Night Panic Attacks: Can People Suffer From Night Panic Attacks?

by Drofwyt Iamal

Posted on Sunday 9th of November 2008

Most people that have panic attacks have had a day time attack, but can you have night panic attacks? The answer is yes. Night panic attacks can happen all the time. The fact of the matter is that panic attacks as a whole can happen anytime. Whether it is day or night, or if you are awake or asleep. However, it is important to keep in mind that most people are unaware of night panic attacks, because they are far less common than the day time panic attacks that we see all of the time. Now let's talk about a few of the symptoms that you may have if you have a night time attack. After all, having one of these night time panic attacks is always scary, especially if you do not know what is going on!

First of all, you are going to wake up very abruptly out of a dead sleep. Most of the time, you will be unable to identify the triggers that caused you to wake up. You will then notice that you are sweating, a lot! Almost like you just had a nightmare, but you can’t seem to remember having one. You may also experience a rapid increase in your heart rate and even some trembling. Other people sometimes have a shortness of breath, and even the chills. This is something that can be very scary for some people to wake up to especially when you consider the fact that you most certainly may not know what is going on. If you wake up like this, chances are that you’ve just had a night panic attack.

So why do people get so scared from night panic attacks? The main reason why people get so scared is not because of the panic attack itself. After all, panic attacks are very scary, but they are not dangerous, and they are not harmful to your body. In fact, this is your body's way of dealing with stress, no matter what time of the day it is. What is so scary is that, most of the time, a panic attack feels like a heart attack. So when you wake up in the middle of the night with these problems, you think you are dying. The truth of the matter is that, usually, night panic attacks only last a few minutes (less than 10), meaning that it's over very quickly. However, it usually takes people a lot longer than that to calm down after such an episode.

Stopping these panic attacks can be hard. That is because researchers do not really know what causes these attacks. They seem to think that it can be related to heredity or it could even be from stress. The important thing to remember is that panic attacks themselves are not dangerous to your body. However, you should get checked out to make sure that it's nothing else. If it's just panic attacks, then you have to find ways to cope with it. If it's something else, then you have to have it taken care of right away.