Symptoms of Panic Attacks

When somebody is experiencing a panic attack, they are feeling extreme anxiety about something. The onset of it is abrupt and the symptoms of a panic attack are immense. Some panic attack sufferers believe that what they have is a heart attack or that the feelings they are experiencing will lead to a heart attack. They also might be thinking that they are dying. While people do not typically die from panic attacks, the symptoms are intense.

Panic attack symptoms can appear very sudden without any real cause. Its symptoms can be felt within the body as it reacts to an unmanageable fear like pounding or racing heart, chest pains or difficulty breathing, stomach upset or nausea, dizziness, lightheadedness, tingling or numbness in the hands, hot flashes or chills. The symptoms can also be felt inside the mind by experiencing a dreamlike sensation, the feeling of terror, a great desire to escape, the fear of loosing control or doing something embarrassing or the fear of dying.

A key symptom of a panic disorder is the fear that there might be future panic attacks. Majority of individuals who have had one panic attack are likely to have another. The fear of experiencing an attack again will make the person to avoid places and situations where an attack has occurred in the past or where they believe an attack may occur. They might develop a phobia about these situations. Panic attacks are different from other types of anxiety because they can happen so suddenly and of course, not expected. They can happen without being provoked and are often times disabling. The panic attacks themselves can be a sign of an anxiety disorder. Once in a pattern of anxiety and avoidance, the person is said to suffer from a panic disorder. A Panic disorder can have a serious change on an individual’s daily life unless the person gets effective treatment. Panic attacks are serious health problems that 1.7% or 3 million of adult Americans suffer from it at some point in their lives. The summit age at which an individual might experience their first panic attack is between the ages of 15 and 19.

A panic attack will normally last for several minutes and is one of the most distressing conditions that a person can ever experience. Because its symptoms can closely mimic those of a heart attack, the individual fears the attack itself by thinking that what is happening to their bodies will lead to death. Panic attacks can even occur while an individual is sleeping as well. These are nocturnal panic attacks but they occur far less often compare to panic attacks during the day. 40%-70% of individuals who experienced daytime panic attacks will likely suffer from nocturnal panic attacks. These attacks tend to cause victims to wake suddenly from sleep in a state of sudden anxiety through no apparent cause and can have all the other symptoms of a panic attack. Although nocturnal panic attacks tend to stay just less than 10 minutes, the time that it takes to fully calm down after such an experience can be much longer.

While typically, individuals tend to suffer in certain different ways when it comes to panic attacks, the symptoms for all individuals fall into the same state of mind; an uncontrollable fear.