It's interesting to note that while Panic Attacks and Anxiety Attacks are one and the same, panic is most certainly not the same as anxiety.
The signs of an anxiety attack that used to tell me one was hovering was not exactly a headache, but a feeling of heaviness in the head, as though someone was sitting on my brain! A fuzziness accompanied this and an inability to think clearly.
Everyone's different and other people would have different signs, but here's a list of the more general ones; .
Palpitations.
.
Pounding and Accelerated heart rate.
.
Sweating.
.
Choking sensation.
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Chest Pain.
.
Nausea.
.
Dizziness.
.
Feeling faint.
.
Fear of losing control.
.
Chills or Hot flashes.
If I had an attack at home when I was on my own, it manifested itself as a feeling of confusion.
This was coupled by a feeling of doing something wrong.
It was as though someone was in the same room with me and judging me by what I was doing.
I expected a voice to say; "No, you shouldn't be doing that now, you ought to be doing (something else, whatever that 'something' may have been).
This would evolve into total confusion, coupled to extreme anxiety and fear and usually I'd simply sit down.
Other people read these signs and symptoms as indicators that there's something seriously wrong with them physically, which in turn makes them even more afraid and so the cycle spirals.
Since I've always had the constitution of a horse, worries and concerns about physical ailments never bothered me, but I can certainly sympathize with the poor person who knows that they're liable to have heart problems, feeling this tightness in the chest that so often accompanies an anxiety attack.
From my own experience, I never had this feeling in my chest, but my breathing used to become much faster.
I know I've mentioned this before, but except for the first year of my being over here in the United States, I've always worked from home.
I'm retired now, but I used to thoroughly enjoy the work.
However, every Sunday evening for a number of months, I used to have the most crashing headaches at about nine o'clock.
They weren't migraines.
A friend of mine used to suffer from these, and the symptoms weren't the same.
Whether this was a sign of anxiety, I don't know, simply because I was in too much pain.
I'd take a handful of pills and go to bed.
Then, at about two in the morning, I'd wake up feeling marvellous! I had all sorts of tests at the doctor and hospital, but nothing was ever found that could have caused these headaches.
Whether they were signs of an anxiety attack, I have no idea, although they must have been associated with anxiety