As a person who has experienced panic attacks in the past and overcome them on his own, my findings and suggestions
On my last two trips, my flights were delayed for 2–3 hours due to people who suddenly had a panic attack just as the doors of the aircraft were about to close and take off. The worst part is to spend this time in the aircraft.
As someone who has experienced panic attacks for a short time in the past, I have recently started to see that many people around me have problems due to panic attacks and sudden crises of the disease. I have even observed that their lives have become unlivable.
I am sure that you know someone with similar complaints around you or you have surely heard of someone who has problems with this disease from someone close to you.
Before moving on to the connection between smartwatch and panic attack and the findings I have noticed, I would like to briefly explain to you what a panic attack is as a definition.
What is a Panic Attack?
It is a sudden period of intense fear characterized by palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, numbness, or a feeling that something bad is going to happen.
The severity of the symptoms increases within minutes.
Usually, an attack lasts about 30 minutes, but this can vary from seconds to hours.
Fear of losing control and chest pain may also occur during the attack.
Panic attacks do not cause any physical harm to the person.
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_attack
My Own Experiences During Panic Attack Illness;
About 4–5 years ago, I personally experienced most of the symptoms you read in the definition above.
In that process, living with the fear of sudden crises as well as the fear of going into crisis again finishes all the concentration on life. Therefore, I know very well how bad the process is.
Today, in addition to my findings about the connection between smartwatches and panic attacks, I would like to tell you about how I overcame this disorder without medication and doctor support.
I hope that the methods I apply will help those who need and have problems.
Advice for Panic Attack Sufferers;
The simplest way to get rid of panic attacks during and before the crisis is not to talk about the disease in your daily life and not to think about the crisis.
During the crisis, you also need to immediately switch your focus to other things.I have a simple suggestion that you can easily apply during panic attacks;
If you make a phone call to a relative during a crisis, if you talk about something other than your panic attack and crisis, your attention will be distracted immediately and you will be seriously relieved.
I know it is not easy to stop the crisis immediately, but if you want to overcome this problem on your own without medication and without the support of an expert, I think there is no other solution.
This is a method that I found on my own and it works for me. Of course, you can consult a doctor according to the severity of your complaints and you can advance the process with the drugs and methods he will recommend.
Believe me, I can start a panic attack crisis by focusing on myself for 5 minutes and then I can get out of the crisis immediately. I know very well how the brain starts and stops this process.
While struggling with panic attacks, according to what I have seen both in myself and in my environment, the process proceeds as follows.I wonder if I will suddenly lose my balance and fall, or I wonder if I am having a heart attack with a high pulse by focusing on my heartbeat and feeling the palpitations deeply, I have pain and numbness in the back of my head, I wonder if I will have a brain hemorrhage, my left arm is numb, I will have a heart attack or stroke, etc. There are many ways of thinking.
One of them can be seen alone or all of them can be seen in one person.
Believe it all, your brain creates it all by itself. If you don’t think, nothing happens.
You need to know this very clearly. If you are someone diagnosed with panic attacks;
As explained in Wikipedia;
Panic attacks do not cause any physical harm to the person.
When you start to know this clearly and bring it to your mind, your attacks will be shorter and will disappear spontaneously after a while.
I say this as someone who has personally experienced this disease and defeated it on his own.
So you can trust me.
What is the Connection Between Panic Attacks and Smartwatches?
Let’s come to my important observation that I chose as the title of my article, As a personality, I have an incredibly observant nature. I always involuntarily make observations about events and human behavior.
I have always wondered what kind of reactions and behaviors people exhibit under which conditions.
I am also incredibly curious about technology.
Since my secondary school years, since the 90s, software, computer, coding, etc. I always closely follow all innovations and developments in the field. I also experience the products closely by using them directly in my life.As you know, smartwatches have become seriously accessible in the last 4–5 years. It has also started to be used by an important mass.
Since I am a curious person, I have used smartwatches from many brands (Samsung, Apple) since the first day.
I even switched to a different model and brand every 8–12 months and closely examined the features of smartwatches of many brands.
Since I am an amateur runner, I usually use my smartwatch to monitor my heart rate data during and after the activity and during the recovery process.
The moment my panic attack started was as follows.
I felt as if I was fainting after losing my balance slightly on a stretching ground. Afterward, I started to feel like I was going to fall and faint with the same feeling.
Therefore, I am sure that my panic attack process is not related to the watches I use and the pulse rate, etc. measurements I take.
Last week, I met someone who has been struggling with panic attacks for a long time. Apart from him, I remember that I have met and talked to at least 2–3 people in the last 3–4 months.
After closely analyzing the behavior of the person I met last week, the following suddenly came to my mind.
What are the Common Characteristics of People Who Use Smartwatches and Struggle with Panic Attacks?
Shall I tell you the common feature of all the people I see around me?
They all started using smartwatches a while ago. The panic attack complaint of most of them was also common as heart palpitations, high blood pressure, fainting sensation, etc.
The traumas of watch users were high blood pressure, palpitations, heart attacks, and fears. These are the equivalents of measurements/values that you can easily obtain from the watch.
These people did not experience fainting or falling fears as I did.
Their fears were usually linked to the measurements they obtained from the watch.
For example;
Thought of a heart attack (receiving irregular ECG reports and measurements from time to time)
High blood pressure (taking an instantaneous low or high blood pressure measurement from the watch)
Palpitations in the heart (taking a high or low pulse measurement over the hour)
While chatting with these people, they were often using their smart watches to measure the amount of oxygen in the blood, instant pulse heart rate, blood pressure, etc. depending on the features of the watches they were using.
I immediately thought about my observation and asked myself the following.
All of these people started to have panic attacks after a while after they started using smartwatches. Believe me, it is very unlikely that this is a coincidence. Because I know very well when my close acquaintances started using smartwatches and when the disease started.I interpret the situation as follows: These people did not normally know and measure pulse, blood pressure, and blood oxygen data. Only if they had a serious health problem, then the blood pressure would be measured with a blood pressure monitor at home or in the neighborhood or they would go to a nearby health institution and have it measured.
So what are they doing now, whether they have complaints or not, as they come to their minds or not, the devices were automatically measuring out of their control.
In the meantime, I am sure that these smartwatches have saved the lives of thousands of people and created awareness for the detection of many diseases at an early stage and the most accurate intervention.
Conclusion
My purpose in writing this article is to raise awareness about the need for society to use technology correctly and not to interpret data if they are not experts.
As someone who closely follows and uses technology, I only wanted to write my thoughts about my own determination.
There is no scientific evidence or explanation for any of my determinations.
After all, we can think like this. I also used a smartwatch when I was experiencing panic attacks, but my disease did not occur after I started using a smartwatch. Mine suddenly lost my balance and fainted etc. It started by experiencing a feeling.
Therefore, we cannot generalize this determination that if you use a watch, you will have a panic attack.
I hope that one day in the future, a research or a scientific article will be written about this determination of mine and we will read the share of truth.I hope that what I have written and my determinations about panic attacks will be a guide for people who have this problem.
