Treating Anxiety Attacks - Options

By Greg Anderson

Anxiety and one of its key symptoms - panic attacks ? need treatment. The most obvious reason to seek treatment for anxiety is to eliminate the often crippling impact it has on sufferers? lives. An equally important reason is that without treatment, anxiety sufferers risk of developing even more serious anxiety-based disorders and behavioral problems. It is essential to seek an effective treatment for anxiety that will address current symptoms and prevent them worsening.

As with treatments for other conditions, it is important to find the right anxiety treatment for you ? a treatment that is not only effective but one you are comfortable with. The good news is that there are many effective treatments for anxiety available ? you have options. If one approach is not desirable or as effective as hoped, it is very likely that another approach will be.

Feeling positive and hopeful in regards to your treatment is a good indicator of the level of success it will have.

Listed below are the primary options for anxiety treatment.

Treatment for Anti-Anxiety Using Drugs

Quite a few different drugs are prescribed for the treatment of anxiety. These drugs are most often ones that are made especially for anxiety, and include Klonopin, Ativan, and Valium. Normally, the prescribed dosage is "as needed", but sometimes your doctor will have you take a daily dosage for mild anxiety problems. Sometimes, anti-depressants are prescribed for anxiety problems because they can have a positive effect on stress levels, but such drugs were not made for this purpose.

Using medication to treat anxiety can be effective, but it is not really a long term solution. These drugs can be very addictive, and should not be taken for extended periods. Additionally, such medications are not able to stop the core causes of anxiety, they just deal with the symptoms.

Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy for Anxiety

Hypnosis is a completely natural and for many, highly effective option for treating anxiety. Hypnotherapy combats anxiety by inducing deep relaxation, allowing underlying causes to be explored and responses to be retrained through hypnotic suggestion.

Ironically, anxiety can be an obstacle to the effectiveness of hypnosis ? sufferers find it more difficult than most to relax and ?give themselves up? to the hypnotherapist. Another limitation is that while hypnosis is effective at treating generalized anxiety it is far less effective (and potentially dangerous) at treating anxiety accompanied with acute panic attacks. In these cases, reputable hypnotherapists ted to accept patients only if they are also receiving professional counseling or cognitive therapy.

Self-hypnosis exercises practiced in the safe and familiar environment of home can provide some relief from anxiety but again, does little for acute anxiety expressed as panic attacks.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is often used in anti-anxiety treatment and is one of the more popular treatments today. CBT based programs help the patient to respond differently to their anxiety and panic attack triggers. CBT looks for the faulty thought patterns that allow anxiety to occur,and help the patient to change these patterns.

CBT can be effective for anxiety and panic attack patients, but it is a long process. Typically, CBT involves a series of mental exercises that must be performed regularly. While it does take some dedication on the part of the patient, this is a quite effective treatment. CBT allows panic and anxiety to be truly eliminated, so it is a cure rather than a short term fix. - 30309

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