What is Panic?

Anxiety has many gradations of intensity. It can be a mere qualm, rise to marked trembling, or become complete panic. Panic is extremely intense anxiety.
The onset and duration of anxiety (or panic) also varies. It may come on gradually over minutes or hours, or it may strike like lightning out of the blue. And it may last for only a few seconds or for hours or even days, although severe panic does not usually last longer than half an hour or so.

Anxiety or panic that bears no relationship to where we are or that has no obvious cause is called spontaneous anxiety (or spontaneous panic). Anxiety that comes only in particular situations is known as situational or phobic anxiety (or phobic panic if it is severe). Anxiety that is triggered by merely thinking of particular situations is a variety of phobic anxiety (or phobic panic) which is called anticipatory anxiety (or anticipatory panic).

As far as we can tell, the feelings are similar whether the anxiety (or panic) is spontaneous or phobic. Research has found that the type of phobia also makes little difference to the feelings: Agoraphobics, social phobics, and animal phobics all report similar feelings when in the phobic situation.

Intensity, however, can pull out more stops, depending on the type of anxiety or panic. In experiencing mild tension we might have no more than an unpleasant feeling in the pit of our stomach. The extreme anxiety we call panic brings out a greater orchestration of feelings—we are more likely then to feel rapid heart beat, sweating, and trembling and to think that we are going mad or losing control.
Will an Anxiety Disorder damage my health? Many people with Anxiety Disorders have suffered from them for decades without apparent injury to their health or development of high blood pressure, ulcers, asthma, or other physical disorders that are commonly thought to result from stress.

A study of medical charts at the University of Iowa found that men and women who had probable diagnoses of Panic Disorder had increased rates of death from suicide, and men had increased rates of death from cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure), compared to a general population. Another study found no increased death rate in patients with Panic Disorder.

It is our strong impression that Anxiety Disorders on the whole shorten people’s lives little, if at all, and they certainly shorten life far less than do common bad habits such as smoking, intemperate drinking, and over consumption of fatty foods. Whether Panic Disorder shortens people’s lives needs more study.