Causes of anxiety attacks

Anxiety attacks can be “one-off” or very occasional events, or may be part of an ongoing pattern.  For example, a friend of mine told me of an experience she had, when she was travelling on a long international flight and had become ill, probably with some kind of ‘flu virus.  By the time she reached her destination, she was feeling exhausted, run-down, sick from the virus, and probably running a fever as well, and psychologically she was probably anxious about becoming sick while travelling to a foreign country.  All of these factors combined together resulted in her having a panic attack at the destination airport.  This kind of event is something could happen to anyone and not necessarily part of an ongoing anxiety disorder.  The situation becomes too much for the person to cope with and the extreme stress triggers the extreme fight-or-flight response.  It usually blows over within about thirty minutes.  This kind of panic attack can occur as a one-off or very occasional event and does not mean the person has an anxiety disorder.

Anxiety attacks can also be part of an ongoing pattern.  Often the nervous system is in a much more sensitive state than ‘normal’ and so panic attacks can be triggered more easily.  Dr. Claire Weekes refers to this state as the ‘sensitised nervous system’.  In this state the nervous system is hypersensitive and overreacts to stimuli.  An extreme fight-or-flight response is triggered when the situation does not warrant it.  There is no angry bear chasing us in reality, but our nervous system reacts as if there is.  For some people, these attacks are triggered by something specific, such as a flight, drive, meeting, speech, test, etc.  For some people, when the nervous system is extremely sensitised, an ongoing anxiety state can exist, like an anxiety attack that continues instead of blowing over within a few minutes like a more ‘typical’ panic attack.