Why are hypertensive people more likely to panic?
It is simple to understand that when we feel a threat, the brain panics if it doesn’t know what to do. In a panic situation, the brain overreacts. Over-reaction means the body has to perform several times more than it can (called sympathetic overdrive). All the cells, muscles, and organs need more energy and oxygen. So, the blood supply speed has to increase. A subsystem achieves this in us called the Renin-Angiotensin system.
This system, in conjunction with the sympathetic nervous system, decreases the volume of the arteries, which is called vasoconstriction.
Imagine a water pipe; when you press the pipe, the speed of the water increase, and then when you release pressure, the water flow decrease. Vasoconstriction leads to physiological hypertension(temporary high BP).
The body follows a transitive relationship. This means that if condition A leads to a compensatory condition B, then condition B will also be highly likely to lead to condition A.
For human body, if A=>B, then B=>A.
Examples:
Sleep=>Mood Disorder; Mood Disorder => Sleep
Sympathetic dominance=>Essential Hypertension; Essential Hypertension=> Sympathetic dominance;
Panic<=>Sympathetic Dominance;
Hence, Panic<=>Hypertension;The way panicking leads to physiological hypertension, an “essential hypertension,” may then also lead to panic attacks. Please remember essential hypertension is the permanent vasoconstriction when the body remains in sympathetic dominance all the time.
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.