Most people who suffer from panic attacks don’t know what’s actually happening. That’s why it feels so terrifying.

They feel a strange sensation in the body, tightness in the chest, a racing heart, dizziness and they immediately think something is wrong. But panic attacks don’t start with the body. They start with the mind.

The truth is: panic is a cycle. It builds on itself. And unless one understands how this cycle works, it’s easy to become trapped in it, again and again.

But once you know how to spot it early, everything changes. You realize that most panic attacks are not reactions to real danger, but to fear of fear itself.

You’re not broken. You’re not crazy. You’re just following a pattern your body and brain have rehearsed too many times.

The earlier you recognize that pattern, the easier it becomes to break it.

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You’re walking down the street. Or sitting in a meeting. Or lying in bed. Nothing major is happening.

Then, something shifts. Maybe you feel a little off. You can’t catch your breath properly. Or there’s a strange feeling in your stomach. You don’t know why and that’s what triggers it.

You start scanning your body. You check your breathing. You focus on your heart. You wonder: “Am I about to faint? Is something wrong with me?”

Within seconds, a simple observation turns into a threat.
Your body starts to react, fast heartbeat, sweat, blurry vision.
You think: “What if I’m dying?”

And now the loop has begun. You’re scared of what’s happening in your body but it’s your fear that’s making the symptoms worse. You’re caught in a storm that your mind helped create.

This is how most panic attacks begin. Not with a traumatic event, not with bad news but with a quiet moment that spirals into a disaster inside your own head.

The key is understanding this cycle, so that next time, you can interrupt it.

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The panic cycle has four stages. Once you see them clearly, you’ll never unsee them again.

1. Anticipation (Fear of Fear)

It begins with a thought, conscious or not, that something bad might happen. You anticipate fear.
You might not say it out loud, but your body hears:

“What if I panic right now?”
“What if I feel something strange?”
“What if I lose control?”

This anticipation triggers stage two.

2. Hyper-Focus on the Body

You start scanning your body for anything unusual.
Slight pressure in your chest? A warm flush in your arms? A skipped heartbeat?
The more you look, the more you find. The more you find, the more you react.

3. Catastrophizing

Now the mind kicks in.
You interpret everything as dangerous.
You think:

“This isn’t normal.”
“It could be a heart attack.”
“What if I go unconscious?”
Your thoughts become extreme, and they feel convincing.

4. Panic Loop (Fear Feeds Itself)

The physical symptoms get stronger, not because of danger, but because of fear.
You breathe faster. You sweat. You feel dizzy.
You fear you’re dying.
But what’s really happening is a full-body reaction to your own imagination.

If you can notice the anticipation phase, the very first moment you think “what if”  you can stop the cycle.
You don’t have to fight the symptoms. You just have to not believe the first fear.

Once you see the first step, you don’t have to walk the rest.

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The only way panic can win, is if you believe it.

Panic attacks are not evidence of danger. They’re evidence that the mind is too powerful to be left unmanaged. The more you feed it with fear, the more it shows you things to be afraid of.

But here’s the simplest truth you can hold onto:

If something real is going to happen, it will happen anyway.

No amount of panic will prevent it.
No amount of fear will stop it.
And no amount of “what if” will change the outcome.

This is how you begin to take your power back:

- When something feels strange in your body, don’t anticipate fear.

- Don’t give meaning to every sensation.

- Don’t make predictions.

- Stay where you are.

Say to yourself:

“If this is panic, it will pass. If it’s real, I’ll deal with it when it’s here.”

That sentence can stop everything.

You don’t need to master your body. You just need to master your reaction to the first thought.

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Panic feeds on attention. It lives on interpretation.

But when you stop reacting to every signal… when you stop treating every physical sensation like a threat… the panic begins to starve.

That’s the shift that changes everything. Not a pill. Not a ritual. Just a different way of seeing what’s happening.

And when you change how you see, you change what happens next.

Next week, we’ll go deeper into this with:
“The Body That Lies” why your physical signals can’t always be trusted, and how to take back control.

Until then:
If there’s nothing wrong, don’t invent something.
If there is, it will show itself.

And you will still be able to face it, calmly.