One of the leading causes of death among men and women across the world is heart attack. Anxiety attack is essentially different from heart attacks but sometimes a history of anxiety attacks can be an underlying cause for chronic heart disease or heart attacks. Now, it has been established that heart attacks and anxiety attacks are closely related.
It is not easy to identify the difference between an anxiety attack and heart attack. An anxiety attack can increase the risk of having a heart rate and vice-versa, i.e. people who have been diagnosed with heart diseases or have a history of heart attack often develop such heightened stress levels that they might suffer an anxiety attack, which again can fasten the pathway to the next heart attack. This suggests that anxiety attack and a heart attack can form an unending cycle. Heart attacks usually surface in the form of shortness of breath and chest pains and many times, psychological factors like anxiety and depressions are the contributing factors that can cause a heart attack in the long-term.
The preceding symptoms for both anxiety and heart attacks are the same. Both these conditions are preceded by a feeling of congestion around the chest, heaviness and sweating. Either type of attack can cause discomfort and pain. Approximately eighty percent of people having anxiety attacks have a rapid or irregular heart rate. Many of these people think they are on the verge of having a heart attack. People suffering from either type of health conditions are likely to complain about feeling suffocated, their pulse racing and their entire body sweating profusely. However, there is a major difference between the two.
For starters, the upper body discomfort is more pronounced during a heart attack. Anxiety attack symptoms are more concentrated in form of breathing problems and respiratory discomfort. However, there is seldom any pain. Heart attack symptoms are more likely to take an intense form, causing extreme pain. Those suffering a heart attack are more likely to complain about radiating pain that arises from the cardiac chamber to the jaw, upper shoulder area and inner/upper arm apart from the neck and jaw. While anxiety attacks might cause a short episode of diarrhea, severe abdominal cramping and pain-like contractions are more likely to be felt during a heart attack.
The biggest confusing factor that co-relates heart attack and anxiety attacks is the rapid breathing. This heavy breathing pattern is so similar among both these health problems that it is virtually impossible to differentiate between the two and this can be a fatal error. This is because while an anxiety attack might lead to cardiac arrest in the most minimal number of cases, a heart attack presents a high incidence of fatality, most times.
Perhaps, the most confusing aspect in this niche is a heart attack caused by an anxiety attack. This usually happens when an individual is an extremely anxious state and the body, rather than suffering a conventional anxiety attack, fast-tracks towards a cardiac attack. Apart from these similarities and differences, there is little connection between anxiety attacks and heart attacks.
A proper medical evaluation is the only way of distinguishing between the two. While a panic attack is confirmed by the presence of a number of symptoms combined together, such as chest pain, pressurized feeling on the cardiac chamber, shortness of breath and a feeling of dizziness sweating and palpitations, a heart attack is confirmed when the pain is intense and radiating in nature and is accompanied with numbness or tingling in the body.