participate in a Creative Pursuit: You may find that strong emotions are lessened when you get your creative juices flowing. Some activities may include making art or crafts.
Relaxation activities can help divert your mind and let you refocus on more pleasant thoughts. Plus, it is difficult to feel anxious and upset when in a relaxed state of mind.
How Do You Manage Panic In The Long Term
Therapy can be very helpful for panic attacks. Identifying and reworking or replacing problematic thoughts is often a very effective tool for reducing symptoms, as is learning how to deal with intense feelings in more helpful ways. It can also be useful to identify ways to systematically reintroduce important activities and scenarios in your life that you have avoided because of panic.
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How To Stop A Weed Panic Attack While High: 14 Tricks
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The first time I took an edible, I wasnt even slightly prepared for the journey it took me on. I went through every emotion from giggly and euphoric, to confused and terrified. Since youre here, youre probably wondering the same thing I was: How do you stop a weed induced panic attack while high?
Boy, did I have fun researching this article. Most people feel more relaxed when high, but is it any surprise that panic attacks and anxiety can manage to ruin even this for us?
Keep reading, and Ill go over absolutely everything you need to know about weed panic attacks and how to stop a panic attack while high.
Lets dive right in!
Is It Panic Disorder
If you feel constantly stressed and anxious, particularly about when your next panic attack may be, you may have panic disorder.
People with panic disorder may avoid situations that might cause a panic attack. They may also fear and avoid public spaces .
“There’s no quick fix, but if your attacks are happening time after time, seek medical help,” says Professor Salkovskis.
Read more about panic attacks, including personal stories, at See Me Scotland.
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What Is An Anxiety Attack
Anxiety attacks, also known as panic attacks, are episodes of intense panic or fear. They usually occur suddenly and without warning. Sometimes theres an obvious triggergetting stuck in an elevator, for example, or thinking about the big speech you have to givebut in other cases, the attacks come out of the blue.
Anxiety attacks usually peak within 10 minutes, and they rarely last more than 30 minutes. But during that short time, you may experience terror so severe that you feel as if youre about to die or totally lose control. The physical symptoms are themselves so frightening that many people think theyre having a heart attack. After an anxiety attack is over, you may worry about having another one, particularly in a public place where help isnt available or you cant easily escape.