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What A Panic Attack Does To Your Brain (And How To Fix It) · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 0:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So glad to have you with us, and we're so grateful that you're spending some of your time with us here.
• 0:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So imagine your house's fire alarm going off, the sirens are blaring, the lights are flashing, the whole works, but there's no fire, not even a puff of smoke.
• 0:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a full blown emergency for a threat that just isn't there.
• 0:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So what if I told you that's exactly what happens inside your head when you feel that sudden, overwhelming wave of panic?
• 0:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's your brain sounding a false alarm, a biological misfire that hijacks your body, making your heart pound, your breath catch, and your mind race with a terrifying sense of doom, even when you're perfectly safe.
• 1:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now, this isn't a sign of weakness, it's a glitch in our ancient, hardwired survival system.
• 1:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In fact, incredibly successful and disciplined people experience these attacks.
• 1:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're going to pull back the curtain on this baffling phenomenon.
• 1:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We'll look at the neuroscience of why your brain's own threat detector, a system designed to keep you alive, can sometimes turn on you.
• 1:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We'll explore the exact brain regions behind this misfire and how they trigger a full-body panic response to a threat that only exists in your mind.
• 1:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And most importantly, we'll talk about how understanding this is the first most powerful step toward recalibrating the system, turning down the volume on that false alarm, and taking back control.
• 2:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The ancient wiring in a modern world.
• 2:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: To get why your brain sounds these false alarms, we have to go way back, not just a few decades, but hundreds of thousands of years to a world that looked nothing like ours.
• 2:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Our ancestors lived with constant, real and immediate threats.
• 2:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're talking about predators and the tall grass, rival tribes, and sudden dangers all around them.
• 2:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In that world, having a hypersensitive threat detection system wasn't a problem.
• 2:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was essential for survival.
• 2:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The leading theory is that the individuals whose brains were quickest to assume the worst to hear a rustle in the bushes and think lion, not wind, were the ones who lived to pass on their genes.
• 3:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A better safe than sorry approach got hardwired into our brains.
• 3:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If your alarm went off and it was false, the cost was just a few moments of panic.
• 3:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But if your brain failed to sound the alarm when that threat was real, the cost was your life.
• 3:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This evolutionary pressure shaped the brain designed to err on the side of caution.
• 3:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's primed to find threats and to do it fast.
• 3:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now the problem is we're carrying that ancient hardware around in a modern world.
• 3:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In a modern world.
• 4:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But our ancient alarm system can't always tell the difference.
• 4:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It can misinterpret the stress of a big presentation as a mortal threat, triggering the exact same physiological meltdown that was meant to help you escape a predator.
• 4:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The system that was once a perfect adaptation can become a source of major issues.
• 5:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A panic attack is basically your Stone Age brain trying to solve a modern problem.
• 5:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a mismatch between our programming and our reality.
• 5:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And seeing that mismatch is the key to understanding why you can feel so much danger when logically know you're safe.
• 5:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Next, meet your brain's smoke detector, the amygdala.
• 5:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now let's meet the chief architect of this false alarm, a tiny almond shaped cluster of neurons called the amygdala.
• 5:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If your brain is a house, the amygdala is its hypersensitive smoke detector.
• 5:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Its main job is to act as a sentinel constantly scanning everything you see in here for any hint of danger.
• 6:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's the heart of your brain's fear circuit.
• 6:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: To really get what happens in a panic attack, it helps to understand a popular model of how the amygdala works, often called the low road and the high road.
• 6:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The low road is the fast lane.
• 6:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's quick and dirty.
• 6:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you see a coiled shape on a hike hiking trail, that visual info zips straight from a relay station in your brain to the amygdala.
• 6:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala doesn't wait for details.
• 6:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It sees long curvy thing and immediately sounds the alarm.
• 7:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Snake, this triggers the instant fight or flight response.
• 7:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now your heart pounds and you jump back before you even consciously know what you saw.
• 7:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This pathway is all about speed over accuracy.
• 7:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The high road, on the other hand, is the scenic route.
• 7:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The information also travels up to your prefrontal cortex.
• 7:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's the rational thinking part of your brain.
• 7:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The cortex takes a moment to analyze the details.
• 7:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It sees the texture, the color, the content, and realizes it's not a snake.
• 7:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's just a rope.
• 7:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The prefrontal cortex then sends an all-clear message down to the amygdala.
• 7:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: False alarm, stand down.
• 7:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your heart rate slows and you feel relief.
• 8:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In a well-regulated brain, these two roads work together beautifully.
• 8:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But during an amygdala hijack, this system breaks down.
• 8:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The low road response is so powerful that the stand down signal from the prefrontal cortex either doesn't get through or it is just completely ignored.
• 8:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala takes control, screaming danger on a loop.
• 8:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This can happen for a few reasons.
• 8:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Genetics or past experiences can leave a person with a more sensitive or hyperactive amygdala.
• 8:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like a smoke detector with its sensitivity cranked so high it goes off from shower steam.
• 8:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For people prone to panic attacks, the amygdala might interpret perfectly harmless bodily sensations, a heart flutter from caffeine, a little dizziness from standing up too fast as proof of a disaster.
• 9:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala screams fire and the rest of the brain and body believe it.
• 9:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Even when the fire is just a misinterpreted feeling.
• 9:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The memory of fear, the hippocampus and context.
• 9:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala may be the alarm bell, but it doesn't work alone.
• 9:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It has a critical partner in crime, a seahorse shaped structure right next to it called the hippocampus.
• 9:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The hippocampus is your brain's master archivist.
• 9:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It forms memories and crucially puts them in context.
• 10:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It answers the questions, where did this happen?
• 10:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What else is going on?
• 10:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This partnership is key for learning what to fear.
• 10:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If a dog bites you in a park, your amygdala creates the raw memory.
• 10:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Dog equals danger.
• 10:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Meanwhile, your hippocampus records the context, that specific park, the smell of cut grass, the time of day.
• 10:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is super useful.
• 10:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The next time you enter that park, your hippocampus recognizes the place and tells your amygdala, hey, remember this place?
• 10:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bad things happen.
• 10:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Stay alert.
• 10:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But here's where it can go wrong.
• 10:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In anxiety, the hippocampus can start to overgeneralize.
• 11:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Instead of just flagging that one park as risky, it might start flagging all parks.
• 11:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Then maybe all grassy areas.
• 11:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Soon, just stepping outside can become a trigger.
• 11:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What's more, a first panic attack is often so terrifying and confusing that it gets seared into your memory.
• 11:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's say your first one happened in a crowded grocery store.
• 11:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your amygdala encodes that intense feeling of terror.
• 11:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your hippocampus diligently records the context, the bright fluorescent lights, the squeak of cartwheels, the feeling of being surrounded.
• 11:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So next time you walk into a grocery store, your hippocampus recognizes the cues.
• 12:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It sends an urgent memo to the amygdala.
• 12:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're in a bad place.
• 12:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're in the bad place.
• 12:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is where it all fell apart.
• 12:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your amygdala already on high alert immediately slams the panic button.
• 12:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is how you can come and become afraid of the place where you had the attack, a phenomenon that can lead to agoraphobia.
• 12:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Even more insidiously, you can become afraid of the physical sensations themselves.
• 12:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You start to fear your own rac.
• 12:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain creates a catastrophic link.
• 12:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A faster heartbeat no longer means you're excited or just had coffee.
• 12:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It means a panic attack is coming.
• 13:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The hippocampus provides the memory of past danger, even a past false alarm.
• 13:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the amygdala provides the overwhelming reaction.
• 13:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain gets stuck in a time loop, treating the past as the present and creating a vicious cycle of fear.
• 13:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The false alarm is no longer random.
• 13:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's now being triggered by the memory of the last false alarm.
• 13:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The broken brake pedal, the prefrontal cortex.
• 13:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we have the hyperactive amygdala and the overcautious hippocampus.
• 13:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But what about the part of the brain that's supposed to step in and say, everybody, calm down, it's just a toaster.
• 13:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's the job of the prefrontal cortex or PFC.
• 14:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Located right behind your forehead, the PFC is the CEO of your brain, the rational manager.
• 14:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It handles logical thinking, decision making, and most importantly, emotional regulation.
• 14:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's the high road we talked about.
• 14:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Its job is to assess the situation and if there's no real threat, send calming signals down to the amygdala.
• 14:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Think of the PFC as the brake pedal for your brain's emotional accelerator.
• 14:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In a healthy nervous system, there's a balanced conversation between the PFC and the amygdala.
• 14:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala might yell threat, but the PFC can calmly reply, Nope, just the car backfiring.
• 15:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're safe.
• 15:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This top-down control lets us feel a jolt of fear, but then quickly settle down.
• 15:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In anxiety and panic, however, that communication line is often very weak.
• 15:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Weak.
• 15:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Brain imaging studies show that in people with high anxiety, the PFC is often underactive when they feel threatened, while the amygdala is overactive.
• 15:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you got a situation where the accelerator is floored, the brake pedal is mushy and ineffective.
• 15:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala signals of raw fear just overwhelm the PFC's attempts at rational control.
• 16:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The result is an unchecked emotional spiral.
• 16:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is why during a panic attack, you can feel so disconnected from reality.
• 16:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One part of your brain might be saying, This is irrational, I'm fine, while your body and emotions are screaming the opposite.
• 16:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's the sound of your PFC losing the battle against a hijacked amygdala.
• 16:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Chronic stress.
• 16:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Chronic stress is a major culprit here.
• 16:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It fatigues the PFC, a constant flood of stress hormones like cortisol can impair the PFC's function, making it even worse at raining in the amygdala.
• 17:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This creates a nasty cycle.
• 17:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Stress weakens the PFC, a weak PFC leads to more anxiety, and more anxiety creates more stress.
• 17:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's not just an overactive alarm, it's also that the manager is on a long lunch break, and the intern in the security office is hitting the panic button for every shadow that moves.
• 17:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The full body meltdown, the physiological cascade.
• 17:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When your amygdala sounds that false alarm and the PFC can't shut it down, it's not just in your head, it's a full body chemical detonation.
• 17:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The amygdala sends an emergency broadcast to the hypothalamus, the command center for your body's stress response.
• 18:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This kicks off a chain reaction that unleashes the awesome power of your fight or flight mode.
• 18:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Think of it as hitting the turbo button on your entire body.
• 18:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your adrenal glands flood your system with a powerful cocktail of stress hormones, mostly adrenaline and cortisol.
• 18:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is what causes the terrifying physical symptoms of a panic attack.
• 18:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And every single one has a purpose built for survival.
• 18:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your heart starts to pound.
• 18:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This isn't a heart attack.
• 18:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's your body pumping oxygen-rich blood to your arms and legs so you can either fight or run.
• 19:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your breathing becomes rapid and shallow, and you might feel like you can't get enough air.
• 19:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This hyperventilation is your body trying to suck in more oxygen for your muscles.
• 19:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Ironically, this can throw off your blood's CO2 balance, leading to dizziness, lightheadedness, and tingling in your hands and feet, which just adds to the feeling that something is terribly wrong.
• 19:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You might feel cold or look pale.
• 19:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's your body redirecting blood away from your skin and towards your major muscles.
• 19:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This can also cause trembling and shaking as your muscles are primed with tense energy.
• 19:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your pupils dilate, creating tunnel vision.
• 20:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This means, and this meant to sharpen your focus on an immediate threat.
• 20:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In a panic attack, it just feels disorienting and can make you feel detached from your surroundings.
• 20:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your digestive system grinds to a halt.
• 20:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your body doesn't care about lunch when it thinks a tiger is about to eat you.
• 20:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This can cause nausea or a dry mouth.
• 20:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All of this happens with lightning speed.
• 20:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And because there's no obvious threat to explain it, your brain turns inward and can and concludes that the symptoms are a threat.
• 20:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your rational mind starts spinning out.
• 20:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: My heart is racing.
• 20:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm having a heart attack.
• 21:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I can't breathe.
• 21:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm suffocating.
• 21:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I feel dizzy and weird.
• 21:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I must be losing my mind.
• 21:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This catastrophic misinterpretation of normal fight or flight symptoms is what turns a spark of anxiety into a raging inferno.
• 21:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain thinks the feeling is dangerous, which creates more fear.
• 21:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: More fear tells the amygdala to scream louder, which releases more adrenaline, which intensifies the symptoms.
• 21:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a terrifying, self perpetuating feedback loop.
• 21:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A snake eating its own tail.
• 21:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The first step to taking control, understanding the misfire.
• 21:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, we've just walked through the storm, and you might be thinking, great.
• 22:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: My brain is broken, but this is where we pivot from the problem to the solution.
• 22:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the very first most crucial step is the knowledge you just gained.
• 22:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Seriously, just understanding the why behind your experience is a powerful therapeutic tool.
• 22:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One of the worst parts of a panic attack is the feeling that it's random, that you're flawed, or that you're going crazy.
• 22:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The terror comes from the story you tell yourself about what the symptoms mean.
• 22:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: By understanding the neuroscience, you can start to change that story.
• 22:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can learn to see the experience for what it is, an uncomfortable but not dangerous physiological event.
• 22:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a massive overreaction from a well-meaning but confused survival system.
• 23:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a false alarm.
• 23:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This shift in perspective is everything.
• 23:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It moves you from being a terrified victim of your own biology to being an informed observer.
• 23:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When your heart starts to race, instead of thinking, oh no, here it comes, I'm going to die, you can start to build the ability to say, okay, that's adrenaline.
• 23:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's my fight or flight symptom and system.
• 23:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: My amygdala fired off a false alarm.
• 23:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This feels awful, but I know it's a temporary chemical surge and it's not going to hurt me.
• 23:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy, otherwise called CBT.
• 24:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One of the most effect most effective treatments for panic.
• 24:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It starts by realizing the problem isn't the initial feeling.
• 24:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's the catastrophic interpretation of that feeling.
• 24:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The fear of the fear is what keeps the cycle going.
• 24:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Think back to the faulty fire alarm.
• 24:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you know it goes off when you make toast, you don't call the fire department every time.
• 24:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You might jump, you might feel annoyed, but you can say, ugh, it's just a toaster again.
• 24:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You calmly wave a towel at it and reset it.
• 24:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You've reinterpreted the alarm from a signal of certain doom to a signal of a manageable annoyance.
• 25:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That is the goal with panic.
• 25:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: By repeatedly reminding yourself of what's actually happening in your brain, you start to strip the panic of its power.
• 25:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You stop adding that second layer of fear.
• 25:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You build a little space between the trigger and your reaction.
• 25:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And in that space is your power to choose a different response.
• 25:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You learn that you can tolerate these sensations.
• 25:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can ride the wave of adrenaline, knowing that it will pass.
• 25:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The initial surge only lasts a few minutes.
• 25:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you don't add more fuel and fear to the fire, it burns itself out.
• 25:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hacking your nervous system, the bottom-up regulation.
• 26:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Understanding the false alarm is step one.
• 26:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when you're in it, trying to think your way out of panic can feel like trying to reason with a hurricane.
• 26:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your prefrontal cortex is struggling.
• 26:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is where bottom-up regulation comes in.
• 26:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Instead of using your mind to calm your body, you use your body to send a safety signal back up to your brain.
• 26:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your most powerful tool for this is your breath.
• 26:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Slow, controlled, deep belly breathing.
• 26:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This technique directly stimulates the vagus nerve, the main superhighway of your rest and digest system.
• 27:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The body's natural break for the fight or flight.
• 27:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you're panicking, your breathing is shallow and rapid.
• 27:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you deliberately slow it down, making your exhale longer than your inhale, you physically trigger this calming system.
• 27:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A simple technique is box breathing.
• 27:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Inhale for a count of four.
• 27:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hold for four.
• 27:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Exhale slowly for four and hold for four.
• 27:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Repeat.
• 27:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Another great one is the four seven eight breath.
• 27:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Inhale for four, hold for seven, and a long slow exhale for eight.
• 28:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The key isn't a magic number, but that long slow exhale that tells your body it's time to chill out.
• 28:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're using a physical action to manually override the panic response.
• 28:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Another powerful bottom-up tool is grounding.
• 28:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's one of my favorites.
• 28:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Panic can make you feel disconnected.
• 28:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So grounding anchors you in the present moment using your five senses.
• 28:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A classic technique is the five, four, three, two, one method.
• 28:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Wherever you are, stop and force yourself to name five things you can see.
• 28:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The pen on your desk, a crack in the ceiling, the pattern on a rug.
• 29:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Name four things you can feel, the texture of your jeans, the cool table under your hands, your feet on the floor, being present.
• 29:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Name three things you can hear.
• 29:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The hum of a fan, traffic outside, your own breathing, two things you can smell, coffee, or maybe nothing at all.
• 29:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One, name one thing you can taste, the last thing you ate, or just a neutral taste in your mouth.
• 29:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This exercise forces your brain to shift its attention from the internal chaos to the neutral, real information coming from your senses.
• 30:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Other tricks include progressive muscle relaxation, tensing and releasing muscle groups, or even splashing cold water on your face, or holding an ice cube.
• 30:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The shock of cold can trigger a reflex that also stimulates the vagus nerve and slows down your heart rate.
• 30:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: These aren't just distractions, they are active physiological interventions that speak to your brain in the only language it understands in that moment, the language of the body.
• 30:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Rewiring your thoughts, top-down regulation.
• 30:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Once the immediate wave of panic starts to fade, you can bring the brain's CEO, the prefrontal cortex, PFC, back into the conversation.
• 31:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is top-down regulation, the core of the cognitive part of CBT.
• 31:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here, you use your thinking mind to challenge the thoughts that fuel the anxiety.
• 31:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You become a detective of your own thoughts.
• 31:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You learn to spot the automatic, catastrophic beliefs or thinking traps that trigger panic.
• 31:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Things like catastrophizing.
• 31:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is one that I had a very hard time with.
• 31:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is it.
• 31:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm having a heart attack.
• 31:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Jump into the worst case scenario.
• 31:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All or nothing thinking.
• 32:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If I panic during this presentation, my career is over.
• 32:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Seeing things in black and white.
• 32:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Fortune telling.
• 32:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I just know I'm gonna freak out if I go to that party.
• 32:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Predicting a negative future.
• 32:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Mind reading.
• 32:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Everyone sees how anxious I am.
• 32:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They all think I'm weak.
• 32:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Assuming you know what others are thinking.
• 32:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Once you spot these distorted thoughts, you can challenge them.
• 32:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A great tool is a thought record.
• 32:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You write down one, the situation, driving on the highway.
• 32:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Two, the automatic thought.
• 32:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm going to get trapped in traffic, panic and crash.
• 32:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Three, the emotion.
• 32:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: My terror is a nine out of ten.
• 32:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Four the evidence against the thought.
• 33:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is the key step.
• 33:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I've driven on the highway thousands of times.
• 33:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I felt anxious before and nothing bad happened.
• 33:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A panic attack feels awful, but it's not dangerous.
• 33:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I am a safe driver.
• 33:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Five, a balanced thought.
• 33:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Driving on the highway can make me anxious, and that's okay.
• 33:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's just my amygdala overreacting.
• 33:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: These feelings will pass and I can handle them.
• 33:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then six, re rate the emotion.
• 33:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Anxious, but maybe a four out of a ten, not a nine.
• 33:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Doing this consistently is like taking your brain to the gym.
• 33:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're actively strengthening the pathways between your PFC and your amygdala.
• 34:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're training your rational brain to talk back to your fear brain.
• 34:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Another huge part of this is to stop avoiding the things that make you anxious.
• 34:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Avoidance feels like a solution, but it's a trap.
• 34:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Every time you skip something because you're afraid you might panic, you're teaching your brain, see, that place is dangerous.
• 34:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This reinforces the fear and makes your world smaller.
• 34:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The antidote is gradual exposure.
• 34:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You systematically face the things you fear, proving to your brain through direct experience that you can handle the anxiety and that the catastrophic outcome doesn't happen.
• 35:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is how you overwrite old fear memories with new memories of safety and competence.
• 35:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Long-term resilience, building a panic resistant brain.
• 35:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Managing panic in the moment is crucial, but the ultimate goal is to build a nervous system that is more resilient in the first place.
• 35:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Think of it as preventive maintenance for your brain.
• 35:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Mindfulness and meditation.
• 35:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Regular mindfulness practice is like restorative yoga for your prefrontal cortex.
• 35:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a simple act of paying attention to the present moment without judgment.
• 35:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Studies suggest that even ten minutes a day can physically change the brain.
• 36:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It can increase gray matter in the PFC, making it stronger emotional regulator.
• 36:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: At the same time, research shows mindfulness can help shrink the amygdala's gray matter, making it less reactive.
• 36:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're literally building a better brake pedal and a smaller fear engine.
• 36:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Exercise, regular physical activity is one of the most powerful anti-anxiety tools there is.
• 36:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It burns off excess stress hormones like cortisol.
• 36:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It also provides a safe space for you to experience a racing heart, shortness of breath, and sweating.
• 36:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But in a positive context.
• 36:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This helps a condition link between those feelings and fear.
• 37:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain learns that a racing heart can mean you're getting stronger, not that you're in danger.
• 37:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sleep.
• 37:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sleep is non-negotiable for a stable nervous system.
• 37:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's when your brain cleans house and resets its emotional balance.
• 37:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just one night of poor sleep can significantly increase amygdala activity.
• 37:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you're tired, you're starting the day with a hyperactive alarm and a sleepy manager.
• 37:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Prioritizing consistent quality sleep is a foundation.
• 37:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Nutrition.
• 37:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What you eat affects your brain chemistry.
• 37:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A diet high in processed foods and sugar can promote inflammation, which is linked to anxiety.
• 38:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A diet rich in whole foods, fruit, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats provides the building blocks for a healthy brain.
• 38:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Stabilizing your blood sugar also helps prevent the physical jolts that your amygdala can misinterpret as a threat.
• 38:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Building a panic-resistant brain isn't about a magic bullet.
• 38:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's about the cumulative effect of small, consistent choices that create lifestyle of balance and regulation.
• 38:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're not just fighting fires, you're rewiring your house to be less flammable in the first place.
• 38:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now, our call to action is if this breakdown of your brain's false alarm made sense to you, please give this video a like.
• 39:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sharing this video with them can make a world of difference.
• 39:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes just knowing that you're not broken, that there's a biological reason for what you're feeling is the most powerful medicine of all.
• 40:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've taken a real journey into the brain today, from the lightning fast amygdala to the rational prefrontal cortex.
• 40:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've seen how a survival system perfectly designed for an ancient world can misfire today, creating the terrifying and confusing experience of a panic attack.
• 40:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you take one thing away from all this, let it be this simple transformative truth.
• 40:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You are not broken.
• 40:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Having a panic attack doesn't mean you're weak or losing your mind.
• 40:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That is making a mistake.
• 40:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a false alarm, not a personal failure.
• 40:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Understanding this is the key that unlocks the door to getting better.
• 41:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It lets you separate yourself from the panic, to see it as a biological process instead of who you are.
• 41:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It empowers you to go from being a victim of the alarm to being the technician who can learn to manage and recalibrate the whole system.
• 41:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can learn to use your breath and senses to tell your body it's safe.
• 41:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can challenge the catastrophic thoughts that fuel the fire.
• 41:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And you can build a lifestyle that creates resilient, balanced brain.
• 41:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The path out of panic isn't about getting rid of fear.
• 41:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Fear is a vital part of being human.
• 41:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The path is about learning to put fear back in its proper place so that false alarms no longer run your life.
• 42:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain may have learned the panic cycle, but it can absolutely learn a new response.
• 42:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that process can start right now.
• 42:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us today.
• 42:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's celebrate the voices of everyone in the world and let's be a voice for not only ourselves, but someone else that may be of need.
• 42:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We'll see you next time.
• 42:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bye bye for now.