Understanding Panic Attacks and Anxiety Attacks
What Is a Panic Attack?
Panic attacks are sudden episodes of intense fear that cause severe physical symptoms like an accelerated heart rate in response to situations that aren’t apparently life-threatening.
What Is an Anxiety Attack?
An anxiety attack is a sudden episode of intense fear and anxiety that can cause mild, moderate, or severe symptoms like shortness of breath that gradually builds from an obvious trigger.
How Do Panic Attacks and Anxiety Attacks Affect Mental Health?
Panic attacks cause intense, overwhelming physical symptoms that create a cycle of anxiety that can develop into panic disorder, while an anxiety attack causes intense psychological and physical symptoms like chronic worry, dread, and muscle tension that can develop into more severe anxiety disorders.
Moreover, panic attacks and anxiety attacks can lead to a cycle of fear and avoidance that erodes mental wellness and your quality of life.
How Are These Conditions Defined In The DSM-5-TR?
An anxiety attack is a layman’s term for heightened anxiety and isn’t formally recognized as a distinct mental health diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR, whereas panic attacks are defined as a surge of intense fear or discomfort that reaches its peak within minutes and is characterized by four or more symptoms.
Some of the four or more symptoms associated with panic attacks include heart palpitations, sweating, shortness of breath, and fear of dying.
Key Differences Between Panic Attacks and Anxiety Attacks
How To Tell If It’s a Panic Attack or an Anxiety Attack?
Panic attacks typically happen suddenly and last for a few minutes, while an anxiety attack typically builds gradually and can last for months.
What Are The Key Differences In Symptoms And Onset?
Listed below are some of the key differences in the symptoms and the onset of panic attacks and anxiety attacks:
- Anxiety attack symptoms: muscle tension, disturbed sleep, restlessness, fatigue, irritability
- Onset of panic attacks: happens suddenly with no clear trigger
- Panic Attack symptoms: chest pain, hot flashes, shaking, feeling detached from yourself
- Onset of an anxiety attack: happens gradually with an obvious trigger
Which Is More Serious, an Anxiety Or a Panic Attack?
Both can impede your quality of life, but panic attacks are considered more serious because they can happen suddenly, they feel life-threatening, and can develop into a panic disorder.
How Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Differ From Anxiety Responses To Stressors?
Unexpected panic attacks are typically characterized by their brevity, severe physical symptoms, and intense fear without a clear cause, whereas anxiety is a direct response to stressors that accumulate over time.
Specifically, unlike unexpected panic attacks, an anxiety attack typically stems from a stressful situation or specific worries that are reflected by a range of different emotions and physical sensations.
Symptoms of Panic Attacks vs Anxiety Attacks
What Does a Panic Attack Feel Like vs. an Anxiety Attack?
Panic attacks often make you feel like you’re having a heart attack or another life-threatening medical emergency, while an anxiety attack feels like an emotional overload of overwhelming feelings of distress, fear, worry, and other negative thoughts.
Additionally, the sense of physical danger caused by panic attacks fills you with dread, fear of dying or losing control, and leaves you feeling disconnected.
What Physical Symptoms Occur During Panic Attacks and Anxiety Attacks?
Some of the common physical symptoms of panic attacks and anxiety attacks include:
- Anxiety attacks: heart palpitations, muscle tension, shortness of breath, fatigue, headache
- Panic attacks: racing heart, chest pain, hyperventilating, sweating, chills, nausea
How Do Heart Rate, Chest Pain, and Shortness of Breath Present?
During panic attacks your heart rate presents a rapid increase of the heart rate in a few minutes; chest pain presents as a sharp, shooting, or stabbing pain in the middle of your chest, and shortness of breath presents as difficulty breathing from taking rapid, shallow breaths or hyperventilating.
Causes and Triggers
What Causes Panic Attacks and Anxiety Attacks?
Some of the causes of panic attacks and anxiety attacks include:
- Panic attacks: chemical imbalance, family history of anxiety disorders, major life stressors, history of trauma, or mental health conditions like depression
- Anxiety disorder: anxiety disorders, specific situations like social situations, life stressors, traumatic experiences, family history of anxiety disorders, patterns of negative thoughts
How Do Stressful Situations and Social Situations Trigger Symptoms?
Stressful situations or social situations can trigger panic and anxiety symptoms by activating your body’s fight-or-flight response.
Your fight-or-flight response reacts to the stress and anxiety these situational stressors bring up by releasing different hormones that prepare the body for what it perceives as threats. Those stress responses manifest as physical and emotional reactions seen in panic and anxiety attacks, like shortness of breath, sweating, trembling, intense fear or anxiety, and unhelpful thought patterns.
Can Panic Attacks Occur Without an Obvious Trigger?
Yes, panic attacks typically happen suddenly without an obvious trigger or warning signs.
How Do Thought Patterns and Negative Thoughts Contribute?
Your thoughts have a direct impact on how you feel and behave, which can cause a vicious cycle of panic when those thought patterns are always negative.
Negative thoughts like “I’ll mess up the presentation” or “I won’t be able to deal with these social situations” don’t make you feel better about either of those situations. Rather, those negative thought patterns make you feel more anxious and fearful, as those negative thought patterns bubble up as intense physical symptoms that overwhelm you.
The Role of The Nervous System
How Does The Fight-Or-Flight Response Affect Panic and Anxiety?
During a panic or anxiety attack, your body thinks you’re in a life-threatening situation, so it inappropriately triggers your body’s fight-or-flight response with intense physical symptoms like a rapid heart rate and shortness of breath.
Why Do Symptoms Like Hyperventilating and Lightheadedness Occur?
Hyperventilating and lightheadedness occur during panic attacks because they’re byproducts of the physical symptoms of the fight-or-flight response, like shortness of breath.
When you panic, you feel like you can’t breathe, which can lead to rapid breathing in an effort to catch your breath. However, rapid breathing can turn into hyperventilating, which makes you expel too much carbon dioxide as you breathe too quickly or deeply. Those lower levels of carbon dioxide in your blood, in turn, make you feel a variety of other physical symptoms like lightheadedness.
How Does The Nervous System Respond To Perceived Threats?
The nervous system responds to perceived threats or stressful situations by, as Brianna Chu et al. note in “Physiology, Stress Reaction,” releasing a cascade of stress hormones, such as adrenaline, to trigger an acute stress response known as the fight-or-flight response.
This acute fight-or-flight response that the nervous system activates is a natural survival mechanism that enables your body to either fight the threat or flee the situation.
Diagnosis and Clinical Criteria
How To Diagnose a Panic Attack vs. an Anxiety Attack?
Some of the ways to recognize if you’re having a panic attack or an anxiety attack:
- Onset and triggers of panic: sudden, intense fear that often happens without warning
- Duration of panic: quickly peaks in 15 to 20 minutes
- Panic symptoms: chest pain, dizziness, fear of dying, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate
- Onset and triggers of anxiety: gradual buildup over time and often triggered by stressors
- Duration of anxiety: anxiety symptoms can last for weeks or months
- Anxiety symptoms: heart palpitations, muscle tension, fatigue, chronic worry, headaches
What Is Panic Disorder, and How Is It Identified?
According to Medline Plus, panic disorder is a type of anxiety disorder that causes repeated panic attacks.
Furthermore, a healthcare provider can identify panic disorder by the unexpected and repeating nature of the panic attacks, coupled with a persistent worry about having more panic attacks.
How Do Mental Health Professionals Use DSM-5 Criteria?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria that mental health professionals use to diagnose panic disorder include:
- Other potential causes for panic attacks must be ruled out, such as substance use, medical conditions, or other mental health conditions
- Experiencing persistent but unexpected panic attacks
- Must worry or fear having more attacks for one or more months following a panic attack
- Worrying about panic attacks leads to modifying daily activities to avoid more attacks
When Should You Seek Professional Help or Psychiatry Support?
Seek professional help or psychiatric support for panic attacks if you are experiencing frequent and unexpected attacks, persistently worrying about having more attacks, and it’s significantly impacting your daily life and quality of life.
Impact on Daily Life and Well-Being
How Do Panic and Anxiety Attacks Affect Quality of Life?
Some of the ways intense fear or emotional distress and physical symptoms associated with panic and anxiety attacks can erode your quality of life include:
- Heightened anxiety: disrupts everyday activities, work, and social interactions
- Avoidance behavior: you stop going to places and doing things you may have enjoyed
- Social isolation: disrupts relationships and increases loneliness
- Erodes mental health and wellness: risk of co-occurring mental health conditions
Can These Conditions Interfere With Daily Life and Functioning?
Yes, the intense fear and physical symptoms of panic attacks and anxiety attacks can significantly interfere with functioning and daily life.
How Do They Impact Work, Relationships, and Social Situations?
Panic and anxiety attacks can cause heightened anxiety and avoidance behaviors, which can lead to challenges at work, in your relationships, and in social situations like:
- Misunderstandings, poor emotional connection, and relationship conflict
- Frequent absences from work and missed opportunities for promotions and connections
- Difficulty concentrating, completing tasks, and communicating
Treatment Options for Panic and Anxiety
What Treatment Options Are Available for Panic and Anxiety Disorders?
Listed below are some of the best treatment options for panic disorder and other anxiety disorders:
- Psychotherapy or talk therapy
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
- Medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and benzodiazepines
- Grounding techniques, relaxation techniques, and breathing exercises, such as deep breathing
- Physical activity, a balanced diet, and other self-care strategies
How Does Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Help?
CBT is effective for panic disorder and other anxiety disorders like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) because it helps identify and modify negative thought patterns that contribute to heightened anxiety.
Additionally, CBT teaches you how to build practical coping strategies like deep breathing, grounding techniques, and breathing exercises to manage physical responses to anxiety symptoms.
What Medications Like SSRIs and Benzodiazepines Are Used?
In addition to SSRIs like sertraline and benzodiazepines like lorazepam, beta-blockers and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) like duloxetine are also used to treat panic disorder and other anxiety disorders.
How Do Psychotherapy and Health Care Support Long-Term Recovery?
Psychotherapy and health care support, like psychiatry, offer comprehensive tools to support stabilization, symptom management, and a strong support network to thrive in long-term recovery.
Specifically, psychotherapy offers specialized therapeutic support, community connection, education to understand your conditions, and building coping strategies to manage symptoms and change unhelpful behaviors. However, health care support provides medication management and regular monitoring to stabilize and more effectively engage in treatment.
Coping Strategies and Immediate Relief
What Coping Strategies Help During a Panic or Anxiety Attack?
Deep breathing and other breathing exercises, grounding techniques, progressive muscle relaxation, reframing negative thoughts, physical activity, and mindful meditation.
How Do Deep Breathing and Breathing Exercises Help Regulate Symptoms?
Slowing your heart rate and blood pressure, reducing stress and muscle tension, calming your mind, and relaxing your body.
What Grounding Techniques Help You Stay In The Present Moment?
The 5-4-3-2-1 sensory technique, progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and physical activity like wiggling your fingers.
How Does Progressive Muscle Relaxation Reduce Muscle Tension?
Tensing and relaxing different muscle areas reduces muscle tension by helping your sympathetic nervous system shift from its fight-or-flight response to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the network of nerves that helps relax your body after stressors or threats.
Lifestyle And Self-Care Strategies
How Can Physical Activity Improve Mental Health and Reduce Symptoms?
Reducing muscle tension, enhancing relaxation, releasing feel-good chemicals like endorphins and serotonin, improving sleep quality, and providing a distraction.
What Role Does a Balanced Diet Play in Emotional Stability?
A balanced diet can support brain function, mood, emotional regulation, and emotional stability by providing essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids and maintaining stable blood sugar levels with complex carbohydrates and proteins.
Essential nutrients ensure your brain has the necessary components, such as neurotransmitters like serotonin, to function and regulate mood. Stable blood sugar levels reduce mood swings that commonly come from eating things high in sugar and refined carbohydrates.
How Do Relaxation Techniques Support Long-Term Wellness?
Relaxation techniques reduce stress, lower blood pressure, improve digestion, alleviate muscle tension, improve concentration and mood, and enhance sleep quality.
What Self-Care Habits Help Prevent Recurring Episodes?
Physical activity, deep breathing, cognitive reframing, a balanced diet, sleep hygiene, mindful journaling, meditation, and connecting with a loved one.
Supporting Someone Experiencing Panic or Anxiety
How Can You Support a Loved One During a Panic or Anxiety Attack?
You can support a loved one during a panic or anxiety attack by:
- Engaging in self-care for your well-being and encouraging them to seek professional help
- Remaining calm, providing reassurance, and validating their feelings and experiences
- Learning to recognize early signs and discuss ways you can help them during an episode
- Clearly communicating and respecting their needs and boundaries
- Helping them engage in grounding techniques and encouraging self-compassion
Which Behavior Is Characteristic of Panic During a Crisis?
A sudden feeling of intense fear.
What Should You Avoid Doing During an Episode?
Avoid isolating yourself, hyperventilating, overthinking, or catastrophizing, and avoid coffee, energy drinks, alcohol, and drugs like nicotine.
When To Seek Professional Help
When Are Panic or Anxiety Attacks Considered Life-Threatening?
Panic and anxiety attacks can make you feel like you’re having a heart attack or dying, but they’re not life-threatening.
How Can Mental Health Professionals Help Manage Symptoms?
Our Alta Health care team supports symptom management with grounded, evidence-based modalities like CBT and practical, real-world coping strategies.
What Should You Expect From Outpatient Mental Health Care?
An accessible level of care from our Alta Health team that includes therapy, practical coping strategies, and wellness-oriented support for real-world application.
FAQs
Nightmare or nocturnal panic attacks can occur with no obvious trigger while you’re sleeping.
Panic attacks can peak in 5 to 20 minutes, while anxiety symptoms can persist for weeks or months.
Panic attacks can be a sign of underlying mental health conditions like panic disorder or other anxiety disorders.
Breathing exercises can help manage and reduce physical symptoms, but they can’t prevent panic attacks.
No, but the stress associated with panic attacks can contribute to long-term physical health issues like high blood pressure.
Yes, children and adolescents can experience panic attacks and anxiety attacks.
Racing thoughts, overwhelming dread, muscle tension, dizziness, nausea and stomach pain, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, sweating, chills, and tingling.
Understanding the difference between panic attacks and anxiety attacks gives you the foundation to make an informed decision about your current quality of life. With outpatient-only mental health care, our Alta Health team can answer your questions and provide the guidance and support needed to manage symptoms, develop coping strategies, and restore stability for long-term wellness.