In fact, up to 25% of people who visit emergency rooms because of chest pain are actually experiencing panic. Because of the disturbing physical signs and symptoms that accompany panic attacks, they may be mistaken for heart attacks or some other life-threatening medical problem. Fortunately, they can be controlled with specific treatments. Yes, panic attacks are real and potentially quite emotionally disabling. Panic attacks are significantly different from other types of anxiety, in that panic attacks are very sudden and often unexpected, appear to be unprovoked, and are often disabling. The most common age at which people have their first panic attack (onset) is between 15 and 19 years of age. About 4.7% of adult Americans will have full-blown panic disorder at some time in their lives, women twice as often as men. At least 20% of adult Americans, or about 60 million people, will suffer from panic at some point in their lives. These episodes are a serious health problem in the U.S. During the 19th century, panic symptoms began to be described as neurosis, and eventually the word panic began being used in psychiatry. In medieval then Renaissance Europe, severe anxiety was grouped with depression in descriptions of what was then called melancholia.

Historically, panic has been described in ancient civilizations, as with the reaction of the subjects of Ramses II to his death in 1213 BC in Egypt, and in Greek mythology as the reaction that people had to see Pan, the half man, half goat god of flocks and shepherds. Panic attacks may be symptoms of an anxiety disorder. Intense fear, feeling a need to escape, and palpitations are symptoms of a panic attack.

Nighttime panic attacks symptoms