Blood pressure during panic attacks: a sharp jump, how to reduce it?

In medicine, panic attacks with hypertension are a complex symptom that is difficult to diagnose the first time. Basically, increased anxiety is observed in vegetative-vascular dystonia, hypertension and other vascular and cardiac diseases as one of the symptoms of these pathologies.

To avoid the development of such a phenomenon, it is necessary to know the mechanism of its occurrence, what causes contribute to its development, what symptoms it manifests, and what actions should be taken to relieve panic, thereby preventing its worsening.

What are panic attacks?

So, what are panic attacks, what is hidden under this medical term? Panic attacks are a peculiar reaction of the body to stress, negative thoughts and other negative emotions. According to experts, the occurrence of uncontrollable fear is due to deviations in the patient’s mental health.

According to medical statistics, approximately 5% of people have a predisposition to this pathological condition, and it is more often observed in patients 20-30 years of age, and in most cases in women.

Almost every person has experienced panic to one degree or another, which is a completely normal situation under stress. At this moment, a certain mechanism is launched in the body:

A sharp release of excessive amounts of adrenaline (stress hormone), which is directly responsible for the safety of the body, thereby turning on a signal that you need to save yourself.
Due to the increased presence of adrenaline, the heart rate increases, and the respiratory organs begin to work intensively.
Increased ventilation of the lungs and a decrease in the level of carbon monoxide in the blood fluid causes unpleasant symptoms, such as dizziness, numbness of the arms and legs, tingling of the skin and stuffy ears.

Doctors consider such a reaction to danger to be a normal phenomenon, since a panic attack is just a disturbance in some functions of the body, so it turns on the “emergency” mode.

Types of pathological condition

Experts call three types of panic attacks.

View	Peculiarities
Spontaneous	It occurs unexpectedly and without any reason.
Situational	It appears as a result of a stimulus - a specific negative situation or in anticipation of it.
Conditionally situational	It develops under the influence of some irritant, for example, coffee, alcohol, drugs, hormonal imbalance.

Reasons for development

Panic attacks can be triggered by:

Deviations in the body	Diseases
The cardiovascular system	Angina pectoris. VSD. Hypotension. Hypertension. Mitral valve prolapse.
Physiology of the body	Pregnancy. Postpartum period. Determined interval of the menstrual cycle. Hormonal surge in teenagers.
Endocrine system	Hypothyroidism. Pancreatitis. Hyperthyroidism. Diabetes.
Heredity factor	Genetic abnormalities.
Taking certain medications	CNS stimulants.

The situation is complicated by the fact that it is quite difficult to control attacks of fear, and not every person is able to adequately assess the situation when they arise, because at the moment they are driven by fear for their health.

What to do?

When a patient has a panic attack more than once, the pressure rises sharply and the condition worsens, you need to contact a specialist for advice. Such disorders are common among psychotherapists and psychiatrists. They refer their patients for diagnostic procedures.

In addition to psychotherapy sessions, psychotropic drugs, antidepressants, and pills to strengthen the heart muscle and blood vessels are used. During treatment, patients are regularly monitored by specialists who can adjust therapy if necessary. Thanks to such approaches, it is possible to quickly relieve symptoms and stabilize the condition.

Symptoms of panic attacks

The presence of the above and other diseases or conditions leads to the fact that a feeling of anxiety begins to grow inside a person, which he feels, not only emotionally, but also physically, which is expressed in the manifestation of symptoms characteristic not only of panic attacks, but also of many heart diseases:

Headache.
Nausea.
Chills.
Dizziness
Flushing to the head.
Freezing of the heart.
Increased heart rate.
Feeling cold.
Numbness of arms and legs.
Discomfort in the heart.
Sweating.
Heaviness in the chest.
Dyspnea.
Ringing in the ear.
Loss of orientation.
Frequent heartbeat.
Darkening in the eyes.
Loss of consciousness.
Increased tearfulness.
All-consuming fear.
Increased blood pressure.
Unreasonable aggression.
Pale skin.
Frequent urination.

It should be emphasized that the occurrence of pain in the heart during panic attacks is already a serious situation, indicating a possible complication of the pathological process.

Symptoms

Patients often anticipate the onset of panic attacks. This is expressed in emotional instability, mild anxiety, reactions to external stimuli, which are difficult for patients to cope with.

What symptoms occur during seizures: there is ringing and noise in the ears, limbs become cold, heart rate increases, dizziness, sometimes a person loses consciousness, skin and mucous membranes turn pale, headache, pressure changes.

Patients break into a sweat, feel vomiting, nausea, and a feeling of cold in the abdomen. High blood pressure during panic attacks is considered a dangerous condition. Hypertensive crisis often causes strokes and heart attacks. Panic and low blood pressure are also detected. This especially applies to people suffering from hypotensive VSD.

Duration of pathological seizures

Many patients are interested in how long such seizures last and how often? The duration of attacks is usually 15-30 minutes, but they can last several hours, and their frequency of occurrence is several times a day to 1-2 times a month.

In some episodes, anxiety attacks appear exclusively under certain conditions, for example, only on the street or indoors, before leaving the house or while driving a car, in a crowd or alone, etc. As soon as the person leaves the uncomfortable zone and calms down, the PA will stop.

How to help a person with PA

If you witness the development of a panic attack in a friend or stranger, help him ease the course of the attack and recover faster. The first thing you can do is to provide a flow of fresh air if the attack occurs indoors. While the neurasthenic can understand speech, you need to talk to him, convince him that nothing fatal will happen. If you manage to calm down, the panic will subside on its own.

Help a person during PA

Be sure to measure blood pressure. If the threshold of 160/90 is exceeded, the help of doctors is necessary; you should immediately call an ambulance. Secure the patient so that he cannot make sudden movements, risking harm to himself. Under no circumstances allow you to get up, much less run somewhere.

Having experienced a panic attack at least once, an impressionable person becomes afraid of repetition and withdraws into himself. This is an incorrect reaction, leading to fixation on the disease and, as a result, its return. It is important to explain to the person that an increase in blood pressure during PA is natural and does not entail major negative consequences. There is a high probability that once panic occurs, it will never return. The main thing is to correctly perceive what happened, not to get hung up on it, and to develop the ability to control your own reactions.

The relationship between panic attacks and blood pressure

Can blood pressure increase during a panic attack? Doctors answer in the affirmative, while emphasizing that such a phenomenon is considered normal, both from the psychological and physiological parameters of the body in people with problem-free health.

However, a completely different situation is observed when a panic attack occurs in a patient prone to hypertension. In this situation, the pressure begins to jump much higher than in a person without hypertension.

For a very long time, panic anxiety was considered one of the symptoms of VSD, and was defined as a “vegetative crisis.” However, today medicine is inclined to believe that the occurrence of panic is not a symptomatic phenomenon, but is of a psychological nature with quite serious consequences. Experts have proven that a jump in blood pressure does not provoke panic attacks, but is one of the symptoms of hypertension. On the other hand, frequent fluctuations in pressure can lead to more frequent and intensified panic attacks.

So, why does fear raise blood pressure, what factors provoke it? Increased blood pressure occurs for two main reasons:

Physical.
Psychological.

The occurrence of a panic attack can be caused by many reasons, however, as mentioned above, stress comes first, from which no one is immune.

Among other reasons, doctors name:

Smoking.
Drug addict.
Presence of depressive disorders.
Unpleasant deafening sounds.
Systematic intake of alcohol in large doses.
Intolerance to bright flickering lighting.
Inability to do great physical activity.
Long-term traumatic effects on the psyche.

In addition, there are also factors of an unreasonable nature:

Depression.
Tension.
Nervousness.
Apathy.
Insomnia.
Excessive sleepiness.

According to medicine, a jump in pressure during a panic attack is often a consequence of deviations in the performance of the cardiovascular structure when a malfunction occurs in the nutrition of the brain. In this case, the body seeks to eliminate brain starvation and begins to speed up the heart’s work in order to normalize the situation. As a result, pressure begins to rise.

Often, hypertensive patients find themselves in a hopeless situation when hypertension causes a rush of panic, which in turn also provokes an increase in blood pressure. For example, the emergence of irresistible fear entails a jump in blood counts, which significantly increases the risk of developing a hypertensive crisis.

During panic attacks, the blood pressure rises, the pulse beats faster, and if the patient does not know about the presence of hypertension, he may be afraid of such symptomatic manifestations, which further aggravates the fear syndrome, which leads to an even greater increase in blood pressure.

It follows that a person provokes a jump in blood pressure with his negative thoughts. People who tend to see the negative in everything should clearly understand the mechanism of the body’s processes at the moment of fear, learn to cope with panic attacks and competently respond to their occurrence.

Symptoms

Often a person who has suffered a panic attack (PA) has no idea about its causes.
The symptoms of neurosis, in addition to an inexplicable attack of poor health, are accompanied by a fear of dying or losing their minds.

A panic attack triggers a sharp production of adrenaline by the body, that is, it prepares the body for danger: the heart works in an increased mode, breathing quickens.

A person regards these sensations as a manifestation of serious diseases of the body (somatic), although in fact they do not exist. In the vast majority of cases, the symptoms of PA are similar to a heart attack, so the patient believes that he has developed a cardiac pathology.

In fact, this is just the result of a malfunction in the nervous system. Patients often experience nocturnal panic attacks with increased blood pressure.

The disease is characterized by the presence of phobic anxiety, manifested by various bodily (or somatic) symptoms:

rapid heart rate (tachycardia);
chills and sweating;
muscle tremors;
tremor;
hot flashes;
lack of oxygen;
spread of pain in the heart area;
stomach upsets (constipation or diarrhea);
gagging;
there is a lump (spasm) in the throat;
abdominal pain;
frequent urge to urinate;
the tips of the arms and legs “tingle”;
unsteady gait;
fussiness;
fainting state;
weakened hearing and (or) vision;
increased blood pressure.

In addition, the symptoms of panic attacks are complemented by psychological disorders:

a feeling of foreignness and unreality of the surrounding world (derealization);
violation of self-awareness, when a person sees himself from the position of an outside observer (depersonalization);
phobic fears of death and loss of mind;
confusion;
loss of sleep or scary dreams.

A panic attack is not life-threatening, but it greatly worsens its established rhythm.

Being in such a difficult state, a person realizes that he cannot concentrate on anything. Anxiety increases, and at this moment vomiting and uncontrollable bowel movements may appear. The patient wants to run and hide.

The attack usually lasts several minutes, maximum half an hour. Then the state of health returns to normal. But a feeling of worthlessness comes. A person thinks that in the eyes of others he looks like a coward. These thoughts haunt him and provoke a new round of panic.

The expectation of a recurrence of the attack forms a model of a defensive reaction in the mind - “avoidance behavior.” In this case, the person deliberately limits his stay in situations and places where PA occurred.

This obsessive state ultimately develops into phobias, which are also accompanied by depressive disorder.

The duration of the attack is individual and lasts from several minutes to half an hour. The frequency of the disorder varies from 1-3 times a day to once a month.

Any situation can provoke a crisis: being in a confined space or in crowded places, the need to speak in front of an audience, or traveling by transport.

Are panic attacks dangerous?

First of all, anxiety attacks are accompanied by the manifestation of unpleasant symptoms of a psycho-emotional and physiological nature. In addition, at the moment of panic, a person feels strong anxiety not only for his health, but also for his loved ones. Under the influence of negative thoughts, he develops an obsessive fear of losing his mind or dying.

Many patients prone to such manifestations would like to know how serious such a situation can be? Experts answer this question as follows:

During panic attacks, painful physical symptoms appear, to eliminate which the patient begins to take various medications without thinking about their compatibility. Such actions can cause significant harm to the body.
During initial attacks of fear, when its symptoms are very pronounced, frightened by his condition, a person calls for medical help and demands an injection to eliminate pain in the chest, shortness of breath, believing that he is having a heart attack. However, many cardiological medications have a strong effect, so their use in the absence of cardiac diseases is fraught with harm.
Manifestations of panic often provoke the development of various phobias (agoraphobia - fear of people, autophobia - fear of loneliness, claustrophobia - fear of limited space, etc.). Such disorders can lead to the development of other mental disorders.
The presence of fear can be dangerous not only for the patient himself, but also for those around him, because in the event of an unexpected attack of fear, a person loses control over his behavior.
Symptoms of panic disorder can aggravate the course of chronic diseases, for example, heart disease, gastrointestinal pathologies, etc.
The occurrence of uncontrollable anxiety is an extremely harmful phenomenon for pregnant women and women with small children, since a child, even an unborn one, feels the psychological mood of the mother.
The occurrence of unexpected panic against the background of the presence of other mental disorders can push a person to suicide.

From this we can conclude that panic attacks cannot be ignored; they must be eliminated with the help of a psychotherapist and medications.

How to bring blood pressure back to normal after a panic attack

Modern medicine claims: panic attacks are not life-threatening and do not cause significant harm to health in themselves. However, regular pressure surges are extremely undesirable. If panic becomes a frequent guest in a person’s life, sooner or later it begins to have an effect on the body. It is unlikely that anyone wants to acquire chronic diseases (such as hypertension, coronary heart disease or stomach ulcers), which, with timely treatment of neurosis, he could not have developed. Therefore, it is necessary to know at least a few simple techniques that can be used to calm the pulse during panic, normalize the functioning of the heart muscle and, as a result, reduce blood pressure to the usual level.

In order to bring the pressure back to normal, the following measures must be taken.

First of all, it is convenient to sit down - of course, if there are conditions for this, and you are not, for example, in a subway passage. But even there, you can try to create maximum comfort for yourself: gather your strength and walk to the nearest bench, or squat down, leaning your back against the wall.

Then it is recommended to breathe into the bag (if you have a bag at hand), exhaling the air completely and inhaling “half-heartedly.” A little oxygen starvation gives a jolt to the body. Start breathing deeply, intensely, sometimes holding your breath for a while, as when diving into the depths of the sea. The pulse should partially return to normal.

Next, you should close your eyes and try to relax (continuing to breathe evenly and freely). Massage the eyeballs with diverging circular movements, counterclockwise. Press on the temples, release, press again - and so on ten times, after which again do a light massage of the eye area.

If you are in a public place and someone whose attention you have attracted comes up and offers to help, you need to accept it. Another person will distract you from the panic state; his very presence will help reduce the level of anxiety. If it is obvious to you that this is a panic attack and not a hypertensive crisis, explain that you are feeling unwell (“sick”), ask for water (the one who offers help will gladly bring it, go to the nearest kiosk), just talk to him. Soon the blood pressure and pulse are completely normalized.

If a loved one is nearby, you should ask him to massage your hands, back, and scalp. Recommendations for women: if the hair on the head is gathered into a hairstyle, secured with hairpins, you should loosen them and remove foreign objects from the hair. It is also advisable to remove chains and beads from the neck, remove earrings and massage the earlobes. It is necessary to remove shoes, loosen belts and anything that compresses the body. After an attack of panic, until the pressure returns to normal, you need to lie down in a comfortable position, placing a pillow under your feet (so that the blood does not rush to your head), covering yourself with a light blanket. Chills and sweating are possible - then you will need to rub yourself and change clothes. You can ask your household members to prepare a clean, dry T-shirt and terry towel in advance.

Blood pressure returns to normal fairly quickly after a panic attack. Within ten minutes after the end of the attack it begins to return to normal.

It must be borne in mind that in the case of hypertension, blood pressure does not return to normal on its own, without appropriate medications - unlike a panic attack, in which blood pressure-lowering medications are not required at all.

How to control your blood pressure when you panic

How to reduce blood pressure during a panic attack? In the case when panic has already begun, doctors recommend taking all possible actions to prevent a further jump in blood pressure. So, what to do when you feel scared:

Ways to relieve panic	What to do
Eliminate the provoking factor	If the pressure is caused by a closed space or a large crowd of people, you need to get out into the open as quickly as possible.
Control of breathing (usually an attack of PA is accompanied by shortness of breath, at this moment the person feels as if he is suffocating from lack of air)	It is necessary to try to restore the breathing rhythm using a watch. Watching the time on the dial, observe the duration of inhalations and exhalations.
	Open the window to let in fresh air.
	Remove outer clothing that interferes with breathing.
Try to distract yourself	Looking at foreign elements of the surrounding area helps to get rid of the feeling of fear. For example, observing the flow of water, clouds, or simply counting trees.
Meditation Special exercises	Calmness of the mind and physical body during meditation suppresses anxiety.
Meditation Special exercises	Doing some exercises can also help you stop being afraid and even prevent future panic attacks. For example, you can do an eye massage (circular movements, lightly pressing on closed eyelids).
To take medicine	Corvalol, Valerian, sedative mixture.
Rest	Try to rest quietly, lie down for half an hour.
Rest	Try to distract yourself from obsessive thoughts, convince yourself that everything is fine.

Following these recommendations will help a person alleviate his condition at a time when blood levels rise due to fear. However, they are not able to help completely get rid of panic attacks; a thorough diagnosis of the body and competent comprehensive treatment are necessary.

Also important is regular monitoring of blood pressure, which is necessary not only when PA manifests itself, but also at rest. Such monitoring will help determine the operating parameters of blood pressure and how many units it rose at the time of alarm.

Which doctor should I contact?

If fear manifests itself frequently, it is necessary to consult a specialist psychotherapist, neurologist, endocrinologist, therapist, or cardiologist. The more accurately the provoking factor is identified, the more effective the treatment will be, the lower the risk of recurrence of attacks in the future.

Treatment of panic attacks with medications

Medications that can normalize the patient’s psycho-emotional background may be prescribed:

Antidepressants – means their long-term use from 6 to 12 months.
Tranquilizers - should be taken at the moment of feeling an approaching panic or after an attack.
Sedatives are used in the initial stages of PA development.
Neuroleptics - most often used in tandem with other groups of drugs.
Nootropic drugs improve memory and attention, help the body cope with stress more easily and subsequently resist it.

The following drugs are especially common: Valerian and Motherwort, Glycine, Validol, Persen, Afobazol, Novopassit, and the soothing herbal collection Fitosedan. They are sold in pharmacies without a doctor's prescription. However, taking such drugs will only help with the initial form of PA, since their calming effect will not be enough to relieve acute attacks.

Stronger drugs, for example, Atarax, Melleril, Phenazepam, Grandaxin, Gidazepam, are prescribed by the doctor after conducting an examination and collecting information about the disease. Self-prescribing medications is unacceptable.

In addition, the patient can simultaneously take vitamin-mineral complexes and dietary supplements, vascular and enzyme medications that can support the immune system and the cardiovascular system.

Preventive measures

Preventative measures will also help to avoid new panic attacks:

A good night's sleep.
Proper rest.
Physiotherapy.
Walks in the open air.
Balanced diet.
To give up smoking.
The use of vitamin therapy.
Timely consultation with a doctor.

With adequately prescribed drug treatment in combination with psychotherapy, doctors predict a favorable outcome. Competent comprehensive treatment helps to quickly get rid of the manifestations of panic attacks.

Panic when measuring blood pressure

Many people are afraid of cardiovascular diseases, which have recently become much younger. Heart attacks, strokes, and hypertensive crises frighten us, forcing us to be more attentive to our health and constantly check our internal state. Often, feeling unpleasant symptoms, a person immediately measures his blood pressure, getting scared in advance and tuning in to the negative.

Seeing slightly inflated indicators, the neurasthenic gets scared. This is how an unpleasant phenomenon is born: panic when measuring pressure, which makes it impossible to correctly evaluate the result obtained. By stressing himself out, an absolutely healthy person develops a fear of a simple operation. That is why it is better to trust medical procedures to specialists who will objectively evaluate the indicators and draw the correct conclusion about the patient’s health status.

Important: if panic only intensifies when measuring blood pressure, it is better to abandon the procedure.

Doctors offer a simple experience that allows you to understand how dangerous the changes are for physical health, and whether surges in blood pressure are heralds of a hypertensive crisis.

In a calm state, you need to measure blood pressure, without tuning into the negative in advance.
Hold your breath for a few minutes, then repeat the operation.
Evaluate the result. If the indicators have increased by 25-30 points, we can assume vegetative-vascular dystonia, but not a crisis. To accurately assess the result, you need to consult a doctor.

How a panic attack develops
At home, learning how to deal with surges in blood pressure during panic attacks is not difficult. The main thing is to get ready for a serious fight and learn to pull yourself together. Remember: a panic attack is more a psychological condition than a physiological one, which is effectively suppressed by self-control, the ability to remain calm, without succumbing to the onset of fear .

Self-help for panic attacks: thoughts and emotions

Recommendations regarding thoughts and emotions:

switch thoughts using distracting actions;
reconsider your attitude towards health and death;
determine with what thought it all began and prove to yourself the absurdity of this thought;
Convince yourself that you can live with panic disorder;
meditate;
keep a diary;
read a prayer.

You may notice that some self-help methods involve the body, emotions, and thoughts. For example, meditation. Performing complex breathing techniques not only stimulates the parasympathetic part of the ANS, but also changes the gas composition of the blood and switches attention.

Changes in one area lead to changes in another. For example, thoughts-memories of a pleasant event evoke pleasant emotions.

At low pressure

Such attacks usually occur in the morning or afternoon. Weakness appears, a feeling of heat and heaviness in the head, dizziness, blood rushes to the face, a feeling of suffocation, nausea, and sometimes vomiting occurs, abdominal pain and diarrhea bother you, break out in a cold sweat, the pulse becomes rare (up to 45 beats per minute) , the heart skips a beat - it feels like just a little more and it will stop.

— Take 20 drops of a sedative, such as valerian tincture. Keep in mind that some medications (in particular motherwort tincture) can lower blood pressure even further. They are not suitable for you.

— Open the window and lie down without a pillow, placing a rolled-up blanket under your feet. With low pressure, the brain suffers from oxygen starvation, and a horizontal position with elevated legs will ensure blood flow to the head and, therefore, improve your well-being.

— You can drink a cup of strong sweet tea or black coffee with sugar. Don't try to severely limit salt in your diet. It happens that to correct “collapsed” pressure it is enough to simply eat a piece of sharp cheese or salted fish.

To prevent such attacks, it is useful to take a cool bath or hydromassage shower in the morning.

How to deal with pressure surges during PA

It is impossible to independently combat changes in blood pressure in a panic state. One of the features of PA is the complete lack of control on the part of the individual. A person simply surrenders to the horror that has taken over him; help can only come from the outside. However, it is possible to prevent the development of such a situation.

It is necessary to understand the essence of panic. The phenomenon is unpleasant, frightening, but does not have serious consequences for health, both physical and mental. It causes serious harm only to hypertensive patients, and even then it does not lead to heart attacks - this is important to understand right away. There are no deaths after a panic attack; all such fears are groundless.

Having unpleasant symptoms, panic does not destroy the psyche and does not become a chronic disease. It often affects emotional individuals who react sharply to what is happening, so it is important to make it clear to a potential neurasthenic: nothing bad happened.

You can control pressure only at the initial stage, when the situation has not yet developed to the point of complete loss of control. To do this, a person suffering from PA attacks must:

if you feel an attack approaching, do not accelerate its development by disturbing others with your own condition;
Relax as much as possible, try to breathe deeply.

Proper breathing will help stop the attack: slow, deep breath, hold for 2-3 seconds, slowly exit with full concentration on the process. A special massage of the eyeballs and temples also helps. With the middle fingers of both hands, lightly press on the temples and massage in a circular motion for half a minute, repeat the same with your eyes closed.

Measured, correct actions prevent a jump in blood pressure, reducing the risk of uncontrolled development of a frightening condition.

How to deal with high blood pressure

Stress causes high blood pressure, what to do? First of all, you should reduce the load on the nervous system and note exactly when blood pressure begins to rise in order to eliminate the cause. You can use the services of a psychologist or correct your behavior yourself.

Yoga for hypertension

Stress resistance increases:

regulation of diet, sleep;
normalization of water and mineral balance in the body;
consuming enough vitamins to stimulate neuronal recovery;
the use of herbal decoctions that have a mild sedative effect (valerian, lemon balm, mint, St. John's wort, chamomile, motherwort, hawthorn, peony);
moderate physical activity;
soothing baths with sea salt or essential oils, but the water should not be too hot.

You can relieve stress and lower high blood pressure with regular walking before bed. It is strictly not recommended to take antihypertensive drugs during stress, otherwise you may lose consciousness due to a sharp drop in blood pressure.

Neutralizing stress