Had a few panic attacks 2 years ago in the summer. I was working too much (I still do) as an entrepreneur, drinking too much coffee without drinking enough water (coffee tends to dehydrate your body) and my blood too thick from that so it came to me as a sort of dizziness which transformed into a full blown panic attack and an ambulance shortly after that.
I refused pills from day one and found that, by training my mind to say "bring it on! is this the best you can do" tends to stop the anxiety on it's ascension. I go to gym 3 times a week now to to some actual exercise and calm the body a bit. I now am panic free for almost 2 years but I still have the symptoms. What changed is my attitude when the symptoms arrive, it's already in my subconscious and my body does it automatically.
I blame our jobs just like OP and I blame the fact that our job is a whole brainstorm from start to finish. No physical challenge at all and our bodies are not used to it. Our bodies need some physical activity to do it's chemistry and release new stuff periodically so we can function properly otherwise some glands get messed up (this is my own conclusion I didn't hear it from anywhere) so our bodies get unbalanced and stressed. Too much of something is called an addiction and no addiction is left unpunished. We really need to take a break from time to time and just work out or meditate a bit for our body to adjust or at least recover.
No past generation was so technical and multi tasked and so stressed from morning till dawn. We're probably at the border of evolution right now and nature is adjusting us/itself. Future generations will probably deal with this entirely different than us but our bodies are like an old motherboard with a super chip plugged in right now. It's getting burnt. We need some better cooling.
The worst thing about panic attacks is that you have nobody to talk to that can really understand what you're going through apart from others who had it. You can't explain it to someone who didn't because you can even see them smiling..."so...basically you're afraid huh?". They can't comprehend the feeling that you're going to die, right now; that you're probably so certain you're going to die that you probably even said your last words and good byes in your mind. Just don't complain to people any more because you will get a new addiction out of it.
Tl;DR: Do sports (swimming is good), less work (you van find yourself even more productive because productivity has few to do with how much we work), confront your demon when he comes to visit and don't try to explain to people who never dealt with such a thing...they might make things worse.