Why Natural Remedies Are So Important For Panic Attacks
There’s an unspoken war going on between drug companies and herbal medicine. Both argue that their products are more important for combating various diseases or mental health problems, leaving the consumer to decide who they want to trust – the drug companies, or the herbal medicine companies.
Often the discussion is about what works best/safest on your body. But that’s not the only consideration to make when you’re choosing between the two options. Sometimes the reason you have to choose one over the other is because only one option makes sense. This is the case with panic attacks.
Curing Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are a sense of severe physical panic. They often feel like something is very physically wrong with your body. Depending on the severity, the panic attack can feel simply like severe anxiety, or it can feel like a heart attack. Many people describe panic attacks as “feeling like you’re dying” and yet if you go to the doctor you’ll find that nothing is physically wrong with you.
Panic attacks are a serious problem. And yet panic attacks are also self-fulfilling. Once you’ve experienced a panic attack, you become hyper-sensitive to your own body’s responses. A little bit of anxiety, or a mild pain, or even the fear that you may get a panic attack can actually trigger another panic attack, because those that experience panic attacks think too much about whether or not another is coming, and ultimately trigger one themselves.
Why Western Medicine Can’t Work
This is the reason that pharmaceutical medicine isn’t an acceptable choice for panic attacks – because they can’t cure the way you think. Most doctors prescribe hefty tranquilizers that make it so that you cannot get anxious or excitable. These tranquilizers can actually change your personality, make it hard for you to think, and may be addictive and/or dangerous. Yet they do still stop your panic attacks from occurring, albeit with numerous side effects.
But there’s a problem – you cannot “cure” a thought, and thoughts are what trigger panic attacks. So while you may put the panic attacks on hold while you take your pharmaceutical medicines, it’s essentially a guarantee that as soon as you stop taking the medication you’ll have a panic attack again. Why? Because you’ll be worried that a panic attack will be coming, and you’ll accidentally trigger one. Indeed, the way our body responds when there is no longer any tranquilizer in your system (with more energy than you experienced in a long time) will likely trigger one of these panic attacks.
You also cannot take these tranquilizers forever. Not only are they terrible for your body, but they make it extremely hard to have any emotion, experience any happiness, or even perform the smallest physical tasks. Tranquilizers were not meant to be taken over an extended period of time, so you will have to get off the medicine. Overall, you may get temporary relief, but it will be at the expense of your health and happiness with no ability to cure the disorder.
Why Herbal Medicine Does Work
With herbal supplements including kava and passionflower, you won’t have this same experience. These herbs are known to relieve anxiety, which helps calm your mind and body, but they do this without changing your personality or bogging you down with heavy tranquilizers.
While you use this medicine, you can work on panic attack coping skills, and take the necessary steps to ultimately relieve your panic. Like pharmaceutical medicine, these herbs are not a panic or anxiety cure. But they can relieve the panic attack symptoms for much, much longer, you don’t have to stop taking them for health or happiness reasons, and you’ll have plenty of time to learn the proper coping strategies that will help you prevent panic attacks in the future.
For panic attacks, just like for other mental health conditions, it’s not always a matter of which you believe in the herbal vs. pharmaceutical war. Sometimes the answer is right in front of you, because it’s the only choice that makes sense. That is the case for panic attacks, where only herbal supplements make sense as a potential treatment option.
About the Author: Ryan Rivera is an herbal supplement enthusiast that used to suffer from constant panic attacks before finding ways to recover. He writes about anxiety and panic at www.calmclinic.com.




