I think with anxiety, it becomes a vicious circle. Even when you're heart is beating faster for a good reason - excitement or exertion- your brain might be tricked into thinking you are anxious. In other words, you feel like you are having a fight-or-flight reaction. That's why deep breathing exercises help so much. You can trick your brain into thinking you are calm just by breathing slowly. You might want to ask yourself what's going on in your life right now that could be causing anxiety. What is it that you fear?

I did a drastic change in diet at the beginning of the year that made me start to detox. The symptoms of detoxing the toxins in my body freaked me out horribly, and that was the original trigger for all of my panic attacks that started in April. (I kept detoxing for over a month because I had lost my appetite and body still thought it was fasting.)
SO ... it could be either. I would ask your doc. I am pretty sure it is the anxiety, but I would email to check. My doc does email with me so that is really nice. The symptoms you describe sound panic attack like to me.
I wasn't overly worried about anything at the time mine started either until the detox symptoms started, which triggered me to start worrying about my health. Worrying about your health can really freak your mind out too.
*Just a note, If you have issues with deep breathing (I am a shallow breather so I had issues learning to breath deep), you can buy some balloons. Taking in air deep enough to blow one up and then exhaling really long to get it full was how I was able to get my breathing deeper. My kids got a kick out of this, since they had a lot of balloons suddenly. I don't need them now, but on occasion (like verge of attack) I will still use that method.

Both fantastic advice. Love the balloon idea.....clever :)

I will add my 2 cents and say that your panic attack may seem like it came out of no where......and it kinda did. However, it has to do with a trauma or long term stress either from the past or present that has tripped the fight-or-flight response. The stressor doesn't even need to be present, your body just feels it is in danger for whatever reason and is now on automatic.
The deep breathing will definitely help, but you need to distract yourself at the same time. Do some activity while telling yourself that you are not in any danger (take note of your surroundings).......it's like talking yourself off a ledge while taking a deep breath in through your nose. Hold it for several seconds. Then slowly breath out through your mouth. Do this several times and it will automatically slow your heart down.
To combat and overcome anxiety altogether, you need to find the root cause and work on it.
The other thing is anxiety causes one to have negative thoughts and feelings. Stop yourself and counter it with positive thoughts and feelings on a consistent basis.
This will take time, but it does indeed work. Corralling run away thoughts is hard, but not impossible. I distract myself with tv, games on my phone, engaging in some kinds of activity......anything to get my thoughts off my symptoms.
Know that anxiety can not kill you......it just feels like it. The more you think/dwell about the symptoms, the more your body will react (the mind is a powerful tool) and give you more symptoms.
When you start to have an attack......tell yourself it is just anxiety and that it won't hurt you and then distract yourself with something and ignore the symptoms.
Get a check up first to make sure there is nothing really wrong.....then you can go from there.
Hang in there........and think positive!

Thank you all so much for the advice! It's going to be hard to do the breathing exercises and control my thoughts, but I'm definitely going to do it. I wish there was a quick fix. Anxiety is horrible on so many levels. Thanks again!

I think it would be a very good idea to speak with your doctor about this.Unfortunately, anxiety attacks can mimic heart problems and so it's best to make sure it's just anxiety. When I feel overly anxious, my heart races and seems to jump all over the place, but because we are all so different in our makeup, I would hope you will see your doc. Hugs GB

I agree that this can be a vicious cycle. You might have a bit of an irregular heart beat (which is very common and not necessarily indicative of a problem) and the anxiety starts which makes you more aware of your heart - which makes your heart race - which makes you panic.

I use propranalol which actually regulates my heart beat which breaks the chain of anxiety. But I've recently learned from experience that the body can have anxiety even though you don't feel anxious in your mind. And that can result in headaches, stomach aches, shaking, heart racing, etc.

Anxiety is a horrible feeling. I had so many symptoms my doctor couldn't keep up. I felt like I couldn't breathe, was going to have a heart attack, etc. It's only since coming on these forums and doing a google on symptoms of anxiety that I realized I was creating these symptoms in myself and it was that realization that finally stop the anxiety attacks. It's been over a month and I haven't felt anxious since.