Anxiety attacks can come on suddenly with rapid heart rates, chest pains, and extreme irritability. Sometimes anxiety attacks can follow a pattern and only occur when certain things happen like the changing of the seasons.
There are many symptoms that go along with anxiety attacks including sweating, dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, chest pains, phobias, irrational thoughts, feeling restless, not being able to sleep, and twitching. These symptoms often come on without any warning and usually cannot be helped. No amount of rational thinking can calm down someone that is having anxiety attacks.

It is estimated that one in seven people suffer from anxiety attacks and have developed an anxiety disorder some time in their childhood or early teens. Anxiety disorders are very common and can come in the form or obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, and depression. There is no way to know if you will develop an anxiety disorder but you can use the symptoms to recognize when an anxiety attack may be coming on.

Symptoms
Phobias: Phobias are common among those that suffer from anxiety attacks; it’s more than just a fear, a phobia is an irrational fear that something extremely bad will happen if they go somewhere, if they do something, or if they don’t repeat certain rituals like hand washing, checking locks and alarm clocks, not driving, not leaving the house, etc. These phobias have been known to rule people’s lives and even cause divorce and strained relationships with others.

Chest pains: When a person is having an anxiety attack they will often experience severe chest pains along with a rapid heart rate that may feel like a heart attack. The chest pains make it harder to breathe and the person will feel as if they are going to die, they are going crazy, or that their situation is completely hopeless.

Restlessness and disrupted sleep patterns: When an anxiety attack occurs you may feel like you cannot sit still or that you need to walk around in order for the anxious feeling to subside; this is called restlessness. Sometimes this feeling comes without any warning at all and there can be no reason for it. You may be doing an everyday activity without a care in the world and the anxiety attack will strike. This is very common among those with depression or a diagnosed anxiety disorder.

Being unable to sleep is another symptom or sign of anxiety attacks because the feeling of anxiety can keep you from sleeping. If you suffer from depression you may oversleep as well; it can be hard to fall asleep at night and hard to get out of bed in the morning.

You don’t have to have depression or a diagnosed anxiety disorder to experience an anxiety attack. These attacks can happen to anyone in a stressful situation. There are ways to treat your anxiety such as medication, therapy, deep breathing exercises, meditation, muscle relaxation techniques, and exercising regularly.