Page 35 - Advance Copy: Todd Kaufman, Author

HOW TO MANAGE ANXIETY & END PANIC ATTACKS
When the highly-trained team of experts had all the data they needed and regular blood tests returned with no markers that indicated her heart was in distress, a kind but overworked nurse escorted the severely-shaken and traumatized Becky out of the badly-needed triage room, down the hall and into my office: “Todd, this one is yours.”
Becky came in and I escorted her into a seat. She was still struggling to breathe, and she was clutching her chest believing full well the doctors were wrong and this was the big one. She knew. She just knew in her gut she was dying.
With all the clinical evidence to the contrary, I knew what was really happening. Something had triggered Becky’s amygdala into a complete “red alert,” as my friend Joannie would call it. Becky’s fight or flight system was in hyper drive. She was having a panic attack.
Here’s what was going on in Becky’s body: In preparation to keep her safe, her amygdala had triggered her hypothalamus and it was flushing high levels of adrenaline, followed by cortisol, through her body. The first flush took less than 1/12th of a second! The hormones were causing her heart to beat faster to speed up the flow of blood to the major muscle groups in her legs and arms in order to prepare her to run or for battle. Her muscles needed oxygenated blood, so the hormones gave her that feeling of not being able to breathe to encourage just the opposite: hyperventilation. All that oxygen- rich blood moved to her extremities making her hands, feet and head feel warm and tingly.
The longer the process continued, the more dangerous it seemed to Becky and her amygdala. Becky was prepared to do anything to fight off the attack, and all her amygdala noticed was her intent to fight. So, in keeping with its duty to prep the body to run or fight, it released more cortisol and the cycle continued to escalate more and more. Since Becky was certain she was in imminent danger from which she needed to escape, there was no real immediate need
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