Although people often refer to anxiety attacks and panic attacks in the same breath, they are not the same, strictly speaking. However, this is very understandable because many of the same feelings and symptoms felt during panic attacks are also felt when anxious feelings start to break out. For example, dizziness, an upturn in your pulse rate and a sense of breathlessness, can be features of both sorts of attack. That said, panic attacks are characterised by other symptoms which are a result of getting stuck in the flight or fight response that most animals feel when threatened. In short, panic attacks will usually be associated with sweating, feeling cold, a sense of morbidity or fear, the clenching of fists and the tightening of stomach muscles. An attack that is more anxious in its nature than derived from fear will not feature so many symptoms because it is more of an emotive response than a physical one. That said, such attacks can be very unpleasant and serious if they occur regularly enough to interfere with daily life.
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