1,200 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. The average panic attack lasts for 1,200 seconds.

This means that there are another 85,200 seconds left. These could be filled with any number of things: sleeping, eating, drinking, running, laughing, writing, kissing, smiling, or singing. The possibilities are endless.

But at the end of the day, all you’re going to remember is how those panicked 1,200 felt. 1,200 seconds equates to 20 minutes. As time elapses from the initial advent of terror to the very last hitched breath or quiver of a hand, the presence of panic triggers a series of symptoms. The most common are heart palpitations, hyperventilation, sweating, and trembling. But some people experience nausea, tingling fingers, or even chest pain.

At 3am on 25th January, I experienced a terrifying combination of these symptoms. For a moment, as the pain tore through my chest, waking me abruptly, I believed I was going to die. It was dark, and I was alone in my set in college. There was no clear precipitating factor to explain the sudden onset of my pain, nor the shortness of breath. The night before, I’d done a yoga class and had a brew with a friend.

As I fell out of bed onto the carpet, tears rolling down my cheeks, trying to calm my breathing, all that sprang to mind were the words ‘heart attack’. Rational thinking then kicked in, and I reminded myself I was too young. At 21, as a non-smoker, teetotaller, and an ardent runner, my heart was surely a picture of near-perfect health.

Fast-forward seven hours and it’s nearly midday. I’m at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, listening to the hum and whir of the myriad machines in the Majors department: needle in arm, blood pressure cuff laid across my lap, and ECG stickers adorning my chest. Doctors and nurses flit in and out, measuring things, asking me to rate my pain, questioning my life story. Sympathetic looks, nods of heads, compassionate mumblings follow.

“For a lot of Cambridge students, stress is a badge of honour. But it’s not ‘cool’ to be stressed, and it’s unacceptable to ignore it”

As it turned out, my heart was fine. Unfortunately, it was my head that was not. I hadn’t really had a heart attack. What had happened at 3am was an acute reaction to stress, which presented itself in the most extreme physical symptoms. Over time, the doctor explained, my body had collected stress and anxiety like a child collects stickers. Each time I was met with a stressful event or situation, I had allowed myself to neatly fold it away in the recesses of my mind, where it lay latent and in waiting for the perfect moment to let me know it was there and ready to talk. It was clear, I had quite the collection of stickers.

I’d had a panic attack – admittedly a very bad one. As I sat feeling sorry for myself in Addenbrooke’s, I realised that my mental health had finally waged war on my physical health – and it was winning. For years, I’d kept it at bay and I’d found ways to cope. I had taken up running, become obsessed with photography, written prolifically, and smiled my way through the darkest and most anxiety-ridden of days. But the cracks had finally begun to show in my elaborate façade. As I embarked upon my penultimate term in Cambridge, faced applications for further study, saw my younger sister off into a career with the Royal Marines, and questioned my own future prospects, I had, quite simply, broken.

For days afterwards, all I could think about were those 1,200 seconds. I’d always taken pride in being strong. My friends came to me with their problems: I was known as the ‘mother’ of the group. But suddenly I wasn’t. I held whispered conversations of distress over the phone with my parents. I eventually went home for a few days. I’d hit rock bottom.

Mental health deserves just as much consideration as physical health. For me, it took a frightening blurring of the lines in the early hours of 25th January to realise this. When a patient walks into their GP surgery with a physical complaint, the temptation is generally to find the source of discomfort in a physiological process, and it is often only much later that mental health is given a nod of acknowledgment. For many, it is more acceptable to pin an ache or pain on a physical weakness rather than a mental one.

According to the findings of a YouGov/MQ survey in 2016, roughly 51 per cent of young people aged 16-24 are ‘embarrassed’ by a mental health diagnosis. I’m completely aware that being at Cambridge for the last (nearly) three years has almost destroyed me. And, quite frankly, I have let it. I’ve been swept up in the silly remarks made between peers about how late I stayed in the library last night, dealing with the inevitable ‘essay crisis’. For a lot of Cambridge students, stress is a badge of honour.

But it’s not ‘cool’ to be stressed, and it’s unacceptable to ignore it. I learned this the hard way, and I wish I could rewind to the beginning of Lent term and start again.

It’s all in your head?

I’m a little bit in love with the drama of 25th January. It may sound like a strange sentiment regarding one of the scariest experiences of my 21 years, but it woke me up – literally and figuratively. Since that morning, I have been lectured by a number of people, all of whom have taken the time to explain how stress can be incredibly dangerous for the body, and that I should treat my trip to A&E as a warning. I understand what they are saying. I really do.

I’m grateful to the people at my college (St John’s) who have been a fantastic source of support. The women of the College Health Centre have been an unrivalled force of advocacy and reassurance, not just lately, but since day one of my degree. The porters never fail to smile and say hello as I walk through the lodges, often asking how things are going, or if I’m having a good day. The night porter who dealt with me in the early hours of 25th January was calm and compassionate – two things I desperately needed.

Mental health and physical health are powerfully entwined in each other’s grasp. They are hard to disentangle, and one ultimately controls the other. It’s the job of charities such as Mind and Heads Together to raise funds to help tackle the stigma, and to help begin the vital conversations needed between friends, family, and colleagues. And it’s the work of new websites and apps such as Headcase that shows the rest of the world how strong and resilient people with mental health issues are, and that talking about it is neither strange nor weak.

And so this leaves me with one last thing to say: I have a mental health issue. But, you know what? I’m OK with that, and you should be, too. I live for the other 85,200 seconds in my day, and try not to dwell on just the 1,200.

For more information on anything written in this article, or for help and support, check out the following websites/organisations: Mind, Heads Together, MQ, SANE, Time To Change, B-eat, and www.inmyheadcase.com