Treatment for Panic Attacks and Panic Disorder with Long Island Counseling Services
Anxiety is not one condition, but many. One form of anxiety, known as “panic disorder,” can be particularly severe. A person with panic disorder experiences what are known as “panic attacks” – severe, very physical anxiety that often feels like a physical and mental health crisis.
Long Island Counseling Services has a team of therapists for anxiety that are available to treat panic disorder using a personalized and evidence based approach. We care about each and every one of our patients, and offer a wide range of services to help you find relief from your panic attacks. We have offices in Melville and East Meadow. Contact us today using our online form to get started.
About Panic Attacks and Panic Disorder
Anxiety is the activation of the fight or flight system in the body – the system responsible for keeping you safe from danger. It increases your heartbeat so you can run faster, opens your pupils so you can see more at once, causes you to sweat so you can keep cool when fleeing, and more. When a person has anxiety, their body’s fight or flight system reacts despite no danger present.
Panic attacks are an intensely physical form of this fight or flight/anxiety response. With a panic attack, a person experiences progressively stronger:
- Rapid Heartbeat
- Lightheadedness
- Feelings of Danger/Doom
- Weakness
- Fast Breathing
- Shaking, and More
Panic attacks also cause hyperventilation, which leads to other scary symptoms like chest pains. This is why, when someone experiences a panic attack for the first time, they may worry they’re having a medical emergency – like a heart attack – as the symptoms have similar symptoms, and panic attacks come with intense anxiety that makes a person worry about their health.
Panic attacks can also lead to additional, often strange symptoms over time. For example, a person may have eye pain, or trouble walking, or other symptoms that come from prolonged stress, breathing, and what’s known as “Self-Monitoring.” Ongoing panic attacks cause people to frequently monitor how they’re feeling and notice every single ache, pain, tinge, or discomfort they have, triggering sensitivity and fear that another panic attack is coming.
Panic attacks tend to first occur under times of stress, but once a person has had one panic attack, the fear of a panic attack is enough to trigger others. Sometimes, panic attacks seem like they come from nothing at all. The average panic attack lasts about 10 minutes before it “peaks” and then begins a slow decline in severity.
Treatment for Panic Attacks on Long Island
Panic attacks are difficult to control. They are also self-fulfilling, as the desire to stop panic attacks can trigger more attacks. When someone struggles with panic disorder, it can cause severe distress, healthy anxiety, medical concerns, and make it harder to leave the home. Some people’s fear becomes so significant that they develop agoraphobia – the fear of leaving the house.
Long Island Counseling Services offers therapy for panic attacks on Long Island. Our therapists specialize in teaching you how to remain calm, address setbacks, challenge negative thoughts, and even breathe healthier. We work on underlying stresses and provide coping mechanisms and techniques to reduce the frequency of panic attacks, and ultimately control them all together.
Long Island Counseling Services is here to help treat your panic disorder. We have two offices – one in Melville, one in East Meadow – and support clients throughout all of Long Island. If you are looking for panic disorder help, please contact our team today using our online form.