Cognitive-behavior therapy can help panic attacks.
CBT works by figuring out what is the reasoning behind the fears and establishing the patterns a sufferer goes through.
Then the sufferer needs to learn to be less sensitive to the fear.
This may mean exposing the person to what they fear the most until they eventually no longer have this fear.
CBT for a panic attack can be a simple process or a very complex process.
It all depends on what is involved with the trigger for the panic attack anxiety.
If the person just has a fear of heights but there are no behaviors or emotional issues connected with it, then this person may only need to be exposed to heights.
This exposure may need to be repeated a few times.
If the issue is a fear of dark closed in spaces and there was an incident when the sufferer was a child and he/ she got stuck in the dark trunk of a car, then the issues have to be dealt with individually and as a whole.
Panic attacks are the physical manifestation of psychological fears.
The severity of the condition depends on what all is involved with the fear.
The physical symptoms can include but are not limited to shortness of breath, sweating, rapid heartbeat or the feeling of losing complete control.
CBT for a panic attack works to help the overwhelmed sufferer to overcome the effects of the attack.
Eventually, the attacks will lose severity until the treatment makes the attacks stop.
The panic attack sufferer needs to learn not to associate the natural physical symptom with a psychological fear.
This means that if their throat tightens; it doesn't mean that they will not be able to breathe.
A good way to make sure that CBT for panic attacks works is to start a journal.
Write down everything that you can about how you are feeling, what you think triggered an attack or anything else that you think is important.
By keeping track of how you feel and how you respond to situations, you can learn and understand what needs to be done to be able to overcome panic attacks.
When you are suffering through a panic attack it is hard to think clearly about the situation.
Everything seems real, for that moment, and the fears seem real.
Later when you are no longer having a panic attack; you can rationalize your feelings about what happened.
During an attack, this is nearly impossible.
When using CBT, the sufferer learns how distinguish what is real and what is perceived to be real.
They learn how to cope with their perceptions and how to turn them around.
This is not something that will happen overnight.
It is a process that must be done in steps.
On each level, or step, the realization that the fears are not real dangers gradually starts to register on the mind.
When you fear that your throat is tightening so you are going to stop breathing, you actually will think that it is possible to stop breathing.
When you start to rationalize that you will not stop breathing, then you can actually register that your throat tightened but you're still breathing.
Eventually, this will no longer be a perceived reality but just a simple fear.
That's when the battle over fears can be conquered.