A panic attack is caused because the unconscious mind has mistakenly sensed a threat and switched on the “fight or flight” mechanism. Panic attack symptoms can develop after genuinely frightening or traumatic experiences. Just as often, there’s no obvious single cause, or it may seem that there are lots of different reasons.
There is little real evidence for a genetic basis for panic attacks, although individuals may report a history of anxiety in their family. In such cases, it may be that the individual has learned how to panic – all mammals, including humans, learn behaviours from their parents, after all.
The general pattern seems to be a build-up of anxiety or stress over time, suddenly tipping over into a full-blown panic attack. One way to think of it is as an internal “stress bucket”. If it’s filled up for too often and for too long, it doesn’t take too much extra stress for it to spill over. Or another way to describe it could be like filling a balloon with water – sure enough, at a certain point pass the threshold - it’s going to burst.
This is why panic attacks can seemingly arise out of the blue, in otherwise ordinary or normal situations. It only takes a certain situation to trigger the response.
