I've had panic attacks in the past but I've learned to calm them down. Normally my mind is busy, then there are negative thoughs intruding. So far, everything is fine, but for a panic attack to be succesful, there has to be some somatic feedback. Once the body starts to participate, when the breath starts to speed up, when the heart starts to race, then the mind has more to grab on. "See I told you something is wrong" More somatic experiences arise, the mind spins out of control. Panic attacks have a very distinc feeling to them. So I learned to navigate this by relaxing, and sometime simply changing my mind, watching TV or drinking warm tea while reflecting or drawing. But there is a new type of panic attack. (for me) Noctural panic attack! These are so far the best! Calmly sleeping away, I get awaken by my heart racing so fast for no reason. I get out of bed, walk down, my heart is racing like I've been in a sparing fight. I try to calm down but the heart keeps going up. Am I dying? Cold sweats all over my body, I feel faint, cold and shivery. Am I dying? Take my pulse again, it's a little less than 180, still way too high. Need more oxygene, deep breath, run upstairs, tells my wife we need to go to ER... A few minutes later, heart beat back to around 70... no more cold sweats. I'm still shaking from the experience. No pain in the chest, no arm pain. I can move freely. My mind is calm... I'm actually hungry. We ended up going to the ER anyway as this was such a shit show. All the vitals were fine. There wasn't much they could do at this point, wanted me to take some Adavan, but the doc say I should take stronger benzos... Yes I'm under a lot more stress than I ever been in my life. I didn't know my body was taking all that in. I'm stoping my cafein intake for the moment, and my one natural tobacco smoke a day has to go for now. The idea of taking a pill to solves all my problem is almost interesting. Taking a break from my over-acive mind. Meditation does that, but I'm wondering what meditation on adavan would look like. I have one benzo here... I might end up taking it to see what is does.