Anxiety serves as our defense mechanism against any harmful object or situation. Also known as the “fight or flight” response, its purpose is to protect us from the potential danger. It doesn’t care whether the danger is a result of our imagination or if it is the real thing. Once anxiety attacks sets in there are several changes that happen in our body.
Once our brain recognized the danger, it sends out messages to the different parts of our body. Our heart rate will increase thus speeding the blood flow all throughout our body. This provides our organs and muscles a better supply of oxygen. Aside from the speed of the blood flow, blood tends to concentrate in the thigh and arms regions.
Another response of our body is to increase the accumulation of oxygen. This results to a faster rate of breathing. The oxygen is then transported to the different parts of the body. During an anxiety attack, much of the oxygen is given to the muscles. The increased oxygen intakes results to limited blood supply to the head. This limits the amount of oxygen going to the brain. Although, this is not fatal, it causes certain side effects. The side effects include dizziness, impaired vision, disorientation, confusion, and hot/cold flushes.
Our sweat glands are also activated as part of the response. It makes as sweat more. The sweat makes are skin wet and slippery, making it harder for someone easily grab us. Another reason why we need to sweat is to lower our body temperature and prevents it from overheating.
The purpose of having anxiety is to warn our body to provide it time to prepare. Our body turns into a fighting machine during anxiety attacks. Unfortunately, it cannot differentiate whether our fears are based on our imagination or in reality/
