Health Tips

Bodily responses to stress can begin a cycle of distress. Although the physical experience of worry, fear or anxiety is normal, panic and anxiety attacks can be alarming and can lead to greater levels of tension and worry if the reaction is misinterpreted or excessive.

The normal, muscular tension of the stress response can be misinterpreted as ‘Chest pain: this is a heart attack!’, or the respiratory changes might be misconstrued as “I can’t breathe: I’ll suffocate!”, or the light-headedness of tension might be misunderstood as “I’m getting dizzy. I’ll collapse. I’m having a stroke”. Alliteratively, the reaction might simply be “I can’t cope!”