Why Do Panic Attacks Keep Happening?

Source: Paul Douglass MIAH Acc. D.Hyp. Adv. - Anxiety therapist specialising in Pure Hypnoanalysis in London, England

We all experience times in our life when we are in danger, and most of us learn from our experiences.

Whatever situation someone might find themselves in, whether it’s a new situation or one that’s happened before, that person’s natural defence mechanisms will, as you would expect, want to prevent them from putting themselves in harms way.

This is a perfectly natural process that happens to each of us all the time.  For example, when we cross the road, we look both ways to make sure there is nothing coming.

Most of us will do this as a matter of course, whether we’ve ever actually been in danger in that situation before or not.

But if we do experience something that is potentially dangerous, we’ll remember what the situation felt like, and if it was an unpleasant experience, then we will actively avoid putting ourselves through the same situation again.

So if we’re driving for example, and we have a ‘close call’ at a junction, we are highly likely to feel a little bit apprehensive when approaching that same junction the next time…  we’ve remembered what happened last time, when there was a near miss, and our mind is being ‘extra vigilant’ to prevent the same thing happening again.

This is a perfectly natural process, and tends to get better over time.  So in this example, after crossing the same junction uneventfully for the next few times, it gets easier, and that natural anxiety tends to diminish.

The uneventful journeys through that junction are reinforcing the belief that the junction isn’t too bad after all.  The anxiety is naturally running its course.

If, however, there was a ‘close call’ every time you went through that junction, your mind would quickly come to the conclusion that it was a dangerous place to be, because each ‘near miss’ incident would re-enforce that belief.

There person would now be very wary about putting themselves in that situation.
They would, after a while, just expect it to happen again.

Now let’s think of what happens when we have a panic attack.

The person starts to feel panic.  This feeling of panic very quickly builds, and soon that person is not only experiencing the thoughts of panic, their body is starting to feel the physical symptoms of a panic attack.

Their shaking hands, sweating brow, dry mouth, heart palpitations, and all the other physical symptoms that they experience, are all re-enforcing the feeling of danger.

Before long, this person could easily start to genuinely believe that they were in physical danger.  People having panic attacks often report afterwards that they felt like they were going to have a heart attack, and possibly even die.

All of these things, the thoughts and the physical symptoms are all re-enforcing each other, in ‘cyclic’ way… the more they panic, the more they feel the symptoms, and the more they feel the symptoms the more they panic.

Eventually of course, the cycle will usually break.  This can be because the person has managed to sit themselves down and regain their composure, or will have taken themselves off to the A&E department of their local hospital, or will have just removed themselves from whatever situation had triggered off the panic attack in the first place.

When this happens though, that person might believe that the only reason they didn’t have a heart attack and die, was because of the actions they took to avoid it.

“So, the fear of that thunderstorm could have killed me if I’d had a heart attack, and it was only my actions that saved me”

So then, think about what happens next time there’s a rumble of thunder.  Their mind immediately remembers the perceived ‘danger’… they start to expect panic, they are hyper-sensitive to any of the symptoms, so they feel a slight surge of adrenalin.  That surge of adrenalin worries them, what if it happens again? .

Before they know where they are, the whole panic cycle starts again.

So, to sum up the whole process… the persons mind is overprotecting them from that which they perceive to be a threat to them.

Of course, the question why is there a perceived threat there at all is the subject for another article!

Source: Paul Douglass MIAH Acc. D.Hyp. Adv. - Anxiety therapist specialising in Pure Hypnoanalysis in London, England

Date Added: 24th of July 2007

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