I had a really bad panic attack a few weeks ago and was terrified for days I would have another one. I also am very attentive to body sensation and am constantly analyzing how I feel and if its normal. I have fibromyalgia so I never really feel normal. Panics are horrible things and they are scarey. Just acknowledge your fear and try to get past it. Blessings to you.

When you worry to the point of panicking to a frenzy.......your brain has no idea what you are panicking about. It only knows that you are panicking. To quote "Ghost"...it thinks "You in danger, girl."

So after it happens and you finally stop panicking, your brain is like "What the hell just happened to her? I don't know what it was, but it was clearly terrible. I have to keep her extra alert and not let her get too comfortable so it doesn't happen again."

So it makes you hyper alert and aware by pumping some more adrenaline in to you. It doesn't want you caught off guard by some lion of something. So it hypes you up even more than you were before the panic attack. And you feel the effects of the adrenaline because you are so hyper alert, but you don't know you are hyper alert from the effects of the adrenaline, so you start panicking about the sensations the adrenaline is making you feel because you don't know why you are feeling them.

And its basically one big long cycle of you shooting at your own shadow until at some point you are able to stay calm for a long enough period of time for your brain to trust that you are safe and turn off the adrenaline.

Panic attacks start because your worry to adrenaline ratio gradually increases and builds over the course of your life until pretty soon your life is basically like a ping pong ball bouncing off of one wall an on the other. Somebody has to stop the ball from bouncing. And it won't be your brain. Your brain will stop reacting....when YOU stop reacting. If you react....it will react.

I'm not saying its easy to not panic when you are emotionally exhausted and hyped up on adrenaline and stressed out.....but you can do it. I did it and I had panic attacks so bad I couldn't leave my house. It can be done. I started panicking every time I felt the tinest little twinge or had the tinest little thought about anything. I started panicking when a gentle breeze blew by. But I taught myself to stop over reacting and now I don't get panic attacks anymore.
Good luck. I know its tough. You just have to be tougher.

I think you might be rarified. By which I mean, during those days you haven't been planting trees, or building kitchens, or anything that would connect you to reality in a solid and reliable way.

When we aren't touching much in the real world we lose perspective on our sensations. When we have too much free mental time we malinger and obsess. :D

So if you worry about yourself, go climb a mountain. Go dig the garden. "Kiss the soil". reconnect with physical sensation and reality. Get physically tired. Not at a gym. that doesn't count. Go swim across a small lake.

This hits the reset button. You can't fear an anxiety attack when you're chopping firewood or building a shed. You're just too full up with other stuff.

:)