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Table of Contents
Is panic disorder a habit and behavioral disorder?
Video illustration and explanation of how panicking becomes a habit
What are Panic Attacks and Panic Disorders
Panic disorder and panic attacks are two of the most common problems seen in the world of psychiatry. Panic disorder is separate from a panic attack, although recurrent, unexpected panic attacks characterize it.
Panic attacks are defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM) as “an abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort” reaching a peak within minutes1. A panic disorder is a repeated frequent recurrence of Panic attacks.
To diagnose panic disorder accurately, it is important to differentiate the two entities from each other. According to DSM 5, panic disorder can be diagnosed if recurrent unexpected panic attacks are happening, followed by one month or more of persistent concern over having more attacks, along with a change in the individual’s behavior to avoid a situation in which they attribute the attack.
What is Panic?
Whenever we are threatened and experience a life-death situation, our brain adapts one of the three strategies: a) Fight, b) Flight c) Freeze.
For instance, if a crazy dog attacks you, you may either fight the dog with kicks and belts or would want to run away from that place. However, what happens when you are surrounded by 100 mad dogs screaming, barking, and showing your teeth with saliva-dripping-gurring? Your brain will probably go into a state of shock as it would not see any way out. The brain would calculate that it is impossible to run out of the situation and it is impossible to fight against 100 mad dogs. It will go into a state of extreme shock and may stop functioning. That situation is called freezing.
Your behavior at that moment of extreme shock will be unpredictable; the fear of death will be intense and extreme. That is situational panic, and every human gets shocked and panics in such situations.
However, what if you constantly think about such a situation? Then your brain always remains in high alert mode. What happens when you see even one street dog dripping saliva? Your brain immediately thinks hundreds of dogs are there and will panic.
What if someone handholds you through a street with hundreds of dogs and many screaming and barking? You will be afraid to start with. However, as you walk along the companion, your brain will slowly realize that there is not much to fear. You will still experience a life-death situation.
What happens if your companion walks you through this situation every day for one month? Your brain slowly gets accustomed to the situation and thinks less about it to overcome the fear.
But what if one day you go to such a street where your companion is no more present with you? You will be afraid, but the brain will have a much better ability to walk now. You will still be close to panic, but you won’t probably freeze. You will cross the road. And what happens when you slowly walk through this road over and over for a month all alone? Of course, your brain will develop “courage” in a fearful situation, and you won’t panic.
So, in a common man’s understanding of language, a Panic is simply a brain shock due to unpreparedness for a situation, which instantly appears like a life-death situation to the brain. The more you avoid difficult situations, the more you risk panic attacks. The more shock your brain gets, the more imaginary fear it will create to keep you away from such situations; Slowly avoiding life situations will become a habit, and brain will keep adding more and more situations to panic avoidance, and even a slight anomaly will panic you;
Let us now structure the above example and use the case into a model so we can remember and understand the model.
What are the common factors that increase the risk of a panic attack?
- Constantly thinking about probable dangerous situations in life.
- Non-exposure to difficult situations in life.
- Not having people in life to stand by us in a difficult situations.
- Over-reaction of the brain to any situation as a life-death situation.
- Contrary to the common understanding that stressors are the reasons for panic, it is the opposite. Lack of stress exposure leads to a panicking brain.
Hi Rupam da,
This is a great article packed with valuable information.
If someone is suffering from memory functioning not properly and that in turn causes panic, is that something curable? E.g., in a sudden actionable situation his/her memory doesn’t trigger in time to resolve the situation, and instead panic occurs. So, no action is taken and a disastrous situation is imminent, in turn, that causes more panic.
Dear Subhajit, thanks for your comment and for posting the query.
1. Panic is a reaction of the brain. Brain panics when it considers a situation threatful.
2. In my case, I am severely dyslexic. I can’t make sense of spellings, and because of severe brain information overload, often tend to forget small things when I try to remember them. It happens all the time.
3. When I forget and fail to recollect information, it becomes frustrating sometimes, and such frustration may irritate me.
4. Such forgetfulness is limited to forgetting memory and may result in carelessness and diversion of focus from our actions. For instance, over the past few weeks, several times, I have forgotten to turn off the gas after making tea, resulting in burning the utensil.
5. Such incidents resulted in kind of fear and over-alertness whenever I went near the stove.
So, I can completely understand and comprehend your question. Here is how I have dealt with the situation.
i) When such forgetfulness occurs, note down the incidents.
ii) This convinces the brain that you are not worried or frustrated about the situation but taking them as an opportunity to learn why they are happening.
iii) When you are not occupied, open the notes of all the situations and think deeply from the last evening of the day of the event till the evening of the day of the event about every incident.
iv) You will invariably notice that the forgetfulness is a result of poor sleep, relationship conflict, someone triggering you already in the last two days, or suppressed anger.
v) Now, when you correlate multiple such incidents, you will see similar patterns.
vi) Write down this pattern as “Cause of Forgetfulness.”
vii) Next time a similar event happens, just open your notes of the causation section and check if the events and patterns are the same as what you have discovered.
viii) After pattern matching, you will see that you are no more panicking. Now your brain will device strategies to overcome or avoid those patterns.
Final Thought:-
Panic is a phenomenon of the afraid subconscious brain. Whenever panic situations are appearing in life, bring them into your conscious brain and analyze them. Helps you overcome panic attacks.