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THE PANIC "TRICK"

There is a fundamental "trick" to a panic attack. Understanding it will help you break the panic cycle. This article will explain the trick, and what you need to do about it.

It's very important to understand that the physical symptoms of a panic attack are nothing more than the body's emergency alert system, the sympathetic nervous system.

These are the same, sophisticated, automatic physical responses that your body uses to alert you to danger and give you the physical energy to respond to it.

Our body is kind of an old model. When our bodies were "designed", the main danger we had to face was a big predator that saw us as a meal. And, even though our world has changed a lot since then, our bodies still respond to danger in the same way.

Three ways, actually. When our bodies get a "danger" signal, they respond by preparing us for either FIGHT, FLIGHT, or FREEZE.

Which one? It depends on the circumstances. If the enemy is smaller, fighting is probably a good idea. If the enemy is bigger, but slower, flight would be good. And if the enemy is bigger and faster, maybe freeze would be good, and just hope it doesn't see so well. When your body gears up for danger, it prepares you for one of those responses.

If you think about the physical symptoms you experience during a panic attack, you can probably see that most of them have some adaptive value in a dangerous situation. They would all serve, one way or another, to help you survive an encounter with a predator.

The urge to flee is useful when threatened. The movement of blood flow away from the digestive tract and other parts of the body not needed in fighting is helpful because it makes more energy available for fighting. The adrenaline rush motivates and energizes you to action. Even sweating is helpful, because these responses generate a lot of heat, and sweating is how the body cools itself.

Sweating has another advantage too. If you're being chased by a large predator, it's good to be as slippery as possible!

So, you can see that, far from being a sign that there is something wrong physically, these symptoms are actually very sophisticated responses by our bodies in order to protect us. They're evidence that the body is working well.

There's just one problem.

There isn't any predator.

There isn't any danger of any kind. Our bodies got the wrong word somehow. The body got the impression that there was a real emergency, and this is how it responds.

It's just like when you have a watchdog that tends to bark at the wrong times, bothering you when it's just schoolchildren out there. You want the dog to be alert, and to let you know when there's a burglar, but you also want him/her to be able to tell the difference between a burglar and some kids playing.

So, what has to happen? That watchdog needs retraining, so it can tell the difference between kids and burglars. And you need retraining too.

What kind of retraining?
The watchdog sees kids playing, and mistakes them for burglars. You experience discomfort, and mistake it for danger. The watchdog needs training so it can notice some of the key characteristics of children (short, high pitched voices, lack of face masks, etc.) which distinguish them from burglars. You need retraining so that you can better distinguish discomfort from danger.

Let's consider what happens to you when you experience a panic attack. You experience real fear, make no mistake about that.

Pay no attention to those who say "it's all in your head", because it's not. (They usually mean well, but the phrase is extremely misleading and usually unhelpful).

It's in your breathing, in your muscles, in your heartbeat, in your production of adrenaline, and so on. It's real physical fear. The problem is, you're experiencing this real fear when there's no danger.

Now, most people tend to assume that if they're afraid, they must be in danger. And that's probably true a lot of the time. Fear is often a useful signal that warns us, motivates us to do something to avoid danger. But not always.

QUESTION: Can you think of any situations in which a person might be very afraid, yet also not be in any danger?

There's no one right answer, of course. But take a minute to think about it, and click the button when you're ready to proceed.

What did you come up with? You get extra points if you thought of a scary movie. There are a number of other good answers, but I think scary movie clarifies this issue the best because the movie goer becomes afraid despite knowing that he/she is not in any danger whatsoever.

A panic attack and a scary movie have much in common. A scary movie manipulates the information you receive in order to trick you into feeling afraid, even while you sit back in your seat and feel your shoes stick to the chewing gum. A scary movie is a trick. What is the trick?

It's this. You experience discomfort (physical tension, on the edge of your seat, holding your breath, heart rate increasing, etc.) in response to the drama of the film, and react as if it were danger.

This is why people scream at scary movies. They become so focused on the story line that their bodies respond as if the story were real, and happening at that moment.

What can you do if you go to a scary movie and get more scared than you want to be? A lot of people with panic attacks simply won't go to scary movies, but maybe you can remember times you went before the panic attacks began.

Pause here for a moment to think about it, then click the button to move on.

What can you do to feel less afraid at a scary movie? You can:

Distract your self by thinking of something else, or eating popcorn.
Reassure yourself by holding somebody's hand (only if you came with them, please!).
Close your eyes and/or cover your ears to block out some of the story.
And how about that old standby, reminding yourself "it's only a movie."?
Or you can leave.

A scary movie and a panic attack have a lot in common. And all the responses a person makes to a scary movie have their counterparts in responses a person can make to a panic attack. In response to a panic attack, people try to help themselves by:

distracting themselves
seeking the comfort and reasurance of support people
resisting or blocking out information
talking to themselves in an effort to calm down
leaving the scene

The result of a scary movie, and the result of a panic attack, is that a person who is not in danger becomes afraid. In both cases, this is accomplished by the same trick. You experience discomfort, and get fooled into thinking it's danger.

This is of critical importance, because the responses which are useful in dealing with danger are very different from those which help with discomfort.

If you are in danger, your body is going to respond in ways to help you survive, by giving you the energy, strength and motivation to resist the danger. Earlier I talked about the body's emergency response, and how the physical symptoms of a panic attack are nothing more than the results of the body gearing up to face a danger which doesn't exist. When your body gets a signal that says "DANGER" it quickly mobilizes itself to get you ready to fight the danger (if you're stronger/bigger); run away from it (if you're faster), or hide/play dead if the danger is too big to fight and too fast to outrun.

These responses will help you if there really is danger. But if they get triggered when there is no danger - nothing to hit or run from - then you're all dressed up and nowhere to go. You have all that energy and nothing to use it on. What happens? You experience it as panic.

So when you get the wrong signal - when you get tricked into thinking that the discomfort is danger - then your body is going to make things worse by gearing up for danger, and filling you with energy when what you really need is to relax and calm down.

This is what's so important about the trick of a panic attack.

When you get tricked into reacting as if you face danger, you do all the things that get you more upset. You resist instead of accept. You flee instead of wait. You tense up instead of calm down. You hold your breath instead of breathing comfortably.

This is why most people's initial reactions to a panic attack make them feel worse rather than better.

This is why people with panic disorder can benefit by retraining their reactions. And this can be done very effectively with a cognitive behavioral treatment that incorporates desensitization, coping techniques, and progressive exposure.

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This page was last modified on 6-10-2004.