Life has never been so stressful for our ancestors; they have honestly been able to have a sound sleep at night. Not only do we feel ragged and fatigued the next day, we tend to age quicker due to our body not recovering and resting the way it should. As this get worse, we begin to experience nocturnal anxiety attacks, which will disrupt not only our sleep pattern but our life.

As humans we have this pattern where we are awake for a certain time and we sleep for a certain time. If we are lucky we are awake for close to 16 hours and we sleep for 8. No matter how hard we try to stay awake, there is no way to avoid this cycle. Sooner or later our bodies will give in and we must rest. When something causes a disruption in the normal course of life, the sleep awake balance is lost and problems start to arise. If you regularly sleep less than 8 hours every night you may suffer from chronic sleep problems. One major issue of concern is nocturnal anxiety disorder or sleep panic attacks.

I say may because sleep anxiety attacks is not easily diagnosed. You see it is a mix of many symptoms that indicate various sleep disorders. So a reliable diagnosis may be delayed. During the onset of the night panic attacks, you will not be able to sleep well or much for that matter. This will obviously cause you much discomfort and make you very tired the for the rest of the day. Seek professional assistance when you come across this situation.

The standard symptoms of panic attacks while sleeping are insomnia, sleepiness during the day and intermittent sleeping patterns. Insomnia is more prevalent than the other two symptoms in the initial phases. Also panic attacks during sleep are common with people having unnatural sleeping behaviors.

It is alleged that over 50 percent of panic disorder sufferers are likely to have sleep panic attacks, but these are likely to happen during the day.

One of the worse side effects of panic attacks while sleeping is that the sufferers tend to build up a fear of sleeping and that increases their anxiety and complicates matters even more. While it may seem rational and obvious to some, sleeping pills are not the answer to resolving these problems. You could make things worse by becoming addicted to them.

Nocturnal anxiety disorder cannot be associated with dreams as the attacks occur at the earlier phases of Rapid Eye Movement or REM.Therefore, dreams cannot be held accountable for triggering panic attacks. Also, the occurrence of nocturnal anxiety attacks can result in sudden waking up, palpitations, shortness of breath, fear, sweating and tremors. Such symptoms usually come about when the person is in deep sleep.

It is still not known what causes nocturnal anxiety attacks. Some have suspected that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the body while we sleep may be the cause. This is known to be the "false suffocation alarm."

Nocturnal anxiety disorder is treatable and medications can eliminate the night attacks.
Nonetheless, medications should be used as the last weapon for treatment as these disorders can be cured with certain restrictions and changes. To be clear, we're talking about anxiety medications and not sleeping pills.

A very important part or beginning to your intervention is for you to make peace with yourself. You must first understand yourself and what is occurring before you make any attempts to explain it to your family or friends. Not only will you feel better the more you talk about it, the faster you can experience a reduction or the elimination of your anxiety attacks. Some life style changes that appear to help rid sufferers from night attacks consist of giving up smoking and limiting the consumption of alcohol and caffeine. These substances trigger the intensity of the attack. Additionally I would say that self help is the best help to cure night panic attacks.