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Do over-emotional people get more panic attacks?
The amygdala-headed limbic system that is responsible for threat handling is also responsible for our feelings and mood regulation. Because the limbic brain is the brain that existed in our great ape ancestors much before the core human brain of the pre-frontal cortex got developed in us, the brain manages some of the primal emotions.
Hate, jealousy, envy, love, greed, desire, anger and alike emotions are all regulated by this brain.
Now understand that panic attacks result from sustained reactions of the brain to even the smallest anomalies. Any reaction creates extreme variations in the hormones. The Hypothalamus senses hormonal variations as feelings.
On the other hand, emotions are stitched memories of life (with each memory having its feelings) as a connected, contextual story that we call an experience. So, when the brain experiences extreme feelings, the emotions are also extreme. When you feel extreme changes in the feelings, they are saved in the memory. And so, when you try to recall the memories, you experience extreme feelings.
Recall how our brain tries to look for past experiences whenever there is a stressor. As the brain starts searching for past memories, it gives a preference to the ones with extreme feelings relevant to the current stressor.
All such memories have extreme feelings signature, and so the brain gets more afraid, as the more memories it searches, the more extreme emotions it experiences. That is one of the primary reasons why the brain feels threat even in the slightest of the stressors and switches to an amygdala-based threat response rather than an HPA-based stress response.
Therefore uncontrolled extreme emotions are also key hallmarks of a brain that is at a high risk of panicking in a rather not-so-harmful situation.
Is there any relationship between mania and panic? Do Bipolar disorder individuals panic more?
In a study conducted in 2025, youths3 aged between 5 to 9 years seen at a mood and anxiety specialty clinic were assessed using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children-Present Episode. Youths with PD were more likely to exhibit comorbid BPD (N = 8, 19.0%) than youths with either non-PD anxiety disorders (N = 22, 5.4%) or other nonanxious psychiatric disorders (N = 112, 7.1%).
The presence of either PD or BPD in youths made the co-occurrence of the other condition more likely, as has been noted in adults. Patients with both PD and BPD are more likely to have psychotic symptoms and suicidal ideation. In treating youths with PD, clinicians must be vigilant for possible comorbid BPD or risk of the pharmacologic triggering of a manic or hypomanic episode.
In the above subsection, we already understand how extreme emotions lead to a panicking brain over a period of time.
If you observe overreaction to even the smallest of things, you must become aware that it may lead to panic attacks in the future. Repeated panic attacks may lead to panic disorder.
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.