Heart Attack or Panic Attack – How to Know the Difference

You feel your heart begin to beat wildly in your chest as you break into a cold sweat and have trouble catching your breath; is this a heart attack or panic attack? Your first thought is that it’s a heart attack since you have an impending feeling of doom which you may even have felt before your attack began. This makes your heart beat even faster and you become so overwhelmed that the feeling gets even worse until you begin to feel light headed or maybe even pass out. This is a panic attack.

When you suffer from anxiety, the slightest thing can trigger a panic attack and some can be so intense that you can’t imagine it being anything other than looming death. It’s very common for those having an anxiety attack to mistake it for a heart attack and this fear is enough to just take over and really wreak havoc on your heart rate, but no matter how fast your heart beats or how panicked you feel; you are not having a heart attack and this episode will not kill you.

One thing that will prove helpful in dealing with this is learning the differences between the two so you know right away if it is a heart attack or panic attack. I’ve already described how a panic attack feels, so here are the signs of a heart attack so you can know the difference and give yourself some peace of mind.

Signs of a Heart Attack

• Pressure in the Chest (described as feeling like there is an elephant sitting on your chest)

• Chest pain – note that this is not always present

• Sweating

• Shortness of breath

• Pain in the right arm

• Pain in the back or shoulder blades for women

• Nausea or vomiting

If you look at the list and think about your experiences with panic attacks, you will see that you only have two of these in common; sweating and shortness of breath. Some people do drive themselves into such an anxious state that they become nauseous, but in the case of a heart attack, the nausea is prevalent before any of the other symptoms. The pressure in the chest is one that can confuse some because during a panic attack, you may feel a tightening feeling in the chest that is common with extreme anxiety, but it is far less severe than what one feels when having a heart attack.

Anxiety turns to panic because of your fears, meaning that when you fear the attack you are actually making things worse for yourself and setting your anxiety up to go from just anxiety to a full blown attack. That is the vicious circle of panic attacks. Learning how to change your thinking will help you stop a panic attack before it gets out of hand. Next time you feel your anxiety level begin to rise, try not to fear the attack and think of what you just read; you now know how to tell if it’s a heart attack or panic attack.