What is a "panic attack"?

What is a "panic attack"?

Christopher Reist (Academic Psychiatrist, Co-Author of “Psychiatry”) gives expert video advice on: What are the common treatments for panic disorder?; Is there anything I can do to avoid developing panic disorder? and more...

A panic attack develops unexpectedly and peaks over the course of approximately ten minutes. The symptoms of panic attacks can be broken into physical symptoms and cognitive symptoms. The physical symptoms can include cardiac symptoms such as palpitations, increased heart rate; you can have shortness of breath and symptoms of choking. There can be abdominal discomfort or nausea and some people experience flushing or dizziness. The cognitive symptoms include the fear of losing control, that you're going out of your mind. If you're having a lot of those cardiac symptoms you might actually fear that you're dying, that you're having a heart attack. Sometimes this results in going to the emergency room and in some cases people experience periods of derealization, where they feel disconnected from their surroundings.