Lorna Thorpe suffers from chronic panic and anxiety attacks. She writes in her journal, “It’s around midnight and I’m laying awake, finger on my pulse, afraid to go to sleep in case I never wake up. I’m not having palpitations, but I’m uncomfortably aware of my heartbeat and the physical presence of my heart in my chest.” She wonders if she should call a friend or go to the emergency room. She also wonders if she will burn to death in her sleep since there is a 1/10,000 risk that this could happen. She couldn’t find recent statistics on how many people die from heart attacks in their sleep but she checks her heart rate and contemplates dying anyway. At age 50 Lorna did have a heart attack. Lucky to have survived, she’s now redirected her attention toward understanding panic anxiety and exploring the link between incessant worrying and heart failure.
The life of a person suffering from attacks of stress and anxiety is full of relentless suffering. The individual feels constantly pumped up with stress, lurching from one manic rollercoaster to the next. Sometimes a specific event will trigger the panic anxiety, such as a sudden change in work responsibilities, hearing of someone’s illness, watching a news story about an assault or burglary on the news or sitting in standstill rush hour traffic. Following the event, the person may feel out of control for ten to thirty minutes, or it could spill over into the entire weekend, waxing and waning. Sometimes the panic attacks anxiety came out of nowhere and butterflies would appear in the stomach while putting on makeup, making a cup of tea or trying to fall asleep at night. Anxiety attack patients feel light-headed, confused, short of breath, sweaty and their limbs may go numb. They wonder if it will ever end or if they are crazy or if this stress can cause heart attacks?
A study from 1986 to 2008 published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that heart attacks and anxiety attacks were linked. The study looked at 735 American middle-aged men who had good cardiovascular health at the start of the study. They measured four anxiety scales looking at obsessive or compulsive thoughts, introversion and social exclusion and phobias, as well as tension and physical reactions like nausea or the propensity to hyperventilate in response to stress. Men who scored in the top 15% on any of the four scales had a 30-40% greater chance of a heart attack than their cohorts who had less anxiety. The researchers concluded that the link between panic attack anxiety and heart disease is by no means straightforward, but it will continue to be the focus of rigorous study.
Many people confuse heart and anxiety attacks because they feel so similar. According to the American Heart Association, heart attack victims will feel uncomfortable pressure/fullness/squeezing/pain in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes. They will feel pain extending to the shoulders, neck or down the left arm, and sweating, dizziness, nausea and shortness of breath also occur. The American Psychiatric Association says panic attack anxiety creates shortness of breath, chest pressure, dizziness, sweating, an accelerated heart rate, nausea, numbness in the arms, hot flashes or chills and the fear of death, going crazy or losing control. Since the two are very similar, people are advised to visit a hospital right away.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Post a Comment