Whilst there are many people that simply seem to take everything in their stride, with little fear, or apprehension, there are other people, who may, on one hand, be very capable, and controlled in some situations, but find that they seem to lose their ability to 'keep it together' in other situations. These people will feel varying symptoms from mild fear to full blown states of anxiety where they feel they may die, or be unable to control their breathing, ranging to full on bouts of panic, where they seemingly fall apart.

Sometimes, anxiety sufferers will have started to have anxiety episodes after a traumatic event in their lives, or alternatively,as a result of experiencing a deep shock. Just to add a little confusion to the equation, still, some others may have gradually formed the 'habit' of experiencing and suffering from anxiety.

A burning question for most sufferers would be, "What has caused this, and what can I do about It?" Naturally, I am only able to generalise in this article, but for the most part, anxiety is often the result of exhaustion, from either physical, emotional, or mental factors.

I hear you saying that most people have told you that it is about chemical imbalances in the brain. So what gives? The answer to that is relatively simple.

Whilst there can be cases where the chemical imbalance issue holds gravity, this is more likely to be associated with very much more serious illnesses, like schizophrenia. However, for 'normal', everyday people, it is usually the result of exhaustion. Now, I hear you asking about the issue of the sudden shock or fright situation.

To best answer these important questions, let us consider a scenario.

Imagine that a person you know starts to display symptoms of anxiety, where they start to feel uneasy, the breathing quickens, the heart rate speeds up, the mouth gets dry, and so on. If you look at their 'life situation' a little more deeply, you may find that at some stage, they experienced a fearful event in their life, or were stressed severely and so on. Even though the symptoms may not have started immediately, the stress of the 'event' in their lives will have built up over time. Ultimately, the worry, the time spent thinking about it, the concern, and so on, will manifest as either mental or emotional exhaustion.

They may also be genuinely hard workers, either mentally or physically. After a time, the effects of the exhaustion will build up, and show up in the form of anxiety attacks.

The late Dr Claire Weekes had proved, over many years that many people who suffered from anxiety were in fact highly exhausted, and for that reason, the symptoms had shown up. It also explains the issue very well in terms of a professional worker, as an example, being able to be very competent in a given work position, and still 'fall apart' in terms of anxiety and fear, when confronted with an external situation, to their normal work.

If we were to think that they were experiencing a chemical imbalance, as has been suggested by some observers, then that would more than likely affect every aspect of the person's life.

Naturally, the above article is intended as a general guide only, and it should be noted that there are too many permutations to consider every possible scenario. However, having read this far, it would be logical to suggest that there should be some next step to take.

I am not going to suggest something as ludicrous, as taking a long holiday by the beach, even though that would probably be nice. You certainly can do this as well, but for more practical purposes, I am going to suggest a technique that has been very successful with many sufferers for many years.

This technique centres on taking the emotion,the fear, and discomfort of your panic attack, and insisting that it come on, in a full force. Before you question whether I have lost my marbles, let me explain.

The act of bringing on, or demanding the anxiety attack, and all its related feelings to come on, is like demanding the path of least resistance in nature. In the same way that a river will flow around an obstruction,. So too, we should flow round our fears.

By bringing it on, you will actually recognise that the fear will not kill you. You will gain control, and by demanding even more, will actually reach a point where there is no more to be gained. In this way, as your body is now working with, rather then resisting, or feeling scared of a possible attack, you will learn to gain control, and know that you can continue in your life, in a productive manner.