yes its quite common
deep slow breathing with frequent stretches will calm you, dont tense up or fight back and dont forget to breathe
try some antihistamines such as in travel sickness pills to see if they sedate you, if so use instead of the xanax

panic attacks can be addictive

my anxiety/panic attacks are very siclical. they come and stay for up to 6 months then they will go away. i have addiction issues in my past and because of that most doctors understandably hesitate to give me narcotics. so im stuck with stuff like buspar and sometimes i can take enough antidepressants to help but not always. im trying to learn new tools for dealing with this anxiety people tell me daily exercise good eating habits and practicing deep breathing exercises and therapy help.im still at a point where my mind tells me that wont work , but im doing it anyhow. because i can think of nothing worse than to have a panic attack and not be able to stop it the pain of these attacks has caused me to become willing to try just babout anything.