Does this sounds familiar?
Imagine this: You’re standing in line for coffee, minding your own business, when suddenly — BAM — your heart races like you’ve just run a marathon, your chest tightens, and the room feels like it’s shrinking. Your brain sounds the alarm: Danger! Danger! But… there’s no tiger in sight. No speeding car. No villain twirling their mustache. Just… coffee. What gives?
Training human’s brains for 25 years, I’ll let you in on a secret: panic attacks are basically your brain overreacting in the most dramatic way possible. Let’s dive into what’s happening up there — and more importantly, how to calm the storm when it hits.
What’s Happening in Your Brain?
Picture your brain as a high-tech security system. At its core is the amygdala — a tiny, almond-shaped structure that acts like a panic button. Its job? To keep you alive. When it senses danger, it sounds the alarm, flooding your body with adrenaline and triggering the infamous “fight or flight” response.
But here’s the catch: the amygdala isn’t great at distinguishing between real threats (like a bear) and perceived threats (like a stressful meeting or a weird text from your crush). Sometimes, it hits the panic button for no good reason. That’s when you get the racing heart, dizziness, shaky hands, and the overwhelming urge to either sprint out of the room or curl up into a ball.
Reasons for Panic Attacks?
1. Psychological Factors
Stress Overload: Chronic work pressure, relationship issues, financial problems.
Unresolved Trauma: Childhood neglect, abuse, accidents, sudden loss.
Anxiety Disorders: Generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, phobias.
Negative Thought Patterns: Catastrophic thinking, constant “what-if” scenarios.
Fear of Panic Itself: Anticipatory anxiety, creating a cycle of fear.
Perfectionism and Control Issues: Fear of failure or loss of control.
Suppressed Emotions: Unprocessed anger, grief, or fear surfacing unexpectedly.
Existential or Identity Crises: Internal conflict about life purpose or major changes.
2. Biological Factors
Genetics and Brain Chemistry: Family history of anxiety or panic disorders.
Hormonal Changes: Menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, puberty.
Physical Health Issues: Thyroid imbalances, heart arrhythmias, low blood sugar, respiratory issues.
Substance Use or Withdrawal: Caffeine, alcohol, drugs, medication side effects or withdrawal.
3. Environmental Factors
Sensory Overload: Crowded spaces, loud noises, chaotic environments.
Unpredictable Situations: Sudden changes or feeling out of control.
Lack of Sleep: Sleep deprivation weakening emotional regulation.
4. Subconscious Factors
Emotional Triggers from the Past: Unconscious associations with past traumatic events.
Conditioned Responses: Learned fear responses due to past experiences.
Regression Triggers: Deep-seated memories or emotions resurfacing unexpectedly.
Panic attacks usually arise from a combination of these factors. Identifying the roots — whether psychological, biological, environmental, or subconscious — is key to resolving them.
Are you Here & Now?
What all causes of panic attack have in common? “Not here & not Now”. A panic attack is often a sign that your mind has drifted away from the here and now — either jumping into the future or getting stuck in the past. Let me explain.
The Future: Catastrophic Thinking
When your mind leaps into the future during a panic attack, it’s usually painting worst-case scenarios. This is called catastrophic thinking:
“What if I pass out?”
“What if I lose control?”
“What if this never stops?”
Your brain treats these imagined fears as if they’re happening right now, triggering your body’s fight-or-flight response. Even though the danger isn’t real, your body reacts as if it is.
The Past: Old Wounds Resurfacing
Sometimes, panic attacks are echoes of past experiences. Your mind gets pulled back to a moment when you felt powerless, scared, or unsafe — even if you aren’t consciously aware of it. The body holds onto these emotional imprints, and when something triggers that old memory, your brain hits the panic button.
The Solution: Bringing Your Mind Back to the Present
So… How Do We Shut Panic Off in the Moment?
The good news? You can train your brain and body to chill out.The key to stopping a panic attack is to anchor yourself in the now. Techniques like grounding exercises, deep breathing, and mindfulness help pull your attention away from past fears and future worries, bringing you back to safety in the present moment. Here are some tried-and-true techniques to tame the panic beast:
1. Biofeedback Fast Cortisol Drop
The Star Posture, based on the work of Eric Peper, is a powerful stress-relief technique that utilizes body posture to influence brain chemistry. Research shows that adopting expansive postures like this one can lead to a drop in cortisol (the stress hormone) and an increase in testosterone (the confidence hormone), helping you feel more empowered and relaxed.
How to Do the Star Posture (Eric Peper’s Method):
1. Stand tall with your feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Stretch your arms and legs wide, forming a star shape.
3. Open your chest by pulling your shoulders back.
4. Lift your chin and smile, even if it’s forced—this sends positive feedback to your brain.
5. Breathe deeply, inhaling through your nose and exhaling slowly through your mouth (repeat 3-5 times).
6. Hold the position for 2 minutes, allowing your body to absorb the benefits.
Scientific Benefits (Based on Eric Peper’s Research):
- Cortisol drops, reducing stress and anxiety.
- Testosterone rises, enhancing confidence and a sense of control.
- Expansive body language signals power and relaxation to the brain, quickly shifting your emotional state.
This quick, science-backed technique is perfect before high-stress situations, helping you feel more in control and emotionally balanced.
2 Biofeedback: Heart Rate Drop
Coherent Breathing (5-Second Breaths)
This technique synchronizes your breathing with your heart rate, promoting a state of balance in the nervous system.
How to Practice:
1. Inhale deeply through your nose for 5 seconds.
2. Exhale gently through your nose for 5 seconds (matching the inhale).
3. Continue for at least 5 minutes to activate the baroreceptor reflex, which slows the heart rate and reduces cortisol levels.
Why It Works: This method promotes heart rate variability (HRV)—a key indicator of resilience to stress. The heart sends signals to the brain that everything is stable, reducing overactivity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear center).
3 Talk to Your Amygdala (Yes, Really)
When the panic button gets smashed, your thoughts can spiral out of control: I’m dying. I can’t breathe. This will never end. Become the you best friend/parent by calming yourself with the right words.
Interrupt the spiral with a reality check:
“This is just my brain overreacting.”
“I’ve been here before, and it always passes.”
“I am ok, I am safe.”
It sounds simple, but self-talk rewires your brain over time, teaching it to stay calm under pressure.
4 Ground Yourself in the Present
Panic pulls you out of the present moment and into a whirlwind of “what ifs.” Bring yourself back with this quick grounding exercise of magic senses exercise 5-4-3-2-1:
It’s like hitting the reset button on your nervous system.
Name/focus on 5 things you can see.
Name/focus on 4 things you can touch.
Name/focus on 3 things you can hear.
Name/focus on 2 things you can smell.
Name/focus on 1 taste. Think lemon and I bet you would be able to taste it.
5 Befriend the Beast
Here’s a wild idea: what if you stopped fighting panic and started… embracing it? Sounds crazy, right? But the more you resist panic, the stronger it gets. Instead, try saying, “Okay, body. I see what you’re doing. Thanks for trying to protect me, but I’ve got this.” By accepting the sensations rather than fearing them, you take away their power. The true feeling will last 90 seconds, allow yourself to feel it all the way.
6 Train Your Brain with Neurofeedback
This is where things get extra cool. Neurofeedback is like a personal trainer for your brain. Sensors track your brain waves, showing you in real-time when your mind is entering “panic mode.” Then, through neurological exercises, your brain learns how to self regulate’ shift and stay into a calmer state. Over time, this strengthens the brain’s ability to stay chill under pressure — making panic attacks first less intense, less frequent and eventually non existent. Imagine being able to catch your brain slipping into reactive states in real-time, and shifting back to clear, calm, focused and alert control. Neurofeedback gives you that power, training your brain to stay steady even during challenging moments. With time, you learn to override the “panic mode” and make room for mature, thoughtful conscious responses.
Neurofeedback, developed by NASA, is a type of EEG biofeedback that helps self-regulate and correct irregular brainwave patterns tied to mental, cognitive and neurological issues. Research has found that conditions like ADHD, anxiety, and PTSD are often linked to abnormal brain waves. Neurofeedback prompts your brain to produce healthy brain waves patterns closer to the scientific range of norm using operant conditioning sound). It is non-invasive, painless and side effects free. Neurofeedback offers specific protocols to train the prefrontal cortex and regulate brainwave patterns.
7 Uncovering/Removing the Root: Regression Therapy
Remove the beast as the splinter from your subconsciousness. Regression therapy can be especially powerful for addressing those past triggers, while neurofeedback trains and rewires your brain to stay calm when anxiety tries to hijack the present. Why does the amygdala overreact in the first place? This is where things get interesting — and where regression therapy can offer some surprising answers.
Imagine your mind is like a house. Panic attacks? They’re like flickering lights. You can keep changing the bulbs (coping with the symptoms), or you can go into the basement and fix the wiring (addressing the root cause). That’s where regression therapy comes in.
This technique guides you in a semi-conscious state to explore subconscious traumatic memories, often from early life or even pre-birth, to uncover deep-seated subconscious emotional patterns and imprints. Through techniques like guided visualization, regression therapy helps you revisit these memories safely, allowing you to release repressed emotions and gain valuable insights that break old, limiting patterns.
Panic attacks often have deeper roots than we realize. Maybe it’s a childhood memory of getting lost in a crowd, or a long-forgotten moment when you felt powerless. These emotional imprints get stored in the subconscious, and when life throws something vaguely similar your way, your brain presses the panic button — even if there’s no real danger.
How does regression therapy help?
It’s like time-traveling through your memories, with a guide (that’s me) helping you revisit the moments when these emotional patterns were formed. It can work from feeling, mind, body or from body, feeling, mind or from mind then body and feeling depending on your particular panic attack. By bringing those old experiences to light, you can:
Understand where the fear started.
Process the emotions that got stuck.
Collect you lost in the past attention.
Reframe the experience, giving your brain a new narrative.
Gain extra energy and happiness.
It’s like updating your brain’s software. Instead of “panic = survival,” your mind starts learning, “I am safe now.” And that’s a game-changer.
8 Mindfulness and Meditation:
These may sound simple, but they’re game-changers. By becoming aware of your thoughts and emotions as they arise, you create space to pause before reacting. Over time, mindfulness strengthens your prefrontal cortex, helping you manage emotions and respond with clarity rather than defaulting to “reactive mode.”
9 Lifestyle Changes:
A balanced diet, regular exercise, and proper sleep are critical for maintaining both mental and physical health.
The Takeaway: Rewire Your Mind
Panic attacks may feel like a runaway train, but with practice, you can grab the controls. Breathe. Ground yourself. Rewire your thoughts. And if you want to go deeper, regression therapy can help uncover and heal the old emotional wounds that keep triggering the alarm. Combine that with neurofeedback to train your brain to stay calm, and you’ll have a powerful toolkit to stop panic in its tracks.
Remember: your brain’s only trying to protect you — it just needs a little help learning when to stand down. You’ve got this. And if your amygdala needs a pep talk, I’ll be right here, cheering you on.
