One night in the house on my own  around six years ago i suddenly had an incredible feeling of panic rush through my body, to say that i was scared would be an understatement, i was utterly terrified, i was soaked in sweat and had the awful feeling that i was going to have a heart attack and die, eventually my legs gave way beneath me and i found myself on the floor, thoughts went rushing through my head ” what do i do?” i contemplated calling an ambulance i was that convinced i was going to die at any moment, after a few minutes i calmed down enough , even though i could still feel adrenalin coursing through my body, to persuade myself to get up and go out of the house, walk the dog, run do anything, after a quick walk round the block with the dog i returned home completely exhausted went to bed and slept soundly.The next day i was completely confused and sort of disorientated, what had happened to me the night before? That first panic attack was probably one of the three worst attacks i ever had, on two other occasions i have ended up in hospital  once with breathing difficulties and the other a suspected heart attack only for the doctors to find absolutely nothing wrong with me (apart from high blood pressure brought on by the attack which settled fine later). If you have been a victim of panic or anxiety you probably can correlate my experience with your own. Not once , even after finding nothing wrong with me did any doctor suggest that i might have a mental problem but i began to think that if there was nothing physically wrong with me ,yet i had these feelings of complete terror , then i must be going mad. After suffering for a couple of months i decided to do some research in the library and to my amazement found a large amount of literature describing the feelings and terror i was going through and how to cope with them. I swear initially i was frightened of even reading about panic attacks in case that brought an attack on but what learned from the books has helped me immensely in trying to live a life free from panic. When the attacks first began my initial reaction was to fight them, i kept telling myself “stop being so stupid there is nothing wrong with you ” and “grow up man and get a grip” what i learned from the books was , especially from the books by Claire Weeks , was  to go with the attacks, this is rather hard to explain but try if you can to imagine it like this, a boat trying to go against the flow will get battered and broken up where as one going with the flow will have a smooth ride, i think that is the best way to describe it ” go with the flow” don’t try and stay calm , don’t try and fight it , just let the panic wash over you and accept it, i know that this will seem impossible at first but you will get the hang of it i promise. When we suffer from a panic attack the strange feeling that rises from our stomach and courses through our bodies making the legs turn to jelly or the chest feels tight is just adrenaline, when our bodies our in danger say for instance we are faced with an angry lion about to attack us our body produces adrenaline as a protection reflex, this adrenaline feeling encourages us to either flee or fight, can you imagine our bodies without adrenaline? we would have no fear and consequently would not recognise danger, we would probably not survive very long. So as you can see adrenaline is a good thing so therefore that rush of adrenaline that we feel during a panic attack is also a good thing if only we can recognise it as such. In some of the books that i have read the authors have reflected that they were glad they had experienced panic attacks  as the attacks had made them look at their lives and readjust them, for example panic attacks usually begin when the victim has some unresolved issue in their mind that they cannot come to terms with and normally manifest themselves at times of high stress, from my own personal experience im not glad that i have suffered panic attacks, i wish i had never had them, someone once described a panic attack as looking into the mouth of hell and not liking what you see, i would agree with that i wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy! however i do agree with those authors that panic attacks can be a sign that you need to make changes in your life, perhaps stop working so hard, take up a new hobby, try to relax more and certainly if you have any resolved issues in your life that you cannot solve by yourself seek help and advice and if need be don’t come to a definite decision come to a compromise.