Anxiety and Panic Attacks: What’s Happening in Your Body

 

What’s Happening in Your Body

Anxiety can feel like a constant hum in the background- tight chest, restless thoughts, a sense that something is about to go wrong.

A panic attack can feel like something worse: sudden, overwhelming, and terrifying. Your heart races. Your breath gets shallow. Your hands tingle. You might feel dizzy, detached, or convinced you’re about to pass out, lose control, or die.

And then comes the part that keeps the cycle going:

You start fearing the fear.

You fear the next episode. You scan your body for signs. You avoid places where it happened before. You try to control your thoughts and sensations- only to find they get louder.

If you’ve experienced panic, you’re not weak. You’re not “dramatic.” You’re having a very real physiological experience, and it’s one your nervous system can learn to do differently.

Panic Isn’t Dangerous- But It Feels Like It Is

A panic attack is the body’s fight-or-flight system firing at the wrong time, often in response to stress, burnout, unresolved fear, or accumulated pressure.

Your body is doing what it was designed to do under threat:

• Speeding up the heart rate to pump blood to the muscles
• Increasing breath rate to bring in oxygen
• Shifting energy away from digestion and toward survival
• Sharpening attention to detect danger

The problem is that in panic, the “danger” is often internal sensations (tight chest, rapid heart) rather than an external threat. That’s why panic feels confusing: you can’t always point to a clear reason, yet your body is fully convinced there’s an emergency.

The Panic Loop: How It Keeps Repeating

For many people, the first panic attack feels like it comes out of nowhere. But what keeps panic recurring is a predictable loop:

1. A sensation appears (heart flutter, tight chest, dizziness)
2. Your mind interprets it as danger (“Something is wrong.”)
3. Fear increases adrenaline
4. Symptoms intensify
5. You become more convinced (“I’m not okay.”)
6. Panic peaks

Afterwards, a second loop often begins: avoidance and hypervigilance. You start monitoring your body more, avoiding triggers, or trying to prevent panic at all costs. Unfortunately, that “prevention” can teach your brain that panic is a threat- making it more likely.

Why “Just Calm Down” Doesn’t Work

When your nervous system is in fight-or-flight, your body isn’t responding to logic. You can’t think your way out of it easily because the system running the show is protective, not rational.

That’s why the most effective approaches focus on:

• Changing your relationship to sensations
• Regulating the nervous system in the moment
• Retraining your brain’s threat alarm over time

What Helps During a Panic Attack (Practical Tools)

If you’re currently in a panic cycle, here are approaches that can reduce intensity and shorten duration.

1) Name it: “This is panic. It will pass.”

This is not positive thinking. It’s pattern recognition.

Panic is time-limited and peaks. Reminding your brain what’s happening reduces catastrophic interpretation.

2) Let the sensations exist (instead of fighting them)

Fighting panic often signals danger to the brain: “This must be harmful.”

A counterintuitive method is to allow the sensations and say:

• “My body is surging.”
• “Uncomfortable, not dangerous.”
• “I can ride this wave.”

This shifts your nervous system from “threat” toward “tolerance.”

3) Slow your exhale (don’t force deep breaths)

If you try to “breathe big,” you might feel worse. Instead, aim for a longer exhale:

• Inhale normally through the nose for 3–4 seconds
• Exhale slowly for 6–8 seconds

Repeat for 60–90 seconds.

Longer exhales activate the parasympathetic system (the body’s braking system).

4) Grounding to reset your threat focus

Use a simple sensory anchor:

• Press both feet into the floor
• Notice 5 things you can see
• Notice 4 things you can feel
• Notice 3 things you can hear

Panic narrows attention inward. Grounding widens attention outward.

5) Stop checking, scanning, and “testing”

Checking your pulse, googling symptoms, or repeatedly asking “Am I okay?” can reinforce panic’s story. A key step is learning to reduce reassurance-seeking, slowly and compassionately.

The Bigger Question: Why Is Your System So Activated?

Panic isn’t random for many people. It often appears during seasons like:

• Chronic stress or burnout
• High responsibility with little recovery
• Grief, change, or uncertainty
• Perfectionism and control patterns
• Unresolved conflict or suppressed emotion
• Caffeine, poor sleep, or nervous system depletion

Sometimes panic is the nervous system’s way of saying:

“Something needs attention.”

Not because you’re broken, but because you’ve been carrying too much for too long.

Long-Term Recovery: Moving From Managing Panic to Ending the Cycle

The goal isn’t to “never feel anxious again.” The goal is:

• To stop being afraid of your internal sensations
• To rebuild trust in your body
• To increase your nervous system’s capacity
• To respond to stress differently

This is where structured support can help.

How Therapy Can Help (Without Making It Clinical or Overwhelming)

For many high-functioning people, anxiety is not a lack of intelligence or effort, it’s a nervous system pattern combined with mental loops.

Therapy from experienced therapists like Dave at The Mindful Map can support you to:

• Recognize your triggers and patterns
• Identify the thoughts that escalate panic
• Learn tools that work *for your body* (not generic advice)
• Practice nervous system regulation consistently
• Build confidence and agency in stressful moments
• Create sustainable routines that reduce baseline anxiety

Most importantly: you stop feeling like anxiety is “running your life.”

A Gentle Note

If your panic includes chest pain, fainting, or new symptoms, it’s wise to rule out medical causes once- then focus fully on retraining the panic cycle without repeatedly checking.

And if you ever feel at risk of harming yourself, seek immediate support.

Closing Thought

Panic feels like danger, but it’s often your body’s attempt to protect you- misfiring under stress.

You don’t have to muscle through it alone. With the right approach, and a mental health counseling center like The Mindful Map in NYC,  panic can become something you understand, move through, and eventually stop fearing.