29. Panic Attack or Heart Attack? How to Tell the Difference.

Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology and a former anxiety sufferer turned anxiety freedom Rebel. This is Dr. Nicole, and today we're going to talk about is it a panic attack or is it a heart attack? And I'm going to teach you how to tell the difference. Stay around to the end because I'm also going to give you a well, what do I do next? Strategy that's free and fast. So let's dive in. The question that I want to talk about today is that moment when you feel like your heart is racing and an elephant is sitting on your chest and you're asking yourself, oh, my God, am I having a heart attack? Or. Or is this an anxiety attack or a panic attack? And so we're gonna learn the difference. And where I wanna start is we're gonna first get into eight signs that it's a panic attack, and then we're gonna talk about eight signs that it's a heart attack. I'm gonna tell you how to tell the difference, and then I'm gonna tell you what you do with that. And so let's start with just a quick disclaimer. And the most important thing is if you are ever worried that you're having a heart attack is call 911. When in doubt, call 911. And while I'm going to give you some really good guidelines and tools that come from reputable resources, everybody's body is different and everybody's experience is different. And maybe you have a heart attack that feels just like a stomachache, or maybe you're having a panic attack that feels just like a heart attack. So the most important thing before we dive into any of these details together is to know that everybody's experience is different. And while I'm getting these from top medical resources, that it's really important to consider yourself as a unique individual. Know your body, and when in doubt, always call 911 and know that this information isn't a substitute for seeing a doctor or a really good clinician that you trust. But it is going to give you really helpful guidelines so that you can start to be on top of. Of the differences between anxiety attacks and heart attacks, generally speaking. So eight signs. Eight signs that you're having a panic attack. The first sign that actually makes it quite different is that the anxiety can come out of the blue. You're not doing something that would typically trigger it. You're not exerting yourself. It's not like you're hiking or running up stairs or running a marathon or lifting or moving somebody, you, you're just hanging out. And it can come out of the blue. Oftentimes we're generally more stressed, like we're in school or we have a deadline or we're in a divorce or a worldwide pandemic. Those things will make us more stressed and make us more apt to have a panic attack. But typically panic attacks, they just come out of the blue. There's not a physical trigger to them. Right. And when we have a panic attack, the pain for panic attacks typically tends to be more sharp and stabbing in the middle of the chest. And the pain can be quite sudden. And then after 20 minutes or so, the panic attack will usually subside. It's self limiting, it will go away. You can have shortness of breath, you can have sweating, you can have tingling of your hands. Sometimes people will tell me their lips tingle, their face tingles, their scalp tingles, they lose feeling in their fingers. And that's all part of the fight flight freeze response set autonomic arousal response that we see in panic attacks. But the key is that symptoms will get better over time, typically again, 20 minutes approximately for most panic attacks. And I want you to note that having a panic attack, while it's uncomfortable, is not inherently dangerous. A panic attack will not cause a heart attack. So they're very separate mechanisms. In fact, your body is designed to have panic attacks and panic attacks and anxiety. And that fight flight response has helped your ancestors to survive danger. And so it's designed to be built into your body. And the biggest difference is context. Am I actually in danger and running from a hungry tiger, or am I just sitting on the couch, eating dinner, watching a show, driving my car, and then suddenly it's happening. So that's the key difference is context. And I'm going to tell you how to decrease the likelihood of having panic attacks. And I'm going to teach you exactly what to do if you have a panic attack. So stay tuned. The next thing I want to talk about though are eight signs of a heart attack. So with a heart attack, the quality, quality of the pain tends to be more squeezing, there tends to be more pressure. In women, it could be a little bit of chest discomfort that's quite mild, but more stomach upset. And with heart attacks, typically it will come either suddenly or during or following physical activity, like somebody's climbing the stairs. They start developing chest symptoms, shortness of breath. Other signs are difficulty catching your breath, feeling faint, you know, feeling like you need to sit down or lay down. Just like anxiety, you can have sweating, nausea, vomiting, numbness, tingling. But it's really important to keep in mind that in women, heart attack symptoms are often different than in men, and they could be milder. And again, it could just be mild fatigue, a little bit of chest discomfort, or maybe just stomach pain, stomach upset. And so as the symptoms of panic attack will go down after 20 or more minutes, heart attack symptoms will usually get worse over time. And they're almost always worse with physical exertion. Right. So there are two key distinctions in summary between panic attacks and heart attacks. And one of the key distinctions is the sensation is that usually heart attacks are more pressure and panic attacks are more stabbing. But really, we wanna pay more attention to the trigger. So heart attacks usually come during or after physical exertion, whereas a panic attack can occur at rest. And so if you're lifting, if you're going upstairs, and your symptoms start to get worse, then we might want to look more closely at the heart. And then the second is the process of how it transpires. And so a panic attack will come on suddenly, and then after 20 or 30 minutes, you'll feel quite a lot better. Oftentimes, one of the number one reasons that people go to the er, call the paramedics, is that they feel like they're having a heart attack. But then by the time they get examined, they're feeling quite a lot better. And they do the ekg, the troponin screening test, and it turns out it was anxiety and pan. Right? So symptoms of a heart attack will usually continue and may worsen over time, whereas an anxiety attack will usually feel quite a lot better after 20 minutes or so. So the question is, what do you do? What do you do next? I'm gonna give you three things. Number one, when in doubt, always call 911. While your symptoms may be due to panic, it's always better to play it safe and have a doctor examine you and make sure that your heart is healthy and strong. Second is to be proactive in your health. Go to the doctor every year, get a heart exam, get a physical exam, get blood work done. Because knowing about the health of your body, knowing about risk factors, will also help you be able to make a wise choice about is this a heart attack? Is this a panic attack? And also give you strategies to use preventative medicine to use good tools to make your body healthier. So if you're at a high risk for a heart attack, if you have really high cholesterol, extremely high Stress, if you're overweight, if you have high blood pressure, if you have a family history of heart disease, getting that examination from the doctor and then using recommended strategies to make your heart healthier will put you ahead of the curve versus if you don't have any cardiac risk factors. If you're athletic, if you're healthy, if you're using strategies to keep your cholesterols in the right range, keep your inflammation down, but you're really stressed and you have anxiety, it's more likely that you would benefit from tools that work on the nervous system, that work to bring down your anxiety, to work to increase your tolerance of anxiety so that it's not going into panic attacks. And number three is keeping that stress under control, which is going to protect your heart and your nervous system. Right? We want to keep it balanced. We want to keep you healthy. And using these strategies ahead of time will keep your stress under control, which will keep your heart healthy and your brain healthy, too. And this is where I can help. So remember earlier, I told you I had great free resources that I want to give to you, and if you're anything like me, you want results yesterday, and you're anxiously anticipating solutions that you can start employing as soon as possible. I remember being there. My anxiety used to be so intense that I felt this immediate urge to do something or anything. And a lot of the work that I teach is I try to teach you how to be empowered in finding your own answers and your own solutions so that you're not dependent on a pill for a nail, so that you're not dependent on sitting on a clinician's couch so that you're not dependent on the next solution and the next answer. And as I say that, I remember being in that place where there was so much desperation that I just needed something to get me from the red fight flight freeze zone into a zone where I actually had the capacity to deal with my stress and my anxiety. And if you're feeling that way, too, I've got you covered. So while you're doing the deeper work, we need solutions that work right now. And my favorite solution that I've been using with clients for over the past decade is called the Anxiety Breakthrough Wellness Springboard. It's free, and it has strategies that you can start using yesterday, and they work quickly. And so check that out. You just simply download it. There's a beautiful book, and there's solutions in there that are created for you. And these are designed for number three, right? To bring down that stress, to bring down that autonomic nervous system arousal to increase the health of your nervous system so that you are less likely to have a panic episode. So you can start using those right now. And make sure that you download that springboard today and take a look at it today. Because if you're also anything like me, you're like, oh, that's a good idea. I'm going to follow this post and I'm gonna do it later, but just do it right now. Click on the link. I'm gonna put the link in there for you, download it onto your computer, put it on your desktop, and look at it today. These solutions are free. They work. I've been using them over the past decade with clients with really good success. And there's really no disadvantage and no risk to getting more free information, especially if it's gonna get you the results that you deserve. I'm Dr. Nicole and my passion is to help people turn the page on anxiety to get their lives back from. And today we've been talking about, is it a heart attack or is it a panic attack? I'll also make sure to post this in a blog so I know there's a lot of information and you can go back and you could read that. We'll get that up over the next week. And if this is valuable for you, if this was at all relevant to you, if you can hit that like button because it helps the Facebook algorithm know that this is valuable and important and useful content so that other people can see it. And if you also have a hankerin you can and you want to hit that share button, that would be amazing so that other people can know that there are answers, that there is hope. And we get so many questions about am I, is my panic going to hurt me? Am I going to have a heart attack? What do I do? How do I know the difference? And so you just never know who may be wondering the answers to those questions where you could be making a huge difference. Thank you so much for reading, so much for listening, and definitely download that springboard today. Right now. Click the button. You could do it. Click it. It's free. And I will see you guys next time. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.

The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology. While these opinions are based upon literature, her counseling, education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological or other form of treatment. If you are in a crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you're in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole Caine is so passionate about people getting their life back. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. Stay in the con Dr. Nicole Cain about writing the next chapter of your life so that it plays out just the way you want it. Explore your options for working with her at www. Dr. Nicolecane.com that's Dr. D R Nicole N I C O L E Caine C-A-I n.com when you're there, be sure to take advantage of the Free Anxiety Freedom One week challenge. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the GET your life Back podcast. Here's to your next chapter.