There are several causes of ongoing anxiety and panic even when a tiger isn’t chasing you. While this list is likely not exhaustive, these are a few of the common causes:
Bio-chemical and Behavioral:
Your brain is constantly in a tug-of-war between chemicals that amp you up and make you ready to fight off the tiger chasing you and happy chemicals that make you feel at calm and at peace. The tiger chasing chemicals include adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) and cortisol and the calming chemicals include serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphin, and GABA.
When you need to fight off a tiger to survive, the tiger chasing chemicals will speed up your heart rate and breathing, increase your blood pressure, heighten your mental and physical reflexes and more so that you can fight for your life or flee if fighting isn’t possible. This can be literally life-saving when a tiger is actually chasing you. The problem comes in when the tiger chasing chemicals are winning the tug-of-war even when you are not facing a true life-threatening crisis.
Dr. Archibald Hart, author of The Anxiety Cure, suggests that when a person lives without sufficient margin of time, energy, and rest, their brain is asked to produce more happy chemicals than normal. This works for a while, but eventually the brain rebels and says “I’m done – I can’t keep up. Sorry, but the tiger chasing chemicals are going to have to win for a while.” In other words, living beyond our limits as is commonly done in the 21st century is a recipe for chemical imbalance and consequent mental health problems, include anxiety and panic.
Genetic Factors:
Some people have genetic types that make it difficult for them to absorb the precursor chemicals in food that are needed for the body to produce the happy chemicals. Such people will still produce these chemicals, but not at the same rate as someone who rarely if ever feels anxious, even in crisis situations. This is truly a situation where such people have “one hand tied behind their back”. The good news is that DNA tests exist today to identify such genetic factors, as well as supplements and other strategies to increase production of happy chemicals. For more information, see Caring/Your DNA and Resources/DNA Testing.
Psychological:
Anxiety can also be caused and worsened by at least two aspects of your psychological health and story. When a person experiences an emotionally traumatic or painful event, the memory of that event can be stored in the brain and even in the body in a fragmented way if not meaningfully addressed. Thereafter, all kinds of things can trigger the same intense feelings that were felt at the time of the traumatic event, even when a person is not otherwise consciously thinking of it. This can be true decades later. The good news is that there is more understanding of the effects of emotional trauma than ever before along with many helpful strategies to heal from it.
A second aspect of your psychological health and story that can create or worsen existing anxiety is believing and repeating thoughts that are untrue, inaccurate, unhealthy, distorted, and otherwise negative. Aside from being unhelpful because such thoughts are not accurate, it will become more and more easy for the brain to return to them the more they are repeated. This can also happen even when there is some aspect of the thoughts that are accurate, albeit negative – repeating those thoughts can make a “mountain out of a molehill”.
Environmental:
Finally, the circumstances in which you live and work and the people with whom you live can impact the behavioral and psychological causes of anxiety and panic. Sometimes a change in circumstances, work environment, or the people you spend time with is necessary if those circumstances or people are casing you to live without margin, repeat negative and untrue thoughts, or create trauma or cause your previous trauma to be triggered.
The bottom line is that there are multiple potential causes of anxiety and panic and that’s why multiple different strategies are helpful or even required in order to experience relief and healing. The good news is that many strategies are available and can greatly improve your anxiety and panic. Keep reading this website to learn more.