What Happens in Your Body When You Have a Panic Attack
There’s a struggle to breathe. You clench your jaw shut, teeth flattened against teeth, fighting for calm. You begin to choke. You unravel into violent hyperventilation. You can’t breathe. Your lungs hurt with shallow breaths. Tears are hot down your face. You don’t know you’re crying. You can’t breathe. Your hands feel like black-and-white television static. Your face buzzes. You can’t breathe. The buzzing crawls under your scalp. Your hair itches. You can’t breathe. Your entire body trembles. You can’t breathe. You’re far away. You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe.
If you’ve ever experienced a panic attack, the above may sound familiar. Panic attacks, also called anxiety attacks or fear attacks, can happen to anyone. Many people live their entire lives without one. Some people experience them only under extreme circumstances, such as upon learning about the death of a loved one, and then will experience a handful throughout the years. Others have them monthly, weekly, or even daily, and this can be a sign of an underlying panic or anxiety disorder.
In any case, a panic attack looks different for different people because they come with a variety of symptoms. To characterize a panic attack, four of the following symptoms must be present: chest pain, heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, choking, trembling, sweating, nausea, dizziness, chills, hot flashes, disassociation, fear of death, fear of losing control, and/or tingling in the extremities. Of these, the most stereotypical are difficulty breathing and heart palpitations.
While this is going on outside your body, hormones inside the body are triggering these reactions, specifically the hormone adrenaline. Adrenaline enters the bloodstream, which then sharpens your senses and increases your heart rate. This in turn sends more blood and adrenaline to the rest of your body. Breathing speeds up to allow more oxygen into the lungs to fuel your cells, resulting in more cellular energy output. The cycle continues until the body realizes that no danger is present, and the adrenaline fades. This usually takes about ten to twenty minutes, but it can last for upwards of an hour in some cases.
This is commonly known as a fight-or-flight response, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. When under extreme emotion or stress, this response is beneficial. If you’re crossing the street and a car swerves in your direction, a surge of adrenaline can allow you to move to safety with increased energy and heightened perception. However, panic attacks can occur unprompted, such as those associated with panic disorder. A fight-or-flight response without warning is deemed a panic attack for a reason. In a circumstance with no threat, your body can make you think that danger – even death – is imminent, and this results in extreme, terrifying, debilitating panic.
It is not yet known why people suffer from panic attacks or panic disorders. The leading hypothesis is genetics, but there is as much evidence to challenge this as there is to support it. Regardless, panic attacks are a very real experience many people have. Hopefully, knowledge of the science behind the attack can aid you in your next experience with it. It has been shown that the most successful ways to stop a panic attack are to control your breathing and to remind yourself that you are not in any real danger. The next time you, a friend or loved one, or even a stranger, are having an attack, inhale, count to three, exhale, count to three, and remind yourself that this is only adrenaline, just adrenaline.
Sources:
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000924.htm
https://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/panic-attack-happening#1-3