Psychologists and doctors would mainly describe panic attacks as intense periods of mounting psychological and physical trauma that can manifest itself in many outward symptoms. There are plenty of varying degrees of the symptoms and they will range from person to person. More commonly known is the fact that these symptoms would normally last to about 30 minutes. Any more than that can cause some serious damage to the person. The shortest panic attack to afflict a person would be one that would be lasting under 15 seconds.

Those who suffer long term panic attacks, sometimes hours on end, would suffer much discomfort and actually have the potential to exude other, more serious symptoms. These might include a complete nervous breakdown or even a massive and potentially fatal heart attack. There are many triggers of these panic attacks and one of them is hereditary, where the person inherits the predisposition, the genetic predisposition to actually suffer from these panic attacks. Even many people with no history of such cases have been found with the gene that signifies that they are more prone to panic attacks.

The other reason is of course biological causes, which might come from a serious lack of Vitamin B intake in the body, which may be the trigger for such attacks. You also want to look at more mental and psychological triggers, which of course include phobias. Phobias are areas of acute emotion, and some of them have the effect of triggering an attack within a person. Short term triggers include the ingestion of drugs and other artificial stimulants. Even caffeine has been know to trigger such problems and anxiety attacks to those that are more susceptible to it. These are some of the known triggers of panic attacks that you need to know about and if you are looking at the symptoms of this problem, then you might need to look into things like palpitations, cold sweat, fluttering of the heart and even dilated pupils.

People who are suffering from such attacks might report a sudden feeling of increased and elevated heartbeat and they might suddenly feel weak. These are some of the common symptoms of a panic attack and if you are observant enough, you might be able to spot them early on before they become a debilitating problem. Other more uncommon symptoms might be trembling like the person is feeling cold, shortness of breadth, the feeling that someone might be choking them, nausea, dizziness, chills or even hot flashes and even the feeling that they might be dying.

These are more serious and the problem might become worse when the heart becomes weak and the person suffers a massive heart attack. If you are not sure whether are not you or your children are susceptible to these forms of attacks, get an evaluation from a doctor and try to find out if you are genetically predisposed to such attacks. Then and only then you can take preventive measures and even make changes to your diet to make sure that these panic attacks never come.