Breathing Exercise - A Commanding Tool for Self-help Management during Panic attacks

 

Vidya Bhagat¹, Mainul Haque², Kamarudin Jaalam³

¹Faculty of Medicine, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Medical Campus, Jalan Sultan Mahmud, 20400

Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia.

²Unit of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health, National Defence University of Malaysia, Kem Sungai Besi, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

³USM-KLE International Medical Program, Belgaum, Karnataka, India

 

ABSTRACT:

Panic disorder is a type of anxiety illness in which patient has recurrent attacks of a strong sense of fear that somewhat bad will happen this can also occur as a part of phobic disorders. Panic attacks commonly happen without any warning in an anxious state that causes an unpleasant, disagreeable and terrifying state in person. The purpose of this article to impart the knowledge regarding the correct pattern of breathing exercise that can help patients for self-help management during panic attacks. The breathing exercise is a powerful and straightforward tool for self-help management that can be used in any place when individuals become panicky. The technique reduces anxiety, lowers overall stress levels, and forces the body to relax, decondition the panic attacks thus bring back the hemostasis.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

Panic disorder is a type of anxiety illness in which patient has recurrent attacks of a strong sense of fear that somewhat dangerous will happen.¹ Panic disorder usually begins between ages 15 and 25. One in 10-20 adults have panic disorder, and women are twice as likely as men to get it.^{2, 3} A panic attacks enable one to react very quickly to a strong and imminent sense of threat. ³ The ‘fight or flight’ is the body’s physiological mechanism that inevitably activates when there is an actual or apparent threat to survival.⁴ The flight or fight response, also termed the "acute stress response" was initially pronounced by Walter Cannon.⁵ Human physiological system has evolved developed to stand for fight against or run away from the potential threat of survival as chased by another rival group or animal. This was quite common for our predecessor thousands of years back.

 

In the present time, human being rarely faced wild animals to run away and activate such response. Nevertheless, human being currently facing lot stressful life with several diverse reasons which often trigger the Fight or Flight response,⁴ especially those who lead extreme demanding life, sympathetic nervous system can send false alarm and potentiate acute stress and the Fight or Flight response.^4,6 Panic attacks are quite common disorders while facing a threat to emotional wellbeing. A panic attack is a gale of intense anxiety and abrupt onset of severe physical symptoms within minutes. ⁷ Panic attacks can occur without warning in a peaceful or anxious state. The panic attack unpleasant, disagreeable and terrifying state.⁷ In the present time, people in general people lead a stressful, and troubled life. Henceforth, feels threatened easily causing a similar fight or flight response.^8,9 The panic response can be ‘conditioned’ to be triggered by the situation or environment.^10,11 Consequently, experiences feelings of panic even in a comfortable, safe environment. ¹² Patients of panic attack should seek medical advice if symptoms continue after doing 20 minutes of slow breathing, feeling sick even after breathing returns to normal, the irregular heartbeat or chest pains, and panic attacks regular event.¹³ A simple breathing exercise can restore your comfortable breathing and compose many of the physical symptoms of a panic attack.¹⁴ The breathing exercises can reverse body’s natural reaction to stressful conditions than conditioned responses.¹⁴ However, it is essential to follow the steps of deep breathing. Though it is a simple and powerful technique if it is rightly performed and a powerful tool for self-help during sudden panic attacks. The breathing pattern can be diverted by focusing on slow, regular, abdominal breathing to reduce stress and anxiety. The technique involves training the person to breathe from their diaphragm.^{15, 16} The individual who suffers from panic disorders need to learn to breathe slowly and deeply, use abdomen / diaphragm rather than your chest muscles.¹⁷ This helps to be free from chest pain or heaviness. This chest discomfort commonly caused by tightened the chest muscles during shallow and rapid breathing in panic disorders patients.¹⁸ Panic attacks can lead to feeling dizzy because shallow breathing can produce the same sensations as hyperventilation, fast heartbeat, and numbness or tingling sensations in the extremities.¹⁹ Thus, utilizing simple breathing exercise can help lot panic disorders patients. Good breathing habits help the lymphatic system function suitably and direct its energy to more productive purposes .²⁰

 

Learn Simple Belly Breathing Exercise:

Place one hand on chest, the other on your abdomen; then take a deep breath hold for few seconds and then exhale. Here one can sense through our hands that which part of the body and which muscles are used in breathing. Further, continue to take slow, deep, complete breaths. Slow, deep, full breaths will relax your body, which is the first step to reversing the release of adrenaline. ²¹ Open your mouth and gently exhale, as you do, let your shoulders and the muscles of your upper body relax, down. ²²   This will help just to relax the muscles of your upper body. Close your mouth and pause for a few seconds keep your mouth closed and inhale slowly through your nose by pushing your stomach out/bloating it with air like a balloon.²³ The movement of abdomen precedes the inhalation, just to pull the air comfortably in as much as possible. Then pause for a while there is no specific count for it because differences depend on the size of lungs. Thus, break briefly for whatever time feels comfortable.^14, However, the patient needs to be aware that this breathing should be more significant than usual. Therefore, it's necessary to breathe more slowly than the typical physiological pattern. Inhale shorter than exhale holding breath for a while before exhale. This breathing exercise follows a correct pattern then it works as a powerful tool for self-help management during sudden panic attacks removes part of the anxiety, lowers overall stress levels, forces the body to relax and decondition the panic attacks.

 

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Accepted on 29.11.2017                           © RJPT All right reserved

Research J. Pharm. and Tech 2017; 10(12): 4471-4473.