Panic Attack

A panic attack is a sudden rush of intense fear that peaks within minutes. It brings strong physical symptoms, such as a pounding heart, breathlessness, chest pain, shaking or sweating, and often a fear of dying or losing control. Most attacks last 5 to 20 minutes. They’re frightening but treatable, and one attack isn’t panic disorder.

Also called: “anxiety attack” in everyday speech, though that isn’t a formal diagnosis.

For what to do in the moment, see How to Realistically Handle a Panic Attack. For chest pain, see Panic Attack or Heart Attack?

Signs and symptoms

• In the body: a racing or pounding heart, chest pain or tightness, breathlessness or a choking feeling, sweating, trembling, nausea, dizziness, tingling, and chills or hot flushes.
• In the mind: feeling unreal or detached, and fear of losing control, “going mad” or dying.

Causes

A panic attack is the body’s fear response firing without a danger to match it. Attacks can follow stress or a frightening situation, come with a phobia, or arrive out of the blue. They also happen alongside other conditions, and with alcohol or sedative withdrawal. In WHO surveys in 25 countries, about 13 in 100 adults had had one.

Coping and treatment

During an attack, stay where you are if you can, breathe slowly and remind yourself it will pass. Don’t breathe into a paper bag. If attacks keep coming back, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the recommended treatment, and a doctor may offer an antidepressant such as an SSRI.

In Nigeria

The symptoms feel like a heart problem, so going to a hospital first is the right step. Nigeria’s national survey found far fewer people reporting panic attacks than surveys elsewhere, which researchers think partly reflects how symptoms were asked about.

Panic attack vs heart attack and panic disorder

You can’t safely tell a panic attack from a heart attack at home; doctors need tests such as an ECG. A panic attack also isn’t the same as panic disorder, which means repeated, unexpected attacks followed by weeks of worry about more attacks, or by avoidance.

When to get help

Chest pain, breathlessness that doesn’t settle, fainting, or a first or different attack needs urgent medical help: call 112, or 767 in Lagos, or get someone to take you to the nearest emergency unit. Don’t drive yourself. Once a doctor has checked you, a licensed therapist on Mytherapist.ng who works with anxiety and panic attacks can help if attacks keep returning.

Read next

• How to Realistically Handle a Panic Attack
• Panic Attack or Heart Attack?
• Anxiety: the full guide
• Panic Disorder: When Panic Keeps Returning

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This entry is awaiting clinical review. It’s based on published research and health guidelines, and we’ll update it once a clinician has reviewed it.