Video: Anxiety vs. Heart Attack Symptoms

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Anxiety and heart attack symptoms can be quite similar, such as heart palpitations, inability to concentrate, nausea and intense fear. Find out how many people mistake anxiety attacks for heart attacks with information from a licensed mental health counselor in this free video on mental health conditions.

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Video Transcript

I'm Dr. David Thomas. I'm a practicing psychotherapist in Tampa, Florida with Whitford Thomas Group speaking to you today about anxiety versus heart attack symptoms. Anxiety versus heart attack symptoms. Generally speaking when we look at anxiety the primary symptoms associated with anxiety is you can kind of liken it to that your motor is just running way too fast. And so when you look at the symptoms associated with the body being kind of escalated there, often times what you see is nauseousness, heart palpitations, inability to concentrate or focus, sometimes it even affects short-term memory. Other symptoms associated with anxiety are kind of the fight or flight mechanism, so often times there's a very intense fear that comes along with the anxiety. Often times people go into emergency rooms with the idea that they are having a heart attack but in essence it's just anxiety symptoms. It's very difficult to differentiate between a very severe, intense anxiety attack and a heart attack. Certainly if you sense that you may be experiencing a heart attack you don't hesitate to call 911 or go to the emergency room. Because the only person who can really differentiate between that would be a trained professional such as an emergency personnel, or attending physician at the hospital. Certainly when you start having the symptoms if you begin to do some relaxation exercises, some kind of refocusing focusing on breathing techniques, if that doesn't seem to diminish or minimize the symptoms and the symptoms are still very intense then certainly just go to the nearest emergency room at least to rule out the possibility that a heart attack does not exist. I'm Dr. David Thomas speaking to you today about anxiety versus heart attack symptoms.

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Anxiety vs. Heart Attack Symptoms

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