Relationships: Panic Attacks, Sleeping, Eating Patterns, Omega-3, and Vitamin D

Objectives: Panic attacks have been found to be one of the most debilitating and costly mental disturbances in the United States (e.g., Wulsin et al.¹); however, little research investigates its relationships with health behaviors. Thus, this study examines relationships between the health behaviors of eating, sleeping, and vitamin D and Omega 3 intake and the severity of panic attacks. Methods: Using snowball sampling online and posting physical flyers, 160 adults who has experienced panic attacks completed anonymous online surveys. Results: More frequent changes in amount of food consumption and less frequent vitamin D intake were determined to link to significantly higher panic severity in Pearson and Spearman’s rank order correlation tests. More recent changes in eating time were found to be associated with higher numbers of panic symptoms. Conclusions: The findings shed light on the connections between panic severity and associated health behaviors, such as maintaining consistent food consumption and more frequent (daily) vitamin D intake. Generalizability is limited by the lack of racial and different developmental stage diversity in participants. Future randomized control studies can focus on investigating the causal relationships between consistent food intake and higher frequency in taking Vitamin D and decreased panic severity.