What happens in the body during a panic attack - minute by minute
From the alarm in the first second to the exhaustion hours later: what adrenaline does, why there is not too little oxygen, and why the peak has to pass.
ReadPanic attacks
What happens in the body during a panic attack, and why it is not dangerous even though it feels that way. Posts on the first attack, the fear of fear, agoraphobia, and what actually helps.
Why a panic attack is not dangerous, even when it feels like a heart attack
Organ by organ: what adrenaline does to the heart, the lungs and blood pressure - and why terrifying is not the same as dangerous.
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The first panic attack: why it comes "out of nowhere", and why just then
A first attack almost always feels unannounced. It often arrives after weeks of strain, just as the pressure lets go and you hear your own body again.
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Fear of fear: how panic learns to return
After a first attack, fear moves from the world to your own body. How anticipation, body monitoring and safety behaviours make sure panic comes back.
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Agoraphobia: how life quietly narrows to safe routes
Agoraphobia does not arrive as a decision but as a series of reasonable adjustments. How avoidance spreads step by step, and what it does to relationships.
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Breathing during panic: what actually helps and why a paper bag is not the answer
During a panic attack you are not short of oxygen but of carbon dioxide. Why the paper bag is a bad idea and what actually settles your breathing.
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A panic attack at night: why it wakes you at three and what to do then
You wake in a full attack, with no dream and no reason. Why this happens at the passage into deep sleep, and what to do that night and the next day.
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What to do when someone beside you is having a panic attack
The exact sentences that help and the ones better left unsaid. When to call an ambulance, and why rescuing feeds panic in the long run.
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Exposure: why panic has to be approached, not avoided
What exposure actually looks like: a ladder of situations in small steps, dropping safety behaviours, working with bodily sensations. And when it is not the answer.
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Panic and control: why it strikes the person who holds it all together
Why panic so often hits the pillar of the family. A systemic look at roles that form without ill intent, and at tension that has no addressee.
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