They can begin suddenly and peak quickly, with their signature trembling, nausea, and ragged breaths rolling in waves. A panic attack is your body being gripped with fear, but what triggers that fear and how often it takes hold of you depends on who you are. The stimuli vary from person to person, but what remains constant is the experience itself — and its prevalence among humans. Most people, at some point in their lives, will experience a panic attack because it’s an adaptive response brought about by human evolution. “Panic attacks themselves are not unusual,” Raphael Rose, Ph.D.. the associate director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Anyone can have a panic attack, and often people will have one or two panic attacks at some point in their lifetime. While panic attacks are not uncommon and an isolated one is usually not a problem, they can be distressing and lead to problems like panic disorder.” Rose explained that ther...